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cause a feaver; and less than thirty, as some say, will kill a

man.

6. The wasp is a great enemy to the Bees, and more hurtful than the hornet; for the wasps destroy the honey as well as the Bees themselves. The best way to destroy them is by killing the mother wasps when they first come abroad; you may take them with your flap at your Beedoors, on the hives, when they sit sunning themselves, and on the gooseberry bushes from the beginning of May.

7. The flying-moth is also another enemy; he lieth between the hackle and the Hive, and breedeth little worms, or crawling-moths, some on the skirts of the Hives, and some within on the stools. You are easily rid of these guests, for these and the snails are soon crushed; they are some of the meanest enemies, and are the soonest destroyed.

8. If you have any emmets or ants near your Hive, they will be a perpetual trouble to your Bees. While the Bees are strong and in health, they will fight and destroy the ants; but when they grow weak, the ants get the mastery of them, and take possession of the Hive. The best way to destroy this enemy is by scalding them.

9. The spider is another enemy, which harbours between the hackle and the Hive; and you shall seldom find but that she hath two or three Bees in store to feed on; and sometimes when the Bees are weak, they will be bold to enter the Hive, and there weave their fatal web. Ashes strewed on the outside of the Hive will not suffer the spider, moth, or anything of that nature, to harbour there. And thus much for destroying the Bees' enemies.

VI. OF THE REMOVING OF BEES.

In removing of Bees, be careful to avoid the five evils;hindering of their swarming, and of their honey; gathering, breaking of their combs, robbing, and loss of Bees.

REMOVE BEES IN LIBRA.

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Remove always in a fair day, and as near as you can guess in settled weather; for when they are removed to another place, they will fly to their old standing as soon as they are let go, and hanker about for some days, where, if they meet with cold or wet, many of them will lose their lives.

The time of the year for removing the Bees is in the three still months, or within a fortnight before or after. You must not remove them in summer. You must never remove them in Virgo, for the old inhabitants of the garden finding new neighbours come among them, will be sure to visit them at a time when the chief of their strength is straggling abroad, seeking for their old dwelling; and they will bring the rest such cheer to their house-warming, as may happily make the house too hot for them; and then they must be forc'd to go along with them, and make them carry their own goods after them.

The fittest of all to remove them is in Libra. In the evening, when you design to remove, an hour before sunsetting (having first shut the Hive close), immediately lift up the stool; then having prepared another stool of the same height, and covered it with your mantle, so that the middle of the mantle be over the middle of the stool, set this covered stool in its place, or, if the old stool cannot well be moved, then set the covered stool by it. This done, lift up the stall from the old stool, and set it on the new; and then, wiping the Bees from the old stool with your brush, either take the stool away, or cover it with a cloth. Within a while, when the Bees are all in, fill up the door with grass, and tie the mantle at the four corners over the Hive, so that the knots may not slip; and then bind it to the Hive about the middle slackly, and rest it fast with a little stick.

The best way to carry your stall is upon a coul-staff, between two persons; if it be light, one may carry it in his hand. Be sure it be hung perpendicularly, for fear of

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WHAT STOCKS TO BE TAKEN UP.

breaking the combs, especially if you happen to remove before Libra, when the wax is soft, and the honey is plentiful.

When you have brought the stall home, you may let it stand, bound as it is, all night in the house; on the morrow, when the weather serveth, set it on its seat; but if it be foul all that day, keep it bound until it be fair; and then, having loosed the line and taken away the mantle, cloom it up presently, leaving for three or four days a very narrow entrance, for fear of robbing.

VII. OF THE FRUIT AND PROFIT OF BEES.

The most usual, and generally most useful manner of taking the combs, is by killing the Bees, for which the natural and seasonable time is in Virgo, from the end of the dog-days. At this time, therefore, consider with yourself what stalls you will kill: swarms that may live are yearlings; and two yearlings that are in proof, and may be kept in store.

Those of three or four years, which by reason of their swarming this last summer are full of Bees, most likely are fat, and therefore worth the taking; but they are also good for store, unless the frequent honey dews makes them over fat; but those of that age which are cast Hive are not likely to continue, and therefore are to be taken, as are also poor swarms not worth the feeding—all light stocks-for they will surely dye. Such also as they as do not carry out their dross, and drive away their Drones in good time, also those whom the robbers do easily assault, are to be most suspected; and if their combs be once broken, delay not their taking. Moreover, all stalls of three years old and upwards, that have mist swarming two years together, and especially those that have lain out the summer before, and did not cast this last summer, for such do seldom prosper. It is better, therefore, to take 'em

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now they are good, than, in a vain hope of encrease, to keep them till they perish.

Neither is it safe to trust any, after they have stood five years and upwards, that have mist swarming two years together, unless it be some special sort of Bees, which always keep themselves in good heart: such as these I have kept nine or ten years. Likewise, if you have any that are very fat and full of honey, as some years some will be even down to the stool, those are ripe and ready to yield their fruit; one such stall is worth three or four. Take them, therefore, in the season. Take the worst and the best of them.

Having made choice of your stalls, to be taken two or three hours before sun-setting, dig a hole in the ground (as near the stalls as may be) of about nine inches deep, and almost as wide as the hive skirts, laying the small earth round about the brims. Then having a little stick slit in one end and stripped at the other, take a brimstone match five or six inches long, and about the bigness of your little finger, and making it fast in the slit, stick the stick in the middle of the bottom or in the side of the hole, so that the top of the match may stand even with the brim of the pit, or within one inch of it, and then set another by him drest after the same manner, if the first be not sufficient. When you have fired the matches at the upper ends, set over the Hive, and presently shut it close at the bottom with the small earth, that none of the smoke may come forth; so shall you have your Bees dead and down in a quarter of an hour.

But a moveable pit is much better, being always ready without any labour, for any stall in any place of the garden, which is to be made of the round trunk of an elm or other tree; the length or depth ten inches of the concave or hollow part, ten at the top, and eight at the bottom, the confex superfices eighteen inches; and so the trunk will be five inches thick below and four above. The pit being

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GREECE, SICILY, ITALY, &c.

placed, fasten the stick with the matches in the middle of the bottom, fire the match set over the stall, and stop in the smoke with linnen cloths. If any Bee escapes he will die that night; and you may kill them that do any harm, if you find them on the place.

I shall here omit the manner of driving of Bees from one stall to another, the invention having in it much of curiosity, and nothing of profit in it; and whilst some have endeavoured to enrich themselves by getting the honey, and saving the Bees at the same time, they have but made good the old proverb, All covet, all lose.

There is another way which has been try'd with success, which is called exsection or castration, which is done by cutting out part of the combs, part being left for the Bees' provision; but what is to be taken and what left, I find it not determined. This practice was anciently used in plentiful countries, as Greece, Sicily, Italy, &c. But, however they might succeed in those countries, I take our climate to be very unfit for that practice.

The Hive being taken and housed, lay it softly on the ground, upon the sides, not the edges of the combs; and loosing the ends of the splits with your fingers, and the edges of the combs, where they stick to the sides of the Hive, with a wooden slice, take them out one after another. Then having wiped off the half-dead Bees with a goosefeather, break the combs presently, while they are warm, into three parts. The first, honey and wax; the second, honey and wax with sandarack; the third, dry wax without honey; and that they may break right where you would have them, mark the place deeply with the edge of your knife.

But first provide necessary instruments, as pans, knives, tongs, sieves, or wheat-ridders; a slice, a wax-grate, knives, straining-bags, a tub or kive, with a tap and tap-ware; a hairen-cansive, honey-pots, wax molds, meath-barrels.

These things provided, take out the first combs, and set

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