CONCLUSION. 149 



ercise great care that they are not diseased. There 

 is not one box or patent hive in fifty (as ordinarily 

 managed) but that is diseased. They are either 

 badly infested with the bee moth, have old, mouldy 

 black combs, an old and diseased queen, or are in 

 some way diseased. No matter how low the price 

 paid for such stocks, they will be found expensive. 

 Be sure to get none but the best to commence with ; 

 tliey are the cheapest in the end. 



I might illustrate this with many cases that have 

 come under my observation. One or two I will 

 mention : A gentleman in Connecticut ordered of 

 me a swarm of Italian bees in the Controllable 

 Hive, in the spring of 1880, for which he paid me 

 twenty dollars. He wrote me in June that they 

 were doing finely, and that he never saw bees work 

 so well — they were at work in all the boxes, some 

 of then* being nearly filled with honey, and all 

 the combs being filled with bees at work storing ; 

 and from appearances he should get a large amount 

 of surplus box honey from them. 



Another gentleman wrote me, about the same 

 time, asking my price for a swarm of Italian bees, 

 and w^hen informed that it was twenty dollars, he 

 wrote me that as he could get the Italian bees nearer 

 his home for ten dollars, he would not order of me, 

 but would invest his twenty dollars and get two 

 swarms instead of one. He has since written me 

 that one of the swarms for which he paid ten dollars 

 he had lost outright, leaving him only a mass of 

 moth worms in old and mouldy black combs. The 

 other has proved to be queenless, and has caused 



