226 THE BEE keeper's MANtJAL. 



catastrophe : if they stand near to each other, some may 

 be marked in this way, and others with a piece of colored 

 cloth. (See Page 159.) To guard them against robbers, &c., 

 the entrances to these nuclei should be contracted, so that 

 only a few bees.can enter at once. Those which were con- 

 fined, should be examined, the day after their liberty is 

 given to them ; the others, the day after they were formed, 

 when, if they were not supplied with a sealed queen, they 

 will be found actively engaged in constructing royal cells. 

 A new range of comb should now be given to each one, 

 and it should contain no old bees, but brood rapidly matur- 

 ing, and if ^possible, eggs and worms only a few days old. 



This new addition of strength will greatly encourage the 

 nuclei, and give them the means of starting young queens, 

 if they have not succeeded in doing so with the first comb. 

 I have very frequently found that for some cause which I 

 have not yet ascertained, they often start a large number of 

 queen cells, which in a few days, are all discontinued and 

 untenanted. The second attempt seldom fails. Does prac- 

 tice in this thing make them more expert ? But I will simply 

 state the fact, referring to my conjectures on page 218; and 

 remarking that when they make a second attempt, they 

 seem frequently disposed to start a much larger number 

 than they otherwise would have done. In two or three 

 days after giving them the first piece of comb, I give them 

 another, if their queen is nearly mature, and I now let them 

 alone until she ought to be depositing eggs in the hive. I 

 then give them, at intervals of a few days, two or three 

 combs more, and they will now be sufficiently powerful in 

 bees, to gather large quantities of honey, and fill the empty 

 part of their hive. The young queen is supplying with 

 thousands of worker-eggs, the cells from which the brood 

 has emerged, and also the new ones built by the bees, and 



