Improved Queen-Rearing; or, How to Rear Large, Prolific, Long-Lived Queen Bees / The Result of Nearly Half a Century's Experience in Rearing Queen Bees, Giving the Practical, Every-day Work of the Queen-Rearing Apiary

Chapter 37: AGE AT WHICH QUEENS MATE

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About This Book

A practical manual for beekeepers detailing techniques for producing robust, fertile queen bees. It explains hive and brood-frame construction, three methods of cell-building, preparing and handling eggs and young workers, forming and feeding nuclei, and managing drones. The text covers queen care from rearing to mating and introduction, use of queen nurseries and frames, equipment such as drone traps and a tobacco pipe for smoke, and hive management to prevent honey candying. Emphasis is placed on step-by-step, experience-based procedures and apiary organization for both small- and large-scale queen production.

AGE AT WHICH QUEENS MATE

The readers of the different bee-periodicals have not failed to notice the reports, from time to time, of queens being fertilized when two or three days old.

I am inclined to think that all who make reports of queens being fertilized when under five days old must be mistaken. I never knew such a thing to happen in my apiary. Have had thousands of young queens take the mating flight when but five days old, but never knew one to do so when under that age.

The fact that I spend all my time during the queen-rearing season in the yard among my nucleus colonies, and that every means is used to force the young queens to fly and become fertile at the earliest moment possible, should be sufficient to satisfy the reader that I am making no wild statement in this matter.