LOCATION OF HIVES. 101 
Place an alighting board in front of each hive. Get 
a board about eighteen inches wide and two feet long. 
Nail on some cleats at each end, to prevent warping. 
Rest one edge of this board on the ground, the other 
edge on the end of the platform in front of the hive. 
By this arrangement many bees will be saved in early 
spring which would otherwise be lost. By the old plan 
of setting the hives two or three feet high, with no 
alighting board, and a free draught of wind beneath, the 
loss of bees was very great, especially in the early spring 
months, on chilly afternoons following a very warm fore- 
noon. The bees, returning loaded with pollen, are 
unable to reach a hive placed so high, and are blown to 
the earth by the hundreds, and becoming chilled, die. 
The death of a few bees is a great loss in early spring, 
for they are required in keeping up the animal heat in 
the hive to forward breeding. 
The location of bees as here recommended will be 
found greatly superior to any other, for other reasons 
than those mentioned, and which are too numerous to 
herein specify. 
Every one who commences bee-keeping should ever 
remember, that bees always mark the location of their 
hives. The young bee the first time it leaves the hive 
invariably does this. The same is true with all swarms, 
in the first flight in early spring, after being dormant in 
the hive through the winter months. 
In marking the location, the bee comes from the hive, 
and at the entrance, rises on the wing. Turning its 
