BEE. 



283 



in the spring, when the flowers begin to open, 

 and there is plenty before them. As the bees, in 

 returning from their excursions, are heavily bur- 

 dened and fatigued, great care is taken that there 

 shall be nothing near the hives to obstruct their 

 descent, which is not in a perpendicular but an 

 oblique direction. 



In Greece, hives are made of willow or osiers, 

 fastened like our common dust baskets, wide at the 

 tops, and narrow at the bottom, or plastered with 

 clay or loam within and without. They are set 

 the wide end upwards. The tops, being covered 

 with broad flat sticks, are also covered with clay 

 at the top ; and, to secure them from the weather, 

 they cover them with a tuft of straw, as we do. 

 Along each of these sticks the bees fasten their 

 combs, so that a comb may be taken out whole, 

 without the least bruising, and with the greatest 

 ease imaginable. To increase them, in spring time, 

 that is, in March or April until the beginning of 

 May, they divide them, just separating the sticks, 

 on which the combs and bees are fastened, from 

 one another with a knife ; so taking out the first 

 comb and bees together on each side, they put 

 them into another basket in the same order as they 

 were taken out, until they have equally divided 

 them. After this, when they were both again 

 accommodated with sticks and plaster, they set 

 in the new basket in the place of the old one, and 

 '.he old one in some new pkce. And all this they 

 do in the middle of the day, at such a time as the 

 greatest part of the bees are abroad, who, at their 

 coming home, without much difficulty, by this 

 means divide themselves equally. This device 

 hinders them from swarming and flying away. In 

 August they take out their honey, which they do 

 in the daytime also, while they are abroad ; the 

 bees being thereby, they say, disturbed least; at 

 which time they take out the combs laden with 

 honey as before, that is, beginning at each outside, 

 and so taking away until they have left out such a 

 quantity of combs in the middle as they judge will 

 be sufficient to maintain the bees in winter ; sweep- 

 ing those bees that are on the combs they take out 

 into the basket again, and again covering it with 

 new sticks and plaster. It has been doubted whe- 

 ther, in England, the like quantity of honey may 

 be taken without endangering a scarcity in winter, 

 the bees probably not collecting so much. Let 

 less, therefore, be taken away. By these means, 

 it has been said, the great increase and multiplying 

 of the stock would soon equalize and far exceed 

 the little profit we make by destroying them. 



In the United States of America, honey is largely 

 used, and the culture of bees is therefore prose- 

 cuted to a much greater extent than in this coun- 

 try. The hives there are generally made of wood, 

 and their usual size about ten or twelve inches 

 square. A common board of an inch in thickness 

 is generally used ; and although some persons pre- 

 fer two-inch plank, hives constructed in this man- 

 ner are unnecessarily heavy and clumsy. Some 

 bee-keepers erect sheds fronting the east or south- 

 east ; but excepting the protection they afford from 

 the heat of the mid-day sun, but little advantage 

 is considered to arise from sheds of this description. 

 The more common mode therefore is, to drive three 

 posts into the ground, leaving them about thirty 

 inches above the surface ; and upon the flat tops of 

 these a board is securely fixed. On this board or 

 platform, which ought to have a slight inclination 

 towards the front, the hive is placed, a groove of 



sufficient depth to carry off the water having been 

 previously cut in the platform. Besides this, there 

 is also another board of similar dimensions placed 

 upon the top of each hive, which answers the two- 

 fold purpose of screening them from the meridian 

 sun, as well as from much of the rain that chances 

 to fall. The cover may be screwed to the hive 

 with a couple of screws, or held in its position by 

 placing thereon a flat stone, which may be removed 

 at pleasure, It is by no means unusual to see 

 thirty or even sixty bee-hives, in an orchard or bee- 

 garden, placed upon posts as above described, in 

 many parts of the country. This is decidedly the 

 best method of keeping bees for those who are in 

 the habit of "driving" them when they take the 

 honey ; for the old-fashioned and barbarous plan of 

 destroying the bees is very seldom resorted to. In 

 this system of " driving," great facility is found to 

 exist in the common square wooden hive ; for since 

 the mouths or openings of the new hives are quite 

 regular, and of precisely the same dimensions as the 

 old one, the openings of the two exactly corres- 

 pond to each other. 



The process of "driving" is exceedingly simple. 

 After a sliding piece of thin board (fixed there for 

 that purpose) has been moved forward so as to shut 

 up the small opening which admits the bees into 

 the hive, the hive is then moved gently from off 

 the board upon which it stood, and carefully placed 

 upon an empty hive, which must be in readiness, 

 mouth upwards, to receive it; the sides of each 

 exactly corresponding. A cord, or strap, which 

 had been previously placed upon the ground, and 

 under the empty hive, must be passed upwards 

 over the one containing the bees, binding the two 

 hives together as securely as possible, which may 

 be easily effected where they are made in the man- 

 ner and of the materials here described. This 

 having been accomplished, the position of the hives 

 must then be reversed, so that the full one may be 

 underneath and its mouth upwards. It must then 

 be struck smartly, but not forcibly, with some 

 hard body (a short stick will answer very well), 

 and after a few minutes' hammering the bees will 

 have ascended into the empty hive. The fasten- 

 ing must then be quickly undone, and the new hive 

 removed gently to the platform where the old one 

 stood. The whole business, if judiciously man- 

 aged, will not occupy more than a few minutes; 

 and there will not probably remain behind more 

 than a score or two of bees, which may be de- 

 stroyed in the usual way, or else suffered to escape. 

 There will at first be great turmoil and confusion 

 amongst the bees in their new abode, so that it is 

 generally considered prudent not to withdraw the 

 slide that shuts them in until the middle or after- 

 noon of the following day. In most cases they 

 prudently begin to work as soon as they find them- 

 selves robbed of their store of sweets ; but occa- 

 sionally they continue dissatisfied for some time, 

 and attack the neighbouring hives that have been 

 undisturbed. The customary plan is to take away 

 the whole of the honey in the hive from which the 

 bees have been expelled, provided the season be 

 sufficiently early to admit of their laying up an 

 ample stock for the ensuing winter ; but some- 

 times, when the swarm is not very strong, or when 

 the summer is considerably advanced, only alter- 

 nate courses of the honeycomb are extracted ; in 

 which case the bees have to be " driven " back 

 into their old quarters. This, however, is but an 

 indifferent plan ; for since the weather generally is 



