12 
A YEAIt AMONG THE BEES. 
brood-nest is contracted the case is different. I always, in 
overhauling, put the frame with most pollen at the south and 
let the brood-nest commence next to it. 
If I do not see the queen on first time going over the frames, 
which is quite possible, as I do not spend much time looking 
for her, I look over the frames the second, perhaps the third 
time, but if not found then, I let her go till some other time. 
The object in looking for the queen is to see if her wing is 
clipped. If clipped, I enter in the record-book, (supposing 
May 10, 1886 to be the date), May 10 q. cl. ( ) leaving the 
parenthesis empty. If I find the queen’s wing unclipped I 
clip it and make the entry May 10 cl. q. (85), meaning that I 
clipped the queen May 10, and that she was hatched in 1885, 
although in rare instances I have known a queen to be super- 
seded in the spring. 
After clipping the wing of the queen I put her on the top 
of a frame directly over the brood-nest. If you hold her on 
your finger over the brood-nest she displays a great degree 
of perverseness and persists in crawling up your hand, 
right away from her proper home. So I let her crawl upon a 
leaf, little stick or other object, lay this on the frames, and 
she will directly go down into the cluster. If, in overhauling, 
any frames are found with drone comb, or holes in the comb, 
they are placed, if containing no brood, at the extreme north 
side of the frames; if one has brood in, it is placed the 
north frame of the brood-nest. 
As before mentioned, the south frame is broodless, then 
if there are only one or two frames with brood in, the 
division-board is put next to them ; if several frames have 
brood, and the colony is strong, a frame without brood is put 
north of the brood-ncst, before the division-board is put in. 
The point is to give plenty of room for the queen to lay, but 
no more than will be actually used till they are likely to be 
overhauled again. 
Generally, instead of returning defective combs, the defects 
are at once remedied. I turn these combs over to Emma, 
who mends them at the time. If they are not wired frames 
