696 



Journal of Agriculture. 



[10 Nov., 1910. 



continuance of favourable conditions of weather and of income of honey 

 and pollen. If one of the four conditions is absent the young virgin 

 queen will either be destroyed or mauled by the workers, or on returning 

 from her mating flight will enter by the lower instead of the upper 

 entrance and kill the laying queen. In the hands of some of the most 

 expert bee-keepers it was successful some sea.sons, but with the average 

 bee-man it was a failure. 



To reduce the total interruption of breeding to a minimum for the 

 number of queens required, the ordinary practice is to divide one colony 

 into a numljer of nuclei of two or three combs, each being given a queen- 

 cell and stood apart from others. Many of the bees will, however, return 

 to the former stand leaving but young bees behind. These are unable 

 to properly take care of the brood and queen-cell and to defend the little 

 hive against intruders. 



NUCLEI HIVES FOR MATING QUEEX BEES. 



There are .several ways of overcoming this difficulty. The bees for 

 each nucleus may be taken from any hive which can spare them, and 

 they are shaken into a small empty hive, such as the first one shown on 

 the right of the illustration. A wire screen is fastened over the top of 

 the box and it is placed in a dark, cool, and well aired position, such as 

 under the floor of a building on blocks. On the evening of the day 

 following, that is, about 30 hours later, the box is taken to the spot where 

 it is to be located. A comb of brood and one or two combs containing 

 honey and pollen without bees are taken from some strong colony and 

 given to the nucleus, a ripe queen-cell in a protector or a newly-hatched 

 virgin queen in an introducing cage being inserted at the same time. 



Another way of making nuclei is to break up, into lots of two or 

 three combs each, a colony which has just thrown a swarm. As a number 

 of bees will return to the old stand, only one comb of brood should be 

 left in each nucleus. Select for the purpose those combs containing the 

 greatest amount of sealed brood, and place the combs of young brood in 

 the hive on the old stand where it will be cared for bv returned bees. 



