62 Bt i-h't'ep'infi in \' irtnim . 



XIV.-^Nuclei. 



The word mu-levis in bee culture means a small colony of bees taken 

 from a normal colony and established separately in a small hive. The 

 number of bees in a nucleus may var,y from 500 to several thousands, 

 the strength of population being regulated by the beekeeper according 

 to the season or the purposes for which nuclei are formed. There 

 are two distinct objects in making nuclei by the division of a stock of 

 bees or of a swarm, one being increase, the other the mating of virgin 

 queens. If the object is increase in the number of colonies, each 

 nucleus should consist of not less than one-fourth of a normal colony, 

 otherAvise the end of the season will have arrived before these small 

 colonies have developed sufficiently to winter safely. 



For the mating of cpieens, nuclei are indispensable to the queen- 

 breeder and the modern apiarist, but for this purpose the number of 

 bees in each little hive may be much less, the object being merely to 



Nuclei Hives for Mating Queens. 



provide a separate habitation for each yoimg queen, with a minimum 

 of worker bees, consistent with taking care of their abode and resisting 

 climatic influences. 



In the raising of queens for the purpose of superseding those which 

 are either too old, or otherwise inferior, bee-keepers often encounter 

 difficulties in any one of a number of methods employed to get the 

 yoimg queens safely laying. 



The most direct, but also the crudest and most wasteful way, is to 

 kill the old queen and either let the bees raise cells themselves or 

 supply them with a queen-cell previously raised elsewhere. If the 

 queen killed were old, but had been a good one in her time, the bees 

 may raise a good young cpieen from her brood, but in the case of an 

 inferior queen no improvement, except in age, need be expected. When 

 a Cjueen-cell of good stock raised under the proper conditions is 



