1516 Department of Agriculture 



Your card is now ready for the bees to perfect the cells. Kext 

 select a strong colony full of hrood and young bees and remove 

 the queen and all the brood, placing the brood and queen into 

 another hive. Fill the hive with empty combs or sheets of founda- 

 tion or starters. Be sure if there is no honey coming in, that a 

 card of honey is given them, also that they are fed honey or syrup 

 liberally three or four times while thev are building the cells. 



If you have a place to use this brood and queen shake the 

 bees off of it ; if you wish to make an extra colony of it or re- 

 turn the brood and queen to the colony after they have per- 

 fected the cells, you must leave enough of the adhering bees to 

 take care of the brood. 



Now place your super with this prepared card on the broodless 

 and queenless colony the same as you would for surplus honey. 

 The cells will be ready to use the eleventh and not later than the 

 twelfth day after putting the super on. When you go to take the 

 cells out to use remove the quilt, raise one end of the rack carefully, 

 blow in a little smoke under it and you will find the space in the 

 hive between the rack and the top of the frames full of bees. Blow 

 a little smoke on them to drive them back off the rack into the hive. 

 Then you can remove the rack, and with a bee brush, brush most 

 of the adhering bees oft", being careful not to hit the cells with the 

 brush. Keep the rack right side up as much as possible with the 

 cells pointing down, and carry to some suitt ble place to cut out the 

 cells. 



The cells in the center where the lar\'ae were located will be in 

 advance of those on the outside. The ripe cells may be distin- 

 guished by the l)ees having gnawed the ends of the cells. Should 

 there be enough of these for a day's use, remove them carefully 

 by cutting clear through the comb and return the card to the 

 cell building colony again. 



Now the cells can be used by putting them into nuclei or 

 they can be used for roqueening new colonies where the old queen 

 has been removed the day before. Use a cell protector in either 

 instance leaving this comb as the base of the cell. Always handle 

 the cell by this base, being careful never to touch the end of the 

 cell. 



