THOUSAND ANSWERS 
201 
that you should receive back a certain number of colonics at a 
specified time, then the agreement should be carried out, even if 
the man to whom the bees were let should have to buy bees to 
make out the number. As to disposal of the increase, a common 
custom is to divide equally, but that custom is hardly law. You 
let the man have 28 colonies, and you say “he left me only 28 
with half of the increase, and the increase was 8 swarms.” If you 
mean by that that you got back the original number, 28, and half 
of the 8 swarms, or 32 in all, it would seem right. As to the condi- 
tion of the bees in the fall with respect to stores, that depends 
upon agreement; you would get the bees back in the fall without 
any feeding, if the season was so poor that they needed feeding 
in the fall. But if they had plenty of stores for winter in the 
brood-chamber before turning over the bees to you, then I should 
say he was not trying to play fair. In a matter of this kind, if 
there is no written agreement, the fair thing to both parties is the 
fair thing to do. If you have bees and I take care of them, I fur- 
nish the time and perhaps the location, and you furnish the bees. 
If there is no honey, I have lost my time, and you will have to lose 
your bees unless you furnish me with honey to feed them, in 
which case I would feel compelled to do the work. But if there 
is a crop and I make some money, you are entitled to a part of the 
profit. The custom is for the man who furnishes the bees to fur- 
nish material, hives, sections, etc., and the crop and swarms are 
divided equally. This is a fair division between labor and capital. 
Requeening.— Q. Do you think I need to requeen the colonies 
this fall that I requeened last summer? If they arc good this 
spring will they be good next spring? 
A. No need to requeen if the queens are good. 
Q. If I introduce an Italian queen into a colony of black bees, 
will her offspring be pure? 
A When a new fertilized queen is introduced, all the bees in 
the hive will be of the new stock just as soon as the offspring of 
the old queen have died off, and in the busy season that will be in 
about two months, or a little more. If the new queen is pure 
Italian and purely mated, then all the new workers will be 
Italians. 
Q. To requeen all or part of an apiary with ripe cells from a 
breeder, I thought of dequeening about August 1 and introducing 
ripe cells. The bees hatched from eggs laid by the old queen 
from August 1 to 14 (when the new queen would begin to lay) 
would not, I think, aid materially in the harvest, which is about 
