LOSS OF QUEENS. 
09 
queenless they may have some fertile workers laying eggs. 
In such cases they will not have so much brood, and what 
there is of it will be all drone brood, even in worker cells. 
It will be known by the ends of the cells protruding much 
beyond the other cells. In case they have a fertile worker 
it can be known by inspection in movable comb hives by the 
eggs being laid very irregularly. Some cells will have no 
eggs in them ; others, a half a dozen to a dozen. In case of 
the imperfect queen, remove her and give them a perfect one’ 
The loss of queens at swarming-time will likely amount to one 
in fifteen. The number lost at all other seasons of the year 
will likely average one in thirty. It is well to give them all 
an examination in September and again early in the spring, 
to see if they have brood, and all is right. Young bees 
thrown down is evidence that they have brood and conse- 
quently a queen. If a hive retains its drones long after 
others have killed theirs, it is a bad sign, for they will not kill 
their drones if they are queenless. If a good colony is queen- 
less in the fall give them the queen of a late swarm, or run 
the late swarm into it. The spring is the worst time to reme- 
dy the evil. If they can survive until the drones appear, 
they might be supplied with brood so as to have a queen 
reared by the time the drones hatch ; otherwise, I have found 
but little advantage from such, except to save what honey 
and combs they have to put a swarm in. 
HIVES. 
The innumerable arrangements that have been devised for 
a home for bees gives expression to a feeling of dissatisfac- 
tion with all previous plans. There is an abiding impression 
that we do not get the good of our bees that they are capable 
of yielding ; that we need a control of them that wo have not 
reached ; a vague idea that something can be done with bees 
that never has been done, and that somehow, this is to be 
accomplished through a modification of the hive. The attempt 
to gratify this desire has given rise to a great host of hive ven- 
dors ; who, I suppose, are in the main honest, or at least as 
much so as those engaged in other employments, aiming 
mainly of course at what will take best. Often thinking the 
peculiarities of their hive embrace just what is wanted to 
succesful oulture ; but are often like the bee-keepers them- 
