BEE-FARMER'S HIVE. ii 



the first fortnight feed them liberally with syrup, which 

 they will rapidly convert into wax for the combs : you will 

 find the bees will repay this kindness with interest. 



When the bees have filled the frames with comb, the 

 queen will reserve the middle, or those frames situated in 

 the centre of the hive, for breeding purposes, and the bees 

 engaged in storing honey will make use of the frames on 

 the outside; the queen might possibly breed in the outer 

 frames, but I have not known of such a case in my ex- 

 perience. I have the top board on my hives made in three 

 parts, so that I can remove the outer boards without 

 disturbing the whole stock, or interfering with the breeding 

 arrangements in the centre of the hive. 



But a chief point is the size of the hive. Ask any bee- 

 keeper who has had in use for any length of time the 

 ordinary size of Woodbury hives — they all have a pitiful 

 tale to tell: " Our bees do not seem to do well, we rarely 

 see a swarm, and we gather but a small amount of honey 

 from them." At this hour, from one end of England to 

 the other, we hear only the cry — " Oh ! bee-keeping is a 

 poor paying game, we wish we had never seen them." 

 The following fact, which recently took place, may, per- 

 haps, be startling to some, it is nevertheless true. In one 

 of our best conducted weekly magazines we saw advertised 

 six hives with bees, &c. to be sold by a gentleman in the 

 South of England. We wrote, asking price, kind of hive, 

 and his reasons for thus selling his whole stock. His reply 

 was to this effect : " My bees have cost me many pounds 

 for hives, &c. I have also tried the Ligurian bee, a stock of 

 which cost me 4/., thinking they would be better honey- 

 makers, but my experience, if it is worth anything, is that 

 they are nothing but a constant loss and vexation. I have 

 only obtained eighteen pounds of honey the whole of last 

 season. I had only one swarm last year, which I gave my 

 man. I cannot tell how it is, they do me no good, for I 



