oS 



fJiACXlCAi. BJiJS-KEEPlNG. 



I'm. 41. Bee House (Bace). 



hues. V.'e would also recommend a leafy twig to be fixed over the alight- 

 ing board of any stock that has swarmed until the young queen is known 

 to have mated. Mr. Hooker, and Mr. Neighbour both make thin hives 



to slip in and out of that 

 which may be called a bee 

 house for one colony, thus 

 permitting of the moving of 

 stocks from point to point, 

 as occasion may require, 

 without altering the arrange- 

 ment to the eye. 



Pastwrage is good gene- 

 rally where orchard and 

 forest trees abound, or in 

 the neighbourhood of seed 

 farms, or where white clover 

 is cultivated, or wild flowers 

 and heath are abundant, and indifferent where much of the land is 

 grazed — ^by sheep especially. A variety of honey-producing plants and 

 trees is preferable to a great extent of one kind— securing succession, 

 and prolonging the gathering season. The common idea that flower 

 gardens are the bees' cornucopiEe, is totally erroneous, although it 

 is true that stocks usually do fairly well where there is much villa 

 gardening, because we here get variety, and conseqnent succession. 

 Planting a few flowers near hives is scarcely more likely to increase the 

 weight in our supers than growing wheat in a flower pot is likely to 

 cheapen bread ; but this is not saying that scattering seeds of such good 

 honey plants as borage along the hedgerows near the apiary is not both 

 wise and useful. The plants which grow close to the hive door are not 

 much visited, as the instinct of the bee rightly leads it farther afield. If 

 each seeker applied to the blooms nearest home, how much time would 

 be lost in dipping into nectaries already rifled of their sweets ! 



Spring cmd Autumn Feeding are most important items of management. 

 Strong stocks are not altogether without brood for about ten months 

 during the year, but in the early spring the cautious insects, left 

 to themselves, do not venture upon raising any considerable number of 

 young bees until supplies come in in sufficient amount to warrant that 

 heavy expenditure which rapid breeding demands. The supply once 

 established breeding begins apace, but before the increasing circles of 

 eggs can be converted into gathering bees a month must elapse, since the 

 first few days of the newly hatched workers are passed within the hive. 

 During this period the few bees that can be spared from a comparatively 

 thin population, which has the duty of nursing and keeping warm a large 

 number of grubs, can only most imperfectly take advantage- of the 



