276 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



UNITING NUCLEI. 



But the hives with three strong nuclei and three queens will 

 be exceptional. Some will have only two queens, some one. If 

 a nucleus hive has in it only one queen, it may be that a full 

 hive is set in place of the nucleus hive, the contents of the three 

 apartments of the nucleus hive put into this full hive, and, if 

 •necessary, enough nuclei added from elsewhere to make a fair 

 colony. If none of the nuclei in any one nucleus hive be suf- 

 ficiently strong where there is only one queen in the hive, then 



Fig. 103. — A 24-section Case. 



the nucleus with the queen is likely to be put in some nucleus 

 hive that has contained only two queens. In some cases one of 

 the division-boards is taken away, making one of the compart- 

 ments large enough to receive five frames, besides the other with 

 the three frames. Thus the nucleus in the larger compartment 

 may be built up to a tolerably fair colony. 



Thus you will see that there is little or no destroying of 

 queens, the effort being to have each queen supported by a good 

 force of bees, considering the size of her compartment. No 

 attention is paid to the matter of trying to make bees stay where 



