STATE BEE-KEEPERS ASSOCIATION. 



99 



some honey if honey is coming in, as well as, possibly, a few 

 eggs. 



We have a good many of these frames, each containing 

 six small frames, scattered through the yard so that we can 

 get freshly sealed combs whenever we need them for the 

 "babies," for that is what we call these miniature nuclei. 



Now, then, how do we supply these little boxes with 

 bees? We prepare a lot of them, say a dozen or so, with 

 combs all ready for the bees. We next go to some good 

 colony and shake all the bees into a box, having previously 

 smoked them in order to make them quiet, and to get them 

 to gorge themselves with honey. This box of combless bees, 

 after giving the brood to other colonies, is then carried to a 

 shady place where we have the prepared miniature nuclei. 

 The box of bees before scooping up is given a bump in order 

 td get them into a heap. The cover is removed, and with a 



tea-cup we scoop up one or two hundred bees and dump the 

 teacupful into one of the baby boxes, when the cover v/ith 

 its combs is set down in place, thus confining them. In a like 

 manner the other babies are supplied. Of course, the en- 

 trances are kept closed. Having supplied all the bees, we 

 can now give each through the hole in the cover a queen-cell 

 built on one of these wooden cell-cups; or in 24 hours after 

 the bees have come to know their utter queenlessness we 

 may run in a young virgin. 



We can now distribute these baby boxes around in dif- 

 ferent parts of the yard; but it is usually advisable to carry 

 them to an outyard or to some isolated locality where there 

 may be one or two hives with a large pre-dominance of se- 

 lected drones. The queens are allowed to fly at this yard and 

 become mated, when they are brought home and kept for 

 supplying queenless colonies or to fill any orders that one 

 may have ; for these little boxes - of bees will hold their 

 queens for a considerable length of time. It may be neces- 

 sary to "repeople" these boxes, for Mr. Laws says these 

 clusters sometimes get uneasy; but we have kept these same 



