176 Lamp Nursery. 



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

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

 Occasionally a queen will crowd through. By keeping empty 

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



Fig. 79. 



Entrance Guard. 



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-ceU, 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 pre- 

 ferred, 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 NURSERY. 



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 claim- 

 ed 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-ceUs in this, the 

 queens hatch as well as if in a hive or nucleus. If as soon as 

 hatched the young queens are introduced into a queenless 

 colony or nucleus, as first shown by Mr. Langstroth, they are 

 usually well received. IJnless 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 fertilized, have to watch 



