No. 4.] BEE KEEPING. 91 



Question, What would be jour idea, when the second 

 swarm comes out, of destroying the queen and letting the bees 

 go back ? 



Mr. Stewaet. If you destroy the first queen and let them 

 go back, perhaps the next morning they will have a new 

 queen, and go out again. Although sometimes, if you allow 

 them to go back, they may change and allow the queen to bite 

 all the cells. And sometimes, if the weather is bad, they put 

 a guard around these cells and keeji the queen away. And 

 the queens in the cells, you can hear them pijiing ; they allow 

 them to cut a little hole and run their tongue through this 

 little orifice, and they feed them, and keep them a few days. 

 Sometimes, when weather conditions are hard, you will find 

 three or four such queens. In an Italian yard, when we want 

 these new queens for mating purposes we take them out and 

 put them in a new yard and mate them. If you put in un- 

 sealed larva? with but one virgin queen they will destroy 

 her. But after she is mated, you can put in any kind of 

 broods you choose. 



Mr. WiiEELEE. Will you tell us the best honey plants 

 suitable for honey, besides the white clover ? 



Mr. Stewart. White clover for years has been a rather 

 shy yielder. We still have white clover, but it does not seem 

 to yield the nectar. Now we have more basswood than we have 

 had in some years, perhaps 100 acres, but it has yielded spar- 

 ingly for several years. It runs in series, and I expect in a 

 few years it will begin to yield again, as will also the white 

 clover. Our farmers are raising a great amount of alsike, 

 and it produces a very fine quality of honey. 



]\rr. G. E. Taylor (of Shelburne). It is some years since 

 I have done much in bees, and for that reason perhaps I am 

 out of date. But this matter of swarming is one that will try 

 a man's ingeiniity as much as anything he can engage in. 

 Bees are very cunning and wise things, and you have got to 

 know a lot about them. I used to do several things to hinder 

 their swarming as long as I tended right to the matter. In the 

 first place you want to give theui am]ile room to work. Put on 

 boxes early, and that gives them a chance to work in enough 

 room, and perhaps will delay the swarming some. But to be 



