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A Test For The Presence Of A Queen

Categories: BREEDING.
Bee Keeping: Mysteries Of Bee-keeping Explained

If you have a hive that you suspect has lost a queen at this season,

her presence can be ascertained nine times in ten by this method. Sweep

off the board clean, and look the next day or two after for these eggs.

Take care that ants, or mice, have no chance to get them; they might

deceive you, being as fond of eggs for breakfast as anyone.[7] When one

or more is found, or any immature bees, it is sufficient, no further

proof of the presence of a queen is needed.



[7] It is said that the bees will devour these eggs also.



Another portion of eggs is wasted whenever a supply of their food

fails; if we remove the bees from a stock during a scarcity, when the

hive is light, we will be very likely to find hundreds of eggs in the

cells, and but very few advancing from that stage towards maturity. I

have thus found it in the fall, in July, and sometimes the first of

June, or at any time when maturing the brood would be likely to exhaust

their stores, to endanger the family's supply. Now, instead of the

fertility of the queen being greater in spring and first of summer than

at other times, (as we are often told), I would suggest the probability

that a greater abundance of food at this season, and a greater number

of empty cells, may be the reason of the greater number of bees

matured.



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