taken from her stock expelled drones day after it was formed. Young
expelled drones crawl off on the ground. PM, very hot, dry and windy. 
Linden harvest nearly lost. The pure Italians are much more peaceable
than black bees, impure dreadfully savage, light upon the
burning punk and try to sting it. Will not fill themselves
when their spunk is up. Most of the stocks too strong in bees for the
amount of honey they have. Queen cells torn open vary badly, neatly
mended by the bees. (7th) Thunder and showers passed round before day. 
Very hot and dry, heavy rains passed round this PM. Bees for a few
hours in the AM, worked well on Linden. A stock with a drone laying
queen which had dwindled to a handful, keep good guard at the entrance. 
Most of them stay out, weak stocks in hot weather keep up this show of
strength on the outside. Have old bees of last fall still alive in two
drone laying colonies, do not Italian bees live longer than black bees. 
If there was any prospect of late supplies or sugar was cheap enough to feed,
I could make now a number of new stocks as I did last July
and the bees would be better off to part with some of their number. 
Find it very laborious to hunt up the queen to be removed, after letting
out an old caged queen to her bees found her laying with a number
of sealed queen cells. Very unsafe to introduce an Italian queen
unless we can examine combs to see that all queen cells begun
previous to her introduction are removed. (8th) Not so hot, fearfully dry. 
Bees work considerably early and late on the Linden, showing what a rich
supply they would have got, with rain. Prospect now that many of my
stocks will need feeding, but Providence may raise up some supply. 
Began today to feed nuclei. This must be done liberally or they will
become entirely discouraged. Examined wide topped frame hive, found
no difficulty in opening or shutting, except where one or two corners lapped
over, but if combs are not very straight it would be impossible to use it
to advantage, will never answer well for exchanging comb, and
this one of the greatest advantages of movable frame hive, far inferior