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than they, though I fear not always; if you do not give in to them, they will be forced to give in to your better way.

Cannot you, whoever you be that read this, take a lesson from the Bees, by giving in to those who are wiser than you? I have already learned something by this lesson, and E trust to get it by heart more perfectly every day X live. The next cut is a wooden Hive, acting on the same plan of ventilation and side room. Now some of you do not fancy wooden boxes, because you say the Bees do not like them. Now I would ask whether wild Bees live in wooden trees or in

trusses of straw? Believe me, they choose what is best for them. They choose wood; and wooden boxes, if thick enough, are warmer in winter, cooler in summer, freer from insects, and more handy than straw Hives. Only try it. If you can use carpenter's tools, make them at spare times. Have them strong enough; and never

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mind turning out a rough job at first, if you do your best.

Use before beauty

is a good old saw. To be sure, they cost more to buy than straw Hives; but I will show you that with boxes like the wood-cut, you may pay what they cost the first year, and leave some profit besides; and then the second year, and ever after, all is gain. The Bees are swarmed into the middle box, and never after disturbed. It is to be as hot as they choose to make it. There the Queen lays her eggs; there the nurse Bees do their work; there they lay up honey sufficient to keep them through the winter; there they sleep through that winter; in short, it is their NURSERY, their DINING ROOM, their PALACE, their HOME, and, like every Englishman's home, THEIR

CASTLE, FOR THEY MUST NEVER BE DISTURBED THERE. The side boxes are only BARNS, where they lay up their spare honey for you, and which you may take as fast as they are filled. In a good honey year, you will often get a box weighing thirty pounds, early in June. There is a slide at the top and bottom of the middle box, working from the front, which opens or cuts off the way from the centre box to the side. Always keep one of the side boxes empty. As soon as the one on the right hand gets pretty full of honey, and the Hive so hot that if you do not give them more room

PROPER SIZE FOR SIDE BOXES.

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they will soon swarm, pull out the slide, and let the Bees into the left-hand box; this will make them cooler. As soon as they have taken to this new BARN, carry off the full one, as you took the hive, page 78. Empty it, and place it back again, to be used as soon as the left-hand one gets full. The boxes must each be about eleven clear inches on the inside, by nine inches high. This is the best size for common use. In very good honey countries, they may be made a little bigger; but this size is more handy, since you are able to meet more quickly any order for honey early in the year, and so get a better price for it. In June a box of this size is often filled in three weeks, where there is plenty of honey-dew on the oaks and lime trees. I have made what I think a still further improvement, since I wrote the first edition of this Letter, in the make of side-boxes. worst part of them is, if they are made full size the Bees are not able to fill them, in a middling summer; if they are made smaller, you do not get in good seasons so fine a box of honey as you otherwise might: so to meet both these difficulties, I have shifted the wooden end of the side box from the place where it used to stand, next to the castle, into the very middle of the side barn. This is good in two ways;-there is not, on this plan, a thick double wooden wall between that and

The

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SIDE BOXES DIVIDED IN TWO.

the castle.

This is the first good; the second is not far behindhand. By means of the partition placed on the middle of the barn, I can, by pulling out the slides which run in, in the middle of it, give the Bees a barn big enough to store forty pounds of honey, instead of about twenty, which the first half would hold. Always keep the slides in, till the Bees have taken well to the first half; then draw all these out, and if honeydews are plenty, they will soon take to the second. Mind, the Hives should be as hot as possible when the combs are building, and as cool as possible when honey is being stored. So, as soon as the barn is two-thirds filled with comb, push the top slide in altogether, the middle slide almost all the way, and leave the bottom one, quite open. the same with the passages from the middle Hive; this will let the heat pass from the centre box while the combs are building; and when all the slides but those at the bottom are pushed in, the side boxes will be kept cool, and the Bees still have a free passage by the bottom slide. Boxes are also far more safe than the common straw Hives in those places where there is much of that cruel and wicked thing, Bee stealing. I say cruel and wicked, because I think so. All stealing is wicked, and so Bee-stealing among the rest; and it is most cruel both to the poor Bees, and

Do

THE POOR PLUNDERED BEE-MASTER.

81

He

also to the Bee-master. I can imagine no greater picture of misery than a poor Bee-master, who gets up on a dull November morning, and then goes straightway to his Bees, with the intent of doing something among his Hives, and finds them all gone or destroyed. He sees all his rich stocks taken bodily away, and the poor ones thrown on the ground as not worth stealing, though they were worth half a sovereign to him, for they would have swarmed next summer. sees the poor Bees of these stocks crawling about the ground, half-numbed with the cold, and wondering what in the world has disturbed that sleep, in which they had quietly settled, for a long winter. Happy is he, if, by collecting the Bees which the robbers have shaken out on the ground, from the rich stocks which they have taken, as well as from the poor ones which they have left, happy is he if he can find enough of these poor misused beasts, or birds, if you like, to put into one Hive, under one Queen, maltreated, like her subjects, to enable them to live through the winter, and start afresh in the spring. I know not what punishment the law gives to Bee-stealers: beside being guilty of stealing so many pounds of honey, which bear a certain marketable value, they are also guilty of Apicide. I should think such a

man met with no more than his deserts, if his

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