APIS MELLIFICA. 



hives should be examined, and, with a piece of hoop-iron or 

 other suitable implement, the stand should be well scraped 

 immediately under them, and especially around their inner 

 edge. The whole secret of keeping off the moth, that com- 

 mits great devastation among bees, consists in keeping the 

 hives free from the larva or maggot of these troublesome in- 

 sects. After this scraping operation, the hive should be raised 

 not quite half an inch from the stand, and the cleaning be 

 repeated every three or four days, especially if there be any 

 appearance of web. In winter the hive should be let down 

 upon the stand, as a security against mice and other depreda- 

 tors upon the honey. An entrance should be made for the 

 bees, by cutting a perpendicular slit one eighth of an inch wide 

 and two and a half inches long, situated about half way 

 from the bottom. Just under this a small shelf is to be placed, 

 as a resting-place for the bees in going out and returning to 

 the hive. The bees soon get accustomed to this new place 

 of entrance. It is said this plan has often proved an effect- 

 ual security against the worm, after every other remedy has 

 failed. 



As bees, like most other winged insects, are annuals, or go 

 through the whole essential economy of their existence within 

 the year, the history of a year's existence includes the whole, 

 and it is only requisite to choose the point in the circle at 

 which to commence. As some individuals, however, always 

 survive the winter and begin to breed only in spring, forming 

 a colony which quits the parent stock, we shall begin with 

 this colony and trace their operations through the year. 



The first young swarm is generally sent off about the end 

 of June. The migration seems to depend on want of room 

 in the mother hive, not on an instinctive desire of change on 

 the part of the brood ; for if there be space for the operations 

 of fhe increasing community, bees will not naturally swarm, 

 and skilful apiarians sometimes take advantage of this cir- 

 cumstance, and, by making successive additions to the hive, 

 retain the whole year's increase in the same building. The 

 swarm consists in general of about six or seven thousand 

 individuals, of which about one thirtieth part are males, the 

 rest females, and of these one only, for the most part, is pro- 

 lific, and she is called the queen. Her body is longer than that 

 of either the drone or worker, her colors are brighter and purer 

 and generally of a darker shade, the transverse bands across 



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