PURPOSE: To provide an apparatus enabling unmanned culture and provided with a culture shelf moving on a track, a housing apparatus to automatically insert a culture vessel into the culture shelf and a delivery apparatus to take out the culture vessel from the culture shelf and deliver the vessel to the next step.

CONSTITUTION: A number of culture shelves 5 are connected with each other along an endless track 30 and are intermittently circulated. A housing apparatus 4 and a delivery apparatus 6 are placed near the endless track 30. A culture vessel filled with a medium and cell is automatically inserted into the culture shelf 5 by the housing apparatus 4 and the vessel is automatically taken out of the culture shelf 5 after culture and delivered to the next step by the delivery apparatus 6. In the example shown in the figure, the above process is carried out by a mass-handling apparatus 2.