and its Economic Management. 187 



the winter months, and all the foregoing provisions have to 

 be settled before the cold weather arrives. Cold, with 

 judicious ventilation, and clear space under the frames, a 

 good cover, plenty ot stores, and stocks in good heart, 

 can do no harm. 



Hibernating as applied to Bees. 



Do bees hibernate ? certainly they do. Perhaps not in 

 the same way that we are accustomed to view the torpid 

 state of the dormouse, the squirrel, or that more voracious 

 animal the bear. While the little brown fellows lay up 

 a store to which they may repair at periodical awakenings, 

 the flesh-eating monster stuffs to repletion and piles up 

 layers of fat on his bones till his shaggy coat will hold no 

 more. He seeks a retreat with the drowsiness of gluttony 

 already perhaps creeping upon him ; and then whether 

 'dead or alive for weeks he knows not, until it may be fitful 

 dreams preceding a final awakening, cause him to realise 

 that his bones are nearly bare, and his once sleek and 

 tightened coat now folds loosely over his ungainly 

 ■carcase, the result of nature's long-continued, if niggardly 

 draughts upon the stored fuel, that just a bare flame of 

 ^ife may be maintained during his dormant state. 



How like all this is to the conditions governing the hive 

 bees. These have their period of preparation ; their term 

 of low vitality ; their occasional break in the monotony of 

 i-est ; and finally a glorious awakening to all the 

 beauteous gifts of light and life. The only thing different 

 being that whereas the quadruped sleeps — a sleep almost 

 'ike unto death, the insect may be said simply to " rest " ; 

 and in that she is thus free from labour and from any 

 exciting cause whatever, there is then no need for an 

 undue exertion of the digestive organs ; food is partaken 



less frequently, and the numerous members of 



