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 larvæ 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 and wintered them in it, and watched their prosperity another year, and never found them less profitable on that account. I am so well satisfied of this, that whenever I now have a hive in such a situation, it is a rule to introduce a swarm.