BEE-KEEPING IN HOT CLIMATES. 87 



So soon as the brood in the sections in the first frame we 

 inserted is capped over, we withdraw the frame, and taking 

 the sections out of it, place them in an ordinary chicken in- 

 cubator, which should be kept up to a temperature of from 

 85° to 95° Fahrenheit. This is done, not only to relieve the 

 bees in the hive of all further trouble in connection with this 

 brood, and thus enable them to draw out the comb and bring 

 up brood in the six other sections which we shall give them in 

 place of the frame of sealed brood we have withdrawn, but 

 it is for another purpose as well. 



The experience of the merest tyro who has attempted but 

 a few times to artificially increase the number of his hives 

 will have impressed upon him very strongly the fact that the 

 greatest difficulty he has to contend with, in the formation 

 even of large nuclei is the number of bees which leave the 

 nuclei and return to the old stock or its stand, thereby so 

 depleting the new nuclei of their population as to bring about 

 failures innumerable. This being so with strong nuclei, how 

 much more is it the case with baby nuclei ? 



It is, therefore, to entirely do away with this difficulty that 

 I find it best to resort to an incubator. The nuclei are then 

 entirely made up of young bees from it, which, no matter how 

 small the lots into which we divide them, wiU not desert their 

 baby hives, never having known any other home to which 

 they could return. Moreover, up to the age of two days or so 

 they will accept any queen — whether virgin or fertile — we 

 may wish to give them, without any formalities of intro- 

 duction. 



For hatching small lots of bees I have found the 

 " Texas " incubators quite satisfactory. They are made by the 

 New Poultry Syndicate of 7, Albion Grove, Stoke Newington, 

 London, and are quite the cheapest obtainable, the 15 egg 

 size (which will hold six sections) costing only 2s. 6d complete, 

 while the 30 egg size (which will hold a dozen or more 

 sections) costs 5s. As it is not necessary to maintain such 

 a high temperature for hatching bees as chickens, the tin lid 

 of this incubator may be dispensed with, while the felt cover 

 provided with the machine should be supplemented with some 

 more felt or flannel to keep out the cold that may enter at 

 spots where the felt cqyer does not quite cover up the sections, 

 which in most cases stand a httle higher than the edge of the 

 incubator's outer case. Care must, however, be taken to 



