162. Besides the hive and its cap, there should be a sort of shed, with top, back, and ends, to give additional protection in winter; though in summer hives may be kept _too hot_, and in that case the bees become sickly and the produce becomes light. The _situation_ of the hive is to face the South-east; or, at any rate, to be sheltered from the _North_ and the _West_. From the North always, and from the West in winter. If it be a very dry season in summer, it contributes greatly to the success of the bees, to place clear water near their home, in a thing that they can conveniently drink out of; for if they have to go a great way for drink, they have not much time for work. 163. It is supposed that bees live only a year; at any rate it is best never to keep the same stall, or family, over two years, except you want to increase your number of hives. The swarm of _this summer_ should always be taken in the autumn of next year. It is whimsical to _save_ the bees when you take the honey. You must _feed_ them; and, if saved, they will die of old age before the next fall; and though young ones will supply the place of the dead, this is nothing like a good swarm put up during the summer. 164. As to the things that bees make their collections from, we do not, perhaps, know a thousandth part of them; but of all the blossoms that they seek eagerly that of the _Buck-wheat_ stands foremost. Go round a piece of this grain just towards sunset, when the buck-wheat is in bloom, and you will see the air filled with bees going home from it in all directions. The buck-wheat, too, continues in bloom a long while; for the grain is dead ripe on one part of the plant, while there are fresh blossoms coming out on the other part. 165. A good stall of bees, that is to say, the produce of one, is always worth about _two bushels of good wheat_. The _cost_ is nothing to the labourer. He must be a stupid countryman indeed who cannot make a bee-hive; and a lazy one indeed if he _will_ not, if he can. In short, there is nothing but _care_ demanded; and there are very few situations in the country, especially in the south of England, where a labouring man may not have half a dozen stalls of bees to take every year. The main things are to keep away insects, mice, and birds, and especially a little bird called the bee-bird; and to keep all clean and fresh as to the hives and coverings. Never put a swarm into an _old hive_. If wasps, or hornets, annoy you, watch them home in the day time; and in the night kill them by fire, or by boiling water. Fowls should not go where bees are, for they eat them. 166. Suppose a man get three stalls of bees in a year. Six bushels of wheat give him bread for an _eighth part of the year_. Scarcely any thing is a greater misfortune than _shiftlessness_. It is an evil little short of the loss of eyes or of limbs. GEESE.