Had a severe fright this PM, opening my stock with original Dzierzon queen
I found a royal cell apparently nearly ready to seal over and as the queen
has now laid very freely and is probably in her third year I at once came to
the conclusion that she was gone. On examining the combs I found her all
right and looking more closely at the royal [crossed out: jelly] [inserted: cell] I found a large mass of
jelly with a hole in the center from which the larva had disappeared. 
In my journal for last year and this numerous proofs will be found that
when a sealed queen is given or a caged queen to a stock deprived of its
queen they often continue the royal cells built before the hatching or the
emerging of the queen, and then do not allow her to destroy them, by which
means the introduced queen often is lost, swarming out in the swarming
season, and being killed by a queen of their rearing at other times. This
PM made an exceedingly interesting observation, No. 49 has a beautiful Italian
queen of last year's raising, one wing clipped, on the 14th I caged her to have
the colony rear queens. On the 22nd [inserted: I uncaged the queen] removed as I supposed all the [crossed out: sealed]
queen cells, was surprised to find so few for a large stock and noticed
that the bees had not begun them as early as they usually do after the removal
or caging of their queen. In examining the colony today to remove a frame of brood,
I was surprised to find five queen cells, one from which a queen had evidently
hatched and the other four still sealed over. All of them projected a very little distance
above the level of the surface of the comb. Anxious for the safety of very old
queen which I value highly I examined the combs and found her apparently confined by the
bees and a young queen not more than two inches from her on the same side of the
comb. This queen from her color and activity was evidently in her second day at
least. In a contest she would from her superior agility have been most likely to
have killed the old queen. In this case the bees were willing to have their own
mother supplanted by one of her offspring of their rearing. I have no doubt that in
this way many Italian queens have disappeared, supplanted sometimes by
offspring of the previous queen and occasionally by offspring from their own eggs. 
Have opened on the side a number of queen cells and had them repaired by the bees. 
The plan for ascertaining whether they are alive or not is a perfect success. 
New plan for feeding in weak nucleus. Remove a frame from a strong stock
late in the PM, allow the bees to fill themselves, then shake them off in front of the
nucleus. It is best to select a colony in the same condition as to queens,
queen rearing, etc. , with the nucleus. Italian bees still [illegible] the red clover.