76 HANDY BOOK OF BEES. 



CHAPTEE XVII. 



HIVES. 



As we have now come to the most important chapter of 

 the book, it is hoped that all readers seeking profit from 

 bee-keeping will try to go through it in the light of com- 

 mon-sense. Bees ever have been, and ever will be, 

 Ijrofitable to their owners, lohen well managed. Most 

 bee-keepers in England are apparently fifty years behind 

 the day ; they have yet to learn the A B C of profitable 

 management. Agriculture has made great advancement 

 during the last half-century, so has horticulture, and they 

 are not going to stand still now. But apiculture, alas ! 

 makes but poor progress, if it moves at all. What bin-- 

 ders it ? We repeat and emphasise this question. What 

 hinders it? When the astronomer discovered and re- 

 ported the fact that the planet Uranus loitered in one 

 part of his orbit, it was an act of common-sense on the 

 part of another man to push his telescope towards that 

 part in order to find out the hindering cause. He was 

 thus successful in discovering another immense jplanet 

 (Neptune) lying far behind, the attractive influence of 

 which is so great as to impede and hinder Uranus in his 

 race or course round the sun. K'ow there is something 

 which huiders the bee-keepers of England from making as 

 much money of their bees as they ought. Twenty-five 

 years ago we told them that all the books that were ever 



