72 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



of bees bent on the deslruetion of a strange queen is likely to be 

 as large as a hickory-nul, or larger. 



Whether the object of the bees be to protect the queen or 

 not, anything that tends to excite them sufficiently may lead 

 them to do violence to the queen. So when I find the queen thus 

 balled, I always close the hive immediately, not generally touch- 

 ing it again till the next day, when everything will be found all 

 right. 



MAKING RECOEDS. 



After the overhauling of a colonj' is completed, a record 

 thereof must be made. If May 10, 1902, should be the date of 

 the visit, and if I should clip the queen at that visit, I would 

 make the entry, "May 10 cl q (01)," which means that I clipped 

 the queen May 10, and that she was a queen reared in 1901. If, 

 later in the season, I should clip a queen reared that same 

 season, ihe entry would be "cl q (02)," meaning that the queen 

 was reared in 1902. In either case the year of the birth of the 

 old queen in the left-hand margin has a line drawn through it, 

 and the birth-year of the new queen is written under it. If I 

 find a clipped queen in the hive, then the entry is, " q el,'' which 

 means the queen was already clipped. It might not seem 

 important to enter that the queen was already clipped, but if I 

 do not find her the first or second time looking over the combs 

 I leave it till another day, leaving a blank after the date, and 

 that keeps me in mind of the fact that I have not yet seen the 

 queen. 



After clipping the wing of the queen I put her on the top 

 of a frame directly over the brood-nest. If you hold her on your 

 finger over the brood-nest she displays a great degree of pev- 

 verseness and persists in crawling up your hand, right away 

 from her proper home. So I let her crawl upon a leaf, little 

 stick or other object, lay this on the frames, and she will direct- 

 ly go down into the cluster. 



Not always, however. Too often she will run about over 

 the tops of the frames, and even over the side of the hive, and 

 when thus excited there is some danger she may be balled when 

 she gets down in the hive. So I like better to have -a frame of 

 brood covered with bees, lying flat, or held flat by an assistant. 



