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quality of honey ; the willows and alders also furnish 
some. In sections where these abound, bees will usu- 
ally collect what honey they consume at this season. 
About the middle of this month the peach, the apple, 
pear, currant, &c., begin to blossom and furnish a fair 
quantity of honey while they last, but their duration is 
too short to any more than help them along for the 
present. The dandelion soon makes its appearance 
and is a rich treat for both honey and pollen. If you 
have any transfers to make, now is the time to do it ; or 
if you have neglected the previous year to use the 
comb separators you may have a large amount of 
drone combs in your hives ; if such should be the case, 
it is time that you rid your hives of it, and thus pre- 
vent an excess of these non-producers, but great con- 
sumers of the contents of the hive. This may be done 
by taking a pocket knife and cutting out the drone 
comb; in doing this cut back to the worker cells, and 
then the bees will be more likely to rebuild worker- 
combs in its place. A single hive is enough, unless the 
apiary is large, when perhaps two or three may be left 
to rear drones from. In sections of country where 
many bees are kept, and no attention is paid to them 
by other parties, you need not rear any, as there will 
be plenty of them on the wing to meet the young 
queens. Old combs that are unfit for use may now be 
taken away and empty frames put in their places, the 
preserver and mat removed, and the general condition 
of the hive improved. First take a honey knife and 
scrape the tops of the frames off as they hang in the 
hive. This may be done by taking hold of the handle 
with one hand and the point with the other, and scrap- 
ing them off in a body. Then take them out singly 
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