The best time for the operation of driving is near the middle of the day, when many of the workers are abroad in the fields. Should the weather be cold, it is advisable to warm the skep into which the driving is to take place. A further detail of great use in quieting and reconciling the ejected colony is, to sprinkle between the combs, a quarter of an hour before driving, some weak syrup, made of one pound of sugar to one pint of water. A wine-glassful will be enough to use for one hive, as too large a quantity might seriously wet the bees, and perhaps glue their wings and limbs harmfully. After settling down in their new home, they will be occupied with clearing themselves and each other of the syrup, which will serve also the purpose of still further replenishing their honey-bags. It is difficult to get the bees to leave by drumming a hive only partly filled with comb. They will cluster about the unoccupied portions, and resolutely refuse to go. In this case they may be ejected on to a sheet, spread to receive them, by three or four sharp jerks in a downward direction. It is advisable not to drive a colony after very hot weather, and when there is a great in-take of honey: otherwise some of the liquid will begin to flow out of the cells when the-skep is inverted, and will cause much trouble and waste, and possibly the destruction of many bees by drowning them in their trickling stores. It will be better to wait till the next morning, when evaporation and the coolness of the night will have thickened the liquid sufficiently for it to remain in the cells during the manipulation. The combs, also, will have become firmer, and less liable to fall, with the diminished temperature. The operation of driving from skeps is abundantly practised by apiarians, in the autumn, among the hives of those cottagers who would otherwise follow the old and most barbarous plan of killing their bees to take the honey. Several stocks of bees thus drummed out of house and home may be united to form a strong colony. If supplied with frames of comb, or "foundation," and fed with syrup (made with 2-1/2 lbs. of sugar to each pint of water, with a dessert-spoonful of vinegar boiled up with it, to prevent crystallisation), they may be brought safely through the winter, and become, by the spring-time, well worth the expense and trouble they have cost. [Illustration: Fig. 63.--Swarming Board.]