REVIEW OF THE SEASON'S WORK 161 



the season to carry them through the winter 

 months and to furnish a reserve for building up 

 the following spring. If the bees must depend 

 upon stores gathered from the field at this un- 

 certain season much of the productive possi- 

 bihty of the colony is likely to be lost. It is only 

 in the presence of a liberal reserve of food 

 within the hive that the queen is likely to lay to 

 her capacity in the cool and catchy weather of 

 early spring. Especially is this true when httle 

 nectar is coming from the uelds 



Accordingly, when the bees are removed 

 from winter quarters, the first thing necessary 

 is to make sure that an abimdance of stores are 

 still present to enable the bees to build up rap- 

 idly. It takes a liberal supply of honey to rear 

 the amount of brood necessary to make a strong 

 colony, and one of the first essentials of good 

 beekeeping hes in never allowing the colony to 

 become short of stores. 



At the first examination, the general condi- 



11 



