and its Economic Managemmt. 149 



keep the water from bulging out the sides ; and the internal 

 capacity is large enough to take some half-dozen brood frames, 

 with plenty of lateral space to spare. What might be added 

 with benefit are small holes punched through near the upper 

 inner margin of the tin wall to give moisture. The lid must be 

 of wood covered with warm material, and if the whole is cased, 

 in wood, with the exception of an opening above the lamp, the 

 temperature will be more even, and a very small flame will 

 suffice to keep the chamber at about go°, the boiler being filled 

 in the first place with water at about 100°. The frames are 

 placed in as the cells near maturity, and the young queens are 

 removed as fast as they gnaw their way out ; several visits 

 daily being required, as they are liable to destroy each other 

 and tear open the other cells as soon as their strength is gained. 

 For the first few hours, however, they can do little harm. 



The lamp nursery is sometimes objected to as being 

 unnatural . Where is . reason, if we allow such ill-founded 

 statements to influence our actions ? Are our processes of 

 queen-raising natural ? Is our entire management- natural ? 

 No ! only in so far that natural conditions do not interfere 

 with greater profits. Let me ask those who use the hanging- 

 frame nursery if they have observed the temperature sur- 

 rounding a queen cell with the bees always packed^closely 

 around it, thus giving greater or at least more certain heat 

 than is required for the rest of the hive ? If so, they will be 

 surprised to find how much lower is the temperature sur- 

 rounding cells where no bees can cluster upon them, and 

 where they do not even care to crowd upon the metal at each 

 side of the little cages so many apiarists use in hanging-frames. 

 All animal life is produced by heat, varying according as the 

 nature of the creature may require, and for our purpose the 

 lamp nursery supplies the correct and even temperature 

 desired. 



The illustration. Fig. 47, gives the metal portion of my 

 own queen nursery, an apparatus I had made in the first 

 instance as an incubator for chickens' eggs. The rectangular 



