be favourable for honey-gathering when the bees arrive, they will begin to work in less than fifteen minutes after having been set at liberty, if they have not suffered during the journey. How quickly bees find honey-flowers and return with loads from them may be seen in placing hives in a strange locality on a fine day. If they have suffered from being over-heated by the way, the bees will not go into full work for one or two days afterwards.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE SELECTION AND PREPARATION OF STOCK-HIVES
FOR ANOTHER YEAR.

THIS is a very important matter in the profitable management of bees, and "bad luck" is often the consequence of inattention to it. When we see our hedgerows and the fruit-trees of our orchards covered with blossoms in spring, we should not forget that we are indebted to the autumn suns of last year for the beauty and abundance that meet our eyes. Those suns ripened the wood, filled the buds, and set the flowers before the cold and snows of winter came. This year's suns can develop those buds into blossoms and fruit. So the autumn treatment of bees is to be considered of primary importance.

In selecting hives for keeping, one should have his eye on many points.

Those that are full of combs, well built, and as free from drone-cells as possible, are to be preferred to those that are not full of combs, or that contain much dronecomb. In the spring months, or in prospect of breeding young queens for swarming, bees do build much drone-comb, hence it is very desirable to select hives in autumn that are filled with combs, or nearly so; for, as we have seen in the chapter on the sex of eggs, it is the number of drone-cells in a hive that determine the number of drones bred in it.

In this work of selecting hives for stock, the age of queens must never be lost sight of or forgotten. All the old queens will be found in the top or first swarms, and if any of these containing queens more than two years old be selected for stock, it is desirable to remove and destroy the old queens, and put younger ones in their places. All parent hives, second swarms, and turnouts have young queens. Second swarms and turnouts, with pretty and closely-built combs, weighing from 36 to 50 lb. each, make excellent stock - hives. If some of them have faulty combs, or are otherwise objectionable, they are marked for honey, and the parent hives kept for another year.

First or top swarms in ordinary seasons are too heavy for keeping, and are therefore generally put down for honey, but in rainy seasons they are often kept for stock.

Now, let us suppose a bee-keeper has twenty hives at the end of August, ten for stock and ten for honey. Should he apply the brimstone to the ten for honey? No, and again we say no; but drive the bees out of them, and unite them to those selected for keeping. This is a consideration of prime importance; for hives thus plentifully furnished with bees in September are worth much more than those which, being otherwise equal, receive no additions of bees from without. Hives thus strengthened are well able to bear the difficulties of cold winters; they swarm about a month sooner than others in spring; and their first swarms, in fine seasons, will have their hives filled with combs, and be nearly ready to swarm themselves, before hives not so skilfully and liberally dealt with begin to swarm at all. No poor words of ours can describe the value of this hint. Let it go and be circulated widely with that of large hives, and the success of those who carry it into practice will soon stimulate the attention of those who do not; the awful brimstone-pit,

now used to destroy valuable lives, will soon be considered as something which belonged to "the dark ages." The way to unite swarms is simple and easy, and will be explained presently.

But here let me say that hives so well filled with bees in autumn require more food in winter than those not so well filled. A Continental writer, "a Swiss clergyman," has broadly stated that two swarms united eat no more honey than each does separately. This wild notion has now a pretty wide and free currency, having been quoted by one writer after another. Some experiments have been made by honest men to test the truth of the statement. The results, as recorded, go in favour of the clergyman's opinion; but what strikes one is the exceedingly small quantity of honey eaten by the swarms doubled and trebled in the recorded experiments. Neither single, nor double, nor treble swarms eat more than 7 lb. of honey from September till March, whereas each of our strong hives consumes 15 lb. in the same space of time. ally account for the difference of 7 lb. and 15 lb. if numbers are not considered? We think the clergyman is wrong in his statements and doctrines as to the food required by bees in winter. It were easy to put bees enough into a hive to consume 7 lb. of honey in a few weeks of autumn. Let bee-keepers remember the words

of Burns

Who can ration

"Twa mouths are waur to fill than ane;" and that 50,000 bees require about as much honey in one hive as they do in two.

In the autumns of rainy seasons, what should be done with hives containing but little honey? The bees of them should be united to others selected for stock. If there be not more than 5s. or 6s. worth of honey in each hive, it is better to let it remain in the hives and combs, and be care

fully preserved till the following spring for new swarms, than to break it up for honey. A hive of fresh empty combs is worth 7s. at least for receiving a swarm. Three years ago two good swarms came off on the 20th of May. One was put into an empty hive, and the other into one containing some young sweet combs. In about two months the swarm that was put into the empty hive weighed 70 lb., whereas the other that had the advantage of the combs weighed 90 lb. The swarm, on being hived amongst the combs, was apparently a little less than the other. A hive even half or a third full of young combs is a great advantage to a swarm, for the bees at once begin to collect honey and set eggs. If it be desired to feed the hives kept with the honey in those that are to be set aside for swarms next season, it is easily done by placing the comb-hives under the bee-hives for a single night, when the bees will go down and empty every cell of honey, and carry all up into their own combs without injuring the combs of the beeless ones. Thus the weak ones are made to feed the strong ones in unfavourable honey years.

But one of the greatest difficulties which overtake a bee-master well up in the profitable management of his stock, is when all his hives become too heavy for keeping. Some seasons his second swarms and turnouts and old stock-hives will rise in weight to 70, 80, and 100 lb. each, and first swarms will go 30 lb. or 40 lb. beyond that weight. When this happens, both the season and the locality are favourable for honey-gathering. Well, what should be done with such heavy hives? Put them all down for honey and honeycomb. The profits in such seasons are very great. But if all the hives are put down for honey there will be none for stock. Stop a little. There are three ways of keeping up the number of stockhives and yet getting honey from all the hives.