This part of queen-rearing reminds me of the remark made by Mr. S. M. Locke when he returned to Wenham after spending two or three seasons with D. A. Jones and J. H. Nellis, both of whom were engaged largely in the queen-rearing business.

I made up a lot of nuclei while Mr. L. looked on and saw my way of doing such things. “Well,” says Mr. L., “I never saw nuclei made up in such a quick and easy way!” My way may be better than some others do it. I plan to do all my work in the easiest and quickest way. I find no time to waste in the queen-rearing business.

In forming nucleus colonies I will first give a way that all must practice when starting in on queen-rearing. All my nucleus hives, or boxes, are the same as is illustrated in fig. 1. I like this style far better than any I have ever tried. Always have had the best of success in getting queens fertilized in them, and, in fact, never have had any trouble with these hives in any way. Some people suppose, and naturally enough too, that where these little colonies are kept in the same yard with strong colonies, that much robbing would be going on. It is not so, and I never have had any robbing in my apiary. No good bee-keeper, it seems to me, so does his work in the apiary that robbing is induced. Of course when putting up queens the nuclei must be opened in the middle of the day. Sometimes robbers come around to see what is going on. The work of removing a queen is quickly performed and if strange bees appear the hive is closed; that is, combs replaced, cover put on and a handful of grass is thrown against the entrance. While the bees of the colony can find their way out of and into the hive, no strange bee dares to try to enter.

If I were about to start in queen-rearing I would form nuclei in about this way: Rather than destroy the nice straight combs of a standard hive I would just look around the country for some box-hives. I really love to go through those back-number things; they are an eye-sore to me.

Take the hive into the bee-room and treat the bees same as in case of getting “bees for cell-building.”

Take off side of hive, cut out the combs and brush all the bees from them into a hive-cap. When all are out dump the bees into the box used for confining bees for queen-rearing. Next move is to cut the combs into the little frames. After first nailing screens to cover entrance to the hives in such a way that the bees will have plenty of fresh air, the boxes should each have three combs put in them. One of the combs should be brood, the others may be brood, honey, etc. One comb of honey may be put in after the bees are in.

Have at hand all the covers so they can be put on quickly after the bees are put in.

We return now to the bees in the confining box, and all is in readiness for dividing them up in pint lots among the hives.

Next step is to get the bees in condition to be handled without flying while they are being doled out to the several hives. Blow tobacco smoke among them until they seem quiet. Now this does not mean to keep up a flow of smoke until the bees drop to the bottom of the box. Use but little smoke at any time, or until the bees stop running about the box. In the course of 5 or 10 minutes they will be ready to handle. Strike the bees down into the bottom of the box by dropping it on the floor. With a light measure (tin one is best) holding about a pint and having a handle several inches long, divide the bees among the nucleus hives in nearly equal parts as possible. If the bees have been put in the right condition by the tobacco, they can be handled just about the same as so many beans.

Of course there will be a queen to look up. However, this is an easy matter. Rather than spend the time to look her up she is allowed to go in with the bees. When the nuclei are formed, the bees in the hive in which the queen happens to be will be found more quiet than those that have no queens. Unless I have some use for such a queen she is allowed to remain with the bees and build up a prosperous colony; that is, prosperous for such a small hive.

Sometimes I have as many as half a dozen queens caged in my bee-room. They are placed on the bottom sash of the window and all the bees in the room collect and cluster on the cages, attracted and held there a long time by the queens. The bees feed and otherwise take good care of them.

Another way to do, and a thing I often do is this: I sometimes purchase bees in box-hives, transfer the combs and then put bees and combs in a hive that takes 13 of the frames, using two sections for a large colony. The 26 combs give a large amount of breeding room and such a colony very quickly builds up to a large and prosperous one. Such a hive is illustrated in fig. 8.

The bees thus treated soon repair the combs and get into fine condition to be transferred to the small hives. When nuclei are formed as above, they should be kept confined in the hives from 24 to 48 hours before being released, then remove the screens at night when too late for bees to fly. The next morning the colony will be found ready for business.

By this time the bees will have more or less queen-cells, or cell-cups started, and fully reconciled to the new state of things, and only a few of the older bees will return to the stand they had previously occupied.

The only thing that can be done with these hives is to set them on the ground in any place in the apiary. Still, it is a good idea to take them away from home for several weeks when they may be returned to the home yard and no bees would return to the old location.

I sometimes have several queen-rearing yards two miles apart where my nuclei are kept during the entire season—several hundred nucleus colonies are made up and at once taken away and in this way our apiaries are established, but for nuclei only.

If more convenient to do so bees may be brought from a distance for forming nucleus colonies, and when this method is practiced the bees can be placed in the home yard. This plan works nicely as I have found when forming nuclei.