THOUSAND ANSWERS 69 
Q. How far will a drone fly from a hive? How far will a 
virgin queen fly from a hive? 
A. I don’t know, and I’m afraid you’ll never know. I think 
it has been said that a drone may meet a virgin whose home is 
four or five miles from his home, although as a rule such long 
flights are not made. Some think that a mile is as far apart as 
the two homes usually are. But if you knew exactly how far 
apart the two homes are, you are still in the dark as to how 
much of the distance is made by the drone and how much by the 
virgin. 
Dividing (See Increase.) 
Division-Boards. — Q. Of what use are division-boards, and 
how often should they be used? 
A. A division-board, properly so-called, is a thin board more 
or- less tight-fitting that divides a hive into two separate compart- 
ments, as when a hive is to be used for two or more nuclei, or 
when a colony is too small to occupy the whole of the hive. In 
this sense there are very few division-boards, but a dummy is 
really the thing that is meant. A dummy is loose-fitting, not 
longer nor deeper than the frame of the hive. It may be less 
than that. Dummies are in use in my hives all the time, winter 
and summer. The frames do not entirely fill the hive, and the 
dummy fills up the vacant space at one side. It is much easier to 
get out the dummy than to get out the first frame where there 
is no dummy, and after the dummy is out it is easy to get out the 
frames. If less than the full number of frames is in the hive, one 
or more dummies are placed next to the exposed frame. 
Doolittle System of Honey Production. — Q. What is the Doo- 
little system of comb-honey production? 
A. A book called “A Year’s Work in an Out Apiary” gives in 
full the system that Mr. Doolittle follows, which is a combination 
of good things more or less in general use, given by the author 
in an interesting way. Of course, it would be out of the question 
to give details here, but only one special feature may be men- 
tioned, and that is that early in the season he puts over the hive 
a second story containing combs with more or less honey, an ex- 
cluder between the two stories, and then when the time comes 
that there is danger of swarming, or just before the honey-flow, 
he takes away the brood of the lower story, giving the colony 
the combs of the upper story. 
Drone-Brood.— Q. Is it common to find considerable drone- 
