40 MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION 
the queen is pressed for room, and the bees are not inclined to 
swarm, good worker combs may be built on starters even where 
an old queen is in the colony. By an old queen we mean any 
queen not of the current year’s raising. 
STARTING AN APIARY 
In bee keeping, as in other enterprises, a good beginning con-- 
tributes much to the ultimate success of the enterprise. For those: 
who are inexperienced, this is doubly true. For the beginner, the 
spring of the year may be the best time to make the venture with 
bees. In our rigorous climate the matter of wintering bees is one 
which requires some little knowledge of bees, preferably at first 
hand. Thus, by starting in the spring, the beginner has the whoic 
season before him and by fall has gained confidence and knows his. 
little fellow laborers better and can better plan and provide for 
bringing them through the long and severe winter months. It is 
strongly to be recommended that for the beginner, the bees, if 
available, be of a gentle variety,—Carniolans or Italians, or possibly 
Caucasians, though the latter, being a newly imported variety, are 
not generally available. A good colony in the early spring should 
have a cluster covering at least six combs, and should have three or 
four frames of brood in various stages. There should be a supply of 
several pounds of honey, as, at this critical time, when there.is much 
brood to be fed, and many hungry young bees emerging every day,. 
honey is consumed rapidly and until the flow from early flowers - 
equals the demand, the colony must depend upon its stores from the- 
preceding year. The queen should be not older than from the pre-- 
ceding year’s raising, though in the case of choice queens, a qtteen” 
two and even three years of age may be retained. When thus kept 
it would be chiefly for breeding purposes. For reasons given pre-- 
viously, it is advisable to begin with a definite sized frame, and the: 
Langstroth frame is now the generally accepted standard, except 
in. certain restricted localities. Colonies having reasonably straight 
and even combs are to be preferred, as they are much easier of ma- 
nipulation. 
Having selected our stock, the next point is a suitable location 
for the apiary. Before starting an extensive apiary it would be well’ 
to look into the surrounding honey conditions, if honey production. 
