e very likely to get into confusion.
Writers, when noticing the peculiarity of instinct governing the bee
here, cannot be content always, but must add other marvels. They follow
this trait into the hive, and make her store every kind by itself
there. Relative to honey it is not an easy matter to be positive; but
pollen is of a variety of colors, generally yellow, yet sometimes
pale-green, and reddish or dark-brown. Now I think a little patient
inspection would have satisfied any one that two kinds _are_ sometimes
packed in one cell, and prevented the assertion to the contrary. I will
admit that two colors are seldom found packed together, but sometimes
will be. I have thus found it, and it has entirely ruined that theory
for me.

A TEST FOR THE PRESENCE OF QUEEN DOUBTED.

It is further asserted that if a hive loses its queen "no pollen is
collected." Also, "that such quantities are sometimes collected, and
fill so many cells, that too little room is left for brood, and the
stock rapidly dwindles away in consequence." The first of these
assertions has been given as a test to decide whether the hive contains
a queen or not. Now my bees have such a habit of doing things wrong
that the above is no test whatever. It is made to appear very well in
theory, but wants the truth in practice. I will say what I have known
on this point, and perhaps clear up the difficulty of a stock
containing an unusual quantity of bee-bread with the honey, and instead
of being the cause of its having but few bees, it is the effect. Stocks
and sometimes swarms lose their queen in the swarming season, (the
particulars will be given in another place,) when, instead of remaining
idle, the usual quantity of both _pollen and honey is collected_
(unless the family is very small). There being no larvae to consume the
bread, the consequence is, more than half the breeding cells will
contain it; they will be packed about two-thirds full, and finished out
with honey. I have known a large family left under such circumstances,
and about all the cells in the hive would be occupied. Whereas, in a
stock containing a queen and rearing brood, _a portion of the combs
will be used for this purpose until the flowers fail_, and then such
comb will be found empty.

AN EXTRA QUANTITY OF POLLEN NOT ALWAYS DETRIMENTAL.

To test whether this extra quantity of bee-bread was so _very_
detrimental, I have introduced into such hive in the fall a family with
a queen an