A R r OF BEEKEEPING 
same hive, but the probabilities are she will 
find one from some other hive. As soon as 
the act of copulation has taken place the 
two whirl around in the air until they 
drop, when the queen tears herself loose, 
carrying with her the drone organs, after 
which the drone dies. Soon after she en¬ 
ters her hive the drone organs are removed 
by the worker bees, but the spermatic fluid 
is retained in the spermatheca, where a 
supply sufficient to last the rest of her life 
is held. The queen is from that time on 
able to lay fertilized eggs that will produce 
worker bees, and infertile eggs that pro¬ 
duce only drones. See Bees and Dzierzon 
Theory. 
The same egg that produces a worker bee, 
strangely enough, will also produce a queen 
bee. The question of whether an egg shall 
be developed into a queen or an ordinary 
worker depends entirely on conditions. If 
the bees desire to raise a queen, or several 
of them, they will build one or more large 
cells, and feed the baby grubs a special 
food. (See Queens and Queen-Rearing.) 
In 16 days a perfect queen will emerge; 
while in the case of a worker, fed on a 
coarse food in small cells, 21 days elapse. 
Such, in brief, is a statement concerning 
the inmates of the hive and their duties. 
Before proceeding any further it will be 
proper to say something about the house 
or hive. In doing this the old box hive of 
our forefathers will be shown, working 
up to the modern hive which has made it 
possible to handle bees with such infinite 
pleasure and profit. 
THE OLD WAY OF KEEPING BEES. 
The old primitive box hive of our grand¬ 
fathers, consisting of a rude box (hence the 
name), was 12 or 15 inches square, and 
from two to three feet deep. Thru the 
center were secured two cross-cleats at right 
angles to each other, to help support the 
combs. (See Box Hives.) This box hive 
standing on a board or slab usually had a 
notch at the bottom in front, to provide an 
entrance and exit' for the bees. The bees, 
when building their combs in such a hive, 
fastened them to the sides and ends over 
and around the cross-cleats before mention¬ 
ed. The combs, when so built, would, of 
course, permit of no examination nor han¬ 
dling, as do the modern hives; and when it 
was desired to take the honey, the bees of 
the heaviest hives in the fall were brim- 
stoned, while those of the lightest were al¬ 
lowed to live over until the next season, to 
provide for swarms to replace those brim- 
The “inards” of a box hive after the bees have been 
drummed out. Notice how immovable the combs 
are. 
stoned. The honey taken from box hives 
was mixed with beebread and brood, and 
was of inferior quality. The combs were 
cut out of the hive and dumped into buck¬ 
ets to be used as necessity required. 
The modern hive lias long since elimin- 
Modern Hive with Hoffman frames for production 
of extracted honey. Between super and hive body 
should be a queen-excluder. (Deep extracting super 
identical with hive body may be substituted for 
shallow extracting super.) 
