In feeding during the cold days of April, all should be close above the bees to economize the heat. In all feeding, care is requisite that we may not spill the feed about the apiary, as this may, and very generally will, induce robbing. CHAPTER IX. QUEEN REARING. Suppose the queen is laying two thousand eggs a day, and that the full number of bees is forty thousand, or even more--though the bees are liable to so many accidents, and as the queen does not always lay to her full capacity, it is quite probable that this is about an average number--it will be seen that each day that a colony is without a queen there is a loss equal to about one-twentieth of the working force of the colony, and this is a compound loss, as the aggregate loss of any day is its special loss, augmented by the several losses of the previous days. Now, as queens are liable to die, to become impotent, and as the act of increasing colonies demands the absence of queens, unless the apiarist has extra ones at his command, it is imperative, would we secure the best results, to ever have at hand extra queens. So the young apiarist must early learn HOW TO REAR QUEENS. As queens may be needed by the last of May, preparations looking to the early rearing of queens must commence early. When preparing the colonies for winter the previous autumn, be sure to place some drone-comb somewhere near the centre of the colony that has given the best results the previous season. In March, and certainly by the first of April, see that all colonies have plenty of bee-bread. If necessary, place unbolted flour, that of rye or oats is best, in shallow troughs near the hives. It may be well to give the whole apiary the benefit of such feeding before the flowers yield pollen. Yet, I have found that here in Central Michigan, bees can usually gather pollen by the first week of April, which I think is as early as they should be allowed to fly, and, in fact, as early as they will fly with sufficient regularity to make it pay to feed the meal. I much question, after some years of experiment, if it ever pays to give the bees a substitute for pollen. The colony under consideration, should be given frames containing bee-bread which was stored the previous year. At the same time, March or April, commence stimulative feeding. If you have another colony equally good with the first, also give that the pollen, and commence giving it honey or syrup, but only worker-comb should be in the brood-chamber. This will prevent the close in-breeding which would of necessity occur if both queens and drones were reared in the same colony; and which, though regarded as deleterious in the breeding of all animals, should be practiced in case one single queen is of decided superiority to all others of the apiary.