FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 57 



stitched together through the middle, so that the one set 

 of stitches does the whole business, the first leaf being continu- 

 ous with the last leaf, the second continuous with the next to 

 the last, and so on. 



HISTORY OF QUEENS. 



While the record book is very important to keep (rack of 

 the work from day to day, it is perhaps more important for the 

 piu'pose of tracing the history of queens from year to year. On 

 each page is left a margin of about % of an inch. In that 

 margin is put the last two figures of the year in which the 

 queen is bom, '69 if she was bom in 1899, '01 if in 1901, and 

 so on. In that margin is also found anything important to 

 have recorded about the queen. "Very cross" may be in the 

 margin if the workers distinguish themselves in that direction ; 

 "seals white" if the capping of sections was uncommonly 

 white; "dark" if the workers were unusually dark, etc. Es- 

 pecially am I interested in the memoranda in the tnargin relat- 

 ing to swarming and storing. You will find sm if the colony of 

 tliat queen swarmed last year; no c if no queen-cells were found 

 in the hive during the whole of last season ; 5fc if I twice killed 

 queen-cells that were started. No doubt the printer will feel 

 like putting some periods after these contractions. Please don't 

 do it, Mr. Printer, for I never, take time to use such embellish- 

 ments when making entries. The number of sections stored by 

 the progeny of the queen the preceding year has a place in this 

 margin; 24 sec if 24 sections were stored; 160 sec if so many 

 sections were stored. If an unusual number of sections was 

 reached, that record follows the queen as long as she Uves. For 

 instance, in the year 1902 may be found in one case on the mar- 

 gij), 44 sen, 60 sec in '1900, 178 in 1899. That means that the 

 progeny of that queen stored 44 sections in the preceding year, 

 1901, 60 sections in 1900, and 178 sections in 1899. An un- 

 usual record, considering the character of the seasons in 1900 

 and 1901. If, in the year 1902, a 1900 queen is by any means 

 replaced by a young queen, a line is drawn through the 00 and 

 02 is written below it. 



As soon as I have entered in the record the old numbers 



