march 1861 mr. r c otis e suggests that in winter the w
wintering bees in. fall after the outside comb be removed the for 
central comb should have more than the usual spaces left
movable comb hives. between them to enable the bees to cluster more compactly. 
this suggestion seems to me an important one. in movable comb 
hives we aim to have the spaces between the comb as small as we can,
else where there is no brood the bees will [illegible] out the comb and make 
them difficult to remove. thus in winter bees have not the same [illegible]
of getting in large [illegible] as in common box hives where often large spaces
are left owing to the irregularities of the comb. as my frames have a
[illegible] the rabbets they are admirably adapted to be left further apart. 
journal queen imported 28th, has laid a few eggs, two days ago she
swarmed out. little if any honey got today, many bees lost by
high wind. 2nd 44 degrees before clover warmed up, Italian bees disposed to rob
when hives opened, by 10: 00 am, much honey got. in pm, clouded over and little
done, yet bees continued to work vigorously on raspberry, do very little on the
blackberry. [illegible] colony with young beautiful Italian queen swarmed out, when
put back queen was imprisoned by bees, [illegible] of hive another young queen,
also imprisoned. thus few bees have not secured half the honey got by
this time last year and year before. 3rd 44 degrees. bees when it grew warm
worked moderately on clover. formed nuclei. 4th 44 degrees. same as yesterday. 
5th 44 degrees. grew warmer than for several days. queen of several nuclei which
[illegible] yesterday, [illegible] today. clover not near so abundant as
last year. 6th 50 degrees. soon after sunrise, cold wind and clouds from
the east, bees gather but little. an imported queen of yesterday had this 
am the threadlike substance a little. a large stock from which old
queen was taken may 25th, had 4 queens hatched early this am. 
one gone, three good, and removed, less than 12 days since queen removed. 
[illegible] a number of nearly mature queens, weather this pm so cool
that i fear for them, caged fertile and just impregnated queens to make
room for the queen cells. 7th 44 degrees. wind ne, cool, as it warmed up bees
did well on clover, work before and after clover time on raspberry some
on blackberry. 8th removed fertile queen from a strong nucleus, gave another
imported but not laying, bees got [illegible] out of her cage knotted on her
put her in cage again, [illegible], soon found her dead, gave them 
see w o



