BELS. 70 



cafiv ir m an inverted position, to avoid the risk of detacli- 

 ing the heavily-hiden combs. If the purchase is made in 

 autumn, ascertain that the massacre of the drones has taken 

 place, as if this has not happened there is something- radi- 

 cally wrong- in the hive. In all cases the massacre of the 

 drones is a cei'tain sig-n that no more swarming- is intended 

 for that season. Never put a swarm into an old hive, as it 

 will be almost certainly infested with vermin, and particu- 

 larly with the eg-g-s of the insidious honey- moth, who will 

 be ready enoug-h to attack the hive, without having- its eg-gs 

 introduced where they can, as soon as they are hatched, set 

 about their marauding- incursions. 



WINTER MANAGEMENT. 



Supposing you commence in autumn, this will be one of 

 the first things on which you will be anxious. First, as to 

 their food ; second, as to their protection against cold. If 

 bees require feeding in the winter, it is because they have 

 been wrongly deprived of the very stores they had laid by 

 for that season. One of the advantages of all systems of 

 double or treble hives, as we may call the junction of two 

 or three hives or side-boxes together — in technical language 

 storifying — is, that they allow the central or chief portion of 

 the colony to remain permanently undisturbed, so that 

 there is always food in it for the bees when required. If 

 a hive weigh less than twenty pounds at the approach of 

 winter, food should be given at once, so that there may 

 be no disturbance in the hive in the periods of frost. 

 The most natural of all modes, is to lay a piece of 

 honeycomb in the hive about October or November. If 

 that be not readily obtainable when wanted, honey in a 

 plate will do, \vitli short straws over it for the bees to alight 

 on, or good sugar mixed with boiling water in equal weights. 

 If necessary, the hive may be raised, to receive the plate 

 or comb, by an eke — that is, a hive prematuivly cut short, 

 as It were, in the construction, at three or four rounds. 

 This fits exactly the bottom of the hive, and forms a con- 

 tinuation of its edges. It will be good economy to repeat 

 tbfs feeding in spring, when the bees begin to stir about, 

 but find the fiowers not so early as themselves, 'i'he food in 



