Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/225

Rh hive or skep, bees, brood, &c., ought without hesitation to be rejected. A less quantity by two or three ℔s. may bring them through the winter, but this will depend much on the nature of the season; whereas, with the quantity above stated, there is no doubt at all of their preservation as far as food is concerned, whatever may be the temperature. During frost, the bees consume very little indeed; and if the cold increase in severity, still less, if any. But as we cannot anticipate what the temperature of the ensuing winter may turn out, our wisdom is to take care before hand that there be no deficiency in their stores; it cannot be supplied when the cold has actually set in. A common straw-hive weighs when empty from five to six ℔s.—an ordinary swarm about four ℔s.,—the wax of a full hive of the current year nearly two ℔s.,—of the preceding year, at least three ℔s.,—and the farina in the cells not less than one ℔., making in all about fifteen ℔s. A stock, therefore, to be secure, ought to be double that weight in the gross, that is, should contain not less than fifteen ℔s. honey.

Having selected the stocks, the Cultivator who does not practise the mode of partial deprivation, alluded to in last chapter, will now reap his general harvest. There are three modes of taking the honey, each of which has its advocates; namely Partial Deprivation, applicable to storied and leaf hives; Suffocation,—and Driving, that is forcing the bees to quit their magazines, and uniting the expelled inhabitants to the stock-hives. Partial Deprivation consists in appropriating early in the season a portion of the