FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 71 



larger wing on one side is clipped, and clipping the one wing 

 will not mar her looks so much, but when a queen is scurrying 

 across a comb, or when you get just a glimpse of her in the 

 hive, it is much easier to tell at a glaiiee that she is clipped if 

 both wings on one side are cut off. 



ADVANTAGE OF CLIPPING. 



Although nowadays the practice of clipping has become 

 quite general, there are a few who doubt its advisability. I 

 would not like to dispense with clipping if I had only one 

 apiary and were on hand all the time, and with out-apiaries 

 and no one to watch them it seems a necessity. If a colony 

 swarms with a clipped queen, it cannot go off. True, the 

 queen may possibly be lost, but it is better to lose the queen 

 than to lose both bees and queen. 



If there were no other reason for it, I should want my 

 queens clipped for the sake of keeping a proper record of them. 

 A colony, for example, distinguishes itself by storing more 

 than any other colony. I want to breed next spring from the 

 queen of that colony. But she may be superseded in the fall 

 after that big harvest, and if she is not clipped there is no 

 way for me to tell in the following season whether she has 

 been superseded or not. Indeed I can hardly see how it is pos- 

 sible to keep proper track of a queen without having her 

 clipped. 



Sometimes when a queen is being found, she will quickly 

 run under and out of the way, giving one a mere glimpse of 

 her, so that it is not easy to say whether it was a queen or a 

 worker that was seen, in which case the missing wings aid in 

 recognizing her. To this, however, it may be replied that there 

 is less need to find queens where they are not kept clipped. 



BEB-SMOKBES. 



You who have used smokers ever since you began working 

 with bees hardly know how to appreciate them. At least it is 

 doubtful if you appreciate them as much as you would if you 

 had done as I did when I first began beekeeping, going around 

 with a pan of coals and a burning brand on it, or else a lighted 



