FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 235 



full colony in the fall for wintering. One object of this is to 

 make the queen live longer. It is generally understood that a 

 worker lives a longer time if it has little work to do, and 

 probably the same is true of a queen. As laying eggs is her 

 work, the less the number of eggs she lays the longer she ought 

 to live, and in a nucleus she lays a smaller number of eggs than 

 in a strong colony. 



There is another reason for keeping her in a nucleus. 

 Some who hav,e tried to have comb built in the colony contain- 

 ing their best queen complain that they can get only drone- 

 comb built. This may be avoided by filling the frame with 

 worker-foundation, but the better way is to keep the colony 

 with the queen so weak that only worker-comb will be built. 

 In a nucleus only worker-comb will be built. 



STARTING BROOD FOR CELLS. 



Having my breeding queen in a two-frame nucleus, I take 

 away one of the combs, and in its place put a frame in which 

 are two small starters four or five inches long and an inch or 

 two wide. One of these starters is put about four inches from 

 each end (Fig. 86). The nucleus must be strong enough in 

 bees so that a week later this frame will have a comb built in 

 it that will fill most of the frame, the comb being fairly well 

 flUed with eggs and young brood (Tig. 88). It is taken away, 

 and another frame with two small starters put in its place 

 as before. Thus this nucleus will furnish once a week a frame 

 of comb with brood of the best sort for queen-rearing. It will 

 be a day or two after the frame is given before the queen lays 

 in it, so that the brood will not be too old even if the bees were 

 so foolish as to prefer it. 



The comb being new and tender makes it probably an 

 easier job for the bees to build queen-cells upon it; at any rate 

 they always show a preference for such comb, and start on it 

 a larger number of cells than they would on older comb. 



BEES FOR CELL-BUILDING. 



Having now arranged for the right kind of brood and 

 eggs to be ready on the same day of each week, the next thing 

 is to find the right kind of bees to start the cells, not only to 



