BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
516 
who have acted in accordance with the recommenda- 
tions given under “Uniting,” pages 432 et seq., and 
“Food and Feeding,” pages 379, 409, 416, et seq. 
With very strong stocks, the bees will not con- 
dense sufficiently to make the desirable contraction 
in the space they occupy, until the nights have 
become actually cold, and I have found it often im- 
possible to get all packed up in wintering condition 
until November. Feeding should, however, be all 
completed by the end of September (page 417), but 
failure in this may be counterbalanced by abundance 
of candy (page 396). In finally arranging, remove 
all needless combs, reducing the strongest to eight 
standards, and making six the rule for good stocks. 
At the sides place thick, tight-fitting dummies, or 
pour in chaff behind thin ones. Take from those 
having an embarras de riche sse and give to poverty- 
stricken neighbours, so that all may have abundance? 
and yet a sufficiency of empty ceils to accommo- 
date the bees, some of which, as the external air falls 
to 45°, begin to crawl in head first, exposing the 
breathing apertures (“spiracles,” page 33, Vol. I.) to 
the slowly passing air-current, while others occupy the 
interstices between the combs. They thus condense 
their cluster, reducing its external surface; and as 
each bee, so to speak, is a tiny furnace, carrying on 
a process in its tissues and fluids w'hich is the exact 
chemical equivalent of oxidising honey, temperature 
is the more easily sustained. In this the bees are 
assisted if the combs are set rather wider apart than 
the normal distance — ifin. from centre to centre being 
usually accepted as most fitting. 
