sperous, they never fail to rear a
brood of drones at this season. What is the age of these? I apprehend
that this eleven months theory originated in sections where there are
no crops of buckwheat raised, or in small quantities. Clover generally
fails in August, and May, or June, of another year comes round, before
there is a sufficient yield to produce the brood. With these
observations _only_, how very rational to conclude that it must be a
law of their nature, instead of being governed by the yield of honey,
and size of the family? If the periods of drone egg laying are limited
to only two or three, it would seem that all queens ought to be ready
with this kind of egg, about the same period of the season, but how are
the facts?

I would like to inquire what becomes of the first series of drone eggs,
the last of April, or the first of May, when the stocks are poorly
supplied with honey, or when a family is small and but little honey
through the summer? No drone brood is matured in these cases. It is not
pretended that the queen has any control over the germination of these
eggs, yet somehow she has them ready whenever the situation of the hive
will warrant it. Two stocks may have an equal number of bees the first
of May; one may have forty pounds of honey, the other four pounds; the
latter cannot afford to rear a drone, while the other will have
hundreds. Let two stocks have but four pounds each at any time in
summer when honey is scarce, now feed one of them plentifully, and a
brood of drones is sure to appear, while the other will not produce
one. Whenever stocks are well stored with honey, and full of bees, the
first of May will find drone-cells containing brood. If the flowers
continue to yield a full supply, these cells may be examined every week
from that period till the first swarm leaves, and I will engage that
drone brood may be found in all stages from the egg to maturity; and
the worker brood the same. In twenty-four days after the first swarm
leaves, the last drone eggs left by the old queen will be just about
matured. When transferring bees from old to new hives, I generally do
it about twenty-one or twenty-two days after the first swarm, (this is
the time to avoid destroying the worker-brood; the particulars will be
given in another place.) I have transferred a great many, and _never
failed_ to find a few drones about ready to leave the combs. Whether
the swarm had left the last of May, or middle of July