Queen Rearing Simplified

by Jay Smith

Overview

Queen Rearing Simplified is one of the most popular queen rearing books of all time written by a man who raised a lot of good queens. It is no longer in print, so I am trying to keep Jay's wisdom alive here. There are many queen breeding books by scientists or small-scale breeders, but this is by a beekeeper who raised thousands of queens every year. I think what he has to say is much more applicable to practical queen rearing. This is a reprint so the old pictures are not the highest quality.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781614760528
Publisher:	X-STAR PUBLISHING COMPANY
Publication date:	07/03/2011
Pages:	198
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.45(d)
Age Range:	14 Years

About the Author

Jay Smith was an active writer in the bee journals during his day and wrote two of the most loved and used of the queen rearing books. Both are still being followed by many today. He is most famous for this book, Queen Rearing Simplified, but Better Queens is the culmination of his work in queen rearing.

Table of Contents

Chapter I. Importance of Good Queens. 1
Chapter II. Conditions Under Which the Bees Rear Queens. 4
Supersedure Method. 7
Queens Reared Under the Swarming Impulse. 7
Chapter III. Queen Rearing for the Small Beekeeper 10
The Grafting Method. 12
Chapter IV. Rearing Queens on a Large Scale 14
Headwork. 14
Chapter V. Dipping Cells. 15
Suggestions in Making Cell Cups. 20
Chapter VI. Royal Jelly. 21
Chapter VII. The Swarm Box. 24
Chapter VIII. Getting the Bees in Condition for Cell Building. 27
Chapter IX. Cell Finishing Colonies. 30
Chapter X. Filling the Swarm Box. 34
The Dungeon. 37
Why the Bees Accept the Cells. 37
Chapter XI. Grafting the Cell Cups. 39
Digression. 44
Reasons of Success. 44
Chapter XII. Emptying the Swarm Box. 46
Chapter XIII. The Pritchard Forced Cell Starting Colony. 48
A Modification of the Doolittle Plan. 49
Chapter XIV. Our Daily Program. 53
Program for the Week. 53
Chapter XV. Nucleus Hives 55
Entrance Blocks for Nuclei. 58
Shade. 59
Chapter XVI. Virgin or Cell Introduction. 60
The Cell Protector a Hindrance. 62
Chapter XVII. Cell Introduction 68
Chapter XVIII. Why Nuclei Tear Down Cells. 72
Chapter XIX. Forming Nuclei 75
Number of Swarm Boxes Needed. 79
Chapter XX. Misfortunes of the Queen-breeder. 81
Chapter XXI. Records for the Nucleus Hives 84
Chapter XXII. Care of Nuclei. 90
Honey in Nuclei. 90
Laying Workers in Nuclei. 90
Laying Queens and How Injured. 91
Chapter XXIII. Mailing Cages. 92
Chapter XXIV. Queen Candy. 95
Receipt for Making Invert Sugar. 97
Making the Candy. 98
Chapter XXV. Caging Queens. 100
The Question of Cataleptic Queens. 101
Chapter XXVI. Clipping Queens' Wings. 103
Chapter XXVII. Introducing Queens. 110
Loss in Introducing with the Mailing Cages. 111
The Doolittle Cage. 113
The Miller Cage. 114
The Push-in-the-Comb Cage. 114
Our Introducing Cage. 116
Reasons for Acceptance. 119
Introducing Queens to Laying Workers. 119
Emerging (or Hatching) Brood Method. 120
Unsatisfactory Modification. 121
A Common Cause of Failure in Queen Introduction. 121
Why Queens Die in the Mailing Cage. 122
Chapter XXVIII. Disposing of Nuclei at Close of Season. 123
Packing Cases for Nuclei. 125
Chapter XXIX. Care of Combs 126
Chapter XXX. Supplementary Topics. 127
Queen-Rearing for the Honey Producer. 127
Queen-Rearing from Commercial Cell Cups. 127
Requeening. 128
Uniting Bees. 130
Uniting Laying Worker Colonies. 131
Making Increase. 131
Mending Damaged Combs. 132
Chapter XXXI. Requeening Colonies About to Swarm. 135
Hive Body Used as Nucleus. 135
Chapter XXXII. Feeding and Feeders. 137
Preparing the feed for winter. 138
Chapter XXXIII. Requeening to Cure European Foul Brood. 140
American Foul Brood. 141
Chapter XXXIV. Finishing Cells in Queenless Colonies. 143
Finishing Cells While Requeening. 143
Chapter XXXV. Cell Building During a Heavy Honey Flow. 145
Cell-Building at the Close of the Honey Flow. 146
Chapter XXXVI. The Quality of Queens. 148
Chapter XXXVII. Drones. 151
Chapter XXXVIII. More Than One Queen in a Hive. 152
Chapter XXXIX. When to Requeen. 155
How Often to Requeen. 156
Chapter XL. Commercial Queen-Rearing. 158