178 A Modern Bee-Farm 



forgotten when many other things require attention, and consider- 

 able loss ensues. Where any need cannot be attended to 

 immediately some note or sign must be made, but the apiarist 

 should not make a note of every little detail that requires his 

 attention, or such a course will only tend to weaken the intellect. 



I make very few notes except in queen-raising, and in 

 passing through my apiaries, friends have often been surprised 

 I could give the entire history of each hive we came to. Long- 

 continued practice makes all simple, and being day after day 

 among a large number of colonies, their study becomes part of 

 one's nature. 



Fertile workers are not often troublesome except in the queen- 

 raising apiary. When they persist in laying in nuclei, do not 

 attempt to give virgin queens, but at once supply a good fertile 

 queen on a comb of brood, with accompanying bees ; this also 

 being the very best and simplest cure where they are found in 

 stocks of greater strength. The worker deposits eggs in a very 

 irregular manner, sometimes a dozen or more in one cell. 



Where eggs of fertile workers are placed in worker cells, 

 many of the larvae die before reaching maturity, otherwise the 

 cappings are much raised above the surface, as with normal 

 drones ; and those that do hatch appear equally as perfect as the 

 latter, though, of course, dwarfed in appearance. 



The wholesale prices for honey have now settled where busi- 

 ness can be carried on upon a large scale, and if producers will 

 only conform to these rates, we shall hear no more about being 

 unable to sell. Bottled and canned honey, and that in bulk will, 

 no doubt, fall lower ; but comb-honey will remain firm at present 

 quotations. 



