242 FORTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 



the egg but a short time, for I merely trimmed away the 

 eggs, and possibly not all of them. 



PREPARING BEES FOR CELL-BUILDING. 



Having our frame ready, we go to our queenless 

 colony. Suppose the east colony is the queenless one. 

 We make the hives exchange places, putting the queen- 

 less one on the west stand, and the one with the queen on 

 the east stand. Opening the west or queenless one, we 

 take out the frame that now contains queen-cells, this 

 frame having been given the Wednesday previous. On 

 the top of this frame is penciled "14," for on Saturday 

 the 14th the cells must be distributed lest being left 

 longer one of the young queens should emerge and kill 

 the rest. This frame is put for safe keeping in some 

 queenless nucleus strong enough so that the cells will be 

 well protected against a possibly cool night. They will 

 be left three days in this safe keeping, that is, till Satur- 

 day, June 14. The prepared frame is put in place of the 

 one taken out, and on the top-bar is penciled "21," the 

 day on which the prospective cells must be distributed. 



The east hive is now opened, and all the bees in the 

 upper story brushed into the west hive, taking care to 

 leave the queen in the east hive, and the hives are closed 

 up. The queen may appear lonesome in the east hive, 

 but there are bees left in the lower story, and the field- 

 force that have been flying from the east side will all 

 return there. The west hive will be seen to have a 

 strong force of bees of the right sort to start queen-cells. 



The same performance is repeated the next Wednes- 

 day ; the hives change places, and fresh brood from the 

 choice queen takes the place of the queen-cells removed, 

 and this is repeated each Wednesday so long as more 

 cells are desired. 



The next thing is to distribute the cells to the nuclei, 



