THE APIAKY. 
141 
perhaps a little less, and no place for the bees to enter 
but at the bottom, and as many hives crowded on as 
it will hold, I no longer wonder that “ bee-lceeping is 
all in luck the wonder is how they keep them at all. 
Yet it proves that, with proper management, it is not 
so very precarious after all. 
The necessary protection from the weather, for 
stocks, is a subject that I have taken some pains to as- 
certain ; the result has been, that the cheapest cover- 
ing is just as good as any; something to keep the rain 
and rays of the sun from the top, is all sufficient. 
Covers for each hive, like the bottom-board, should be 
separate, and some larger than the top. 
UTILITY OF BEE-HOUSES DOUBTED. 
I have used bee-houses, but they will not pay, and 
are also discarded. They are objectionable on account 
of preventing a free circulation of air ; also, it is difficult 
to construct them, so that the sun may strike the hives 
both in the morning and afternoon ; which in spring 
is very essential. If they front the south, the middle 
of the day is the only time when the sun can reach 
all the hives at once ; this is just when they need it 
least; and in hot weather, sometimes injurious by 
melting the combs. But when the hives stand far 
enough apart, on my plan, it is very easily arranged 
to have the sun strike the hive in the morning and 
afternoon, and shaded from ten o’clock, till two or three, 
in hot weather. 
Notwithstanding our prodigality in building a splen- 
did bee-house, we think of economy when we come to 
