S2 HANDY BOOK OF BEES. 



Ayrshire and Perthshire, according to the figures ■we 

 have received, are about on a par -with Northumberland, 

 "Wigtownshire, and Mid-Lothian ; but other parts of Scot- 

 land are represented by figures indicating their honey- 

 harvests as being rather less than that of Northumberland. 



Now, come back to the parish of Carluke, and tell us if 

 you think that the great success of the bee-keepers there 

 is owing altogether to the use of large hives. No, not 

 altogether. A great measure of their success conies from 

 good management. But good management, without large 

 hives, wiU not end in great results, large hives being the 

 foundation,or basis of success, and good management the 

 superstructure. They go hand in hand ; and whenever the 

 intelligent bee-keepers of this country adopt and use larger 

 ones, they wiU be utterly astounded at their former blind- 

 ness in this matter. 



A queen bee lays about 2000 eggs every day in the 

 height of the season. She lays as many in a small hive 

 as she does in a large one : but in a small one there are 

 not empty cells for 500 eggs a-day; and therefore 1500 

 eggs are destroyed in some way every day. The bees 

 must either eat or cast them out. Now, suppose the bees 

 were allowed room to set and hatch all these eggs, how 

 much more numerous the population of the hive would 

 be, how much more honey would be collected, and the 

 swarms or colonies sent off would be better too. 



On former occasions, when we have been trying to make 

 bee-keepers think, we asked them to consider the folly of 

 a farmer's wife expecting large eggs from bantam hens. 

 And we ventured to predict that if Shetland ponies only 

 were used by fanners, agriculture would speedUy collapse 

 — ^nay, it would never have been advanced to its present 

 state, commanding the energies of our best men. Without 

 the muscle and strength of the fine horses of the Suffolk, 



