90 THE BOOK OF THE HONEY BEE 



be greatly distressed; (2) as soon as they realise that 

 she has gone, many eggs will be destroyed or removed, 

 and in about three days cells will be started in hot haste 

 over larvae now too old to produce good queens. (3) 

 Now comes the time to do it yourself! Go to the 

 original stock and cut out all queen cells, and from the 

 nucleus remove the once empty frame of comb you gave 

 them now filled with eggs just hatching. Give this 

 to the stock right in the centre of the brood, and you 

 will see cells arise on larvse almost as soon as hatched 

 from the eggs. These will eventually produce queens 

 far superior to those the bees would have raised in the 

 first instance. Everything is in their favour, age of 

 grubs, number of nurse bees, and above all the earnest 

 desire of the bees themselves to produce queens. On 

 the fifth day after the frame of eggs has been given 

 examine the hive and remove all cells from any other 

 frames save the selected one. Ten to twelve days after 

 the giving of such frames, divide the stock up into 

 nuclei, giving a cell to each divided part. Finally when 

 the new queens are hatched and mated and laying 

 (generally within fourteen days of their hatching) 

 replace all old queens with the new, rejoin all the 

 nuclei into one stock, and the apiary is requeened with 

 queens worthy of the name." 



A nucleus is a small colony of bees, usually of three 

 combs, which may be placed in an ordinary hive, con- 

 tracting the brood nest to the required size by means 

 of the division boards ; or small hives specially built may 

 be used. 



To form a nucleus, select a prosperous colony and 

 from it remove three frames, taking great care that the 

 queen is left in the parent hive (excepting of course 

 in the first stage of queen rearing just described). One 

 of the frames should contain unsealed brood and eggs 

 and the other two honey. Place these together with 



