OF MANAGING BEES. 29 



shaded Jjy thdr own branches and those of other trees. 

 Special care should be exercised by the apiarian, that the 

 rays of the sun are excluded from the hive. Animal heat in 

 the hive is absolutely necessary to enable the bees to malie 

 comb ; but pent heat is fatal both to the lives of the bees 

 and their worlj. An umbrella should be held over the hive 

 during hiving the bees in a hot day, unless it can be other- 

 wise shaded. 



No mconvenience will result from letting the bees into 

 the drawers, in first hiving them, if the colony is so large 

 that a majority of them cannot occupy one of them. 



Bees commence making their comb where the largest pro- 

 portion of the eolony have sufficient room to work. Now, 

 if a majority of the bees can get into one of the drawers, 

 they will begin to make comb there, for they always com- 

 mence at the top and work down ; of course they will raise 

 young bees, and deposit bread in the drawer. If the swarm 

 is so large as to be unable to work in the drawer, there is 

 no danger of letting thenTin ; and yet, if the swarm is very 

 large, there may be danger, if the bees are prevented from 

 entering the drawer, because they sometimes go off for want 

 of room in the lower apartment. We therefore recommend 

 letting the bees into the drawers at the time of hiving thfem, 

 in all cases, except when the swarms are small — say under 

 seven pounds — then the rule should be strictly adhered to. 

 And here it should be remarked that the manager of bees is 

 very liable to malte a mistake in estimating the size of his 

 swarm, unless they are weighed ; for they will occupy at 

 least one quarter more space in a very hot day tlian when 

 the weather is cool. Notwithstanding we have hived hun- 

 dreds of swarms, yet we never lost a single swarm, by 

 flight to the woods, that we hived ourselves ; yet we hear of 

 some losses of this kind, which renders these reqnarks neoes- 

 ' 3* 



