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HOW TO KEEP BEES
  • One Van Deusen wax-tube fastener.
  • One ¼-pound spool No. 30, tinned wire.
  • One Porter bee-escape, with board.
  • One Manum's swarm-catcher.
  • One Dixie bee-brush.
  • One Doolittle division-board feeder.
  • One Alley's queen and drone trap.


NOTES ON A BEGINNER'S ORDER

THE BEES

The selection of the bees is the first and most important consideration, since race and heredity determine to so great an extent the bee's efficiency and disposition.

The consensus of opinion to-day is in favour of the Italian bees; this is so much so that the other races, except the German, are hardly on the general market in America. Taking all points into consideration, the Italian has a higher average of satisfactory qualities than has any of the other races.

Our earliest experiences were with the ordinary black German bees, and it was through them that we first learned to love bees, although their nervousness and their unhappy habit of considering us intruders when we neared their domain were always somewhat embarrassing, and made us feel like James Whitcomb Riley's visiting base-ball team, that "we weren't so welcome as we aimed to be." Therefore, when we decided to buy bees, we un-