A YEAR AMONG THE BEES. 
77 
of which lias any eggs or unsealed brood, although it is 
better if it has sealed brood. These three brood-frames are 
the only ones in the hive, and all the bees have to do, is 
to rear queen-cells and fill their supers. I have spoken of 
one hive, but the two sections ought to furnish eggs enough 
for at least three or four colonies to start queen-cells from. 
If they are colonies that have just swarmed, there is no 
loss, for they would be kept queenless anyhow. 
I can hardly think of any way possible by which I could 
rear stronger or better queens ; but among them I have 
reared some not worth keeping. Bees seem to have an 
instinct for starting a succession of queen-cells, and where 
a natural swarm has issued there may be several days 
between the hatching of the first and last queen-cells. Of 
course these are started from eggs or grubs of different 
ages. In the present case, the bees probably start what 
they think the proper number for a beginning, and a few 
days later when they want to start more there are nothing 
but well advanced larva;, so they use them. The result is 
poorly developed queens. To avoid this, all larva; not in 
incipient queen-cells should be destroyed in 24 or 48 hours 
after the eggs have been given. 
I have always used the regular-sized frames for queen- 
rearing nuclei, but I do not usually occupy a whole hive for 
a single nucleus. Years ago I separated a hive into six 
apartments having one frame each ; an entrance at the front 
end, one at the back, and two at each side, one of which was 
at the front lower corner and one at the back upper corner. 
This worked well, but was open to the objection that anucleus 
hive could be used for nothing else. As I do not make a 
business of rearing queens for other than my own use, I 
prefer to use regular hives with very little changing ; so I put 
a division-board in the middle and have two nuclei in a hive. 
The middle part of the entrance is closed and each nucleus 
has its own end of the entrance. There is more likelihood of 
a bee or queen going into another hive than of going into the 
entrance at the wrong end. The greatest trouble is to have 
