62 THE BLESSED BEES. 



so far as my work and care could control success. 

 These are the data of my plan : 



i. No bees of any kind were kept by any person 

 nearer to me than four miles. One farmer four 

 miles away had a few swarms of black bees, but 

 there seemed little probability that my young 

 queens would meet drones from his hives. 



2. So far as I could learn there were no wild bees 

 in the woods in that neighborhood. No bee-trees 

 had ever been found. Still the fear of wild bees 

 gave me some uneasiness, for should there chance to 

 be a few swarms of wild bees in hollow trees along 

 the stream, within a mile or two, they might se- 

 riously interfere with my plans. My only course 

 was to assume that there were none, and go on. 



3. The only black drones, then, against which I 

 must guard were those which my own hives would 

 produce. It seemed to me that this could be done, 

 and in my transferring it had been constantly kept 

 in mind. 



4. It will be remembered that I spoke in the pre- 

 vious chapter about keeping the worker-comb and 

 the drone-comb, as far as possible, in separate frames. 

 I had then carefully selected a number of the fine 

 combs, in which drone-cells were most abundant, 

 and put them in frames by themselves. From the 

 frames containing brood I had -carefully cut all the 

 patches of drone-brood, and all capped drone-cells, 



