of most severe frost, an icicle, several inches long, hanging from the lighting board, along which it stretched, like a frozen river, to the mouth of the Hive, but no further. This proves that even when the thermometer is at zero, as it had then been in the open air, the Bees have the power of keeping their own heat above the freezing point, or 32 degrees. Their breath, after having been turned into water by the cold, ran down along the bottom board, which was purposely put sloping to throw out the wet, in a stream of warm water, to the mouth of the Hive, and there froze. My straw Hives had nothing of the sort; their moisture was all sucked in by the straw, and then frozen; when the thaw comes, the wooden box will be drier, and so more healthy than the straw Hives.

Your Bees, now, I will suppose, have done well in the summer. The place where you put them in the winter is of no less matter. If they are left in their summer place, fronting the sun, every bright day, even in December, tempts many out. They find nothing, are of course more hungry, and eat more on their return. Many of them never get back; when they get out of the warm sun into the cold wind, they fall stiff, and die. You may have seen hundreds lying on the ground about your Hives if you pick them up, and warm them in your hand, they will come to. If you are afraid

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GLASS TO CONDENSE BEES' BREATH.

of warming them in your hand by your breath, which you ought not to be, gather them into a small chip-box, and put them in your pocket for an hour or so. This will act like a vapour-bath on a man who is half-dead from frost. Then turn them out, when they begin to buzz, on the lighting-board at the mouth of your Hive. They will then, with a merry song of joy, and thanks to you for your kindness, speedily rejoin their fellowsubjects in the Hive, who have not suffered from the frost as they have done, or been revived by the care of a good Bee-doctor such as yourself.

In damp places many Bees die of the rot. Even in dry places a good deal of water settles on the top of the Hives inside, made by the breath of the Bees. The following is a good way to prevent this harming the Bees. When you put your Bees into their winter quarters, take the bung out of the hole in the top, and put a tin on the board on

which the cap stood in the summer.

It is an

upright ring, standing on a flat plate of tin, or

BEES TO BE SCREENED IN WINTER.

85

Over this

zinc, with a hole through the middle. turn a glass topsy-turvy. The hot air comes up through the hole, turns into steam, and runs down the glass, outside the upright ring.

The best place to put Bees in is a dry, cold, and dark room, or out-house, if you can get it. (The

colder the winter, the better, if the air is dry. Damp cold gives them the rot, as it does sheep.) Put your Bees there the last week of November, and let them sleep quietly till the flowers begin to come out at the end of February. Set their bottom board slanting, that all the wet may run out at the door; or, still better, hang them up in a coarse cloth. This will let in the air, and suck in the water, which will soon dry away. Weigh them before you put them into their winter

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BEES MAY BE BURIED.

quarters, and again when you bring them out, and you will find them much stronger, as well as heavier, than any you leave on their summer stands. Again, I say, try it, even if you do not believe me. If you have no such room or outhouse, at least keep the sun away from them, or put them on the north side of your house, if the place is dry. The old Oxfordshire thatcher, mentioned at page 61, had long done so. He had learned this plan by always finding hornets and wasps laid up for the winter in the north side of the thatches which he pulled to pieces, and never in the south. Bees have lived very well through the winter, when buried; and this you may try, if you please, only mind you bury them

in a dry place. The best plan is to dig a hole, put dry cinders into it, half a foot thick; place your Bees, tied up in a cloth, on the cinders, and then fill up the hole with cinders to the level of the ground; then thatch the mound of cinders,

DO AS YOU WOULD BE DONE BY.

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which should rise above the ground, with some straw, to prevent any wet trickling through. In Switzerland a whole village clubs together, and hires a cold dry room, which they darken, and put all their Bees in. Why should not any of you, who has such a place, take his neighbour's Bees in during the winter? But mind you mark them first, that each man may have his own in the spring. Nothing like the good old golden rule,

Do as you would be done by.

This will come in, a hundred ways in Bee-keeping. In olden time, any man who wished to begin had no difficulty in borrowing a swarm from a neighbour; a year or two afterwards he repaid it by a first swarm, with from five to ten pounds of honey for interest, according as two or three years had passed since he borrowed. Why should you not do so too? If you thus help your neighbour all you can, you are none the worse off because he gets a share of the honey, which would otherwise be wasted: he is all the better, and so are you too, because you do him a kindness, and no kindness is easier. If more

cottagers kept Bees, much of the honey, which is now wasted, would be gathered. I have taken the trouble to see how much Bee produce is brought into England every year from foreign parts. It is 32,0007. in wax alone, besides honey. Every