HOW TO MAKE BEES OVERTAKEN.

67

size of a man's head. Put them in a bag, and when you have squeezed them to half the size, dry them in an oven after the bread is drawn, or before the fire. The fungus is fit for use when it will hold fire like tinder; keep this dry till the time you take your Bees. Linen rags soaked in nitre will do, when the fungus cannot be had; but even rags are worth money. The fungus may be had for picking. In the autumn weigh your Hives; mark those which are heaviest and lightest. This, of course, you cannot do rightly, unless you know the weight of your Hives when empty. So always weigh them before you put the swarms into them, and mark the weight on the outside, that you may not forget it. Casts, except they are very early and strong, will seldom stand the winter, or they will be so weak next spring, that they will do no good. When the honey season is over, stop up over night all you intend to take up. These stocks should, if possible, stand next to good heavy ones, to which you may join the Bees in the way I am going to tell you. You should get a little tin box fitted to the nose of your bellows, having a sort of spout coming from it, which fits the door of your Beehive. Take a piece of fungus twice the size of a hen's egg, light it, and when it burns freely, put it into the box; fit it into your bellows, and blow the smoke into your Hive. Stop that part of the

door up with wet clay which the tin spout does not fill, that none of the smoke may get out. The Bees at first will make a great buzzing; in about five minutes all will be as still as death. Lift the Hive

gently off, and turn those Bees which have fallen on to the bottom board into a large white dish. They will be quite harmless and still, as if they had been burned with brimstone; but the fungus does them no harm; it only makes them drunk, which is very good for Bees, though bad for men, as they get well in twenty minutes, have no head-ache next

WHERE TO LOOK FOR THE QUEEN.

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morning, and are all merrier afterwards, and it was not their fault that they were so overtaken. Look for the Queen Bee, which may be easily known from her likeness to the Cut. It is well to have many people round the table to search for her, as also to cut out the combs and sweep the BEES off; for many hands, as well as eyes, are better than one. If you find her at first, put her softly on one side, and sweep all the other stupid Bees with a feather into the white dish. Then cut the combs carefully out, one by one, and if you have not already found the Queen, look sharp for her on each comb. Nine times out of ten she does not fall down, but holds fast to the top of the Hive, in the very middle: so that the sharp man -sharp as a Bee's sting, like Joseph Barnet-who keeps the Hive in his own hands, and cuts the combs out (mind you do it carefully, or you may be so unhappy as to become a REGICIDE,) has a much better chance of finding her majesty than those who are hunting for her among the Bees that have fallen down. If you are only going to take the combs out of one Hive, and wish to make sure that there is a good healthy Queen in the other in which the united stock is to live, you may get a sight of the Queen in this way; we will suppose that she has not fallen down with the rest, for, be the reason what it may, the Queen is stupi

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HOW TO FORCE THE QUEEN OUT OF HIVE.

fied by the fungus less easily than the vulgar herd, either the Bees in their loyalty crowd round her, and so ward off the fumes as long as they can, till they themselves drop, or she has a stronger constitution than the rest; be this as it may, she very often does not drop from among the combs. In order to get a sight of her, turn the Hive upside down, combs, Bees, and all; then blow a little smoke through the bung-hole in the top of the Hive, which is now the bottom, put a thick cloth over the Hive, and the Queen will be among the first who will crawl up to its upper edge; seize her,

USE HER TENDERLY, FOR ON HER the lives and happiness of thousands depend; then go on with your work. Pour the Bees all back into the Hive from which you have cut the combs, and set it in its old place till the evening. You ought to leave little bits of comb sticking to the top of the Hive, about which the Bees, whose honey you have taken, will cluster like a new swarm; they will set about

HOW TO MARRY STOCKS.

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clearing out the broken bits of wax and putting the Hive straight, as fast as they can. Anybody who does not know what you have done, who comes into your garden, would think this your strongest stock, instead of being a kingdom of paupers without a Queen. In the evening blow a little smoke into the strong Hive which stands next to them: when the Bees are a little quiet, turn it up gently, and pour some large spoonsful of honey and water, or sugar and ale, into the combs where most Bees are clustered together. Put three bricks on the bottom board, so that when you set the Hive down again, no Bees may be crushed; then take the Hive from which you took the combs in the morning, and, with one smart blow, knock all the Bees out upon the bottom board of the strong Hive whose Bees you have sugared. Set their Hive gently in its place on the bricks, over the Bees which you have just knocked out; they will begin to lick the first drops of honey which trickle on to the board, and will be led up by the scent of that which you have poured into the combs, to mix themselves with the other Bees.

They will take to one another when they have helped each other to clean off the sugar with their tongues. The fact of their helping each other in their troubles makes them friends, just as it does grown men, and children, who are small men