(9th) 60 to 80 degrees. Beautiful day, thunder at a distance in the PM. 
To get bees out of honey boxes. This AM, put six boxes
of honey crowded with bees into an empty hive set on the grass,
covered all over carefully with a sheet. At dark not a bee
in the boxes. Jaws and teeth of queen, well figured in Reaumar. 
Easy to see how she bites, cuts her cocoon, gnaws into queen
cells. The only colony I have of pure black bees have worked very
powerfully on buckwheat this AM, better than any other stock,
although not near so strong. In making nuclei, use sealed
brood from untested queen, eggs and worms from tested queens, so
as to have any queen cells reliable. Drones. Colonies that were
killing off drones a few weeks ago rearing now without feeding an
abundance. My Dzierzon queen of 1864, taken nearly three
weeks ago from a nucleus and given to a strong stock has an
enormous supply without feeding. (10th) 70 to 80 degrees. Heavy shower
with thunder in the night. Found today as several times before queen
cells opened on the side a little, no hatched in hive, and then
closed again. Do bees open them to see how queen progressing as
children dig up seeds to see how they are growing. Put on cover
of hives and nuclei where operations needed a piece of wood etc. 
which will enable me at a glance to see all such hives. 
Pulled out sponge from cage of fertile queen given for 24 hours to
a colony whose queen had been removed a week ago. She
was unusually shy in coming out as if afraid, bees confined her. 
Do not queens often know whether bees will receive them or not. 
Are dark or poorly colored Italian queens more likely to be sought after
by black drones as looking more like their own kind. Great swarm. 
At 3 PM, had a natural swarm which weighed 9 1/4 lbs. The
colony weak early in Spring, had queen in her third season, her
fertility much impaired. Bees supplanted her, found old queen
and laying young one in hive together. Of late has grown very