A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive | Page 8

of all hives and boxes, I refer the reader to Dr. Bevan's "Honey-bee."
In mentioning the defects of these different boxes and hives, I do not mean to condemn them as useless, for they will all answer to a certain extent the purposes for which they were intended, rewarding the attentive bee-keeper, according to the seasons, and enabling the bees to send forth many swarms, and collecting and storing up their treasures of honey; but my object has been to point out briefly to those anxious for the better, more extended, and economical mode of bee-management, the difficulties to be provided against, and to recommend to their consideration the advantages offered in the bar frame-hive. But, however, I should not be doing justice to Mr. R. Golding, if I did not particularly mention his "improved Grecian hive" by the use of which combs may be removed from the interior of the hive and inspected at pleasure: this improvement he has effected by carefully investigating the laws of the insects for whose use the hives were intended, and by a particular arrangement of the bars, (every alternate one being furnished with guide combs,) the bees have been induced, in a manner at once simple and beautiful, to construct a uniform range of combs. When the hive is filled with honey, two or three, or more of the bars may be, at any time, removed, or exchanged for unoccupied bars, without much disturbing the brood combs, all annoyance from the bees being prevented by a whiff or two of tobacco smoke being blown into the hive at the time of the removal of the bars. With the protection of a bee-house these hives can be applied to many of the systems of bee-management, and prove equally profitable, and more manageable than some of the newly-invented hives.

THE APIARY.
Next of importance to the kind of hive and the system to be followed, is the proper situation of an apiary. This subject engaged the attention of bee-keepers in ancient as much as in modern times; but the directions given by Columella and Virgil are as good now as when they were written; and as is observed by the writer in No. CXLI. of the Quarterly Review, in the amusing article on "Bee-books,"--"It would amply repay (and this is saying a great deal,) the most forgetful country gentleman to rub up his schoolboy Latin, for the sole pleasure he would derive from the perusal of the fourth Georgic." The aspect has been regarded as of the first importance; but there are points of greater consequence, namely the vicinity of good bee pasturage, the shelter of the hives from the winds by trees or houses, and their distance from ponds or rivers, as the high winds might dash the bees into the water.
Various aspects have been recommended, but the south, with a point to the east or west, according to its situation as respects the shelter it may receive from walls or trees, &c. is the best: care, however, must be taken that neither walls, trees, nor anything else impede the going forth of the bees to their pasturage.
"I have ever found it best," says Wildman, "to place the mouth of the hives to the west in spring, care being taken that they have the afternoon sun; the morning sun is extremely dangerous during the colder months, when its glare often tempts these industrious insects out to their ruin; whereas the mouth of the hive being then in the shade, the bees remain at home; and as clouds generally obscure the afternoon's sun at that season, the bees escape the temptation of going out. When food is to be obtained, the warmth of the air continues round the hive in the afternoon, which enables the bees to pursue their labours without danger.
A valley is a better situation for an apiary than a hill, being more convenient to the bees returning home with their loads; and, besides, bees are not so apt to fly away when swarming as when on a hill: but when swarms take a distant flight, they generally fly against the wind, so that the stragglers of the swarms may better hear the direction of the course taken by their fellow emigrants.
I recommend a hard gravel terrace for the hives to be placed upon, as being drier both in summer and winter for the bee-master to walk upon, when inspecting his bees, and also as less likely to afford shelter for ants or other enemies to bees; and, besides, it is better for the bees, which when much fatigued by their journeys, or benumbed by the cold, are apt to fall around the hives, and would recover more quickly from the warmth of the dry ground than if they had alighted on damp grass.
The hives should