106 THE BLESSED BEES. 



the two frames of drone comb which had been built 

 in each nucleus, and put one at the front and one at 

 the rear, leaving the six frames for good worker 

 comb between. The rear half of the frames were 

 then removed back so as to make room for an empty 

 comb in the centre of each nucleus. When this was 

 done, each nucleus had six frames of worker comb 

 containing brood and eggs, two frames of drone 

 comb, one at each end, and the one frame of empty 

 worker comb in the centre, where the young queen 

 would rapidly fill it with eggs. 



The places made vacant in the old hives by taking 

 out frames were filled with two empty frames in each 

 hive, and then frames of nice empty worker comb. 

 The feeding was kept up, but as now there was 

 not so much comb to build, the amount fed was 

 much less. The feeding was done always at dusk, 

 so that the bees might fly abroad by day, and gather 

 whatever honey could be found. They gathered some 

 every day, though the amount of course was small. 



Four days later I took sixty frames of hatching 

 brood from the old hives, then spread the brood and 

 put in empty frames of worker combs. The sixty 

 frames of brood were given to the nuclei, and then 

 those hives also were filled with frames of worker 

 comb. Twenty days after queen rearing was begun, 

 I had sixty new swarms of bees — ninety-seven in 

 all, including the old ones. These swarms were not 

 yet as strong as the old ones had been before the 



