REPOilTS. 45 



turned over upon the table or the cloth, with one corner of it 

 resting upon tlie stick above noticed. If the hive is sweet, 

 usually your work is done, until at nightfall you replace them in 

 your apiary, or should they not be favorably situated for this 

 mode of hiving, with a wing, you can carefully brush them into 

 the hive; or yet again, you may suspend the hive just above 

 them, and if you choose throw a clean linen cloth over them. 

 If the hive pleases them, they will soon take possession without 

 much more strategy on your part. Bees will seldom leave a 

 sweet hive, when they are once jjlaced therein with their queen, 

 and though better modes for hiving bees may be devised, none 

 has ever come to our notice better then the one now expressed. 



ENEMIES OF EEES. 



As the ocean does not always furnish a calm, smooth sea; aa 

 the weather on shore is not uniformly fine and fair, so in bee 

 culture, all is not always fair weather. The apiarist is liable to 

 losses from various sources, — some of which we can, and some of 

 which we cannot provide against. Diseases, more or less preju- 

 dicial to the prosperity of the bees, come upon them. The bee- 

 moth — that pest of the hive, infests this. Ants are sometimes 

 found therein, mice not unfrequently intrude. Birds catch them, 

 while on the wing. Toads, frogs, lizards and snakes consume 

 them when within their reach. The hornet and other insects 

 overpower them by their superior strength. The spider weaves 

 for them his slender net. Cold winds, sudden showers, and the 

 fleecy snows prevent their safe return to the hive, or the robber- 

 bee, and the bee-robber tak^ advantage of them while off their 

 guard, or of the secrecy of the rightto do their foul deeds. Thus 

 against these and other foes, are the bee and the bee-keeper 

 called to contend ; and while the latter may not always succeed, 

 watchful, though he may be ; yet ifl the main, here it will be 

 still true, "labor omnia vnncit " — labor conquerors all things. 



