ITALIANIZING. 77 



work. In the other two there were no eggs, and 

 queen-cells had been started, proving that for some 

 cause in these two the introduced queens had been 

 rejected. I destroyed the queen-cells and sprayed 

 every comb with peppermint water from the atom- 

 izer. Two queens were then sprayed, and allowed 

 at once to crawl between the combs. I found by 

 a subsequent examination that they were accepted. 



Thus twenty-four of my nuclei had done their 

 work, had yielded me fertile queens. Four more 

 had no queens. They were probably lost in return- 

 ing from the marriage flight. These twenty-eight 

 nuclei I at once united with ten that had fertile 

 queens. The uniting was done by spraying the 

 frames in a nucleus, then spraying the frames to be 

 put in, and stopping up the entrance for a night 

 after they were united. They gave no trouble, did 

 not quarrel, and all knew their places. I helped 

 these ten swarms made by uniting nuclei, by giving 

 them frames of hatching brood from the strong 

 stocks, and by exchanging some of their empty 

 frames for those full of brood taken from other 

 hives, until all the ten had twelve frames each. I 

 desired to have every hive as strong as possible. 

 All the twenty-two which had not been used for 

 rearing queen-cells, nor broken up into nuclei for 

 hatching them were now very strong, and could 

 easily spare a frame or two to help those which had 



