HIGH-PRICED SPECIALTIES 



shorter time and have a hard life. The queen 

 often lives to four or five years as she does very 

 little out-door work. 



Every swarm has a queen, whose duty con- 

 sists in laying eggs from which are hatched the 

 future workers and drones. A healthy queen 

 will lay during her life-time from 900,000 to 

 1,200,000 eggs. Swarming is the result, gen- 

 erally, of a colony outgrowing its hives. By 

 using large hives this will in a measure be pre- 

 vented, although after-swarming sometimes gets 

 to be a sort of mania with bees, and they swarm, 

 apparently, without a reason. No one can 

 study the habits of these curious insects without 

 becoming more and more fascinated; then, be- 

 fore one realizes it, one becomes an enthusiast. 

 Thus, like some other departments of the farm, 

 bees are not valuable solely or even chiefly for 

 their earning capacity, but will aid in evoking, 

 especially in the younger members of the family, 

 an abiding interest in farm life. 



Bees must be able to find plenty of honey- 

 bearing plants in order to produce honey. The 

 basswood (or linden), ranks next to alfalfa, 

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