BEE-FARMING. 3 



of lOo/. annually is not a mere myth, a something impos- 

 sible, but is feasible for any one at all industrious and 

 painstaking. 



Why, then, do so many farmers' wives and cottagers 

 after a few years' experience of bee-keeping give it up in 

 despair ? " Oh ! they don't pay." Many good reasons 

 can be assigned why they do not pay. Here is one cause 

 of failure : cottagers still use the common straw skep, all 

 made of one shape and size, and exactly similar in ap- 

 pearance. These hives, sometimes to the number of a 

 dozen, are arranged side by side, in a row, either exposed 

 on a bench, or sheltered by the old-fashioned wooden bee- 

 house. The young virgin queen, when out upon her 

 wedding flight, in returning mistakes the hive, enters that 

 in most cases next to her own, and is not allowed again to 

 escape, but is invariably in a few minutes carried forth 

 dead. In the spring the cottar's wife, when inspecting 

 her apiary, expecting to see each stock flourishing, is 

 astonished to find one half dead, owing in nine cases out 

 of ten to the above cause. 



But there are other things practised by cottagers 

 which must always lead to failure. They often reply to 

 the above question, " When the hives are taken up in 

 the autumn we never find more than five or six pounds 

 ■of honey in each, and it is not worth our while to bother 

 with them, for in the swarming time we are compelled to 

 watch incessantly, and the time thus lost is never repaid 

 by our stocks." This results from the hives being too 

 small. 



I have each autumn for several years driven a great 

 number of stocks for my neighbours, for the sake of the 

 ibees, with which I have improved my weak colonies, or 

 built up new stocks, and I find the majority of the hives 



I have saved from the brimstone match have averaged 



II inches by 8 inches (inside measurement). Now, what 



B 2 



