3. They must be transported by water, or carried one at each end of a pole on a man's shoulder.
4. Let them swarm next summer, and thus multiply your stock.
5. If you wait till spring, buy swarms, which is the best way.
Fifty swarms, gathered from cottagers, would cost 25l.
Begin with fewer, and increase gradually.
Faringdon, August 11th.
Sir,—I have bees in the common cottage hive, the honey of which I wish to take without destroying the bees. I am told I can fumigate them with puff-ball. I tried doing so, but killed my bees. I was afterwards told I could fumigate them with chloroform; this I also tried, but—whether the chloroform was good or bad I cannot say—I failed again.
Three or four years since I heard that a person offered a friend to take his honey for him, if he would give him the bees. The offer being accepted, the person fumigated the bees, took the honey from them for his friend, and carried the bees to his own home, where, in the end of October following, after giving them six pounds of moist sugar in ale, they contrived to fill the hive with comb and honey, and the whole weighed nearly twenty-five pounds.
Some people think it a good plan to drum the bees; but I should fear to rely on it. And if you did not object kindly to advise me, as you have had so much experience, what plan you consider best to deprive them without destroying them, I should esteem it a very great favour; and hoping you will not consider me very impertinent in seeking your advice,