BEE-FARMER'S CALENDAR. 



'95 



Recollect, this is the most dangerous month in the 

 year. Be as active as your bees. A little attention and 

 care bestowed upon them now will be amply repaid by 

 your industrious subjects. 



Floor, or bottom boards, if not already attended to, 

 should at once be scrupulously cleansed ; if it is not 

 attended to now, on some nice sunny afternoon, it is pro- 

 bable you will never do it. Cut away all the little bits ot 

 comb which the bees last season fastened to the floor- 

 board ; they are only in the way, and will cause the 

 inmates much annoyance and inconvenience in the busy 

 season now rapidly approaching. I give all the straw 

 sleeps in my apiary either a new board, or, at all events, 

 one which was well washed in the summer and laid by 

 until the next spring to sweeten, so that it is equal to a 

 new one. If you have no new ones at hand be sure you 

 scrape the old ones with an old knife, and make them as 

 clean as your own dinner-table. Do not for one moment 

 think it useless to do so, a waste of time, labour, &c. 

 Try the difference — clean one hive-board well, and leave 

 the other uncared for — then another year you will remember 

 our advice. 



Water. — Observe your bees flying and humming lazily 

 about the water-butts, pump-trough, and the little pools 

 of water about your premises ; when they alight watch 

 them eagerly drinking, then flying ofF to their homes with 

 joy. Bees are all water-drinkers, so every teetotaller 

 should be a bee-keeper. Perhaps in April and May water 

 is more needed than in any other month during the whole 

 year. A friend has a square tin vessel, about three inches 

 deep, placed opposite the stands, in which, when nearly 

 filled with water, he places a quantity of moss ; the bees 

 seem to appreciate this contrivance, for they have no fear 

 of death by drowning when running over the moss fronds. 

 I have seen thousands of my neighbours' bees drowned in 



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