14 
A YEAR AMONGjTIlE BEES. 
You remember, on finding a queen with wing clipped, (and 
nearly all will be so), I made the entry, May 10 q. cl. ( ). 
The full record will appear “No. 1, (231) May 10 q. cl. ( ) 
hr. in 3,” meaning there was brood in three frames. The 
blank in the parenthesis remains to be filled. This may be 
done at any time when convenient ; in the evening, or the 
first rainy day. Looking at the previous year’s record-book 
I find the queen of No. 231 was hatched in 1884, so in the 
blank parenthesis I write “ 84.” 
HIVES, COVERS AND STANDS. 
Now that the apiary is all in running order, you may want 
to take a look at it. You “ don’t think it looks remarkably 
neat?” Neither do I. If I had only a dozen colonies and 
were keeping them for the pleasure of it, I should have their 
hives painted, perhaps ornamented with scroll work, but 
please remember that I am keeping them for profit, and I 
cannot afford anything for looks. Some of them are painted 
with a cheap, reddish brown, mineral paint, but that was 
some years ago and they look very dingy. More of them are 
unpainted, and the oldest of these look dingier still. I sup- 
pose they would last longer if painted, but hardly enough 
longer to pay for the paint. Besides, in the many changes 
constantly taking place, how do I know that I may not want 
to throw these aside and adopt a new hive ? I have already 
changed three times, having begun in 1861 with a full-sized 
sugar-barrel, changing the next year to Quinby box-hives, 
then to a movable-frame hive made by J. F. Lester, and 
afterward when J. Vandervort, the foundation-mill man, 
came and lived perhaps a year in Marengo, I bought out his 
stock of hives, and all my hives are now of that pattern. I 
supposed they were the exact Langstroth pattern, but they 
have frames %-iueh longer and 7-32 shallower. If I were 
commencing I think I should have the regular Langstroth 
size, although mine are so nearly the same, that I don’t 
suppose the result would be noticeably different. They hold 
