SITUJTION OF THE API ART. 51 



cottage in a deep valley sheltered on every side, and the 

 hives were in a garden, covered over with very tall fruit 

 trees. These did well every season ; we had swarms for 

 sale always early in May, and the honey harvest was very 

 abundant. We attribute it all to the sheltered position of 

 the hives ; for example, not a single bee would be destroyed 

 by the winds during the whole season, whilst the losses 

 described at the head of this paper befel another apiary we 

 had at the same time fully exposed. In the latter we never 

 had swarms until July, and the honey was not worth the 

 trouble of taking. We strongly urge every bee-farmer to 

 make sure of this point at the beginning. If he wishes to 

 be successful he must screen and shelter every hive. 



Our Rustic Bee-shed will remove much of the difficulty. 

 It keeps the hives in the shade during the whole of the 

 working hours. 



Note : the following results have been arrived at by most 

 careful experiments : Bees fed with different kinds of sugar 

 produce wax sooner and in greater abundance than those 

 fed with pure honey. A pound of refined or lump sugar 

 reduced to syrup produced 10 dr. 52 gr. of wax, of course 

 much darker than that extracted from honey. An equal 

 weight of dark-brown sugar produced 22 dr. 2| oz. of very 

 white wax, or nearly one-sixth of the entire weight. 



Mark the above result. It is cheaper and more econo- 

 mical to feed them with common brown sugar than even 

 the best white lump sugar, because the brown makes more 

 wax, and finer in quality. 



By this method of bee-management, condemned stocks 

 are useful and should not be despised. In the month of 

 September I regularly visit all our cottage apiaries, and ob- 

 tain the promise of all their condemned stocks. I have, in 

 one instance, placed seven stocks in one hive ; this after- 

 v/ards made a profitable and most valuable colony. When 

 I first commenced working up our condemned stocks I 



£ 2, 



