in this situation the sun will reach the front of your bee-house about nine o'clock. I would have the front of the house leaning a little inwards, that the mouth of the hive may sit close to the mouth made in the boards, which should be three inches long in summer, and one in winter, and about one fourth of an inch high, the better to keep out cold and the bevering moth, which you may often see at the latter end of August (when the working of the bees begins to decline,) standing at the mouth of the hive, bevering their wings as if just flying in among the bees: they there lay their eggs, and with the wind of their wings fan them within the hive; and the warmth of the bees hatches them, to their own ruin. In October every stock should be well examined, and all the maggots brushed out, to prevent danger: for the grub or maggot forms a chrysalis with a covering so strong, that the bees cannot displace them; and in the spring they creep out of their little sepulchres, and spin a thin web before them, as they march up into the hive among the combs: and the bees endeavouring to dislodge them, are entangled in the web, and there die; and thus, for want of a little trouble, many stocks are destroyed.

To cleanse the hive of these maggots, it must be turned up, and the dust and vermin picked out, and then gently set down in its place. If your bees are well and in a condition to stand the winter, and have a mother with them, they will sting, otherwise not, unless you hurt them; however a yard and ahalf of Scotch gauze, sewed round the brim of your hat, and then tied round the waist, having holes for your

arms, will completely secure your face.

The hive should be also brushed on the outside very clean, and washed all over with a sponge dipped in brine made with clean salt; a small quantity of lime and hair made fine, should be put round the bottom, and the hives be covered with hay or haybands, for straw may contain some corn which may attract the mice, who may gnaw the hives.

I have mentioned how the front of the house should be formed by setting the front board, which the mouth of the hive stands against, on the inside; but let the roof be made so as to keep the entrance dry, for a foot, before the mouth: the backshutter, folding doors, and ends of the roof, should be made very close, to prevent any vermin entering the house: the first floor, or bottom of the house should be about two feet and a half from the ground, in such places as gardens or orchards : but, on the side of a hill or where the bees have no obstruction from hedges, &c. it may be but eighteen inches. As bee-houses cannot be very expensive, I would have a house made but for four hives, the second floor two feet from the bottom, and the roof two feet from the second floor but the second floor may be made moveable, in case you wish to form your bees into a colony, and then you will want the whole depth of your house.

I confine them to four stocks in a house, because I find when they are too close they are apt to rob one another: but when they are but four stocks in a house, I have observed one turn out to the right, and the other to the left.

If more than one house. be required, they should be placed ten

ог

or twelve yards distant, which may be done by driving a strong stump into the ground, and placing on it a piece of elm or oak plank, two or three inches thick. The hives must never be covered with rags, for they are apt to breed moths: the upper and lower floors should be two or three inches thick.

I come now to my method of feeding them which, I think, is new. Sink a cavity in the middle of the floor, about six inches diameter, like a trencher, deep enough to hold a quarter of a pint of honey, and no more: if the cavity be too deep, the bees may be suffocated. A channel must be made from the outside of the floor, to communicate with the cavity; and a piece of wood to fit close into it, to keepout the vermin.

If your bees do not weigh sixteen or seventeen pounds, exclusive of the hive, they must be fed in September, October, March, and April, and sometimes in May: they must not befed in cold weather, for that calls them from sleep, and they then never return to the hive again: nor must they be fed in the sunshine; for when the honey smells strong, it sets them quarrelling and fretting, and the strong injure the weak. The best time is evening, when I take the piece of wood out of the channel, and gently pour a quarter of a pint of honey into the cavity. If the honey will not run freely, I boil up four or five pounds with a quart of strong sweet-wort, which brings it to a proper liquid. This food will be of great service to the mothers, and make them lay eggs in abundance in the spring.

If a stock has been glassed two summers, it should not be worked a third; but if it increase, take a new

hive, or a clean old one, and take offall the cover from the top of the hive: let it be stuck the same as if you was to have a new swarm; place it on one of the floors; and having opened the hole on the top nearest the back, place a piece of lath diagonally, from that hole to the side of the mouth; let it be made fast with pegs, not nails, lest the honey be stained; then place the old hive upon the new one, and stop the old mouth close; and the bees will then gradually work down the new hive: that will give them sufficient room for the summer. And next spring, take another clean hive, and place the two upon it, in the same manner as before: this will serve for the next year. Now, having had no honey for two years, the upper hive will most likely be full, and may be taken away as follows:

With a strong chisel separate the top hive from the other two; and, in a fine day, take it away, twenty or thirty yards, and place it on the ground bottom upwards; and securethe holes on the top of the second hive.

The bees, no doubt, will rage, but you must secure yourself with gause, as before directed, and wear black stockings, for that colour is least observed. Place a table even with the mouth of the lowest hive, and spread a cloth over it, near the mouth; and by this time the greater part of the bees that were out wili have come home: the middle hive being the breeding-place, it is most likely the mother is in that: but if she was in the top, she may yet be safe. Place a clean hive, of the same diameter as that you have taken away, upon it; then tie a cloth over both (glasses and all, if there be any) so tight, that the bees with

in may be in darkness: let them remain thus half an hour; then, with a stick rap the bottom hive, but not so hard as to injure the combs; continue rapping half an hour; then untie the cloth, and take away the upper hive, into which the noise has driven the bees, and place it on the table and cloth from whence you took them, and shake them out on the cloth, and they will run into the mouth of their proper hive. If necessary, repeat this operation, and all the bees will be saved; this saves the trouble and loss of smothering them with sulphur, as was the custom; and the bees in one day will forget the injury, and work as usual. But in case but little honey is left in their two hives they must be fed; thus, in two hours your honey may be taken, and the bees preserved; the honey you have obtained in this way may be dark, but will make excellent mead; but better and brighter will be produced by those which work in glasses.

Hives will not be beneficial in barren countries; but should be near gardens, shrubberies, orchards of cherries, or farms, where clover, beans, saintfoin, or French wheat, grow. Lime-trees, or Green-house plants, set out in the spring, orange or lemon-trees, are useful, and produce excellent honey; where there is room, it is worth while to plant gooseberries, currants, sweet marjoram, peppermint, or the like.

Though I am not for preventing bees from swarming whenever they are inclined, yet I acknowledge that it is sometimes necessary to destroy some stocks.

If they have lost their mother, and neither swarm nor work much, they should not be kept.

The moth, or other accident, will

sometimes spoil them, and then they should be destroyed.

My neighbours say, that, when I did, the bees will lose the most compassionate master in this kingdom. Indeed I, however, have destroyed none but from necessity, and have been, for near twenty-four years, remarkably successful.

I have now forty stocks in good condition, though the loss of mothers, or some unforeseen accident, may happen to some before summer.

The loss of a mother may be known, by the bees ceasing to work, and mourning incessantly: they will sometimes, in that case, leave their hive, and try to force themselves into one that is near.

This circumstance should be noticed; for the old hive may be well stored and when they have left it as a residence, they will yet return with their companions, and carry away the honey: some, for want of observing this, have wondered how a heavy hive, that has been left, has become light.

But though the mother be lost, if there be eggs, they will sometimes stay and hatch them; and if any royal seed be among the eggs, they may survive, and become a good stock; but this is not often the case.

About a month ago, I was desired to look at five stocks at Richmond, in order to purchase them; one of the heaviest was without a mother. I purchased that, and one more where the mother was lost: I found twelve pounds of honey, but no eggs, and therefore the bees would not have staid long: the other three were old, and the honey black, and therefore of no use but to stand and swarm another year.

If bees continue in one hive for four or five years, they always degenerate, and become both fewer and weaker: the reason is, the combs for breeding are generally and on purpose made larger than the rest; every time a bee is hatched in one, a skin or coat is left behind which reduces the size; and, in time, it becomes too small to produce a bee of its proper dimensions; and occasions a necessity for their having frequently new habitations, which they will always accept, if you provide them a good situation, and clean hives.

My situation is a good one, by accident, or otherwise; for I could not have afforded to have made it so by planting.

In the parish of Isleworth, twenty four years ago, there were not ten stocks of bees; and now, through the approbation of my management, there are more than two hundred.

I hope what has been thus simply stated may be worthy your attention, and that I may be admitted a claim

ant.

My Lords, and Gentlemen, I am your most humble and obedient servant,

THOMAS MORRIS.

No. 20, Battle-bridge.

Mulberries and silk, in Spain, from Townshend's travels through Spain, in the years 1786 and 1787.

HE mulberry of Valencia is the white, as being most suitable to a well-watered plain. In Granada they give the preference to the black, as thriving well in elevated stations, as more durable,more abundant in leaves, and yielding a much finer and more valuable silk. But

then it does not begin bearing till it is about twenty years of age. In this province they reckon, that five trees should produce two pounds of silk.

I had the curiosity to examine their method of feeding the silkworms in Spain. These industrious spinners are spread upon wicker shelves, which are placed one above the other all round, and likewise in the middle of each apartment, so as to leave room only for the good woman to pass with their provisions. In one house, I saw the produce of six ounces of seed, and was informed, that to every ounce, during their feeding season, they allow sixty arrobas of leaves, valued at two pounds five shillings. Each ounce of seed is supposed to yield ten pounds of silk, at twelve ounces to the pound. March 28th, the worms began to hatch; and May 22nd, they went up to spin. In the intermediate space, on the eleventh day they slept; and, on the fourteenth, they awoke to eat again, receiving food twice a day till the twenty-second day. Having then slept a second time, without interruption, for three days, they were fed thrice a day; and thus alternately conti, nued eating eight days, and sleeping three, till the forty-seventh day; after which theyeat voraciously for ten days, and not being stinted, consumed sometimes from thirty to fifty arrobas in four-and-twenty hours. They then climbed up into rosemary bushes, fixed for that purpose between the shelves, and began to spin.

Upon examination, they appear evidently to draw out two threads by the same operation, and to glue these together, covering them with wax. This may be proved by spi

in may be in darkness: let them remain thus half an hour; then, with a stick rap the bottom hive, but not so hard as to injure the combs; continue rapping half an hour; then untie the cloth, and take away the upper hive, into which the noise has driven the bees, and place it on the table and cloth from whence you took them, and shake them out on the cloth, and they will run into the mouth of their proper hive. If necessary, repeat this operation, and all the bees will be saved; this saves the trouble and loss of smothering them with sulphur, as was the custom; and the bees in one day will forget the injury, and work as usual. But in case but little honey is left in their two hives they must be fed; thus, in two hours your honey may be taken, and the bees preserved; the honey you have obtained in this way may be dark, but will make excellent mead; but better and brighter will be produced by those which work in glasses.

Hives will not be beneficial in barren countries; but should be near gardens, shrubberies, orchards of cherries, or farms, where clover, beans, saintfoin, or French wheat, grow. Lime-trees, or Green-house plants, set out in the spring, orange or lemon-trees, are useful, and produce excellent honey; where there is room, it is worth while to plant gooseberries, currants, sweet marjoram, peppermint, or the like.

Though I am not for preventing bees from swarming whenever they are inclined, yet I acknowledge that it is sometimes necessary to destroy some stocks.

If they have lost their mother, and neither swarm nor work much, they should not be kept.

The moth, or other accident, will

sometimes spoil them, and then they should be destroyed.

My neighbours say, that, when I did, the bees will lose the most compassionate master in this kingdom. Indeed I, however, have destroyed none but from necessity, and have been, for near twenty-four years, remarkably successful.

I have now forty stocks in good condition, though the loss of mothers, or some unforeseen accident, may happen to some before sum

mer.

The loss of a mother may be known, by the bees ceasing to work, and mourning incessantly: they will sometimes, in that case, leave their hive, and try to force themselves into one that is near.

This circumstance should be noticed; for the old hive may be well stored and when they have left it as a residence, they will yet return with their companions, and carry away the honey: some, for want of observing this, have wondered how a heavy hive, that has been left, has become light.

But though the mother be lost, if there be eggs, they will sometimes stay and hatch them; and if any royal seed be among the eggs, they may survive, and become a good stock; but this is not often the

case.

About a month ago, I was desired to look at five stocks at Richmond, in order to purchase them; one of the heaviest was without a mother. I purchased that, and one more where the mother was lost: I found twelve pounds of honey, but no eggs, and therefore the bees would not have staid long: the other three were old, and the honey black, and therefore of no use but to stand and swarm another year.