120 HANDY BOOK OF BEES. 



can see whether any cells have lids. If the cells are all 

 apparently empty, the hives are clean, and eligible to be 

 kept another year. If some cells have lids covering them, 

 at once proceed to drive the bees out of such hives into 

 empty ones. If this happen at midsummer, the bees will 

 do better in every way in clean hives. If the diseased 

 brood be discovered in autumn, drive the bees out and 

 unite them to other hives. There can be no prosperity in 

 a hive containing diseased and stinking brood ;' and to the 

 bee-master there will come from it loss and disappoint- 

 ment instead of profit. 



CHAPTEE XXVIII. 



THE ENEMIES OP BEES. 



It has been said that swallows, sparrows, tomtits, frogs, 

 and hens eat bees. We have never seen them do so, or 

 even attempt to seize a living one ; we are therefore scep- 

 tical on this point. 



Mice often rob bees of their honey in the winter 

 months when they are sitting quiet and in little compass. 

 Indeed mice sometimes take up their winter quarters in a 

 bee-hive, which they find comfortable every way. Mice 

 dare not enter hives in summer when bees cover all their 

 combs. Experienced men contract the doors of their 

 hives about the middle of September, and so contract them 

 that mice cannot enter. The doors of our hives are about 

 4 inches long and 1 inch high. We cut pieces of wood 

 to fit the doors, in each of which we cut a small doorway 

 about 1 inch in length and one-quarter of an inch in 

 height. The small doorways prevent the mice from going 

 into hives, and allow the bees ample room for all the 



