68 



Keep the nuclei well covered, to conserve heat. Attend to 

 feeding, giving syrup if necessary (103), 

 150. Management or better, give a frame of sealed food from 

 of Nuclei. a stock that can spare it. If the young 



queen in a nucleus hive is not mated before 

 all brood has hatched out, there is a danger that the bees in 

 the nucleus hive may abscond v^ith her ; to provide against 

 this contingency, give a frame containing unsealed brood before 

 all the brood in the nucleus has hatched out. When the pre- 

 sence of eggs regularly deposited, denotes that young queens 

 in nuclei have been fertilized, they may be given to stocks in 

 which they are required to replace aged or defective queens. : 

 on the following day a capped queen cell or a brood frame con- 

 taining a queen cell may be introduced for the purpose of pro- 

 viding another queen. 



There are many good queen cages ; it will suffice to describe 



the use of one, the " Abbott " cage (55) ; 



151. Caging Queen, which can be recommended. If the queen 



is on a frame, have the cage at hand, 



opened to receive her; rest the frame on which the queen is, 



on the hive, supporting it with the left hand, and with the right 



hand catch the queen gently by the wings (Fig. 39), insert her 



in the opening at the bottom of the cage ; as soon as her body is 



in the cage let go her wings, cover the opening with a finger, 



and when she moves up the cage, adjust the wire to close it. 



If the queen has been received in a box, take it to a room, 



close the window, open the box by lifting the lid ; do not slide 



the lid, as the queen might be injured by doing so; catch the 



queen by the wings and cage her as above described. 



Although an aged or defective queen should be replaced by a 

 young mated queen as soon as possible, the 

 ^Queeftottf best time for general re-queening of stocks 

 by Cage. is the autumn. There is considerable 



danger of bees objecting to a queen, and 

 killing her by " balling " her, that is surrounding her and hug- 

 ging or starving her to death. It is therefore best, especially in 

 the case of a valuable queen, to adopt the precaution of intro- 

 ducing her by means of a cage, such as the Abbott queen cage 

 (55) , which may be introduced between two frames in the centre 

 of the brood nest, through a hole in the quilt large enough to 

 let the cage pass through without rubbing. The cage should 

 rest against some sealed honey store, which should be slightly 

 Bcraped so that the caged queen may feed if necessary. Intro- 

 duce the queen in the evening, and release her in from thirty- 

 six to forty-eight hours. Before introducing her, make sure that 

 there is neither a queen nor a queen cell in the hive. A stock 

 that has been queenless for twenty-four hours, will be in the 

 best mood to receive a queen. If a stock has been queenless and 

 broodless for some days, give it a frame of brood the day before 



