A YEAR'S WORK IN AN OUT- APIARY 7 



is to be set next to the other in the box. Now lift the next frame, look- 

 ing first on the "face" side of the next frame in the hive, and then on 

 the opposite side of the frame in your hands, as the queen will be, in 

 nineteen cases out of twenty, on these "dark" sides. In this way keep 

 on tin the queen is found, or till all the combs are in the box. If all the 

 combs are in the box before you find her, look the bees over that are In 

 the hive; and if not found then, commence to set the combs back in the 

 hive, looking as before at the two "dark" sides. I find forty-nine out of 

 every fifty queens looked for, before the combs are all in the box, and 

 the fiftieth one before they are all back in the hive again. 



On opening the hives I find the honey quite largely turned into bees 

 and brood, as only the two outside combs have much in them — six to 

 eight combs in each hive being nearly solid with brood, except those 

 which were weak in the spring. That the colonies having eight frames 

 of brood need not contract the swarming fever before I visit the apiary 

 again, and that all may be as nearly equal as possible when the bloom 

 from white clover opens, I take one of the most nearly full frames 

 from these — a frame composed of nearly or quite all sealed brood, from 

 which I see a few bees just beginning to emerge — and put the same in 

 one of the colonies having but six frames of brood, putting the nearest 

 empty comb this colony has, taken to make room for this frame of 

 emerging brood, in the colony from which the brood came. In this way 

 all are made as nearly equal as possible. As brood-rearing has been 

 going on now for about a month, the hives are so well filled with bees 

 that there is no danger of any setback from a cold spell; and if we are 

 to stop all swarming entirely except in the occasional season referred to 

 above, no swarming being a thing most ardently desired for an out- 

 apiary, if not an actual necessity, we must now "pave the way" for the 

 same by commencing before the bees have any thought of the "swarm- 

 ing season." 



DOOLITTLE 8 EBCOBD-BOABD FOB THE APIAET. 



After clipping all the queens, and fixing the brood as above, and 

 having jotted down on the 8xl6x%-inch smooth board I have carried 

 with me the condition of each colony, I sit down a few minutes to out- 

 line the season's work from what the board shows. This board has on 



