drone. (31st) 44 to 70 degrees. May hear of frosts, bees work well. Examined two hives which
have queens sisters of the one so praised yesterday, larger than her and equally beautiful. 
In my nomenclature these are called Dz (1), as I have called the daughters of the original
Dzierzon queens, Dzierzon queens. Dz (1) now mean granddaughter of original Dzierzon. 
Examined a 13 frame hive with queen bred from (49) queen of 1862. Colony has
been fed to retain and breed drones, crowded with bees, brood, and drones,
queen exceedingly fertile, although this is the 3rd summer of her laying, her wings some
ragged color deep orange like old workers, did not seem able to fly. Old queens
may be very fertile. She has inclined very much to lay drone eggs, do not old
queens incline this way, Dzierzon queen has doe so. September (1st) 46 to 74 degrees. 
Day before yesterday a slight white frost. Do Italian queens incline as much as
black ones to leave combs when hives are examined, do the bees run near as much
when smoke is used. A queen with one hind leg crooked and useless has become
fertile. In a nucleus there are two caged unfertile queens, three caged fertile ones, for ten
days all have been fed. When queen cells are cut out and no place at once
ready for them, lay them over frames of a stock rearing queens, can remain for
several hours or more and if any are hurt in cutting bees will gut them. 
Put a caged old queen at mouth of her nucleus they imprisoned her, always
avoid giving queens at entrance, bees seem by instinct to regard queens here
as intruders. Put original Dzierzon queen back to her nucleus, for several days
she has kept mainly to one comb, and looks as slim as an unfertile queen. Is
she about to fail. The queen cell taken from her colony while she was there almost
ready to seal over. Must do all I can to secure queens from her brood. The
color of old queens a deep [inserted: dull] orange, like color of old workers. A nucleus whose
queen ought to have laid a week ago skedaddled, have had only two do so this season. 
Prefer a sponge to close the queen cages to anything else, easily compressed to close, not
gnawed much by bees, not gummed over by them. (2nd) 56 to 80 degrees. Very close, sticky
weather, bees in AM worked well, at 4 PM, began to pour into hives tumbling all
about so heavy with honey. Honeydew. Until [inserted: so] dark that they could not see to
fly hard at it. Very strong colonies in 13 frame hives now showed their superiority. 
Stocks made by condensing combs with queen cells, leaving mostly young bees did next
to nothing. Suspect that Italian bees supplant decaying queens much better
than black bees. If so of immense advantage as common beekeeper could depend
on them to do it. My colony with original Dzierzon queen was again before I removed her
taking measures to supplant her. For the last week or more she has laid very few eggs and
has laid only a few in the nucleus. (3rd) Warm night. Bees began to come in as soon as
they could see to work dropping all about so heavy with honey. Two days of such weather
would fill up nearly all the empty cells in strong stocks. 9 AM. Thunder with very heavy
showers all around us, a sprinkle only here. If the honey is from honey dew rain might