When stocks are liberally fed early in the season, drones will appear correspondingly early. And if from a stock well supplied with drones, you remove the queen, the workers will not destroy the drones in that hive until they have obtained another fertile laying queen. With this idea in view, viz:--early and liberal feeding to produce drones early, and depriving a populous stock (well supplied with drones) of its queen the last of the season, we can have drones sufficient for our purpose from early spring until late in the fall. I have in several instances, for the purpose of securing drones very early in the spring, deprived a populous stock, containing a large number of drones, of its queen, very late in the fall, and wintered them queenless. In this manner the drones were permitted by the bees to remain and winter with the swarm. Early in the spring they were re-enforced with hatching brood from populous stocks, but were permitted to rear no queens, in order that the drones might be preserved. As soon as drones appeared in the other stocks, this stock was furnished with a laying queen, and it was as prosperous as the best. By this plan drones may be kept through the winter, if their services are required very early in the spring, before we can raise them from the best stocks by judicious feeding, which very rarely can be done. The bees for rearing queens are usually obtained from populous hives, such as will hardly miss a pint or a quart from their numbers, great care being exercised not to remove the queen. The best time to get the bees is in the middle of the day. Go to a stock and first find the queen. Set the comb she is on, to one side. Put your light box (prepared as before described with a hole in the top) on a sheet near by, with one edge raised an inch. Take one or more combs from the hive (being careful not to get the one with the queen,) and shake the bees from them, down beside the box, which they will readily enter. When you have bees enough in the box, close it so none can escape. You now have the bees ready to put in the miniature hive, as before directed. I think I have given such instruction as will enable any one, after a little practice, to rear queens successfully.[9] I will follow it with such information as will insure success in introducing queens into full stocks of bees.