176 Lamp Nursery, 



of these, soon weed out all the drones. With these in front 

 of hive, we can keep the queen from leaving with a swarm. 

 OccasionaUy a queen will crowd through. By keeping 

 empty frames and empty cells in the nuclei, the bees may 



Fig. 79. 



Entrance Guard. 

 be kept active ; yet with so few bees, one cannot expect 

 very much from the nuclei. After cutting all the queen- 

 cells from our old hive, we can again insert eggs, as above 

 suggested, and obtain another lot of cells, or, if we have a 

 sufficient number, we can leave a single queen- cell, and 

 this colony will soon be the happy possessor of a queen, 

 and just as flourishing as if the even tenor of its ways 

 had not been disturbed. If it is preferred, the bees of this 

 colony may be used in forming the nuclei, in which case 

 there is no danger of getting a queen in any nucleus thus 

 formed or of having the queen-cells destroyed. We can 

 thus start seven or eight nuclei very quickly. 



QUEEN LAMP NUKSERY. 



This is a tin hive, with two walls enclosing a water tight 

 space an inch wide, which, when in use, is filled with water 

 through a hole at the top. Each nursery may hold from 

 six to eight frames. Some prefer to have special frames 

 for this nursery, each of which contains several close 

 chambers. The queen cells are cut out and put in these 

 chambers. It is claimed that with no food the queens will 

 not attack each other, and so several cells may be put in 

 each chamber. 



By use of a common kerosene lamp placed under this 

 nursery, the temperature must be kept from 80° F. to 100° 

 F. By placing the frames with capped queen-cells m this, 

 the queens develop as well as if in a hive or nucleus. If the 

 young queens, just from the cell are introduced into a 

 queenless colony or nucleus, as first shown by Mr. Lang- 

 stroth, they are usually well received. Unless one is 

 rearing a great many queens, this lamp nursery is not 

 desirable, as we still have to use the nucleus to get the 

 young queens fecundated, have to watch carefully to get 



