I4O LIBERTY AND A LIVING. 



appeared on a Sunday, and I found it without 

 difficulty hanging to a small cedar tree. I put 

 the cover on an old soap-box, and bored two 

 or three holes in one side of the box with an 

 auger. Then I put it on the ground near my 

 first hive, carefully cut off the small limb upon 

 which my swarm had clustered, and laid the 

 black mass down in front of the soap-box, with- 

 in an inch or two of the auger holes. The bees 

 made a straight line for these openings, tum- 

 bling over one another in their anxiety to get 

 in. In half an hour the last one entered. The 

 next day I bought an empty hive in town. 

 Upon opening my soap-box to get the bees 

 into the new hive, which I did within forty-eight 

 hours, I found that they had already begun 

 making comb and the queen had begun to lay 

 eggs. I made the transfer without difficulty. 

 During this second year my two hives gave me 

 between them forty-seven pounds of honey in 

 boxes, and thirty-two pounds of honey which I 

 cut from the frames. I found that the best 

 honey season in that part of the country was 

 not in the spring, but in the late autumn, the 

 golden-rod affording most of the supply. At 

 the close of the second summer I prepared the 



