on each side, and taking away the combs, till they have left only such a quantity in the middle, as they judge sufficient for the support of the bees in winte.; brushing those on the combs into the hive again, and covering it afresh with sticks and plaster. This is also done in the day-time, when most of the bees are absent from the hive, and are therefore least disturbed themselves, and give their plunderers the least disturbance.

By this means the bees, instead of being destroyed, increase and multiply prodigiously, and make their masters ample amends for the little honey they leave them to feed upon in the winter. Besides, our author is of opinion, that the smoke of the sulphur used to destroy the bees, diminishes the fragrancy of the wax, and cannot communicate any good flavour to the honey.

This is the account Sir George Wheeler gives of the management of bees at a Greek monastery, on mount Hymettus, which is celebrated for the best honey in all Greece, and from whence a great quantity is sent to Constantinople. The same author mentions another monastery called Pendeli, not far from Hymettus, which, in his time, was under the protection of the sultaness mother, and the monks were obliged to pay, upon that account, six thousand weight of honey every year to a new mosque which she built at Constantinople, and to furnish it with as much more at the price of five dollars the quintal. He adds, that the fathers have seldom less than five thousand stocks of bees, with a great deal of arable land, vineyards, plantations of olive-trees, herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, and all other conveniencies their manner of life requires.

The Greek method above related was intro

duced into France, in 1754, as we are informed by M. de Reaumur and Du Hamel, in the "Memoirs of the Royal Academy for that year. In Scotland, Mr. Bonner has long saved the lives of his bees, and, throughout his New Plan, reprobates the barbarous practice of murdering them; and various methods have also been adopted in England, to attain the desirable end of getting the honey and wax without destroying the bees.

The Rev. Mr. White informs us, that his fondness for these little animals soon put him upon endeavouring to save them from fire and brimstone; that he thought he had reason to be content to share their labours for the present, and great reason to rejoice if he could at any time preserve their lives, to work for him another year; and that the chief design of his experiments and observations has been, to discover a cheap and easy method, by which even the poorest class of people may be enabled to take away a considerable quantity of honey without destroying the bees; and that they may, by the same means, encourage seasonable swarms.

In this gentleman's directions to make the beeboxes of his inventing, he tells us, speaking of the construction of a single one, that it may be made of deal, or any other well-seasoned boards about an inch thick, which are not apt to warp or split. The figure of the box should be square, and its height and breadth nine inches every way measuring within. The front part must have a door cut in the middle of the bottom edge, three inches wide, and about half an inch in height, which will give full liberty to the bees to pass through, yet not be large enough for their enemy the mouse to enter. In the back part a hole should be cut, and glazed

with a pane of fine crown glass, about five inches long and three broad; and the top of this glass should be placed as high as the roof within, that the upper part of the combs may be distinctly seen. The glass must also be covered with a thin piece of wood, by way of a shutter, which may be made to turn upon a nail, or to slide sideways be tween two mouldings. The side of the box which is to be joined to another box of the same form and dimensions, as it will not be exposed to the internal air, may be made of a piece of slit deal not half an inch thick. This the amiable projector calls the side of communication, because it is not to be wholly enclosed: a space is to be left at the bottom, the whole breadth of the box, and a little more than an inch in height; and a passage is to be made at the top three inches long, and rather more than half an inch wide. Through these the bees are to have a communication from one box to the other. "" Next," says our author, " provide a loose board, half an inch thick, and large enough to cover the side where the communications are made; and have in readiness several iron staples, about an inch and a half long, with their points bent down rather more than half an inch.~ Then fix two sticks across the box from side to side, in order to be a stay to the combs; one about three inches from the bottom, and the other at the same distance from the top: and when the whole is painted to make it more durable, the box is completed.

"The judicious bee-master," continues our author, "will here observe, that the form of the box now described is as plain as possible. It is, indeed, little more than five square pieces of board nailed together; so that a poor cottager, who has