BEE HOUSE. An apiary or bee house should front the south, in a situation between the extremes of heat and cold. It should stand in a valley, that the bees may with greater ease descend loaded on their return to the hive; and near a dwelling-house, but at a distance from noise and offensive smells; surrounded with a low wall, and in the vicinity of shallow water. If there be no running stream at hand, they ought to be supplied with water in troughs or pans, with small stones laid at the bottom, that the bees may alight upon them and drink. They cannot produce either combs, honey, or food for their maggots, without water; but the neighbourhood of rivers or ponds with high banks ought to be avoided, or the bees will be blown into the water with high winds, and be drowned. Care should also be taken to place the hives in a neighbourhood which abounds with such plants as will supply the bees with food; such as the oak, the pine, the willow, fruit trees, furze, broom, mustard, clover, heath, and thyme, particularly borage, which produces an abundance of farina. The garden in which the bee house stands, should be well furnished with scented plants and flowers, and branchy shrubs, that it may be easy to hive the swarms which may settle on them. See BEES, HIVING, &c. BEEF. In every sort of provisions, the best of the kind goes the farthest; it cuts out with most advantage, and affords most nourishment. The best way to obtain a good article is to deal with shops of established credit. You may perhaps pay a little more than by purchasing of those who pretend to sell cheap, but you will be more than in proportion better served. To prevent imposition more effectually, however, it is necessary to form our own judgment of the quality and value of the articles to be purchased. If the flesh of ox-beef is young, it will show a fine smooth open grain, be of a good red, and feel tender. The fat should look white rather than yellow, for when that is of a deep colour, the meat is seldom good. Beef fed with oil cakes is generally so, and the flesh is loose and flabby. The grain of cow-beef is closer, and the fat whiter, than that of ox-beef; but the lean is not so bright a red. The grain of bull-beef is closer still, the fat hard and skinny, the lean of a deep red, and a stronger scent. Ox-beef is the reverse; it is also the richest and the largest; but in small families, and to some tastes, heifer-beef as better still, if finely fed. In old meat there is a horny streak in the ribs of beef: the harder that is, the older: and the flesh is not finely flavoured.