is 



FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 69 



of them. A colony, for example, distinguishes itself by 

 storing more than any other colony. I want to breed 

 next spring from the queen of that colony. But she may 

 be superseded in the fall after that big harvest, and if 

 she is not clipped there is no way for me to tell in the 

 following season whether she has been superseded or not. 

 Indeed I can hardly see how it is possible to keep proper 

 track of a queen without having her clipped. 



Sometimes when a queen is being found, she will 

 quickly run under and out of the way, giving one a mere 

 limpse of her, so that it is not easy to say whether it was 

 a queen or a worker that was seen, in which case the 

 missing wings aid in recognizing her. To this, how- 

 ever, it may be replied that there is less need to find 

 queens where they are not kept clipped. 



BEE-SMOKERS. 



You who have used smokers ever since you began 

 working with bees hardly know how to appreciate them. 

 At least it is doubtful if you appreciate them as much as 

 you would if you had done as I did when I first began 

 bee-keeping, going around with a pan of coals and a 

 burning brand on it, or else a lighted piece of rotten wood 

 (indeed this last was quite an improvement over the 

 first), the only bellows I had being a sound pair of lungs. 

 Any one of the various makes of smokers I have tried 

 will do quite satisfactory work. I have used up more 

 Clark smokers than any others. Although low in price, 

 the Clark is really more expensive than any other. It 

 works beautifully while new. but the "new" wears off 

 entirely too soon. The bellows becomes incapacitated by 

 reason of the smoke sucked into it, and then there is no 

 good way to clean it out. 



CONTINUOUS AND CUT-OFF BLAST. 



The Bingham, Corneil, Crane, and others, are all 

 good. The cut-off blast lengthens the life of a smoker, 

 but shortens its blast. The continuous blast, as in the 



