can see whether any cells have lids. If the cells are all apparently empty, the hives are clean, and eligible to be kept another year. If some cells have lids covering them, at once proceed to drive the bees out of such hives into empty ones. If this happen at midsummer, the bees will do better in every way in clean hives. If the diseased brood be discovered in autumn, drive the bees out and unite them to other hives. There can be no prosperity in a hive containing diseased and stinking brood; and to the bee-master there will come from it loss and disappointment instead of profit.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE ENEMIES OF BEES.

It has been said that swallows, sparrows, tomtits, frogs, and hens eat bees. We have never seen them do so, or even attempt to seize a living one; we are therefore sceptical on this point.

Mice often rob bees of their honey in the winter months when they are sitting quiet and in little compass. Indeed mice sometimes take up their winter quarters in a bee-hive, which they find comfortable every way. Mice dare not enter hives in summer when bees cover all their combs. Experienced men contract the doors of their hives about the middle of September, and so contract them that mice cannot enter. The doors of our hives are about 4 inches long and 1 inch high. We cut pieces of wood to fit the doors, in each of which we cut a small doorway about 1 inch in length and one-quarter of an inch in height. The small doorways prevent the mice from going into hives, and allow the bees ample room for all the

traffic they need, and for carrying out their dead during the fine days of winter. These contracted doors assist

greatly in keeping up the warmth of the hives in cold weather. It should be known that mice kill bees and eat their heads off. Both house and field mice do this in cold weather when bees are sitting closely together. The mice pick off from the mass a bee at a time and carry it outside for decapitation.

Snails are very fond of honey and frequently find their way into bee-hives, and there live and consume a great deal of honey. Bees will face and kill a lion, but will not touch a snail; it is therefore allowed to go in and out without let or hindrance. A bee-master should kill all the snails he finds in the neighbourhood of his hives. Hornets, wasps, and humble-bees seldom do harm or get

admission.

Bees of one hive often rob those of another. A hive of bees is a community of selfish creatures, which will, without reluctance or remorse, rob another community of all its stores. The greed and predatory habits of bees are very remarkable. Doubtless these habits are the outcome of the instincts of industry-instincts which make bees the greatest enemies of bees. If one swarm succeeds in its efforts to enter the citadel of another, it is sacked in a comparatively short space of time. When once a hive is invaded by a number of robbers, it can be saved only by removal. We remember a strong hive of ours being robbed by a second swarm belonging to a neighbour bee-keeper. The second swarm had stolen about 20 lb. in two or three days previous to our discovery of the robbery. We removed the strong hive to a distance of two miles (where it soon gathered as much as it had lost), and placed another hive on the spot where it had been robbed. Early next morning the robbers came for more plunder, when every attempt to enter the hive was re

sisted. The robbers, thus thwarted, instantly let the whole fraternity of their own hive know that "their game was up"-that no more honey could be got from that quarter. Often have we seen hives assaulted again and again with spirit and determination, and every assault successfully and spiritedly resisted. These continuous and persistent attacks are probably owing to one or two of the enemy having got access to the city, and escaped with some spoil before the defenders were aware. It has ever been a marvel to witness the result of a few bees intimating to their companions that honey has been found, and that more may be had. How the intimation is given we cannot tell; but sometimes combined attacks are suddenly made, and sometimes as suddenly ended. When the bee-master sees any of his hives assaulted, and every assaulting bee hurled back, he has little to fear; and all that he can do is to contract the door, and thus enable his bees to defend their citadel.

If robbers have no
Every bee defending
If a robber

mercy, neither have the defenders.
its hive is a qualified judge and executioner.
is caught, lynch-law takes its course.

Bees know each other by smell, and they know strangers in the same way. If robbers are not resisted, and kept out of the hive attacked at first, there is no attempt made to resist them after having been allowed to go in and out for some time. They soon pillage the hive of all its treasure. While this pillaging is taking place, the bees work early and late, wet and dry. Weak hives are generally the sufferers; but sometimes strong ones are invaded and robbed while busy gathering honey.

Every experienced apiarian knows robbers by their stealthy manner of attempting to enter hives for plunder, and he knows them by the way they leave the hive laden with it. This knowledge cannot be obtained by reading, but is gained by observation.

CHAPTER XXIX.

TRANSPORTING BEES FROM ONE PLACE TO ANOTHER.

Earnest men who keep large strong hives find it profitable to remove them to the neighbourhood of orchards, clover, and heather, when these are at some distance from their own gardens. In some Continental parts, carts are made on purpose, shelf over shelf, to carry hives. In Scotland, the bee-keepers, generally speaking, remove the bees to the moors every year. In August, large hives in good seasons will gather from 40 lb. to 60 lb. each off the heather; whereas, if they had no heather within reach, they would lose weight during that month. We remove our bees farther into the country every spring, bring them home in August, and take them to the Derbyshire moors -a distance of twenty-five miles. Many of the apiarians of this neighbourhood are copying our example—and we expect their number will multiply annually. There are three seasons for honey-viz., the fruit-trees yield honey in April and May; sycamore-trees, field-mustard, beans, and clover, &c., in June and July; heather in August. With large hives bees will gather honey enough in one day to pay the expense of removal from here to Derbyshire and back. We put fifteen hives on a green-grocer's cart which leaves here at 4 o'clock in the morning to catch the train leaving Manchester at 5.45 A.M. In less than an hour after, they are dropped from the train at a station on the edge of a moor skirted by the Manchester and Sheffield line of railway. In September the hives are brought home in the same way.

Our mode of confining bees for removal is as simple as

it is safe. The doors of our hives are pretty large, and the holes in their crowns are about 4 inches in diameter. We nail a piece of fly-proof wire over their mouths and crown-holes, then tie the hives tightly to their boards with strong string or cord, and drive three two-inch nails through the bottom rolls of the hives into the boards. They are thus prepared to bear pretty rough handling. The fly-proof wire at the doors and on the tops secures ample ventilation for hives as full as they can be; indeed this ventilation is so great that the heat of full hives is less at the end of the journey than it was before they started and frequently the bees lessen the ventilation by waxing up the wire on the tops. If hives are not full or crowded with bees, we do not always put wire on the crown-holes. The wire at their doors, and a few thin wedges or penny-pieces, slipped in between the hives and their boards before they are tied together tightly with the string, prevent suffocation. They travel safely. The nails are used to make all doubly secure. If hives travel over a rough road on a cart, the jolting sometimes causes them to move or slide on their boards, especially if the bottom of the cart is not level. The nails through the rolls of the hives, driven into the boards, prevent the hives from moving laterally. Of course hives are thus prepared for travelling either before they commence work in the morning, or after the outdoor labour of the day has closed. In this way not a bee is lost; and the cool of the day is the better time to transport and transplant hives. If the weather be cold or rainy, and the bees not at work, they may be confined at any hour, and their hives secured as already described. In fact, the colder the weather is, and the less the bees are at work when about to be transported and transplanted, the less danger there is, for in cold weather the bees need less ventilation. This is our mode of ventilating and securing hives for