ABILITY TO SUPPLY A QUEEN. ot 
ate her; hence it is that no worker comb is built till a 
young queen hatches. That no stores of surplus honey 
are ordinarily gathered at such a time, one may satisfy 
himself by examining the honey boxes between the issue 
of a first and second swarm—the greatest amount being 
found about twenty-four hours before the issue of the first 
swarm. Again, a pint of bees will rear a queen in twelve 
days, and a bushel will do it no sooner. 
The great secret of successful bee-keeping hes in keeping the 
stocks strong, and in swarming them artifically by a method that 
shall secure the construction of perfect worker combs in the great- 
est possible abundance, and save all the swarms without loss by 
flight to the woods. Such a method will dso secure the greatest 
number of worker bees early in the season, and ther greatest ac- 
tivity throughout the honey harvest. A safeguard against loss 
of swarms during our cold winters 1s also an essential element in 
a hive. 
To combine these advantages, among others, into a 
practical system, has long taxed the ingenuity of intelli- 
gent bee-keepers. For the last thirty years there has 
been a marked advance in the right direction. A device, 
simple, cheap, and practicable, for obtaining control of the 
combs, has been one of the objects sought. Amateur 
apiarians placed a single card of comb in a thin case with 
glass sides, in order to observe the bees at work, and learn 
their habits. To insure the building of .the comb in the 
right direction, Huber started it by fastening a small 
piece of comb to the ceiling ; he also combined eight of 
these cases or frames, hanging them by hinges, so that 
they would swing like a door, leaving out the glass sides, 
except the two outer ones, making the “Leaf Hive ;” 
which was invented more than sixty years ago. Bevan, 
Golding, Huish, Dzierzon, and others, used “ bars,” placed 
