The necessary protection from the weather, for stocks, is a subject that I have taken some pains to ascertain; the result has been, that the cheapest covering is just as good as any; something to keep the rain and rays of the sun from the top, is all sufficient. Covers for each hive, like the bottom-board, should be separate, and some larger than the top. UTILITY OF BEE-HOUSES DOUBTED. I have used bee-houses, but they will not pay, and are also discarded. They are objectionable on account of preventing a free circulation of air; also, it is difficult to construct them, so that the sun may strike the hives both in the morning and afternoon; which in spring is very essential. If they front the south, the middle of the day is the only time when the sun can reach all the hives at once; this is just when they need it least; and in hot weather, sometimes injurious by melting the combs. But when the hives stand far enough apart, on my plan, it is very easily arranged to have the sun strike the hive in the morning and afternoon, and shaded from ten o'clock, till two or three, in hot weather. Notwithstanding our prodigality in building a splendid bee-house, we think of economy when we come to put our hives in, and get them _too close_. "Can't afford to build a house, and give them so much room, no how." CHAPTER VIII. ROBBERIES. Robbing is another source of occasional loss to the apiarian. It is frequent in spring, and at any time in warm weather when honey is scarce. It is very annoying, and sometimes gets neighbors in contention, when perhaps neither is to blame, farther than ignorance of the matter. NOT PROPERLY UNDERSTOOD. A person keeping many hives must expect to be accountable for all losses in his neighborhood, whether they are lost by mismanagement or want of management. Many people suppose, if one person has but one stock, and another has ten, that the ten will combine for plundering the one. There are no facts, showing any communication between different families of the same apiary, that I can discover. It is true, when one family finds another weak and defenceless, possessing treasure, they have no conscientious scruples about carrying off the last particle. The hurry and bustle attending it seldom escape the notice of the other families; and when one hive has been robbed in an apiary, perhaps two-thirds of the other families, sometimes all, have participated in the plunder. One family, if it be large, is just as likely, and more so, to find a weak one among the ten, and commence plundering, as the other way. IMPROPER REMEDIES.