ey often start a large
number of queen cells, which in a few days, are all discontinued and
untenanted. The second attempt seldom fails. Does practice in this thing
make them more expert? But I will simply state the fact, referring to my
conjectures on page 218; and remarking that when they make a second
attempt, they seem frequently disposed to start a much larger number
than they otherwise would have done. In two or three days after giving
them the first piece of comb, I give them another, if their queen is
nearly mature, and I now let them alone until she ought to be depositing
eggs in the hive. I then give them, at intervals of a few days, two or
three combs more, and they will now be sufficiently powerful in bees, to
gather large quantities of honey, and fill the empty part of their hive.
The young queen is supplying with thousands of worker-eggs, the cells
from which the brood has emerged, and also the new ones built by the
bees, and the new colony will soon be one of the best stock hives in
the Apiary. If some of the full frames are moved, and empty ones placed
between them, as soon as the bees begin to build powerfully, there need
be no guide combs on the empty frames, and still the work will be
executed with the most beautiful regularity.

But what, in the mean time, is the condition of the hives from which we
are taking so many brood combs for the proper development of our nuclei;
are they not weakened so much as to become quite enfeebled? I come now
to the very turning point of the whole nucleus system. If due judgment
has not been used, and the sanguine bee-keeper has endeavored to
multiply his colonies too rapidly, a most grievous disappointment awaits
him. Either his nuclei cannot be strengthened at the right time, or this
can be done, only by impoverishing the old stocks, and the result of the
whole operation will be a most decided failure, and if he is in the
vicinity of sugar-houses, confectionaries, or other tempting places of
bee resort, he will find the population of his colonies very seriously
diminished, and will have to break up the most of the nuclei which he
had formed, and incur the danger of losing nearly the whole of his
stock. I lay it down as a fundamental principle in my nucleus system,
that the old stocks must never be so much weakened by the removal of
brood-comb and bees that they are not able to keep their numbers
sufficiently strong to refill rapidly all the vacancies among their
comb