26 



BEE 



BEE 



to prevent mice, snails, and other 

 intruders. These ahghting boards 

 are sometimes painted of different 

 colours, to direct each bee to his 

 home more readily. — A long shelv- 

 ing board should be placed over 

 the alighting boards, to shelter the 

 bees in a rainy time. It should 

 be twelve inches wide, and placed 

 nine inches above the mouths of 

 the hives." 



Broom, clover, and mustard, 

 are said to afford bees an excel- 

 lent pasture ; and they appear 

 very fond of the flowers of pop- 

 pies. Gardens, and any places 

 where flowers abound, and espe- 

 cially where there is a succession 

 of flowers through the greater part 

 of the year, are most favourable 

 to them : For they undoubtedly 

 draw the principal part of their 

 honey from the nectaria of -flow- 

 ers. Fields of buck-wheat are 

 good, as they continue in bloom 

 fora long time. In Germany they 

 move their bee hives in boats (o 

 the neighbouring fields of buck 

 wheat. 



Bees are wont to send out new 

 swarms in iVlay and June. Much 

 has boen written concerning the 

 management of them on these oc- 

 casions. But the new mode of 

 managing them renders all this 

 less necessary. It is this : Let the 

 bee house be made so tall as to 

 admit three tier of hives, or boxes, 

 one above another. The hives 

 should not be tall, but rather 

 broad and short, that they may 

 take up less room. A hive of 

 such dimensions as to be equal 

 to a cube of 13 inches, will be 

 sufticiently capacious, Mr. Thor- 



ley directs that they should be 10 

 inches deep, and from 12 to 14 

 inches broad in the inside. If 

 hives be made larger, the swarms 

 will not multiply so fast. An un- 

 der hive is made with a round hole 

 through the top of three inches 

 diameter, covered with a sliding 

 shutter. Each hive or box should 

 have a passage at the bottom for 

 the bees to pass in and out, four 

 or five inches long, and about one 

 third of an inch deep. One of 

 these hives should be placed di- 

 rectly under an inhabited hive, 

 before they are disposed to send 

 out a new swarm. This will pre- 

 vent the going out of a swarm, and 

 save trouble and watching: For 

 instead of swarming, when the 

 upper hive is full, they will build 

 and deposit their honey in the 

 one that is below : and when 

 that is full, let them find another 

 beneath it; they will take pos- 

 session of the lowermost. It is 

 their manner always to begin at 

 the top, and build downwards. 



When the top hive is well filled 

 with honey, it may be discovered 

 by lifting it, or more accurately 

 by weighing it gently with a steel- 

 yard, in a cool morning, when the 

 bees are stiff, and not apt to come 

 out. 



When a hive is taken up, there 

 is no need of murdering the poor 

 insects with fire and brimstone, as 

 has been the usual practice. Only 

 drive in the shutter, and run a thin 

 long knife round, to part it from 

 that which is below it ; slip the 

 hive off upon a smooth piece of 

 board, or slide the board under, 

 and carry the hive into your 



