MANIPULATING. 63 



should be given in shallow dishes, filled with pieces of brick for 

 the bees to alight on, and placed in some warm corner. Do not 

 allow any miniature pools between the pieces of brick, or quite 

 a number of bees will be drowned. 



Stocks can be equalised at this season by removing frames 

 of brood from very strong hives and giving them to weaker 

 ones ; but this may only be done when warm weather sets in ; 

 and the colony added to must have all its combs thickly 

 covered with bees. It will take about six weeks to build up a 

 colony to its required strength ; this time must be allowed from 

 the commencement of stimulative feeding until the usual time of 

 the honey-flow in a certain district. 



This will be found a very convenient time to repaint and repair 

 any hives in use. The frames should be lifted en bloc, if it is 

 at all cold, into a fresh hive, and the old one taken into the 

 workshop. During spring will be found the great advantage of 

 having the alighting-boards of hives to reach the ground ; 

 thousands of bees are saved by thus preventing their being 

 blown, by the strong and cold winds prevalent then, under the 

 hives to perish. During spring hives should be fitted up ready 

 for swarms, section-racks cleaned and re-filled ; and all little 

 matters of detail which can be done during the slack months 

 will be found of great assistance when the busy season arrives. 

 Purchases of appliances required in the summer months should 

 be made, as when the latter season arrives orders are sent in 

 for goods in such numbers, and all wanted " at once," that the 

 manufacturers cannot execute them fast enough, many of their 

 customers having to wait a week or two before the receipt of 

 goods. 



HO. Spreading Brood. — Some writers advocate what is 

 termed " spreading brood " in springtime ; this is, we venture to 

 assert, the worst advice that can possibly be given. The brood- 

 nest of a hive is almost a sphere, which shape is always preserved, 

 so that if a portion of the middle of it (a frame) is exchanged 

 with one on the outside of the brood-nest, an irregularity is made. 

 This not being countenanced in the hive, eggs are laid by 

 the queen to preserve the circular form ; as a consequence, 

 she thus enlarges the brood-nest considerably. The bees in the 

 hive are thus distributed over a wider area, quantities of brood 

 being chilled — more than the number gained by spreading. 

 Even an expert cannot prognosticate the temperature that may 

 occur at any particular time, and if that suddenly drops the 

 cluster of bees will contract, and leave quantities of brood 

 uncovered, to become chilled. Not only is it the loss of eggs 

 and larvae, but, without doubt, the decomposition of the bodies 

 in the cells must be a fertile source of disease ; then, again, 

 all the dead larvae have to be removed by the bees, whose 



