THE AMEBIC AN APICULTURIST. 



151 



ference as you can do that yourself. 

 You next go to your tinsmith and 

 get him to cut you as many pieces 

 of zinc or tin as you require, or one 

 for each colony ; these will only cost 

 you for the time it takes to cut them, 

 as they need only be large enough 

 for the number to be painted on 

 them, and can, therefore, be cut out 

 of waste material. They should be 

 made sufficiently large, however, to 

 allow for a hole being made above 

 the numbers to suspend them by on 

 your hive. You then buy or borrow 

 (I would not advise the latter) a box 

 of stencil figures numbering from 

 one to ten, and with these you can 

 very easily make as many numbers 

 as you may require. For my own I 

 had all the numbers cut out of the 

 zinc, but I would not advise this 

 plan it being not only more expen- 

 sive, but not so distinct. You are 

 to paint Avell the pieces of zinc or 

 tin before j'ou paint the numbers 

 with your stencil figures and a special 

 brush for this purpose. You then 

 suspend one of these to each hive by 

 the help of a hook or screw so ar- 

 ranged that it will not blow or fall 

 off, and yet so as to be easily re- 

 moved when the colony sends out 

 the first swarm ; a small screw with 

 a large head which is filed flat on 

 two sides, so as to be long and nar- 

 row will answer. You then make the 

 hole above the numbers so as just to 

 go over this ; now you will readily 

 see that the screw can easily be fast- 

 ened to the hive, the opposite way, 

 lengthwise to the hole above the num- 

 ber, so that the latter would have to 

 describe a quarter circle before it 

 would come off. If you think nec- 



essary you can make an additional 

 arrangement beneath it, for it to 

 slide under, but I do not think it is 

 required. 



Now you are to have a record of 

 each queen in your book, the num- 

 ber on the hive corresponding to the 

 page on which this record is put. 



For instance, the hive to which 

 No. lo is attached contains a queen 

 fully described on page lo in your 

 book or on a page the same as the 

 number in the hive. No experienced 

 beekeeper will question the utility of 

 this, but to a beginner an explana- 

 tion might be of service. 



The object in this is to enable you 

 at any time to know what queen a 

 certain hive contains, that is whence 

 obtained, her age, and any remarks 

 you think necessary concerning her 

 offspring. It is best to know how 

 old she might be, so that you will 

 better know when to rear another in 

 her place, or when it will be likely 

 for the bees to do so themselves, and 

 which some beekeepers prefer. It 

 is certainly advantageous to know 

 whence obtained, because you can 

 in this way better improve your 

 stock, by only breeding from those 

 which give a good account of them- 

 selves. An example of this may not 

 be amiss. 



You wish to know about a queen 

 in a hive to which No. 54 is sus- 

 pended ; you simply turn to page 54 

 in your book and you find there 

 " Italian queens from A. I. Root, 

 July 16, 1884," or " Queen cell from 

 No. 29, Aug. 5, 1884." Now if you 

 wish to improve your stock it will be 

 necessary to observe closely what each 

 colony has done and how near your 



