OUT-YAEDS AND ITALIANIZING 73 



ready for removal. Take fifty or so of these nuclei and 

 provide a nice tough, comb of honey for each. Secondly, 

 rear the required number of Italian queens, and the day 

 before these are due to hatch get the nuclei — containing 

 the honey-comb — into position. 



Break up the requisite number of hives to furnish a 

 frame of brood and bees to each nucleus; at the same 

 time attach a ripe cell to the comb; close the entrance, 

 making it impossible for one bee to escape. Leave them 

 entirely alone for a couple of days until the queens have 

 hatched. Pack the sixty nuclei — and one hive of bees 

 containing a number of good drones — on the waggon, and 

 in another hour they may be placed on the new site. Open 

 the entrances at night, and the yard is established. 



In a few days' time the young queens will be laying, 

 and owing to the small number of bees, are easily found. 

 All queens ' wings should then be clipped. This is a cheap 

 and good method ; queens reared in spring rarely swarm 

 the first season, and this is a distinct advantage; young 

 queens also build up very quickly. The small size of 

 the nuclei permits the removal of the entire yard at one 

 operation, and there is no danger of the bees returning 

 to the parent hives when liberated. The apiarist also 

 has a better chance of getting the queens mated to selected 

 drones. Of course, a certain percentage will lose their 

 queens, but there is no difficulty in introducing to the 

 nucleus a queen from the. home yard. In actual practice 

 these two-frame nuclei present the least difficulty to 

 successful introduction. It is always the big strong 

 rousing colonies that refuse to accept a mother. 



It is during the late Spring and early Summer that 

 the bee-farmer is most likely to have a number of queen- 

 cells on hand, and if the stock from which they are raised 

 has proved itself good enough to breed from, then the 

 apiarist should set about getting rid of the "wasters." 

 He should — like the successful dairy farmer — constantly 

 weed out the ' ' duffers ' ' and try to fix a type suitable for 

 his locality and management. 



