^° BEES. 



v'itli honey-dew, and the bees frequent them in such nurn- 

 l)ers, that to pass under an avenue of" limes when the honey- 

 dew is on them, is Hke walking* amid innumerable swarms 

 of bees unsettled as to their future destination. All evil- 

 scented places, such as brick-kilns, tan-yards, or bone- 

 crushers', should be avoided ; and the careful bee-keeper 

 will cautiously shun factories or mills, whether worked by 

 steam or water, as the bees have a peculiar objection to 

 noisy neig'hbourhoods, and always prefer trees to chimneys. 

 Richardson advises that if your bee-shed or stand is placed 

 ag-ainst a wall, it will be necessary to ascertain that there 

 is no dung-hill ag-ainst its opposite side, as he found his 

 boxes deserted by the bees, who have a decided objection 

 to a permanent residence in such an unsavoury locality, 

 althoug'h they frequently pay visits to dung--heaps, for the 

 purpose of drinking* the moisture which drains from them. 

 This may, however, be avoided by placing* salt in the supply 

 of water near the hives, as has been described. 



COLLATERAL, NADIR, AND SUPER HIVES. 



So far for the simple single hive. We will now describe 

 shortly the compound hives. These are chiefly of three sorts, 

 the Nadir, Collateral, and Super. The Nadir hives are those 

 where the additional hive is placed under the original ; 

 the Collateral, those where, as the name implies, the hives 

 are placed side by side. Of these, the Collateral are much 

 to be preferred, as in the Nadir hives the bees are exposed 

 to many inconveniences, among* which may be reckoned the 

 labour of mounting* up through two hives, to deposit the 

 honey or pollen which they have brought home, a task 

 which to an already wearied and heavily laden bee would 

 be an addition to its labours. Moreover, the brood combs 

 are apt to be distributed unequally, so that the bee-master is 

 never sure of getting a hive full of pure honeycomb, as he 

 can in the collateral hiving. Super-hiving is where the addi- 

 tional hive or box is placed above the mother hive. To this 

 nearly the same objections apply as to the nadir system, and 

 I shall, therefore, merely describe the collateral system. 

 Tills may be accomplished either with straw hives or wooden 

 boxes. Straw hives, however, are not very manageable, or at 



