38 BEE-KEEPING IN WAR-TIME 



are not in use. From the queen-rearing stock take out three 

 combs with the adhering bees, being very careful not to take 

 the queen ; one comb should have unsealed brood and eggs, 

 the other two should have food only ; the two outside ones 

 are usually in this condition and they should be the ones 

 taken. Place the comb containing the brood between the 

 other two, to enable the clustering bees to keep it warm, 

 close up with the division board and wrap down warmly. 

 In the parent stock, the gaps made by the removal of the 

 three combs are fiUed up by putting in their place frames 

 fitted with full sheets of worker base foundation. They, too, 

 may be supered in due course. The small lot, finding they are 

 queenless, will immediately start to rear a queen. To ensure 

 good results, it is advisable to break down the cell walls of 

 several worker cells containing eggs; the best queens are 

 reared from eggs and not from larva. If left to their own 

 devices it is more than likely that the workers will make queens 

 from the latter. The queen will eventually emerge from the 

 cell, be mated to a drone, and commence to lay. She can 

 then be removed and introduced to a stock requiring a young 

 mother. To get further queens from the same stock, all 

 that is necessary, after the queen has been removed from 

 the nucleus, is to exchange one of its combs for another con- 

 taining eggs from the queen-rearing stock, place it in the 

 nucleus which, being queenless, will repeat the process of 

 queen-rearing. This can go on until all the queens required 

 have been obtained. 



The nucleus should be made as near midday as possible. 

 It should be populated by young bees which have never 

 flown, so that when they do come out they locate the position 

 of the nucleus hive. If old bees are taken they go out 

 from the nucleus and return to the parent stock ; the brood 

 thus forsaken dies. At midday the old bees are out foraging ; 

 the young ones left at home are the ones obtained. If there 

 are not sufficient bees on the three combs taken (there should 

 be about a quart), the adhering bees on two other combs 

 may be shaken into them, bearing in mind the avoidance of 

 taking the queen. If bad weather prevails at any period, 

 the bees in the nucleus must be fed. 



When it is necessary to replace one queen with another in 

 a stock, or give a queen to a queenless one, it is necessary 

 to place her in such a position that she can acquire the scent 

 of the hive, obtain food, and yet the bees be unable to get to 



