218 THB BEE keeper's MANUAL. 



new queen rom the brood, or develop the sealed one which 

 has been given them. A short time after one nucleus has in 

 this way, been formed, another may be made by moving the 

 old hive again, and so a third or fourth, if so many are wanted. 

 This plan requires considerable skill and experience, to se- 

 sure the right number of bees, without getting too many. 



If bees are to be made to enter a new hive, by removing 

 the old one from its stand, it will always be very desirable 

 not only to have the new one contain a piece of comb, but 

 a considerable number of bees clustered on that comb. I 

 repeatedly found my bees, after entering the hive, refuse 

 to have anything to do with the brood comb, and for a 

 long time, I was unable to conjecture the cause ; until 1 as- 

 certained that they were dissatisfied with its deserted ap- 

 pearance, and that, by taking the precaution to have it well 

 covered with bees, I seldom failed to reconcile them to my 

 system of forced colonization. I can usually tell, in less 

 than two minutes, whether the operation will succeed or not. 

 If the returning bees are content, they will, however much agi- 

 tated at first, soon begin to join the cluster on the comb ; while 

 if they are dissatisfied, they will abandon the hive, and near- 

 ly all the bees that were originally on the comb, will leave 

 with them. They seem capricious in this matter, and are 

 sometimes so very self-willed, that they refuse to have any- 

 thing to do with the brood comb, when I can see no good 

 reason why they should be so rebellious. 



I shall here slate some conjectures yihxch have occurred to 

 me on this subject. Is it absolutely certain that bees can 

 raise a queen from any egg or young larva which would 

 produce a worker.' Or if this is possible, is it certain 

 that any kind of workers can accomplish this.' Huber 

 ascertained to his own satisfaction that there were two 

 kinds of workers in a hive. He thus describes them. 



