Animals, from the smallest insect to lordly man, cannot live without air; and our little friend, the Be, forms no exception to this rule. In the midst of summer, when the hive is populated to repletion, the heat becomes intense, and did not the Bees adopt some measures of prevention, the new and delicate combs would collapse and fall, as well as the health of the helpless larva suffer. Nature, therefore, has taught the Bees a remedy. If on a hot summer day the entrance of a hive be examined, a number of Bees will be there observed standing on the board with their wings in rapid vibratory motion, which carries in a strong current of fresh air, replacing the hot foul air driven out, and the number of " ventilators" is increased or diminished as occasion requires. By this means the atmosphere within is kept pure and whole-some, as was demonstrated by poor blind Huber. We are thus taught that Bees cannot bear close confinement which, if accidentally occurring, as it does sometimes by the snow or dead Bees blocking up the entrance, will, unless quickly obviated, cause dysentry and death. Apiarians who use hives with moveable tops can, in a great measure, regulate ventilation by leaving the top more or less open by means of a small piece of perforated zinc placed over the feed hole. If rightly managed, this aid will set at liberty great numbers of Bees, who would otherwise be ventilating, to assist in the general work of the hive, and will often prevent the external clustering to which they are driven by the extreme heat, in order that the combs may not melt, or the young be stifled. The entrance of the hive, if properly constructed, should be capable of enlargement at need, and the Bee-master can, by this means, greatly assist in good ventilation by making the opening larger in summer and smaller in winter. A square of Bass-matting, carpet, or any such substance covering the frames under the crown board, will be found a very efficient ventilator in the summer--allowing the air just a small entrance and exit all round the hive. By cutting a central hole corresponding to the circular hole in the crown board, feeding need not be interfered with. The interference of the Bee-keeper in the matter of summer ventilation I do not consider of much moment ; he can certainly assist his Bees, but if that assistance be not rendered, no great misfortune will necessarily follow. It is in winter that defective ventilation is frequently the cause of great calamity--no less than the death of the whole colony ; and although I strongly advocate frame hives, I feel compelled to say this misfortune happens more frequently in those domiciles than in straw skeps; but this is no fault of the frames or their construction, but simply that the wood with which they are usually built retains the generated moisture, whilst the straw allows the greater part to filter through. This defect being admitted, I now show how it can be remedied ; _en passaut_ I may say that frame hives can be and are,made equally well in straw as in wood, when that objection to them, of course, is done away with ; but when we use wood, which is the more common and handy material, care must then be taken that proper ventilation is provided. Mueh has been written on this subject, but I think the evil has been greatly magnified. When the Bees are thickly clustered together for the winter they do not hybernato like many other animals, but are all lively and require food, in the consumption of which moisture is evolved in the form of vapour--this, if it cannot escape, naturally condenses into water, keeping the hive cold and damp, and the temperature low, obliging the Bees to eat yet more to keep up the necessary heat, and thus the evil is increased.