46 HANDY BOOK OF BEES. 



is sometMng which hinders many bee-keepers from making 

 as much honey, or money, as they ought. More than 

 twenty-five years ago we told them that all the books that 

 were ever written, and all that we could possibly say, 

 would never put them on the highroad to the successful 

 and profitable management of bees unless they kept large 

 hives. 



We are well aware that it is a diflS.cult matter to remove 

 prejudices of long standing. When water cuts its own 

 channel it runs along it, year after year. To a large extent 

 bee-keeping has done the same. We are glad to see and 

 know that a great alteration is now taking place. The 

 adoption of large hives by many bee-keepers has enabled 

 them to double their profits, and given a great impulse to 

 bee-keeping in their neighbourhoods and counties. The 

 use of such hives by one or two bee-masters of intelligence 

 and abUity in every county would, in process of time, 

 revolutionise apiculture throughout England. 



Having far more confidence in the power of facts and 

 figures than in that of logic and argumentation for con- 

 vincing men that large hives, well managed, are incompar- 

 ably better than small ones, we have of late recorded the 

 results of bee-keeping in our native village, where hives 

 are of considerable dimensions. These records have 

 abeady stimulated the attention ' of many apiarians 

 throughout the country, and their pluck and energy 

 are now in full play. If the weight of Carluke swarms 

 rise up to 100 lb., 130 lb., and 150 lb. each, according 

 to the season, why should not swarms elsewhere rise 

 to the same weight? In 1864, the weights of an old 

 hive and its two swarms, belonging to Mr Eobert Eeid, 

 Carluke, were published in the ' Hamilton Advertiser ' of 

 that year : — 



