I make use of my hives which are prepared for prospective summer use, for my nuclei. Now go to different hives of the apiary, and take out three frames for each nucleus, at least one of which has brood, and so on, till there are as many nuclei prepared as you have queen-cells to dispose of The bees should be left adhering to the frames of comb, only _we must be certain that the queen is not among them_, as this would take the queen from where she is most needed, and would lead to the sure destruction of one queen-cell. To be sure of this, never take such frames till _you have seen the queen_, that you may be sure she is left behind. I usually shake off into the nucleus the bees from one or two more frames, so that, even after the old bees have returned, there will still be a sufficient number of young bees left in the nucleus to keep the temperature at a proper height. If any desire the nuclei with smaller frames, these frames must of course be filled with comb, and then we can shake bees immediately into the nuclei, as given above, till they shall have sufficient to preserve a proper temperature. In this case the queen-cell should be inserted just before the bees are added; in the other case, either before or after. Such special articles about the apiary are costly and inconvenient. I believe that I should use hives even with the largest frames for nuclei. In this case we should need to give more bees. To insert the queen-cell--for we are now to give one to each nucleus, so we can never form more nuclei than we have capped queen-cells--we first cut them out, commencing to cut on either side the base of the cell, at least one-half inch distant, _we must not in the least compress the cell_, then cutting up and out for two inches, then across opposite the cell. This leaves the cell attached to a wedge-shaped piece of comb (Fig. 56), whose apes is next the cell. [Illustration: Fig. 56.]