Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/189

Rh is lowered, room is given to the fast-augmenting population, and the necessity of swarming avoided. And that the Queen may he deterred from depositing her eggs in these end boxes, and thus deteriorating the quality of the honey, a degree of coolness, incompatible, according to this writer's theory, with the rearing of brood, is produced by ventilation; and this is effected by two openings, one at the top and the other at the bottom of the boxes, covered with pieces of perforated tin, and fitted with moveable shutters. For the convenience of using a thermometer, a perforated tin tube, fixed at the top, reaches down into the centre of each box. Into this tube the instrument is inserted from time to time, in order to ascertain the temperature. The quantity of honey said to be taken from one set of these boxes in one season (1826) is enormous—not less, the author avers, than 296½ lbs., while 109 lbs. were left to the bees. Nay, it appears from a register given in the work, that in the season above mentioned, one of the boxes, weighing 52 lbs., was filled in four days! If there is no mistake here, we can only conclude that the author's residence must indeed be in a land flowing with honey. On the management of Bees in Spring.—About the first or second week of February, unless when the season is stormy, the bees will be observed venturing cautiously to the mouth of the hive; and if the sun shines out about mid-day, the little eager foragers will be seen spreading their wings joyfully,