256 THE beekeeper's MANUAt. 



brood which they already have, I take from one of my strong 

 stocks, a frame containing some three or four thousand or 

 more young bees, which are sealed over in their cells, and 

 are just ready to emerge. These bees which require no 

 food, and need nothing but warmth to develop them, will, 

 in a few days, hatch in the new hive to which they are 

 given, and thus the requisite number of workers, in the full 

 vigor and energy of youth, will be furnished to the hive, 

 and the discouraged queerr, finding at once a suitable num- 

 ber of experienced nurses* to take charge of her eggs, 

 deposits them in the proper cells, instead of simply extrud- 

 ing them, to be devoured by the bees. While bees often 

 attack full grown strangers which are introduced into their 

 hive, they never fail to receive gladly all the brood eomb 

 that we choose to give them. If they are sufficiently 

 numerous, they will always cherish it, and in warm weath- 

 er, they will protect it, even if it is laid against the 

 outside' of their hive ! If the bees in the weak stock, are 

 too much reduced in numbers, to be able to eov&r the brood 

 comb taken from another hive, I give them this eomb 

 with all the old bees that are clustered upon it, and shut 

 up the hive, after supplying them with water, until two 

 or three days have passed away. By this time, most of 

 the strange bees will have formed an inviolable attachment 

 to their new home, and even if a portion of them should re- 

 tarn to the parent hivej'^^a large number of the maturing 

 young will have hatched, to supply their desertion. A little 

 sugar-water scented with peppermint, may be used to sprin-. 

 kle the bees, at the time that the comb is introduced, ali 

 though I have never yet found that they had the least dispo-. 

 sitton, to quarrel with each other. The original' settlers are 



* A bee, a few days after it is llatc^^e4, ijS ^s fully eompetent fgif 

 all its duties, as it ever will be, at any subsequent peripd pf its Uf?. 



