340 On the Management of Bees. 



they camiot work, they must be attended to and fed, as they have 

 no support from within, or they will perish*. 



During the suniuier the only attention requisite is to watch the 

 hives wliich show anv indication of swarming, to take eare that 

 none go off. 



As I do not profess to give full and perfect directions as to 

 every piatter connected with the hiving of the bees, I content 

 myself with recoiumending it as essential to the hiving of good 

 htocks of bees, that the swarm, when hived, should nearly fill it, 

 and if it does not, to add to it another swarm or cast, so that it 

 shall fill it; the reason for which I have already given. 



i now con)e to the season when the honey is to be taken, a 

 task never undertaken without reluctance, nor executed without 

 Tegret. When from the failure of the flowers, little or no addi- 

 tion is made to tiie stock of the hive in wax or in honey, and I 

 calculate on none after the middle of August, h.iving ascertained 

 frorii observation, that to be the fact, I consider that that is the 

 proper period to take those hives which are too weak to get 

 tiirough the winter. This only reconciles us to the taking of 

 them ; for if not then done, a slow and lingering death by famine 

 awaijs them, their industry not having given them provisions for 

 the season. I therefore begin to take my hives in the middle of 

 August, by which means the honey runs more readily from the 

 combs; the refuse, when thrown out, affords food for the bees 

 who remain, and there are fewer competitors for whatever pabu- 

 lum the autumn flowers afford. 



The honey when taken, in order to be pure, fragrant, and well 

 flavoured, must be such as flows spontaneously from the comb, 

 cut into a hair-sieve transversely when the hive is taken; left to 

 flow through the sieve into a vessel beneath, and never squeezed, 

 or the rumjing of it forced by heat; and after it has so flowed 

 through the hair-sieve, it should be again strained through a finer 

 one, so that not a particle of wax should mix with it, which 

 creates a fermentation, and spoils the honey. 



Money, however, so prepared, by flowing from the combs, al- 

 ways becomes saccharine : but if the hive itself is kept, and the 

 combs taken out as wanted, the beautiful and transparent honey 

 will preserve its clearness, purity, and sweetness for at least a year. 

 I have until the last season, which was so unusually late, al- 

 ways considered, that bees adil little to their store after the first 



• In the last year I had a SM-.inn on the 17th of May ; soon after, the 

 weather became very unl;ivouiable, and continually wet. I was obliged to 

 feed them for a fortnight ; very many died, but the survivors repaid my care, 

 and when the weather cleared up began to work. At the end of the season, 

 they gave me a hive of near thirty pounds weight. 



or 



