chapman’s handy-book. 
she is in the old hive and no notice is taken of the change 
in that case, and the two may be left quiet till the evening, 
when, a little before dark, the entrance to the new hive 
may be opened, and the imprisoned, bees immediately y 
out to seek their queen and find their way to the o Id live. 
The new one may now be removed with its contents, sub¬ 
stituting another empty one in its place, and treating tha 
exactly as was done before. As no queen bee wi ay eggs 
in a temperature below 80 degrees, and it the new hiv e is 
maintained below this, there is no danger of any such re¬ 
sult. She will, on the contrary, remain m the old hive to 
lay her eggs, where the workers also will deposit their 
pollen from the flowers to form the bee-bread for the grubs, 
while in the ventilated hive nothing will be stored but the 
finest wax and honey. 
Feeding. 
In this country the bees are generally, I am thankful 
to say, able to feed themselves all the year round, and 
lay up a surplus for their master likewise; so that I 
shall not say much on this head. There. is hardly any 
season, at least m the northern parts of the island, m which 
• the bees do not work nearly all the year, as there is a per¬ 
petual succession of flowers in the woods : so whenever a 
bee master has a hive which is dwindling away, he had 
better unite it to its next neighbour, rather than attempt 
to restore its vigour by feeding. Indeed, in nine cases out 
of ten he will find that the loss of the queen, and not a lack 
of honey, is the cause of its failure ; and after uniting the 
bees, as explained, he will have several pounds of honey, 
and at least a pound of wax. Unite, rather than feed, 
when you have your apiary fully stocked. But as there 
are three or four circumstances under which feeding may 
be required even in this country, I must not altogether 
pass the subject by ; and they are these : When you have 
only one stock hive in your apiary, and some accident has 
happened to it; the combs, perhaps, have all been broken 
down by clumsiness in moving it to its new station. In 
this case nothing is easier than to feed it by placing before 
the hive, on a fine day, the honey combs which have fallen. 
