with caged fertile queen, if it is wanted to make a large nucleus put in before
bees have left. Young bees which have not flown out do not know the way home and
are reluctant to take wing. An efficacious plan to get rid of bees from boxes of honey
very desirable. In several instances where queen cells have been slightly dented in have
found the wings of their inmates imperfect, too much care cannot be taken in handling
them. (19th) Dry! dry! dry! 15 days ago [crossed out: having taken] I removed my original
Dzierzon queen from the nucleus and gave her to original stock, on the 8th I
put her back in the nucleus. Today have had four good sized splendidly
colored queens hatch in the original hive, from which I took 15 more queen
cells. Most of the queens which have hatched the last week or so in the
nuclei have been inferior, one very mean. Nuclei do not feed their queens
up to the full standard of their wants. I am confirmed in my views
as to what causes inferior queens to come from fine mothers. Shall
now place little more dependence upon the nuclei for queens but
have them reared in full stocks, till almost ready to hatch. 
Giving a very fertile just hatched queen to a nucleus a worker seized her and
attempted to drag her off the comb and fly away with her. The drones are being so
largely massacred that I am apprehensive there will be a deficiency. Rest of those queens
examined today show that they are pure. Have had numerous instances of bees attempting
to rear queens from drone eggs. Some full colonies deprived of queens have given drone
larvae royal treatment even when they reared a number of queens. One nucleus
sealed over 19 cells for queens, five or six of them were drones, gave a comb with
four to a colony with a young queen, in a short time she opened them as though
they were sealed queens. A young queen, just hatched, put into a cage with a
queen cell from which a queen had hatched began to gnaw the cell. When
queen cells open if the young queens are quite immature the bees will suck their bodies
dry. Am delighted to find how little I am troubled by any decided attempts on
the part of my bees to rob. If I had black bees should be pestered almost to death. 
Caged the queen of a strong stock [crossed out: today, not the] on the 8th. Examined today and
not the vestige of a queen cell found. (20th) Very hot, distressingly dry. Bees consume
honey very fast. A young queen hatched last night had destroyed one queen cell early this AM
a dozen or more left, at sunset she had destroyed six more. When the comb is new
and the queen cells made of new comb they can destroy them quite rapidly, the reverse
when the comb is old and tough. Plan of hatching queens in cages I fear will prove a
failure. Perhaps if larger cages were used it might succeed better. They may
have been compressed. Kept several queens in cages on top of frames, fertile ones were
all fed, [inserted: quite] young completely neglected. Thus far have got beautiful queens from every
one of last year, whose progeny appears to be pure. Having many queens taken I