BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
236 
for the operation. In cool weather, and where honey 
has not recently been gathered, about twenty minutes 
or half an hour before attempting to drive, the skep 
should be inverted after smoking, in order that the 
bees may be freely sprinkled with warm, thin 
syrup. This syrup should contain not more than a 
pound of sugar to a pint of water (if thicker, it 
would be likely to glue the bees together), and 
should be made by boiling with vinegar, or some other 
acid, such as citric or tartaric, so as to convert the cane 
sugar into grape sugar (see Bee Foods), or the syrup 
will dry and crvstallise upon the bodies of the bees, 
like so much chalk. Of this a gill will be sufficient, 
and, if the combs be tough, the skeps may be held 
so that the syrup may be poured into the cells of 
the several combs. The feeding and the excitement 
will raise the temperature, and greatly expedite our 
work. Indeed, drumming for twenty minutes upon a 
hive caught up immediately after smoking will not, 
usually, drive as many bees as two minutes will dis- 
lodge from one in proper condition. 
In open driving, the skeps need not be of the 
same diameter ; indeed, on one occasion, when on 
a visit where a few stocks of bees were kept, having 
consented to make an artificial swarm, I could dis- 
cover nothing better to receive it than a lady’s chip 
bonnet-box. The box was well scored inside, to give 
the swarm foothold, and in a few minutes the whole 
operation was, with perfect success, accomplished. 
A well-known writer on apicultural matters tells 
us that the bees run up to escape the distressing 
jarring of their combs ceaselessly kept up by beating 
