FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 251 



BABY NUCLEI. 



There has been much interest in the matter of hav- 

 ing queens fertiHzed in small nuclei containing only ^O*) 

 bees or so. About the year 1SG3 I had seen miniature 

 nuclei in the apiaries of Adam Grimm, but they had not 

 so few bees as the so-called baby nuclei of to-day. Of 

 course. I had a number of queens fertilized in baby 

 nuclei, but I did not go to the trouble of having hives 

 specially built for them. I merely used an 8-frame dove- 

 tailed hive, putting in it sometimes a 1-pound section 

 nearly filled with honey, and sometimes two such sections 

 side by side. A frame of brood with its adhering bees 

 was taken from some colony, the bees shaken or brushed 

 into the nucleus-hive quickly, a virgin not more than a 

 day or two old dropped into the hive among the bees and 

 all hastily closed, the entrance having been closed in 

 advance. Of course, the frame of beeless brood was re- 

 turned to its old place. Three days later the entrance 

 was opened, and in due time the queen was laying. 



However it may be for the commercial queen-reirer, 

 for the honey-producer there seems no great advantage in 

 baby nuclei. Fie generally needs to make some increase, 

 and it is more convenient for him to use 2 or 3-frame 

 nuclei for queen-rearing, and then build them up into full 

 colonies. 



REGULAR LI IVES FOR NUCLEI. 



One year I tried rearing queens on a commercial 

 scale, producing them for Editor G. W. York of the 

 American Bee Journal. I may say, parenthetically, that 

 one season was enough to convince me that it was best to 

 stick to honey-production, rearing queens only for my 

 own use. But I had 50 three-compartment hives left 

 on hand, and in spite of that, truth compels me to say 

 that latterly they generally lie idle, and I use a full hive 

 for each nucleus, merely putting 3 or 4 frames in one side 

 of the hive, with a dummv beside them. To be sure, it 



