62 FORTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 



have tried a knife. The strong-est arg-ument in favor of 

 the knife is that a knife is always on hand. But it is as 

 easy to have a pair of scissors on hand. They may be 

 tied to the record-book, and the record-book is sure to be 

 always on hand. Most of the time I have had a pair 

 of embroidery scissors tied to my record-book with a 

 string- long enough to allow the scissors to be freely used, 

 but I have been surprised to find that much larger scis- 

 sors will do very good work. Latterly I have used a 

 common pair of gentleman's pocket scissors, and I am 

 not sure but I like them as well as the embroidery scis- 

 sors. It is just as easy to have a pair of these as a 

 knife constantly in the pocket. To make good work clip- 

 ping, a knife should be very sharp, and I find it is harder to 

 have a sharp knife constantly on hand than a sharp pair of 

 scissors. Neither is it so necessary that the scissors be 

 sharp. 



ITINDING QUEEN. 



Before a queen is clipped she must be found. I have 

 seen some attempt at rules for finding a queen, but after 

 all is said, you must do more or less hunting for a queen 

 if you would find her. I generally begin looking on the 

 first frame of brood I come to — hardly worth while to 

 look on any frame before the brood is reached — and as 

 I raise the frame out of the hive I keep watch of the 

 side next me. Then when the frame is lifted out of the 

 hive, before looking at the opposite side, I glance at the 

 nearest side of the next frame in the hive ; for it requires 

 scarcely any time to do this, and if she happens to be in 

 sight it will be a saving of time to lift out immediately 

 the frame she is on. Not seeing her on the frame in the 

 hive, I look over both sides of the frame in my hand, 

 and continue thus through all the frames. Although it 

 was not worth while to look for her on any comb before 

 the brood-nest was reached, it is worth while to look for 

 her on the comb or combs remaining after passing over 



