48 
hives on benches, to prevent mice from annoying 
them, open the planes about half an inch, that the 
hive may be sufficiently ventilated, make your 
windows quite dark, and in this situation let your 
bees remain from November until March ; when 
they may be removed to their hanging frames 
from whence they were taken. A very suitable 
frame for suspending a single hive, may be made 
by setting four small posts, four feet long, about 
six inches in the ground, two feet square at the 
bottom ; one way eighteen inches apart at top, and 
the other way twelve and a half inches, to re- 
ceive the hive between the posts ; the posts should 
be furnished with cleats, for the cleats on the hive 
to rest upon, and thoroughly braced to prevent 
their spreading. 
If a hive contain twenty-five pounds of honey 
and comb, in November, no farther attention is 
required, as respects their food. 
Bees, after once located in the spring, should 
not be removed, unless at a considerable distance : 
they may be removed miles with perfect safety, 
but to remove them a few rods is surely destruc- 
tive to them ; nature has taught them to return 
from the field to their old location, and seldom 
more than one half of the workers find their new 
situation. I have known whole colonies destroyed 
by two or three removals during one season. If 
the bees are not all lost they are reduced so low 
as to be unable to guard the combs, thereby expo- 
sing the interior of the hive to their merciless foe, 
the bee moth, which eagerly enters, and under 
such circumstances, soon takes possession of the 
hive. 
