4o8 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
to trust to it, forget to continue it ; better far never 
give any, or your well will be dry just when water 
everywhere else is scarce. Give none, and the 
clever creatures will rub along without your help, 
perhaps not so well as though you gave it ; but make 
them dependent, and then desert them, and they 
will be, probably, reduced to such straits as will 
make both bees and master suffer. Second: Carefully 
avoid leaving feeding-bottles, &c., so as to collect 
rain, or your bees in their searches will fall in, as 
into a trap, and many a score will be destroyed. 
Packing bees for long journeys, especially to 
warm climates, depends more than anything else 
upon giving sufficient water. With it, most trying 
temperatures can be sustained. I have on several 
occasions sent full colonies of bees to India, and the 
main precaution has been to give, with sufficient venti- 
lation (and this may be excessive — see page 262), an 
unfailing supply of water. A pouch was arranged at 
the back of the travelling hive, just beneath a 2in. hole, 
open to the bees, and covered with perforated zinc. 
This pouch was daily filled with water, into which was 
placed a large sponge, with- its side lying against the 
zinc window. The bees were carried in one of the 
ship’s boats, on the port side, to screen them as 
much as possible from the sun, and were shaded by a 
tarpaulin. On one occasion only, when watering was 
neglected, did they succumb. 
Even during the icy grip of winter, the instincts of 
bees direct them to make preparation for the pro- 
spective gathering of Nature’s bounty, by starting brood- 
raising, and commonly as early as January, in fairly strong 
