Bee-Keeping. The apiary should be well sheltered from strong winds, either naturally or by building walls or close, high fences, and should face the south, the east, or the southeast, so as to get the sun during the day. If it is not so sheltered, in a high wind the bees are unable to strike the hive and are blown to the ground, where they are chilled and die. It should not be near large surfaces of water, lest the bees, overcome by cold or fatigue, should be forced to alight on them, or be carried down by the wind. After a suitable place for an apiary is selected, the hives should not be moved over a few feet; for when the bees first fly out in the spring they mark the location and take note of immediately surrounding objects as guides for their return. The hives should be placed in a right line; the distance between the hives should not be less than two feet. In some apiaries their height from the ground is from one to two feet, but many bee-keepers of experience raise the platform only two inches from the earth, because fewer of the fatigued or chilled bees that miss the hive in returning and alight under it are lost, the flight of issuing swarms is lower, and there is less exposure to strong winds.

Grounds on which there are no large trees, but some of small size and shrubbery, on which the swarms may alight, are preferable. The grass should be mown frequently around the hives, and the ground kept clean, to prevent too much dampness, and to destroy the lurking places of noxious insects and vermin. The hives should be on separate stands, to prevent the bees from running from one hive to another, and should be of different, not glaring colors, as guides to the bees. - The chamber hive is made with two apartments - the lower for the residence of the bees, the upper to hold the boxes in which the bees put their honey after having filled the lower part. These hives are sometimes made several inches narrower from front to rear at the bottom than at the top, to prevent the comb from slipping down. They are also sometimes furnished with inclined bottom boards to roll out the worms that fall upon them, or are driven down by the bees. To protect the bees from vermin, several kinds of suspended hives have been contrived with inclined movable bottom boards. The dividing hives are made with several compartments, so as to multiply at the will of the bee-keeper the number of colonies, without the trouble and risk of swarming and hiving.

By means of these hives, the partitions of which are supposed to divide the brood combs, a part of the bees and of the combs are removed and placed by themselves to go on making honey, and multiplying in every respect like a natural swarm. In many instances, however, where a swarm is divided, in one apartment there will be no brood from which to raise a queen. - Several inventions have been made to enable the bee-keeper to change the combs and get the honey without driving out or destroying the bees. Changeable hives are made in sections, generally three drawers placed one above another, with holes to allow the bees to pass. When the boxes are all filled, and it is desired to change the combs, the upper box is removed, and its place supplied by a new one put in at the bottom. It is held that there is a necessity for changing the brood combs, because the larvae hatched from the eggs and sealed up in the cells there spin their cocoons, which remain when they go out, upon the walls of the cells. This deposit, although extremely thin, diminishes the size of the cell, affording less room for each succeeding generation, thus causing the bees to gradually deteriorate in size.

On the other hand, it is denied that deterioration is caused in the bees by the filling up of the brood cells, even if the same combs are hatched from 12 years, and time and honey are therefore needlessly wasted by keeping the bees constantly making new brood comb. It is estimated by some writers that in elaborating a pound of wax the bees will consume 25 lbs. of honey, besides losing the time when they might be laying up further stores. The difficulty of putting the swarms into these hives, and the many lurking places they afford to the bee moth, and also the difficulty of procuring, in this method of taking away honey, that which is good and free from cocoons and bee bread, more than counterbalance, in the opinion of many bee-keepers, their advantages. - Swarming hives are sometimes used. They are made with sections, so that by closing all or a part of them the space which the bees occupy is lessened, and they are crowded out, and their swarming hastened. Non-swarmers are arranged so as to allow the bees to go on accumulating honey and increasing in number, and in theory not swarm at all. A hive of bees is put into a bee house, and empty hives connected with it, so that as soon as one becomes filled the bees pass to the adjoining ones.

In some instances more surplus honey has been obtained by this method; but giving the bees any amount of room will not prevent their swarming. The result of all the experiments tends to show the superiority, for practical purposes, of the simpler hives. For protection against the extremes of heat and cold in summer and winter, straw hives are excellent. - In Poland, where finer honey is produced and bees are more successfully managed than elsewhere in Europe, hives are made by excavating trunks of trees, taking logs a foot or more in diameter and about 9 feet long. They are scooped out or bored for the length of 6 feet from one end, forming hollow cylinders, the diameter of the bore being 6 or 8 inches. A longitudinal slit is made in the cylinder nearly its whole length, and about 4 inches wide. Into this is fitted a slip of wood with notches on the edges large enough to admit a single bee. This slip is fastened in with wedges or hinges; if it is in several parts, it will often be found more convenient. The top is covered, and the trunk set upright with the opening toward the south. Through the door the condition of the entire swarm is seen, and the honey taken from time to time. - One of the best hives is made of pine boards an inch thick, 12 inches square inside, and 14 1/2 deep.

Instead of a top, with holes to allow the bees to ascend to the boxes, there should be slats three fourths of an inch wide and an inch thick, half an inch apart, three quarters of an inch below the top of the hive. Four or five quarter-inch strips at equal distances across the slats will be even with the top of the hive, and on these the surplus boxes can be set. Over all should be a cover or cap 14 inches inside and 7 inches high. A hole an inch in diameter in the front side, half way to the top, furnishes an entrance for the bees, and additional entrances may be made at the bottom on the sides. If glass boxes are used to receive the honey, guide comb must be placed, as bees will rarely build on glass without it. Glass boxes are the most profitable, as they show the honey to the best advantage, and are sold by weight with the honey, which pays their cost. A separate cover for each hive may be easily made by putting together two boards, letting them incline to each other so as to form a roof. It is necessary to guard against shading the hives too much in spring and fall, against preventing a free circulation of air all around them in summer, and exposing them too much in the middle of the day to the sun.

The bee house should not, in cool weather, make the temperature around the hives much higher than the bees will encounter at a distance. Simple movable covers, which are easily adjusted as the season demands, with hives made of boards of sufficient thickness, well painted to prevent warping and cracking, will generally prove an ample protection, except in winter, when the hives must be housed, or covered with straw mats. In the movable comb hive each comb is suspended in a frame and the top is not fastened, permitting combs to be removed for examination or for transfer to other hives; drone comb may be cut out and working comb substituted; swarming for the season, after one swarm has issued, can be stopped by cutting off all but one of the queen cells; moth worms can be detected and destroyed; and the amount of brood the colony shall raise can be controlled. - The new swarms generally appear during the months of June and July, but sometimes as early as May or as late as August, and in good seasons Italian bees have swarmed at intervals for three months. The swarms are usually hived, when the branch or whatever they alight on can be removed, by shaking them off in front of the hive, a little raised on one side to allow their passage.

When they collect where they cannot be shaken off, and the hive cannot be placed near, they may be brushed quickly into a sack or basket and carried to the hive. It is irritating to the bees and useless to endeavor to make the swarms collect by a din of horns, tin pans, and bells. They will sometimes collect on a pole with a few branches, some broom corn, dry mullein tops, or similar things fastened to the end and held in the air. They may sometimes be arrested when going off by throwing water or earth among them. It is very seldom that a swarm starts for its chosen destination without previously alighting. If two or more swarms issue at the same time and unite, they may be separated, if desired, by shaking them from the branch between two or more hives placed near together. Should the queens enter the same hive, the bees must be shaken out between empty hives as before, and this operation repeated till the queens separate, or the bee-keeper is able to catch one or more of them, and put them with the bees where wanted. Or if there are only two swarms united, a part may be separated and returned to the parent hives, and the rest put into one hive; or they may all be put into one, and boxes put on immediately.

It is sometimes desirable to unite small swarms; this may be easily done, if they issue about the same time, by inverting one hive and placing the other over it; the bees in the lower will ascend. When it is desirable to defer for a short time the issuing of a swarm which the signs indicate to be just at hand, the bees on the outside of the hive should be sprinkled with water. This is effectual only before the swarm has started. Sometimes the swarm issues and returns several times; if this is owing to the inability of the queen to fly, she should be found if possible, and put with the others in the new hive. It has been proved by the movable comb hive that the old queen, if she can fly, always leaves with the first swarm. If the weather should be such as to prevent the new swarms from going out to collect honey for several days immediately after being hived, it may be necessary to feed them. - The general use of box and movable comb hives makes it unnecessary to kill bees to get the honey. In other hives the bees may be stupefied with chloroform, sulphur, or tobacco smoke. The comb when taken should be cut off clean so that the honey may run as little as possible upon the bees.

Polish apiarians cut out the old comb annually to lessen the tendency to swarming, and thus obtain the largest amount of honey. The old practice of destroying the bees, except those which are intended for wintering, after the hives have been filled and the honey season has passed, still prevails, and La Grenee gives many reasons proving this to be profitable. The time for taking up hives depends somewhat on the season and the bee pasturage. The quantity of honey does not increase generally after Sept. 1. The bees are suffocated by burning sulphur, are buried to prevent resuscitation, and the honey removed. The bees are sometimes deprived of the entire store of comb and honey in the early part of the season, generally after the leaving of the first swarm, and driven into a new hive. "When the old hive is infested with moths, or the comb is not good, and it is desirable to winter the bees, this operation may be expedient. It is. performed by inverting the hive, and putting the other, into which the bees are to be driven, over it, making the junction close, and tapping with the hand or a stick the sides of the hive; the bees will pass up to the new hive, which is to be then removed to the stand. - Hives are sometimes attacked and robbed, either because they are too weak or other bees are attracted by broken honeycomb or by food put near the hive.

To protect it after the robbery has commenced, the hive should be removed to the cellar, or some cool dark place, and allowed to remain two or three days. It is sometimes sufficient to close the entrance to the hive so as to admit but one bee at a time. It is beneficial to put a similar hive in the place of the one removed, and rub on the bottom board wormwood leaves or the oil of wormwood. This is so disagreeable to the bees that they speedily forsake the place. Breaking the comb in the hive of the robbers will generally make them desist. - The quantity of honey usually necessary for wintering safely a swarm of bees is 30 pounds; and it is known that two colonies put into one hive will consume but few more pounds than one swarm, probably because of the increased warmth in the hive. Those that are found in the autumn to be weak in numbers and with a scanty supply of honey should be united with another weak colony to make a new and strong stock. Only the strong swarms are profitable to winter. Feeding should begin in October, so that the honey may be sealed up before cold weather. Brown sugar made into candy by being dissolved in water, clarified and boiled to evaporate the water, is a good food for bees. The sirup should be boiled till it begins to be brittle when cooled.

This or common sugar candy may be fed to bees in the hives, under them, or in the boxes. If fed in the liquid state, it may be introduced into the hives in dishes, some contrivance being made to enable the bees to eat it without getting into it. Honey is of course the best food, and movable combs may easily be transferred from well supplied to destitute colonies. The object in feeding bees in spring is to induce early swarming. Feeding should never be attempted as a matter of profit. Clover is the principal source of supply for the bees. Fruit tree, basswood, locust, and maple blossoms yield abundantly and of fine quality; buckwheat furnishes a large quantity, excellent for the winter food of bees, but inferior for the table. - The bee moth is the greatest foe the apiarian has to contend with. The best safeguard against this pest is to have the hive well jointed and painted, the entrances not too large, the bees vigorous and numerous, and to examine the hive daily from about May 1 till September or October. In the daytime the moths remain in their hiding places, and may often be found around the hive. They are on the wing in the evening, hovering around the apiary or running over the hives, endeavoring to enter and deposit their eggs.

Many may be destroyed by entrapping them in shallow dishes of sweetened water with a little vinegar added. Hollow sticks, small shells, and similar things are often placed on the bottom board, where the worms hatched from the eggs may take refuge and be destroyed. It is necessary to look often under the bottom of the hive, and if one side is raised (as is required for ventilation in warm weather), under the blocks or shells on which it rests. These caterpillars at first are not thicker than a thread, and are of a yellowish white color with a few brownish dots. They live in the wax, eating it, and filling the comb with webs. They protect themselves from the bees by a sort of silken sack, which they spin, and in which they lodge. When they have attained their full size, which requires about three weeks, they spin their cocoons; in these they remain enclosed some time, and change to chrysalids of a light brown color, with a dark elevated line along the back. A few days afterward they are trans-formed to winged moths and issue from the co-ooons. Rats and mice do not attack the hives except in winter, unless the comb is unprotected by bees. Spiders sometimes spin their webs upon and around the hives.

There is a disease called foul brood, which is very destructive to the young bees in the larva state; they die in the cells, and become black and putrid. The disease appears to be in a measure infectious. The only remedy is to drive out the bees into a new clean hive. It is the practice in some parts of Germany to put the bees-into a temporary hive, and let them remain 24 hours, without food, in the dark, before settling them in the new hive. The disease is attributed sometimes to feeding the bees with foreign honey; the infection being conveyed by the honey, which, to be safely fed, should be previously scalded. - In wintering bees it is necessary to protect them especially from freezing and starving. The latter happens when they collect together closely, in the coldest weather, and the comb becomes covered with frost and ice, excluding them from the honey. This is obviated by putting straw in the cover, after the removal of the boxes, to collect the moisture. The entrance to the hive is liable to be stopped with ice, and the bees thus suffocated. The bee never passes into the actually torpid state in winter, like some other insects. It requires less food when kept warm and comfortable.

If the hives are to be carried into a house or cellar, the place for them should be cool, dry, and dark. The best method is to house them, unless sufficient protection can be given them on the stands. Russian and Polish bee-keepers winter their hives on the stands; but they make them of inch and a half plank, and wind the upper part with twisted straw or cordage. If left on the stands, hives made of common boards need additional covering; the entrance should also be narrowed so as to leave only space enough for a single bee to pass. Light snow may cover the hive without danger. - The time for carrying bees.out from their winter quarters is in March, except in very backward seasons. A few bright cold days will not be more destructive to them than too long confinement. If new snow has fallen, and the weather is not sufficiently warm for them to venture into the air safely, the hive may be shaded from the sun, or the bees confined in the hive. If they are to stand very near each other, it is not well to carry out too many hives at once, the bees at first not readily distinguishing their own. The hives should be raised from the bottom board only on one side, if at all.

Many prefer, if the bees are not especially numerous, to let the hive rest entirely on the board, allowing less room for passage, and securing greater defence against intruders. More ventilation than this affords may be required in warm weather, when, if liable to suffer from heat, the hive may be raised entirely, proper means being furnished for the bees to ascend from the bottom board. - European apiarians have devised means for weighing hives so as to show the increase in the weight of honey from day to day; but the use of glass boxes and movable frames for combs permits inspection of the progress of the work at any time and renders weighing unnecessary. - Bee-keeping has in some instances been made very profitable. It-is, however, uncertain. Much depends on the season and on the pasturage. Mr. M. Quimby, in "Mysteries of Bee-Keeping Explained " (New York, 1865), says that an area of a few square miles in the vicinity of St. Johnsville, N. Y., in some favorable seasons has furnished for market'more than 20,000 lbs. of surplus honey; and it is estimated that in good localities every acre in the country would yield a pound.

A single colony has been known to give a profit of $35 in a season; 90 stocks have given $900 profit; and a New York apiarian reports for 130 hives $1,800 profit in a single season. Owing to the difference in the seasons, it is impossible to know how many stocks can be kept in given localities in the United States. One of the provinces in Holland has an average of 2,000 hives to the square mile. In an area of 45 square miles in Attica, Greece, it was estimated in 1865 that there were 20,000 hives. In all ages the abundance of flowers in Attica has made Hymettus famous for its honey; and as long ago as 1681, when Sir George Wheler visited the monks of Men-deli, a monastery of Pentelicus, they had 5,000 hives. - In 1860 a few colonies of the Italian or Ligurian bee (apis ligustica), which had long been a favorite with European apiarians, were imported into the United States, where they are now among the most popular, prolific, and profitable bees kept in the country. Their superiority over the native bee appears in their larger size and greater beauty; they are more prolific, longer-lived, more industrious, less sensitive to cold, and they swarm earlier and more frequently, and continue later than common bees.

The Rev. L. L. Langstroth, author of a well-known "Practical Treatise on the Hive and the Honey Bee," says his Italian colonies gathered more than twice as much honey as the swarms of the common bee; and Mr. Quimby, a practical bee-keeper of many years' experience, says he has not received a single unfavorable report of them. They are said to be a valuable acquisition to localities of high altitude, and are peculiarly adapted to the climate of Washington, Oregon, and the mountainous regions of California. The introduction of these bees into the United States has led to the Italianizing of whole apiaries, and to the production of numerous and superior hybrids, sometimes by design and again by the proximity of Italian and native swarms, though apiarians consider purity in swarms desirable.

Hives near the Ground.

Hives on Two-foot Pedestals.

Chamber Hive.

Tapering Hives.

Dividing Hives.

Changeable Hive.

Comb.

Polish Hive.

Swarming Beefs.