118 



FIFTY YEARS A.MONG THE BEES 



does not have a good queen, for when I find a colony that 

 is queenless or one whose queen is more or less a drone- 

 layer, it is no longer any satisfaction to me to nurse it 

 and coax it along for the sake of saying 1 haven't lost 

 that colony. The real satisfaction is in having it out of 

 the way. Time was when it seemed a nice thing in case 

 of finding a strong colony without a queen to give it young 



P^g- 37 — Painted Tin Hive-Covers. 



brood and let it rear a queen ; but much observation has 

 shown that a queen reared thus early is only an aggrava- 

 tion nine times out of ten. So when a colony is found 

 that is not queen-right, it is remorselessly broken up, and 

 distributed amongst other colonies, or united with a weak 

 colony having a good queen. The breaking up of such 

 colonies does not make the number less in the long run, 

 for by fall the number can be made greater than if no 

 breaking up had taken place. 



RECORD ENTRIES. 



While care is taken to omit no entry in the book that 

 will be of future importance, there is really not such a 



