312 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
the laying of the egg, and the queen nearly always on 
the sixteenth, if the eggs have been laid nearly at the 
same date, the whole of the worker larvae and the queens 
will be sealed so nearly together that we can wait 
with advantage till the work of sealing is complete, 
so that no sacrifice be made ; and, next, all the queens 
will be out, and our comb returned to the hive some 
days before any worker hatches. The delay in the 
removal also reduces considerably the risk to the 
immature queens involved in shaking and brushing the 
comb so as to clear it of bees. 
The bees losing their comb by its transference to 
the nursery, should not be left, even for an hour, 
broodless and queenless ; so either give them a queen 
from the nursery, or another comb of eggs, to restart 
them queen-raising. 
The destruction of immature queens by their hatched 
sister, aided by the bees, has already been noticed 
(pages 155 and 161), and the same instinct shows itself, 
although in diminished force, when the queen is alone, 
and in the unnatural conditions of the lamp nursery, to 
which, in consequence, frequent visits are needed, 
unless, occasionally, cells are to be torn open, or queens 
killed by the poisoned dart of a rival. The movements 
of a queen within a cell, beginning some twelve hours 
or more before she quits it, are easily traceable by hold- 
ing the cell up to the light or to the ear. In the latter 
case, the nibbling of the cocoon is most distinctly 
audible, and such advanced queens may be transferred 
at once to the stock to receive them. Pulling off 
the cell from the comb, so as to damage the latter 
as little as possible, may injure the base of the cell, 
