286 THK beekeeper's manual. 



and with great certainty, they may, from time to time, 

 do all that the prosperity of the bees require ; carefully 

 over-hauling them in the Spring, making new colonies, at 

 the suitable period, if any are wanted, giving them their 

 surplus honey receptacles, and removing them when full ; 

 and on the approach of Winter, putting all the colonies 

 into proper condition, to resist its rigors. The business of 

 the practical Apiarian , and that of the Gardener, seem very 

 naturally to go together, and one great advantage of my 

 hive and mode of management is the ease with which they 

 may be .successfully united. 



Some Apiarians after all that has been said, may still 

 have doubts whether the young queens leave the hive for 

 impregnation ; or may think that the old ones occasionally 

 leave, even when they do not go out to lead a swarm. Such 

 persons may, if they choose, easily convince themselves by 

 thefollowing experiments of the accuracy of my statements. 

 About a week after hiving a second swarm, or after the birth 

 of a young queen in a hive, and after she has begun to lay 

 eggs, open the hive and remove her : carry her a few rods 

 in front of the Apiary, and let her fly ; she will at once en- 

 ter her own hive and thus show that she has previously left 

 it. If, however, an old queen is removed a short time after 

 hiving the swarm, she will not be able to distinguish her own 

 hive from any other, and will thus show that she has not left 

 it, since the swarm was hived. If this experiment is per- 

 formed upon an old queen, in a hive in which she was put 

 the year before, when unimpregnated, the same result will 

 follow ; for as she never left it after that event, she will 

 have lost all recollection of its relative position in the Api- 

 ary. The first of these experiments has been suggested by 

 Dgier^on, 



