d, and appeared dispirited; and
when, in the beginning of June, he examined the colony again, he found
plenty of drone brood in worker cells! The queen appeared weak and
languid. He confined her in a queen cage, and left her in the hive. The
bees clustered around the cage; but next morning the queen was found to
be dead. Here we seem to have the commencement, progress and termination
of super-annuation, all in the space of five or six weeks."

In the Spring of the year, as soon as the bees begin to fly, if their
motions are carefully watched, the Apiarian may even in the common
hives, generally ascertain from their actions, whether they are in
possession of a fertile queen. If they are seen to bring in bee-bread
with great eagerness, it follows, as a matter of course, that they have
brood, and are anxious to obtain fresh food for its nourishment. If any
hive does not industriously gather pollen, or accept the rye flour upon
which the others are feasting, then there is an almost absolute
certainty either that it has not a queen, or that she is not fertile, or
that the hive is seriously infested with worms, or that it is on the
very verge of starvation. An experienced eye will decide upon the
queenlessness, (to use the German term,) of a hive, from the restless
appearance of the bees. At this period of the year when they first
realize the magnitude of their loss, and before they have become in a
manner either reconciled to it, or indifferent to their fate, they roam
in an inquiring manner, in and out of the hive, and over its outside as
well as inside, and plainly manifest that something calamitous has
befallen them. Often those that return from the fields, instead of
entering the hive with that dispatchful haste so characteristic of a bee
returning well stored to a prosperous home, linger about the entrance
with an idle and very dissatisfied appearance, and the colony is
restless, long after the other stocks are quiet. Their home, like that
of the man who is cursed rather than blessed in his domestic relations,
is a melancholy place: and they only enter it with reluctant and
slow-moving steps!

If I could address a friendly word of advice to every married woman, I
would say, "Do all that you can to make your husband's home a place of
attraction. When absent from it, let his heart glow at the very thought
of returning to its dear enjoyments; and let his countenance
involuntarily put on a more cheerful look, and his joy-q