Two or three crosses of wood are fixed 

 inside the gums, to support the combs. 



" On the 1st of April (the 12th of the 

 same month, according to our calendar), 

 the hives are taken out of the stebuick. 

 Then the combs are pruned to the first 

 cross, to get wax, and the colonies are 

 brought to their place on the ground. 

 The bees then can find food on the ha- 

 zel brush, the alders, and soon after on 

 the fruit trees ; and in succession on 

 the rape, the Hovers in the pastures, the 

 linden, the white clover; in August o 

 the buckwheat and the weeds in the 

 fields, where they find a continual suc- 

 cession of flowers, extending as far as 

 the eye can reach. 



"The estates are very large; that of 

 Count Bouteurlin being 20 miles in 

 width by 30 in length, and there are no 

 waste places, all is fields, woods, or im- 

 mense meadows. There are several 

 manufactories of bread, and two of beet 

 suxar. These last manufactories give 

 a net income of 15,000 roubles each, or 

 $7,500. 



"On about the 1st of September, ac- 

 cording to the weather, the collecting 

 in ' of honey is made. The hives are 

 placed over a hole dug in the ground, 

 filled with straw, which is kindled. The 

 bees are thus smothered, and part of the 

 •combs fall down half-melted. Then all 

 the contents of the gums are put in 

 large tubs and brought to the house, to 

 be sold to Jews. 



" When the crop of honey is done, the 

 gums selected to re-stock the apiary are 

 lowered into the stebuick. The stebuick 

 is a well about 30 to 36 feet deep, and 3 

 feet square. The gums, which on the 

 ground were placed in a vertical posi- 

 tion, are piled horizontally in the 

 stebuick, their bottoms remaining open. 

 The well is then covered with two or 

 three boards, over about two-thirds of 

 its opening. Over these boards a kind 

 of straw hut is erected, whose door re- 

 mains half-open. The bees stay in the 

 stebuick for about 6 months. On the 

 15th of March the door is entirely shut 

 up, to prevent the sun from warming 

 the bees, which would become uneasy 

 and fly out. Some colonies placed in the 

 stebuick have only 15 lbs. of honey, 

 while others have as much as 40 lbs. 

 The owners do not care if their losses 

 amount to 40 or 50 per cent., and they 

 are unable to say whether the mortality 

 is greatest at the top or at the bottom of 

 the stebuick. 



" They cannot believe that bees may 

 starve ; yet they think that 15 lbs. of 

 honey is too little. 



" As you see, there is something to be 

 dene to mend such a disorder, even be- 

 fore thinking of introducing greater 



improvements. The gums are suffi- 

 ciently large, the more so, because some 

 are placed over holes dug in the ground 

 to give room to the bees for lengthening 

 their combs. The blooming of the rape 

 begins here on the first of June; ten 

 days after the bees begin to swarm. 

 These first swarms make 8 or 10 inches 

 of worker comb, then some drone comb, 

 then worker comb again. The result is, 

 that bees here rear a great number of 

 drones. During the blooming of buck- 

 wheat, the colonies which have not yet 

 swarmed and the young colonies give 

 swarms, which, in the buckwheat blos- 

 soms, find honey enough to make combs 

 and for winter stores. 



" The queens that I have brought with 

 me arrived in first rate condition, and 

 most of them would have endured an- 

 other 20 days' trip. 1 was astonished at 

 the small amount of honey consumed. 

 I found one small box where no more 

 than 10 cells were emptied of honey; 

 the others were untouched. 



" The sting of the Russian bee is more 

 painful than that of the Italian ; but 

 these bees are more lazy than the Italian 

 bees. They alight before stinging, and 

 so give time to drive them away and 

 avoid being stung. The Dutch are right 

 in changing their bees for the Italians, 

 was it not for other cause than the color. 



" I have made 20 transfers from gums 

 to movable-frame hives, in the garden 

 of the house. In another apiary I had 

 to examine 4 or 5 gums to obtain combs 

 for a movable-frame hive, in order to 

 get the necessarv brood, and to leave 

 enough to keep the colonies alive. 



" To get the wax out of the combs 

 they do not press it. They put the bag 

 containing the melted combs between 

 two boards, and press it by means of 

 wooden wedges. There remains in the 

 press 20 or 30 per cent, of wax, and 

 even more, for sometimes the boards 

 are too narrow, and the bag is pressed 

 only in part. Thus they lose the greater 

 part of the wax. The wax is worth here 

 about 5 francs the kilogram (about 

 50 cents a pound). It is run in earthen 

 moulds. The peasants buy it to make 

 their own candles, to be sure that it is 

 pure. They offer these candles in great 

 quantities to the churches, for the sal- 

 vation of the holy genealogy of the im- 

 perial family, for which they pray 12 

 times in their religious ceremonies, re- 

 citing 12 times, with the greatest 

 respect, all the 60 or 70 names and titles, 

 crossing themselves and striking the 

 earth with their foreheads. 



" In short, this country is first rate for 

 bee-keeping. The bees, on account of 

 the cool mornings and evenings, work 

 only from 9 in the morning till 4 in the 



