RAISING AND INTRODLXTION OF QUEENS. 311 
stem above the quilting to permit of reading it without 
disturbing anything within. Now let the temperature 
drop till qodeg. are reached ; light your lamp, and 
regulate its flame and distance until the thermometer 
stands steadily. If we do no more than this, the air 
within the nursery will be extremely dry, and, con- 
sequently, injurious to queen-cells, for, under normal 
conditions, the water carried into the hive in limpid 
nectar, or as actual water, keeps its air almost at the 
point of saturation. To remedy this, I depress one 
side of the cistern into a long trough {tr)^ and this 
I keep filled with water. 
No honey now so stiffens that it is unfit for the queens, 
as Mr. Root complains, and food given to them will 
remain in condition for days. Our queen-cells may 
now be cut out, and placed free within the nursery, 
to hatch in the open ; or they may be placed in large 
wooden pill-boxes, having two or three holes to admit 
air, and a little piece of stored comb, to feed the new- 
born aspirants to maternal honours, which will do per- 
fectly well, without further attention, for a few hours 
after making their exit from the cell. If we object 
to cutting the comb in order to remove the cells, the 
frames, freed of all bees, may be suspended within the 
nursery ; but unless these combs have been rapidly 
filled with eggs, by being placed empty in the centre 
of the queen-raising stock, as before explained, two 
difficulties meet us : first, all the brood cells will not 
be sealed, and so some of the larvae must perish ; 
and next, some of the workers will hatch out before 
the queens, and so cause much confusion and trouble. 
As, however, workers hatch on the twenty-first day from 
