74 THE BLESSED BEES. ■ 



cells, making twenty-nine in this hive. All but one 

 were carefully cut out, and laid on a bed of cotton- 

 wool in a shallow basket prepared for the purpose. 

 The other hive was then opened and found to con- 

 tain thirty-one cells. After leaving one in each hive 

 this gave me fifty-eight excellent capped cells. 10 

 There were but forty nuclei, so I selected forty of 

 the finest cells, and going from nucleus to nucleus, 

 grafted a cell into one of the combs of each. This 

 was done by cutting a shoulder in the comb in the 

 frame, of the right shape to receive the small piece 

 of comb attached to the cell. In not a few cases 

 when the cells had been close together and so 

 scarcely any comb was attached to them after they 

 were cut apart, I simply held the cell, point down- 

 ward, between two frames of comb, then .moved 

 one frame slightly toward the other, so as to press 

 gently upon the bit of comb attached to the cell. 

 The pressure would keep the cell in place until the 

 inclosed queen should hatch. Before night every 

 nucleus had its cell. 



As my object was to secure queens for my black 

 stocks, some may wonder why I took all this trouble 

 with nuclei. Why not have deprived all my black 

 stocks of their queens, and then have given a 

 capped cell to each stock? This course could have 

 been followed and with success ; but it would have 

 been much less advantageous than the one I pur- 



