It is almost needless to add, that if the operator be a smoker of tobacco, a few whiffs from his pipe will answer the purpose better than either of the modes above described.
On Deprivation and Transportation.—The swarming season terminates, generally, about the first week of July, a few days sooner or later, according to the climate, and the temperature of the season. After that period, no emigration ought to be allowed; or if it take place in spite of our endeavours to prevent it, the swarms should be restored to the mother-hives. The massacre of the Males, which takes place about the beginning of August, seems to afford a not unequivocal symptom that the richest part of the honey-season is nearly over, and that the bees are aware of the necessity of cutting off all unnecessary expenditure of food. Those cultivators, therefore, who pursue the system of appropriating a portion of the honey accumulated during the summer-months of June and July,—who content themselves with a share only of the fruits of Bee-industry, and who make use of hives conveniently constructed for this purpose,—or who have an opportunity of availing themselves of the near neighbourhood of heath,—may now proceed with the process of deprivation.
The use of storied hives, of Huber's, and of others which divide vertically into halves, renders this process very simple. The quantity of honey in hives of this construction can be at all times accurately ascertained; so that it can be seen at once whether there be any available surplus, and what combs, as
