THE APIARY, 141 



perhaps a little less, and no place for the bees to enter 

 but at the bottom, and as many hives crowded on as 

 it will hold, I no longer wonder that "bee-keeping is 

 all in luck ;" the wonder is how they keep them at all. 

 Yet it proves that, with proper management, it is not 

 so very precarious after all. 



The necessary protection from the weather, for 

 stocks, is a subject that I have taken some pains to as- 

 eertain ; the result has been, that the cheapest cover- 

 ing is just as good as any ; something to keep the rain 

 and rays of the sun from the top, is all sufficient. 

 Covers for each hive, like the bottom-board, should be 

 separate, and some larger than the top. 



UTILITY OF BEE-HODSKS DOUBTED. 



I have used bee-houses, but they will not pay, and 

 are also discarded. They are objectionable on account 

 of pieventing a free circulation of air ; also, it is difficult 

 to construct them, so that the sun may strike the hives 

 both in the morning and afternoon ; which in spring 

 is very essential. If they front the south, the middle 

 of "the day is the jnly time when the sun can reach 

 all the hives at once ; this is just when they need it 

 least ; and in hot weather, , sometimes injurious by 

 melting the combs. But when the hives stand far 

 enough apart, on my plan, it is very easily arranged 

 to have the sun strike the hive in the morning and 

 afternoon, and shaded from ten o'clock, till two or three, 

 in hot weather. 



, ..Notwithstanding our prodigality in building a splen- 

 did bee-housej we think of economy when we come to 



