24 ITALIAN BEE KEEPING. 



honey taken. Head each page with the description of one hive ; state 

 the nnmber of the hive, the weight of bees when first taken, if a 

 natural swarm, the date when the swarm was placed in hive, and 

 the number of the parent hive. The rest of the page wiU gradually 

 be fiUed by recording, time by time, the dates and weight each time 

 honey is taken. Then you will at a glance see in which hives the 

 bees have accumulated most honey ; and at the end of the season, 

 by adding up the weights taken daily, which should be recorded in 

 the columns, you will see how much each hive has yielded. 



Winter Feeding of Bees. 



From a strong hive of bees you may occasionally, say in May or 

 June, when you find a frame full of honey sealed up by the bees for 

 winter use, take it, and, instead of opening the cells and extracting 

 the honey by help of the smielatore, put away these frames sealed 

 np as they are, and when winter comes, should you find a weak 

 stock wanting honey, give one of these full frames. In this way 

 you will avoid exposing the weak stock to the attacks of neighbour- 

 ing hives of bees, who would scent food if otherwise administered to 

 an individual hive. 



If spring comes late, and many of the hives want feeding, then, 

 having boiled 21b. of sugar in a pint of water with a teaspoonfnl of 

 rum, you may place this food in a large dish some yards distant 

 from any of the hives.* 



Storing Empty Frames. 



As winter passes, whenever you find frames from which the bees 

 have taken all the honey, and which are almost abandoned, take 

 them out and store them in a box, packing them with dry sand to 

 prevent moths from entering and destroying them. If moths have 

 already begun their work, then fumigate the combs with sulphur, or 

 cut away the infested part of the combs. 



When in this way you take out an empty comb, close the hive 

 together to fill up the gap and keep the bees snug. When spring 

 comes you can easily elongate the hive, and put back the frames 

 with empty comb, which the bees will then soon fill with honey. 



* T^S:p^'i proposed of feeding outside the hive is not in favour with 

 Enghsh tee keepers, wlio find that it leads to fighting and injurious ex- 

 citement of an the hives in the apiaiy. A much tetter plan is to remove 

 a frame of empty comb, place it flat on a tatle, and flU all the cells on 

 one side with syrup ; it can then he replaced in the hive, when the Bvrui) 

 wOl be immediately stored in the centre frames by the bees. This onera- 

 tion may be repeated as often as required.— W B T 



