1. One is to drive the bees out of the heavy hives before the honey season ends, and put two swarms into an empty hive. A few days of honey weather will enable the bees to fill their new hive with combs, but there will be a proportionate loss of honey by interfering with heavy hives before the season is over. When two swarms are thus united, the oldest queen should be destroyed before the union takes place.

2. The second way is to select the proper number of stocks from these heavy hives, and greatly reduce them in weight by freely using the comb-knife in cutting out 20 lb. of honey or more from each hive, and uniting the bees of those that are wholly put down to them.

3. The other way of meeting the difficulty is the best, though it causes a little more trouble to carry it out. The bees are allowed to gather all they can in their own hives till the season ends, which is generally about the commencement of September. Suppose we have twelve or fifteen hives, and wish to have six stocks. Well, all the bees are driven out of the heavy honey-hives into empty ones, and united in pairs in 16-inch hives-that is to say, all the bees of the twelve or fifteen hives are put into six empty ones, with cross-sticks in them. If the swarms are very large, these hives will hardly hold two; in that case they should be enlarged with ekes. Now they are to be fed vigorously, each hive to get 25 lb. of sugar boiled in its own weight of pure water. In some cases that is not enough. The feeding-boards are the best instruments to use in giving such large quantities to bees for comb-building and storing up. The 25 lb. of sugar will make about 50 lb. of syrup. All this should be given to a hive so filled with bees in ten, twelve, or fourteen days. The door should be well contracted, and the hive kept warm, to promote comb-building. Large garden-saucers or soup

plates may be used instead of feeding-boards; but their use necessitates the lifting of the hive every time the bees get a fresh supply of syrup. By the end of fourteen days every hive so filled and fed will be found nearly, if not quite, full of combs, and many of the combs well filled with eggs and brood. When the bees creep together by reason of colder weather, their ekes may be taken from them; and if some of the combs have been built down into the ekes, they should be shortened to fit.

These sugar-fed stocks are generally very prosperous hives next year, their combs being young and containing scarcely any farina. Almost every cell yields brood in spring. But it should be stated and understood that combs made from sugar are more brittle and easily broken than combs made from honey gathered in the fields. We have frequently known every hive put down for honey, and all the stock prepared as now described. We think it was in 1864 when a cousin of ours realised £40 profit from nine stock-hives. He found all too heavy for keeping, hence he took all the honey, and formed his stock by feeding.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE BRIMSTONE-PIT.

THIS was invented, and has been used from a very ancient date to the present time, for the purpose of wholesale destruction. Without such an "institution," how could the poor cottagers of England get their honey? They have used the brimstone-pit, and will continue to use it till they find out a better way of removing the bees from their hives marked for honey. We may be excused for giving here a brief description of this way of destroying bees.

Some brimstone is melted in a plumber's lead-pan over a slow fire, and while in its liquid state some rags are dipped in it. These rags, now covered and stiff with brimstone, are cut into pieces about three inches square. One piece is enough for a hive. The pit is about twelve inches square-rather wider for large hives. The brimstone-rag is placed in the cleft of a short bit of wood which is stuck into one of the sides of the pit. A cabbage-leaf, or anything else, is placed above the rag to prevent the bees from falling on it, and thus putting it out when burning. Now the match is applied, and the brimstone begins to burn with a blue flame, when the hive is instantly lifted off its board and placed over the pit. Some soil is thrown around the bottom of the hive to keep in the gas, which does its awful work in two

or three minutes. The community thus stifled fall from their combs into the pit-destroyed, but not killed. To put them out of misery a kettle of boiling water should be poured upon them, which causes instant death.

We are no advocates and patrons of this plan of destroying bees. We do not use the pit, or ever attempt to put to death whole swarms of bees. We think it bad policy to do so; but we cannot agree with some sentimental folk who hold up the practice as one of inhumanity. It is not more cruel to destroy bees for honey, than it is to knock a calf on the head in order to get milk, or to drive the poleaxe into the brains of a bullock with a view to get beef. And what about cutting the throat of a sheep for a bit of mutton? There is nothing in the destruction of the lives of bees more cruel and inhuman than there is in the destruction of the lives of cattle, sheep, and fowls. There has been given to man a power over the inferior creatures, the proper use of which is an advantage and blessing to the human family.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

ON DRIVING AND SHAKING BEES FROM HIVES AND
UNITING THEM TO OTHER SWARMS.

THOUGH often touched on before in other chapters of this work, these matters deserve separate and distinct treatment.

Given a hive full of combs and bees, and an empty one into which the bees are to be driven. After the full hive has got a few puffs of smoke, it is turned upside down, the empty one placed on it, mouth to mouth, and a tablecloth is tied round the junction of the two hives to prevent the escape of a single bee. The drumming or driving now commences, simply by beating the bottom hive with open hands. This beating confounds the bees and makes them run upwards. In running up into the empty hive the bees make a great noise as in swarming, and this noise facilitates the work in hand. In hot weather all the bees, or almost all, may be thus driven out of a large hive in twenty minutes. The drumming should be continued the whole time, for if the bees have time given them to think, they will cease running up, the noise will abate, and those that are below will cleave to the brood-combs

to keep them warm. In driving bees the work should be done quickly, allowing no time for play or palaver.

In cold weather this work is more difficult to accomplish, the bees then being more disinclined to leave their

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