Even the people with bees to sell advise beginners to buy from some one in their neighbourhood. It is not safe, though, to move bees less than a mile and a half as they are likely to return to their old location. Buy from an up-to-date apiary if you can, and get standard hives; the old box hives are not worth anything; neither are fancy hives of complicated structure. The entrance to the hive should be closed with wire cloth after the bees all get home in the early evening. If closed in the middle of the day you are cheated. In warm weather the cover should be taken off; in its place should be put the super over which wire-cloth has been tacked. Strips of wood can be nailed on top of this to which the cover can be fastened. By this arrangement ventilation is secured. We once lost a colony shipped by express without any provision for the circulation of air. Night is the best time to move the bees, though it can be done in the daytime; a cold day is best. Remove the wire cloth the first night after placing in permanent location. Spring is the best season to buy your first colony. The price may be higher but the risk is less. Get a strong colony that has wintered well, which contains, on the average, twenty-five thousand to thirty-five thousand worker bees. It would be well just here for the beginner to get acquainted with the opinions of the best bee-keepers about the kinds of bees. There are varieties among bees as well as among hens, pigeons, dogs, and horses. Americans like to be "hail, fellow, well met" with all their live stock, and although even the best tempered bee might resent a cordial slap on the flank, there are bee-lovers who tell of stroking their little winged friends with a grass stem. It requires real sympathy to succeed with bees just as it does with chickens or cows. No one can work long with them without becoming intensely interested. Most people learn to love them and find absorbing occupation in studying their ways. Two races of hive bees are common here, though none are native: German, or black, and Italian. All the books and magazines as well as bee-lovers unhesitatingly recommend the latter as the more good-tempered, being at the same time hardy, prolific, and industrious. Good hybrids, that is, a mixture of black and Italian blood, may do almost as well as pure stock, but pure-bred queens are a necessity to keep the grade up. When you hear of people who gather bees by handfuls into aprons or baskets you may be sure that those concerned are all thoroughbreds.