110 



BEES FOR PLEASUEB AND PROFIT. 



left thus for several days, although it is best to place the 

 young queen in her nucleus as soon after she is hatched as 

 possible. 



Ho"w to make and use a Natural Incubator. 



In very favourable climates, when artificial incubators are 

 not obtainable, a natural incubator, depending for its tem- 

 perature on the heat from a strong hive of bees, may often 

 be used successfully. This is simply made of a shallow 

 doubling box, 6 inches deep, with a sheet of fine wire gauze 

 or perforated zinc nailed over the bottom. This is placed 

 over the body box of a very strong hive, from which the 

 quilts, all except one very thin one of wool or calico, have 

 been removed. The sections of sealed brood and a thermo- 

 meter are then put in it, and covered up very warmly with 

 many thicknesses of flannel. If the doubling box has double 

 walls on all sides, with an intervening space of IJ to 2 inches 

 between the inner and outer walls filled with cork dust or saw- 

 dust, the plan is all the more likely to succeed. 



The late C L. Pratt's Methods of Managing 

 Baby Nuclei. 



The most useful books on the formation and management 

 of baby nuclei (as well, incidentally, as the safe introduction 

 of queens) are those by the late Mr. 

 Pratt, who wrote under the nom de 

 plu7ne of " Swarthmore." They were 

 published in America, and were for- 

 merly obtainable at the offices of the 

 British Bee Journal, but they are 

 now out of print and very diflicult 

 to obtain. 



To those who keep bees in hot 

 climates the fact that these pamphlets 

 are now out of print is a great loss : 

 nothing else quite so lucid, clear, and 

 helpful has ever been written on the 

 subject. 



v\g. 60.— The Baby Nucleus The particular form of baby nucleus 



Sir M^^Sr'^'"'' "" hive invented and recommended by 



