BEES. 
133 
“ Temperature. Next commence an examination of the 
thermometer. As the heat rises in the side box open the venti¬ 
lator. From observation I am inclined to think that the most 
favorable degrees of warmth for the prosperity of the brood, and 
the comfortable working of the bees, are 75° to 90° in the pa¬ 
vilion, and 65° to 75° in the side boxes.” 
Other lucid remarks on water, shade, and insects, bring us to 
the autumnal management; with one extract from which we must 
conclude, cordially recommending the work to the perusal of all 
interested. 
“ The subject of autumnal unions of bee stocks has hitherto 
not received all the attention which its importance de¬ 
mands. Perhaps this is, in part, owing to the ignorance of 
a ready mode of accomplishing the object, or of obtaining the 
necessary material, and in some degree from the supposed diffi¬ 
culty of maintaining the bees when collected in a large body 
through the winter. The latter obstacle is removed by a refer¬ 
ence to what has been said on the subject of winter store, in the 
last paragraph. I hope I shall be able to show that, by a safe and 
simple expedient, weak stocks, joined two or three together, may 
be rendered strong and vigorous; at the same that, by saving 
instead of destroying countless thousands of valuable lives, one 
great objection to the use of cottagers’ common hives is obviated 
altogether. Hitherto, as respects the practice of suffocation, brim¬ 
stone has been almost the sole method resorted to for obtaining 
the honey, and this act of ruin and murder is usually perpetrated 
in the autumn of the second and third year. The proprietor is 
probably not aware that the bees he is at this time sacrificing are 
always the most vigorous and useful. The old ones gradually 
disappear in the autumn, leaving the hive, no matter of what 
age, in possession of the bees bred chiefly, if not entirely, in the 
same year, and of the utmost value in the following spring. This 
fact is important; for the practice of suffocation has often been 
ignorantly defended on the plea of advanced age in the bees. The 
late Apiarian Society of Oxford is entitled to great credit for the 
attention it bestowed on this branch of bee economy; and the 
method of procedure which I am about to explain was there suc¬ 
cessfully practised; but it should be done in September, and in 
fine weather. 
“ The custom of stupifying bees by some narcotic substance has 
