146 THE BEE-KEEPER’S MANUAL. 
NUCLEUS HIVES. 
The object of these is the rearing of young queens 
with a view either to Italianising or other substitution, 
or to the starting of artificial swarms. This process 
may be carried on in ordinary hives, but it is safer to 
conduct it out of the reach of the old queen, and, when 
special hives are appropriated to the work, there is an 
obvious convenience in using those which are so small 
as to require but a few bees to maintain the requisite 
decree of warmth. Mr. Cheshire’s nucleus hive is 
widely known and commended. It measures only 
three and three-quarter inches in width, and seven 
and a half from front to rear, its depth being nine 
inches. It thus contains only two frames, and these 
are constructed with a tongue in the top bar of the one 
and a groove in that of the other, so that, when taken 
out of their own hive and placed end to end, they can 
be fitted together, and constitute a single frame of the 
size of those in the larger Cheshire hive, thus differing 
from other frames simply in the dividing-pieces down 
the middle. In this arrangement consists the system 
of their working. A double frame, thus combined, is 
placed in the centre of an ordinary stock-hive, until 
one or more royal cells are constructed upon it. It is 
then withdrawn with such bees as it contains, only 
taking care not to remove the queen; the two parts 
are now disunited and placed in the nucleus side by side, 
with the royal cells towards the centre. These may, 
of course, be not all upon the proper sides, in which 
case it is easy enough to transfer them by cutting out 
