158 THE BEE-KEEPER’S MANUAL. 
site for an apiary, if fulfilling the primary conditions. 
The best apiary we know of is in a stable, which, 
being no longer required for its ostensible purpose, was 
slightly altered for the bees. One of the walls facing 
the south-east was pierced with holes at proper 
distances to suit a row of hives. <A shelf was placed 
against this wall, the hives were put in their places, 
and the bees went on with their work happily, and it 
was a rare occurrence to find a bee in the house itself 
—they were too particular to keep to their own 
porches and halls. The windows on the north-east 
side afforded abundant light for the bee-keeper’s 
operations; the stall occupied only a width of three 
feet at most on the wall appropriated to it, and the 
other part of the place was used as a tool-house, and 
a store for roots. ‘The best apiary !’ yes, not for any 
outward elegances, but for the glorious work that was 
done, for the owner knew how to handle bees, the 
country was rich in bee pasture, and great honey 
harvests were sent from it, and were eagerly 
purchased at the rate of half-a-crown per pound. 
‘Thou shalt not put thy trust in horses,’ said the 
bee-master one day as he lifted a box of honey 
weighing twenty-five pounds, and said that it was one 
of the purest samples his little workers had ever given 
him. 
‘Next as to the apiary itself. Bees thrive better 
sheltered than exposed, but a free circulation of air 
about the hives is of great importance. In des- 
perately hot weather, the combs will melt and fall 
within the hives if they become over-heated, and a free 
ventilation is a grand cooling agent, provided at the 
