bee-keeper's manual. 217 



snuff the balmy breeze. They look out, and a warm sun 

 greets them, saying, as it were, "come forth and meet 

 me ; no chill pervades the air. All is bright and glit- 

 tering ; and old boreas is chained to northern icy shores." 

 They come forth. All is calm and serene around their 

 tenement. They rise on the wing, and sweep the fields 

 while yet warm from their abode, and suddenly the cold 

 winds that they imagined were hushed, come whistling 

 past. They feel a chill that benumbs them, and they 

 endeavor to return. The glittering snow blinds their 

 vision, and they fall to rise no more. How great the 

 destruction of life is, in an apiary thus situated, from the 

 above cause, every person is well aware, who has kept 

 bees in a northern climate. If there be instances in 

 which large numbers of bees have perished in the above 

 manner, and yet it has made no apparent difference in 

 the prosperity of the apiary the following season, it was 

 because the hives were well tenanted, and could, with- 

 out destruction, spare a portion of their numbers ; yet 

 every bee that thus perishes, is a loss.. A hive contain- 

 ing two thousand bees, that loses two hundred in the 

 above way, decreases in value 10 per cent., and in the 

 same ratio for the loss of any number or proportion of 

 the family. 



I will now introduce the' reader to a bee-house that 

 may be enclosed when necessary, and avoid all the fatali-" 

 ties of close houses, as they are usually constructed. 



10 



