94 AN EASY METHOD - 



ated as to be convenient to their owner as much as any 

 other buildings. We have them fronting towards all the car- 

 dinal points, but can distinguish no difference in their pros 

 perity. 



Young swarms should le scattered away from their parent 

 stock at least eight feet, so as to avoid mistakes frequently 

 made by the bees by entering the old hive, on their return 

 from the fields, before they are well located. But there is 

 another reason of the highest importance, which should not 

 be forgotten by the bee-manager : the old queen goes out 

 ■with the swarm, and stands at the head of the new colony. 

 Now, as her habits of location are formed at the old stand, 

 it is not uncommon for her to make a mistake, on returning 

 from an excursion in the air, and enter the parent hive where 

 she has formerly resided ; and her whole community follow ; 

 ■which so deranges their organization, that perfect harmony 

 is not restored until too .late in the season for new commu- 

 nities to form to any profit to themselves or their owner. If 

 they are not housed, they should be set in a frame, and so 

 covered as to exclude the sun and weather from the hive. 

 As a general rule, bees flourish better in valleys than on the 

 high hills contiguous to them, on account of bearing their 

 burthens home with greater ease descending than ascending 

 with a heavy load. 



In speaking of the different qualities of honey in a former 

 chapter of this Manual, it is proper to remark that every tree 

 and plant yielding it, produces honey of its kind, possessing 

 properties of the same nature of its parent plant, many qua- 

 lities of which may be designated by their complexions or 

 color in the full observing Vermont Hive, and may be sepa- 

 rated off in their several parcels, the uses of which might be 

 of the highest importance in the practice of medicine. Honey 

 collected from poisonous plants is poison, and should never 



