As the days past by I became all anxiety about their swarming, and many were the questions which I plied father with in regard to how this was done. In answer to some of these questions, he told me that the queen led out the swarm, undoubtedly getting this impression from seeing the young queens of after-swarms out on the alighting-board with the first bees, when a second or third swarm issued. On the mention of the queen I wanted to know all about her, but it was very little that father could tell me, except that he often saw her with the swarm. As only box-hives were in use in this locality, it was no wonder that he knew so little regardingthis all-important innate of the hive, as now viewed from the present standpoint of our profession. My anxiety for swarming-time to come was so great that it seemed that it never would arrive, and when it did come the impression which it made upon my mind was so lasting that, as I write, I can almost see those bees whirling and cutting circles in the air, seemingly thrice as large avid active as is a swarm in my later years. After they had clustered, were cut down, and brought to the empty hive, my anxiety to see the queen became para-mount to all other interests which this exciting time presented; and when, as the last half of the swarm was going in, she was seen, alto only a brown German queen, I thought her very majestic in appearance, and the sight well worth all the hunting we had done to find her. Time past on, and in a few years the aplary had grown so that swarming was quite frequent, and had somewhat lost its novelty; yet there has been no time in my life but what it has had very much of interest to me. During one swarming season a third swarm issued, and in alighting it separated into three parts, so that none of the little clusters had more than a quart of bees, while one had scarcely more than a teacupful. Father was about to put all of the three clusters into one hive, but I finally persuaded him to let me put the little one into a small box that I had, and see what I could do with them. In getting them into the box I saw three queens go in, which excited my curiosity very much. I remember planning how such swarms, which had many queens, might be multiplied to great numbers; but to say that any idea of queen-rearing entered my head at this time would savor of imagination. The little colony built three pieces of comb a little larger than the hand, but soon after cold weather came the bees died, as father had said they would, when he let me try the experiment. In a year or two more that dreaded disease-foul brood--appeared in the aplary, and as father knew nothing about how to control it, all the bees were soon gone. Years went by with little or no interest on my part regarding bees, except as a runaway swarm past over my head while at work in the field, or as I and some of the neighboring boys robbed bubble-bees' nests; until at 17 years of age, in time of sugar-making, a bee-tree was found by hearing the roaring of bees on their cleansing flight, as I was going to visit a neighbor's sugar-bush not far away. The next warm day I went out looking for bees, and before noon I found another bee-tree. These trees were left until fall, when they were cut, but in falling they so scattered the bees and comb that with the little knowledge I then had I thought that I could not save them. Twenty years ago I cut one of my feet so badly that I was confined to the house nearly all winter, and as reading was my chief amusement, it so chanced that I pickt up "King's Bee-Keepers' Text-Book," which I had purchast the year I found the bee-trees, because the advertisement about It said that it told "how to hunt bees." As soon as I began to read this book I contracted what is known as the "bee-fever," which took so strong a hold of me that I was not satisfied until I had borrowed and read Langstroth's book, and purchast Quinby's work, besides subscribing for the "American Bee Journal." In the spring I purchast two colonies of bees, from which originated my present apiary. This was in the spring of 1869, and as that was a very poor season I secured only one swarm from the two colonies, and very little experience along any line of the pursuit, except that of buying sugar and feeding up these three colonies for winter. The next June I went to see a man who kept some Italian bees (the first I had ever seen), who lived about four miles from me. When I arrived I found him at work at queen-rearing, so I was all interest at once. He showed me all that he knew of queen-rearing during my frequent calls on him that summer, and the next spring I went intoparnership with him in the queen-business, he rearing the queens and I doing the selling--doing this by taking the queens around to the bee-keepers who lived within 10 or 15 miles of us, and introducing them into the apiaries of those who would tuy. I remained in partnership, with him during the next year, and, as a whole, I made it profitable, for I not only got some cash out of it, but at the end of that time I had a full knowledge of the old plans of queen-rearing. During this time I had partially Italianized my own apiary, so the next year I started out on "my own hook' in the queen-business, altho not doing much at it in the way of telling to outside parties till some years later. After losing nearly, or quite, one-half of my queens, one spring, owing to their poorness in quality, I began to study up plans for the rearing of better ones, which study I have kept up till the!resent time. Into this branch of our pursuit I have put all the thought and energy at my command, as well as to apply the accumulated thoughts of others as exprest in our bee-papers, till I think that I can truly say there is much in the following chapters never before given to the public.