33 
the hive, and thus winds up the scene. K drones are see® 
around your hives late in September or during the montn 
of October, such colonies are very apt to be queeuless. 
hndif you have provided yourselt with extra queens 
during the summer, they may be introduced to such 
,tocks° with a fair prrspect of saving them. Oid qucens 
if they can fly, always leave the hive with the first 
swarms the young queens then soon make their appear- 
ance from the cells, and within a few days makes her 
amorous excursion to meet the drones on the wing in 
the open air. Frequently during these excursions they 
are lost by birds catching them. Sometimes on return- 
ing they mistake another hive for their own, and enter 
them where immediate destruction awaits them. In 
this case should there be no other young queen present 
in the hive, and the bees are compelled to rear one 
eire3 or larva by the time the young queen could be 
hatched it might be so late in the season that the drones 
would be destroyed, and the queen remaiu a virgiD. In 
this case it would be a loss of both queen and swarm. 
If no accident befalls them they die from old age, or be- 
oome barren, and therefore useless after three or loux 
years. There are many ways in which loss of queen may 
occur. I have enumerated the foregoing as being tha 
most prominent causes, aod ample provision should bn 
made for such emergencies. 
HOW THE LOSS OF BEES WILL OCCUR. 
In common hives, standing out of doors during the 
winter, with a plenty of honey, they being of snigte 
thickness the bees will feel the sudden changes of tte 
weather very perceptibly, which would not be the case 
if they were constructed in double form with a dead air 
.pace around. When the cold weather approaches they 
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