Some Bee Notes. 
BY CONNOISSEUR. 
The Bee-keeping of to-day is far in ad¬ 
vance of what it was twenty years ago, 
and he who would make a success of it 
must keep posted with regard to the latest 
discoveries in the science and use the most 
improved appliances for accomplishing the 
great object, which with most people is 
the production of a large yield of honey 
and the getting of a good price for it. 
Of the various kinds of bees, the Italians 
are taking the lead at present and a e like¬ 
ly to continue to do so, on account of their 
gentle dispositions and their ability to 
gather much more honey than the black 
bees are capable of doing. Much has been 
written of late concerning the “coming 
bee,” but the majority of apiarists regard 
their own strain with the most favor, and 
perhaps it is just as well for different ap¬ 
iaries require different management and 
the owner of a colony of bees soon learns 
its disposition and can generally obtain bet¬ 
ter results from it than anyone else, pro¬ 
vided always that he gives it the same time 
and attention. 
A swarm or colon y of bees consists of a 
queen, a few hundred drones and from 
twenty to thirty thousand workers. The 
queen is the only perfect female or mother 
bee in the hive and usually lays all the eggs 
which frequently number from two to 
three thousand per day in the busy season. 
The drones are male bees and are generally 
driven out of the hive and killed in the fall 
of the year. The worker bees are undevel¬ 
oped females and in the summer season, 
when working hard, live only from four to 
six weeks, but have been known to live for 
seven or eight months in cold weather. 
For the first week or two of the worker’s 
life it builds comb and acts as nurse for the 
young brood, but after that it goes out and 
gathers honey and pollen. A full hive of 
bees is a regularly organized band of work¬ 
ers and an excellent model of industry for 
the human family. 
Hives.—F rame hives, or those contain¬ 
ing frames in which comb is fastened and 
which may be easily moved from one hive 
to another as necessity requires, are the 
only kind of hives that can be used to ad¬ 
vantage in securing large amounts of sur¬ 
plus honey. Large apiarists generally make 
their own hives, doing the work in the win¬ 
ter season when their bees do not require 
their attention. For those who use only a 
few hives it is generally cheaper and bet¬ 
ter to have tin m made by some manu¬ 
facturer oi apiarian supplies than to under¬ 
take to make th m themselves, as when 
made by machinery they are more perfect 
than those made by hand and are all ex¬ 
actly one size, so that the parts are inter¬ 
changeable. Of the various sizes, that de¬ 
vised by Rev. L. L. Langstroth seems to 
find most favor in the United States, 
though there are many very successful 
apiarists who use and recommend other 
sizes both larger and smaller than the 
Langstroth. 
From our own observation it makes but 
little difference what particular hive is. 
used, only so that all of the hives in the 
apiary are of the same size. 
Attend to your Bees. —Many -persons 
who engage in bee-keeping equip them¬ 
selves with movable comb hives and then 
give them no more attention than they 
formerly gave the old box hives. The re¬ 
sult is, that the bees do not do any better, 
and many times not even so well, as they 
did in the box hives, and the owner natur¬ 
ally becomes disgusted with the result and 
pronounces the new-fashioned hives a fail¬ 
ure. 
Comb Foundation.— One of the most 
useful inventions of the age connected with 
bee-keeping is that of the comb foundation. 
Foundation consists of a thin sheet of pure- 
wax with hexagonal or six-sided indenta¬ 
tions on either side of it in imitation of 
newly formed cells as made by the bees 
themselves. These indentations are not 
exactly opposite each other but are just 
sufficiently, removed so that a part of the 
bottom of one cell shall form a part of the 
bottom of another on the opposite side of 
the sheet, and when the cells are drawn 
out by the bees it becomes very strong 
comb and equally good, if not better, than 
that made entirely by the bees. The form¬ 
ation of foundation is effected in different 
