REARING AND FEEDING OF ANIMALS. 495 



boxes can be increased by adding others, always placing the additional boxes 

 nearest the stand. 



This hive possesses the following advantages over the hives in common 

 use: 



I. It prevents the ravages of the miller, whose worm is the bee's most fatal 

 enemy. The miller deposits its eggs in the bee dirt; which in the common 

 hive is constantly accumulating on the bottom. This difficulty is obviated by 

 the slanting bottom of the stand] the dirt falling on this rolls out at D, and the 

 bottom is kept clean. 



II. The cruel practice of destroying the bees is entirely superseded by the use 

 of this hive. By blowing a small quantity of tobacco smoke into the upper box, 

 through a hole made for that purpose, the bees will descend into the box next 

 below; the upper box can be removed; fifty or sixty pounds of honey, entirely 

 free from dead bees and dirt, can thus be taken from a good hive; and enough 

 remain to winter the bees without any risk of loss. 



III. The sicarming of the bees can be regulated by the rise of this hive, and 

 the new swarms taken at the season of the year when they are most valuable. 

 The bees can be prevented swarming again for the season, by additional boxes 

 as the young bees increase. 



IV. Tkis hive is cheap and requires but little mechanical knowledge in its 

 construction; any farmer with ordinary tools can make it from the above de- 

 scription. 



The feeding of bees is generally deferred until winter or 

 spring. This is very wrong a more erroneous practice can- 

 not be pursued. Hives should be examined towards the close 

 of September, and the utmost attention paid to securing these 

 little animals with a sufficiency of provender during the win- 

 ter. A full supply should always be left them, for without an 

 abundance of food during the months they are affected by cold, 

 they are very liable to perish. All hives should be weighed, 

 and the weight marked on them before the bees are hived in 

 them. Thus, by weighing a stock as soon as frost has killed 

 the blossoms in the fall, the apiarian will be enabled to form a 

 just estimate of their necessities. When bees are fed in the 

 fall they will carry up and deposite their food in such a man- 

 ner as will be convenient for them in the winter. 



The diseases to which the bee is subject are few and unim- 

 portant, if they are regularly and properly attended to. They 

 are excessively annoyed at times by insects, the principal of 

 which is the bee-moth, a native of Europe, which has strangely 

 found its way into this country and become naturalized among 

 us. It is a vile pest a deadly enemy to the bee, and if not 

 closely watched and carefully destroyed by the hand of man, 

 the hive will perish. No certain means of arresting his ravages 

 have as yet been discovered. When first appearing they re- 

 semble a white worm or maggot, with a reddish crusted head; 

 size various the largest about the size of the barrel of a turkey 

 quill; sixteen short legs tapering each way from the centre of 

 their bodies. They wind themselves, like the silk-worm, into 

 a cocoon, and pass the dormant or chrysalis state of their ex- 

 istence, and in a few days come out of their silken cases perfect 

 36* 



