FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 65 



The empty hive is now used to take the place of the next 

 hive to be overhauled, which in its turn is cleaned and then used 

 again, and so on. 



While the frames are being changed from one hive to the 

 other, observations "and necessary changes are made. If there 

 is no cleaning of hives, then the work is shortened. The dummy 

 is taken out, and one frame is also taken out so as to leave 

 freer working room. This one frame may be put in an empty 

 hive standing convenient; or it may, be leaned against the hive 

 being operated on, or against an adjoining hive. If the dummy 

 was on the near side, then the frames are all pushed toward 

 me, two or three being started at a time, and when all are 

 started the tool is pushed down between the further frame and 

 the side of the hive, and all the frames at one push shoved to- 

 ward me enough to give plenty of room at the further side. If 

 the frames are Hoffman (a few hives contain Hoffman frames) 

 then it is necessary to start each frame separately before it 

 can be lifted out. 



WATCHING FOB QUEEN. 



As the frames are being handled, the thing that receives 

 closer attention than anything else is to see the queen so as to 

 know whether she is clipped or not. For if a colony should 

 have an undipped queen there is a fair chance that it might 

 swarm and decamp; and it is possible that almost any colony 

 may have superseded its queen the previous fall, leaving it with 

 an undipped queen. 



IMPLEMENT FOE CLIPPING. 



If the queen is undipped, of course I clip her. Nearly al- 

 ways I use a pair of scissors for clipping, although I have 

 tried a knife. The strongest argument in favor of the knife is 

 that a knife is always on hand. But it is just as easy to have 

 a pair of scissors always 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 scis- 

 sors 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 scissor^ will do very good work. Latterly 



