1520 Department of Agriculture 



went near them as little as possible, as I was about as fearful of 

 a bee sting as of a snake bite. With the exception of a few times 

 when I had gone out with father to smoke the bees for him and 

 do a little handling, I had never ventured into the bceyards. 



The first thing I did was to get a pair of good, safe rubber 

 gloves. They were so stiff my hands felt as if they were done up 

 in splints, and gave me more discomfort than a goodly number of 

 bee stings would have done. Fortunately they did not last long, 

 they soon began to split and break. I have since found a thin 

 leather or light canvas glove is best suited for the work. 



The spring of 1907 was late and generally unfavorable for 

 bees in our locality. Spring dwindling had reduced our num- 

 ber of colonies to about 200. Of these we moved 80 to an out- 

 apiary on May 24. Apple trees were tlien just beginning to 

 blossom, and the bees by this time having become alarmingly light 

 of stores, literally filled up during the bloom. 



Some time later when I went to work this out-apiarv', the first 

 thing that greeted me on my arrival was an immense swann of 

 bees high up in an apple tree. Wliile I was lighting up the 

 smoker and getting ready for work, another swarm came tumbling 

 out. I hurried to look for the queen, and back of me came an- 

 other, and still another. The whole air seemed filled with swarms. 

 I felt like swarming out, too, and leaving the bees to their owti 

 sweet will. I found consolation, however, in the knowledge that 

 I had faithfully clipped every queen's wings early in the spring, 

 and that they could not get away from me no matter how hard 

 they tried. I had read in a bee book that it takes sixteen days 

 for a queen to hatch from the day the egg was laid. On thii 

 I relied. I went through my bees and assiduously ripped out not 

 only the queen-cell, but every queen-cell cup that had anything in 

 it resembling an egg. When on the twelfth or thirteenth day 

 after this I again visited the beeyard, confident that I was getting 

 around in plenty of time, I was painfully surprised to find many 

 young queens hatched. More swarms had taken to the woods or 

 filled neighbors' dry-goods boxes than I should like to tell. I in- 

 dignantly concluded that there was something entirely wrong 

 and misleading about those bee books. Had I perused more care- 

 fully I would also have read that when bees have larvae they will 

 rear a queen in ten days. 



