We guess it must be the _King_ friend O., for we feel sure the _Queen_
is not to blame. Our very best colony in 1873, dwindled down to the
weakest in the spring of ’74. They went down to a mere handful, swarmed
out twice, and it was only by giving them hatching brood several times
that we could barely get the Queen through until July, and then she
proved herself fully equal to what she had been the season before; in
fact she kept putting two or more eggs in a cell all through the spring
months. It is only the _workers_ that die off as soon as brood rearing
commences. The very same process is now going on in our forcing house
(Feb. 5th.) yet the brood will get ahead we think. Keeping the sick bees
warm in the lamp nursery revives them some but they soon die
nevertheless. The idea advanced that it is a kind of _fly_ that kills
the bees, can certainly have nothing to do with our losses.
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