freely of the syrup, and suffer from their intemperance. Whichever mode be adopted, the external entrances must be closed, during the time of feeding; and I know of no better contrivance for this purpose than Mr. Huish's tin guards. Without this precaution, unfed stranger bees, attracted by the smell of the syrup, will banquet upon it; and these marauders, having once tasted the repast, will not only return to it again and again themselves, but bring in their train a multitude of others, to the great injury of the well-fed apiary. The way in which I feed my own bees is exceedingly simple, and attended with no risk to the apiarian. At the close of the gathering season, I turn my boxes and their floors a quarter round, and adapt to them a long narrow box with a glass top and two openings, one at the end, serving as a street door, the other in the side serving as a hall door leading into the box, as shown in the following sketch. [Illustration] In an evening, when the bees are all at home, I push in the slide of the floor board, raise the glazed box, and place the syrup under it: then I close the external entrance, and withdraw the slide to admit the bees to the food: by morning I generally find that my donation has been removed. I place the syrup in a small shallow saucer, covered over with Scotch gauze, through which the bees suck it without smearing their wings. If the gauze hang over the sides of the saucer, it will act as a syphon, and the syrup be wasted: to obviate this inconvenience, a small hoop of whale-bone, cane, or other pliable material should be just dropped within the edges of the saucer, and upon this hoop the gauze should be stretched, turned over and secured with a needle and thread. CHAPTER XXIV. DISEASES OF BEES. I suspect that much which has been written upon this subject is fanciful, and that most of the ailments of bees originate from want of cleanliness or want of food; for if bees be not kept clean, and be not supplied with food in backward springs, particularly in those which succeed mild winters, a mortality among them is usually experienced; and it is in spring that their alleged maladies prevail. "For late the lynx-ey'd scout, in nice survey, Had mark'd the ravage of ungenial May, Where the lorn bee-herd wail'd his empty shed, Its stores exhausted, and its tenants dead." "So mourn'd Arcadia's swain[H] his honey'd host, By keen disease or keener famine lost. Till his fond mother, on her glassy throne, Heard through deep Peneus'[I] wave the filial moan." +Evans.+ [Footnote H: Aristæus, the son of Apollo and the nymph Cyrene, to whom mankind were said to be indebted for the art of curdling milk, _managing bees_, _making hives_, and cultivating olives; on which account he was worshipped as a God by the Greeks. He was the father of the unfortunate Actæon.] [Footnote I: A river of Thessaly.]