LOSS OF QUEENS. 
69 
cell through which she has emerged. Sometimes they will 
have a queen that is not fertile ; or if they have been long 
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 dozen to a dozen. In case of 
tho imperfect queen, remove her, and give them a perfect one. 
The loss of queens atswarming-timo 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 consequently 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 queenless 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 give expression to a feeling of dissatisfac- 
tion with all previous plans. There is an abiding impression 
that wc do not get the good of our bees that they are capable 
of yielding ; that we need a control of them that we have not 
reached ; a vague idea that something cau be done with bees 
that never has been done, aud that, somehow, this is to be 
accomplished through a modification of the hive. The at- 
' tempt to gratify this desire has given rise to a great host of hive 
vendors ; who I suppose, are, in the main, honest, or at least 
as much bo as those engaged in other employments — aiming 
mainly of course at what will take best. Often thinking the 
