ESTABLISHING AN APIARY, AND LI&TJUIANIZING. 83 



stocks (it is better that these should not be one and the same), the 

 nuclei receiving cells from the latter are placed near the former ; 

 on the evening of the sixth day after the hatching of each queen 

 (queens generally fly when seven days old, see page 6) the nucleus 

 containing her is placed in a dark cupboard or cellar after the flight 

 hole has been closed by perforated zinc. The next afternoon being 

 so far advanced that drones are for the most part quietly resting 

 from their midday wanderings, the drone- containing hive is opened and 

 thoroughly warm diluted honey sprinkled over bees and frames. The 

 nucleus is now brought from its hiding place and placed so that the sun 

 shines fully into the flight hole, while it is also treated to a libation of 

 warm bee nectar. The queen wiU in all probability soon issue, to be joined 

 by one of the drones, which will in large numbers be now careering 

 around the excited stock. If the drones seem idle jerk some of them 

 from a frame into the air. Should the queen fail to come forth the 

 operation may be repeated the following day. When the nuclei are no 

 longer required their frames may be placed in one hive, which one of the 

 hatched queens may head. 



The Americans have lately been hatching royal oeUs in little chambers 

 warmed by a lamp. Queens from these " lamp nurseries " if simply 

 dropped in amongst the bees of a colony needing them are almost always 

 received at once. For the exceptions as yet no satisfactory reason has 

 been assigned. 



Bees upon losing their queens are in a. few hours thrown into the 

 greatest possible excitement, searching wildly both inside and outside the 

 hive for the lost sovereign, when occasionally they will gladly accept an 

 alien ; but in the majority of instances the aspirant for the vacant throne 

 is either killed at once or surrounded (" encased ") by a dense mass of 

 closely clinging bees, whose grip is often unrelaxed untU the poor worried 

 insect dies after three or four days of 

 imprisonment. Sometimes, however, the 

 encasement gradually slackens and at 

 last breaJjs up. Strangers may be intro- 

 duced by means of cages, which admit 

 of an acquaintance being formed while 

 the queen is safe from attack; after a 

 day or two of confinement the workers 

 attend her, as soon as released, with 

 every appearance of attachment. The 

 most simple form of cage, the one we 

 almost always use, is seen of the true jija. 55. qoeeh's Cagb. 

 size at Pig. 55, and consists of a ring 



of tin plate on to which is soldered a dome of wire cloth, with meshes 

 about a tenth square. The queen whom we desire to instal, being an 



E 2 



