8 DADANT SYSTEM OF BEEKEEPING 



on the first of August, 3 months (90 days) later. When you 

 killed the black queen, there were eggs freshly laid in the cells. 

 Those eggs have required 21 days to hatch. So in 71 to 72 days 

 from the hatching of the last eggs, the black bees have disap- 

 peared, showing an average of 36 days for the life of a worker-bee 

 in summer. During the fall and winter their life is longer, for 

 they do not wear themselves out then with hard work, as they 

 do in summer. 



We must compute the time when the marshalling of our 

 army of bees will be needed, by the crops of the country in which 

 we Live. We must rear our bees to work upon the bloom of 

 either clover, alfalfa, basswood, sage, heather, mesquite, pal- 

 metto, gallberry, buckwheat, Spanish needle or bidens, etc., 

 as the case may be. The strength of the colony must come for 

 the opening of those crops ; for the general who brings his soldiers 

 too late upon the battlefield will lose the battle. 



In other words, to use a most forcible expression, from one 

 of our best teachers among the bee educators, Mr. Geo. S. 

 Demuth, we must rear our working force of bees for the honey 

 crop and not upon the honey-crop. The secret of success is -all 

 there. 



However it is very clear that we cannot have a full force 

 of bees, if the capacity of the brood chamber is inadequate to 

 supply breeding space for our most proHfic queens. The queens 

 must not be cramped for room to lay, at the time when bees 

 are most needed. 



