238 THE BEE-KEEPER’S MANUAL. 
parts of our practice, we cannot do better than 
follow the guidance of nature. On a fine day, with 
the thermometer at or not much below 50° (and sueh 
days are not of unfrequent occurrence in winter), the 
bees avail themselves of it, sallying forth in evident 
delight, with certain advantage to health and clean- 
liness; for they void nothing in the hive, unless 
compelled by long necessity or by cold. This is the 
point at which disease commences: indced the reten- 
tion of their feces sometimes occasions death. Their 
impatience of confinement is excessive, and increases 
as the season advances, so that they will leave the 
hive at a lower temperature alter Christmas than 
before. But in thus advocating the principle of 
liberty, [ am not insensible to the evil it may bring 
with it, if not cuarded against. The most dis- 
astrous consequences follow the fight of bees on a 
frosty day, when the gleams and deceitful warmth of 
a winter sun reach their domicile, particularly with 
snow on the ground, the elare of which lures them 
out to destruction, for they soon fall down to rise 
no more. ‘The remedy for this is 
the screening of the hive in some 
way from its effects; and it should 
be done as soon as winter actually 
sets in. At the same time it is 
important that no obstruction to the 
free passage of air be presented, or 
dysentery among the bees would be 
the certain consequence. Where the 
hives stand singly, I have always seen the ad- 
vantage of fixing before each a wooden screen, 
