BKEEDING. 63 



progress, or wlien they cease. A kind of an idea 

 that one swarm, and occasionally two or three, are 

 reared sometime in June, or fore part of summer, ia 

 about the extent of their reflections on the subject. 

 Whether the drones deposit the eggs, or that a portion 

 of the workers are females, and each raise a young 

 one or two, or whether the "king bee" is the chap 

 for laying eggs, is a matter beyond their ability to an- 

 swer. It is but a few years since, that a correspondent 

 of a Journal of Agriculture denied the existence of a 

 queen bee, giving the best reasons he had, no doubt, 

 tliat is, he had never seen one. But bee-keepers of 

 this class are so few, it is unnecessary to waste 

 time to convince them ; suffice it to say, that a queen 

 exists with every prosperous swarm, and all apiarians 

 ■with much pretensions to science, acknowledge the 

 fact, also, that she is the mother of the whole family. 

 The period at which they commence depositing 

 eggs probably depends on the strength of the colony, 

 amount of honey on hand, &c., and not the time 

 they commence gathering food. 



GOOD STOCK SELDOM WITHOUT BROOD. 



I once removed the bees from a hive on the tenth 

 of January, and found brood amounting to about five 

 hundred, sealed over, and others in every stage of 

 growth down to the egg. 



This hive had been in the house, and kept warm; 

 it will doubtless be supposed that being kept warm 

 was the cause ; but this is not a solitary instance. A 

 Neighbor lost a hive the fourteenth February, in 



