BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
**570**. Covered apiaries, unless built at great expense, afford little protection against extreme heat or cold, and greatly increase the risk of losing the queens (**503**) and the young bees. The weak colonies are always the losers, for their young bees, in returning from their first trip (**173**), are attracted by the noise of other lives closely adjoining, and prove the truth of the Freneh proverb "La pierre va tuujours au tas," (the stone always goes to the heap).
When lives _must_ stand close together, they should be of different colors. Even varying the euler of the blocks will be of great usefulness.
John Mills, in a work published at London, in 1766, gives (p. 93) the following directions :-"Forget not to paint the mouths of your colonies with different colors, as red, white, blue, yellow, &e,, in form of a half-moon, or square, that the bees may the better know their own homes."
Covered apiaries are common in Germany and Italy; their only quality is that of being thief proof, when shut and locked. But such structures, especially when several stories high, cannot easily shelter top-opening hives.
**571**. Probably the most convenient covered apiaries are simple sheds, facing South, and open in front during the Summer and warn days "if Winter. House apiaries, in which the hives are placed in several stories, facing every direction, are worse than nothing. Their only quality is to be ornamental and costly.
**572**. In the Summer, no place is so congenial to bees as the shade of trees, if it is not too dense, or the branches so low as to interfere with their flight. As the weather becomes cool, they can, if necessary, be moved to any more desirable Winter location. If colonies are moved in the line of their flight, and a _short distance at a time_, no loss of bees will be incurred; but, if moved a few yards, _all at once,_ many willbe lost. A slanting board placed in front of the hive, so as to prevent the bees from flying in straight line from the entrance to the field, will incite them to mark the change of their position. By a _gradual process_, the hives in a small apiary may, in the Fall, be brought into a narrow compass, so that they can be easily sheltered from the bleak Winter winds. In the Spring, they may be gradually returned to their old positions.
By removing the strongest colonies in an apiary the first day, and others not so strong the next, and continuing the process until all were removed, we have safely changed the location of an apiary, when compelled to move bees in the working season. On the removal of the last hive, but few bees returned to the old spot. The change, as thus conducted, strengthened the weaker colonies, but we would advise beekeepers to locate their hives in as permanent a position as possible, as this moving is _not practical,_ especially with a large number of colonies. Those who do not winter their bees in the eellar, can easily protect them on their Summer stand. (**635**.)
If the hives have to be placed in an exposed location without shade, it is well to protect them with roofs. A roof will be found highly economical, as it not only sheds the rain, but wards off the heat of the sun.
**573**. The beginner will ordinarily find it best to stock his apiary with swarms of the current year, thus avoiding, ntil he can prepare himself to meet them, the perplexities which often accompany either natural or artificial swarming. If new swarms are purehased, unless they are large and early, they may only prove a bill of expense. If old colonies are purehased, such only should be selected as are healthy and populous. If removed after the working season has begun, they should be brought from a distance of at least two miles \(\langle 13\rangle\).
If the bees are not all at home when the hive is to be removed; blow a little smoke into its entrance, to cause those within to fill themselves with honey, and to prevent them from leaving for the fields. Repeat this process from time to time, and in half an hour nearly all will have returned. If any are clustered on the outside, they may be driven within by smoke.
The best time to buy full colonies of bees, is Spring. A cool day may be selected, in which to move them, as the bees are not flying, none can be lost. In the present thriving state of bee-keeping, colonies of pure Italian bees (\(\mathbf{\bar{551}}\)) in movable-frame lives can usually be bought at very reasonable figures. If the Apiarist's means are very limited, black bees (\(\mathbf{\bar{519}}\)) in old style box-hives may prove the cheapest, if they can be found. But they should be promptly transferred into more practical hives, and italianized; these manipulations will help to give to the novice the practice which he lacks. Italian bees and movable-frame hives are now a _sine qua non_ of success.'
No colony should be purchased, unless it has brood in all stages, showing that it has a healthy queen. For transporting bees, see (\(\mathbf{587}\), \(\mathbf{603}\)).
Transferring Bees from Common to Movade-Frame Hives.
\(\mathbf{574}\). This process may be easily effected whenever the weather is warm enough for bees to fly.*
Footnote *: It may be remarked, by some reader, that the number of box hives in existence in the United States is now _so_very limited, that a page or two on this subject is a waste, but in a protracted experience we have found that even the most practical Apiarist may occasionally be compelled to hive bees in any kind of box. It is therefore well to know how to transfer them safely to movable-frame hives, without destroying either the worker combs or the brood.
It has sometimes been done in Winter, for purposes of experiment, by removing the bees into a warm room, but the best time for it, is when the bees have the least honey, at the beginning of the fruit bloom. If it can be done on a warm day, when they are at work, there will be but little danger from rubbers (**661**).
It is conducted as follows: Have in readiness a box\(-\) which we shall call the _foreinay box\(-\)_whose diameter is about the same with that of the live from which you intend to drive the swarm. Smoke the live, lift it from its bottom-board without the slightest jar, turn it over, and carefully carry it off about a rod, as locs, if disturbed, are much more inclined to be peacuchle, when removed a short distance from their familiar stand. If the live is gently placed upside down on the ground, scarcely a bee will fly out, and there will be little danger of being stung. The timid and inexperienced should protect themselves with a bee-veil, and may blow more smoke among them, as soon as the live is inverted. After placing it on the ground, the foreing-box must be put over it. If smooth inside, it should have slats fastened one-third of the distance from the top, to aid bees in clustering. Some Apiarists place the box slanting on the hive, so as to be able to see the bees climbing. This method, called open driving, is a little slower, but it may give the operator the chance of seeing the queen; when the driving can be considered as done.
**575**. As soon as the Apiarist has confined the bees, he should place an empty hive\(-\)which we call _the devin-hire_\(-\)upon their old stand, which these returning from the fields may enter, instead of dispersing to other lives, to meet, perhaps, with a most unracious reception. As a general rule, however, a lice with a load of honey or bee-broad, after the extent of her resources is ascertained, is pretty sure to be welcuned by any live to which she may carry her treasure; while a poverty-strieken unfortunate that presumes to claim their hospitality is, usually, at once destroyed. The one meets with as flattering a reception as a wealthy gentleman promising to take up his abode in a country village, while the other is as much an object of dislike as a poor man, who bids fair to become a public charge.
If there are in the apiary several old colonies standing
return; the joyful news is quickly communicated to those on the wing, who forthwith alight and enter the hive; all appearance of agitated running about on the outside of the hive ceases, and ventilation, with its joyful hum, is again resumed. To witness these interesting proceedings, it is only necessary to catch the queen, and keep her until she is missed by her colony. For greater security, she should be confined in a queen cage (**536**) during the experiment.
**57S.** To transfer the comb, have on hand tools for prying off a side of the hive; a large knife for cutting out the combs; vessels for the honey; a table or board, on which to lay the brood combs; and water for washing off, from time to time, the honey which will stick to your hands.
Have also a number of pieces of wire, No. 16, cut a little longer than the frame, and bent on the ends in this shape to be driven into the wood of the frame, and to hold the combs in place. Let a certain number of frames be in readiness, with three or four of these wires fastened on one side, and lay them on the table, _wire-side down_. You must also have your movable-frame hive in readiness near the table, with an extracting pan (**770**) under it, instead of a bottom-board, to receive what honey may drip. All this must be ready before disturbing the bees.
**579.** Having selected the _worker-combs,_ carefully cut them rather large, so that they will just _crowd_ into the frames, and retain their places in their natural position (fig. 46), until the bees have time to fasten them.
Now tack as many wires over them as may be necessary to hold them securely, and bang them in the hive. _Drone combs should invariably be melted into wax._ If drone-brood is found, it can be fed to young chickens, who are very fond of the larvae. The bottom-board should be put under the hive just before carrying it out.
When the hive is thus prepared, the bees may be put into it and confined, water being given to them, until they have time to make all secure against robbers (**66.1**).
If there is danger of robbers, it is preferable not to put the bees into the live till late in the afternoon. They should be shaken in front of the new live on a sheet (**427**) like a natural swarm.
When the weather is cool, the transfer should be made in a warm room, to prevent the brood from being fatally ehilled. An expert Apiarist can complete the whole operation\(-\)from the driving of the bees to the returning of them to their new hive\(-\)in about an hour, and with the loss of very few bees, old or young.
**580**. When transferring in early Spring, it should be remembered that the worker-brood (**16S**) is of great value; and not the least bit of it should be neglected or wasted unnecessarily. After a week, or more, according to the season, the hive may be opened and the fastenings removed.
Let not the novice, however, think that transferring bees is a task that requires but little skill. _He who transfers successfully a larger number of colonies may be called an expert in handling bees._
The process, as it has been conducted by careless Apiarists, has resulted in the wanton sacrifice of thousands of colonies.
**581**. For the benefit of those who are tinial in manipulations, we will give Mr. Jas. Heddon's method for transferring, (page 562 of "Gleanings," 1885). About swarming time Mr. Heddon drives the old queen and a majority of the bees into the foreing-box, he then removes the old hive a few feet back, and places the new hive with frames full of foundation on its stand, and "runs in" the forced swarm. It would be well to return a part of the bees to the old hive, as its brood might be chilled if the weather becomes cool.
Twenty-one days after the transfer of the bees, he drives the old hive clean of all its bees, uniting them with the former drive. As the worker-brood of the old hive is all hatched, there is nothing left in it but the combs and the honey, which can be transferred at leisure in cool weather, or, the honey * **Some apiarists, among them Mr. E. W. Alexander, of Delanson, N. Y., keep a very large number of bees in one apiarly, the above named apiarist keeping upwards of seven hundred colonies with great success in one spot. This, however, will succeed only in extraordinary locations where almost the entire territory is occupied with honey-producing plants. Such locations are rare.**ent yields both in quality and quantity, from two apiaries only two and a half miles apart. This agrees with our oft repeated experience in apiaries three or four miles apart.
Locate your bees with some careful man. Do not trust a farmer who lets his fences fall, who leaves his mower in the yard over Winter, or puts his cows in his orchard. You will never rest easy, if you think that some of your hives may be upset any day by a vagrant cow.
Do not put your bees on land which is tenanted. Let them be placed at some responsible farmer's own home, for a tenant may leave on short notice, and you cannot remove your bees at all seasons.
**581.** The terms usually made by us for a bee location are as follows: The farmer furnishes us the apiary ground, one spare room during extracting, and a shed or a corner in some empty room for our hives, conbs, and fixtures. He also furnishes board for the Apiarist and his help while at work. In exchange, he gets one-fifth of the honey, and seventy-five eents for every natural swarm he harvests. His sole duties are, living swarms, and seeing that no accidents happen to the apiary. When bees are run for extracted honey, the number of natural swarms is very limited. We can always find more bee locations than we want. In faet, we have never yet met a farmer who refused to take bees on such terms.
We prefer giving the farmer a share of the crop, to giving him a stated sum for ground rent, etc., as some of our leading bee-keepers do, because we thus give him an interest in our success, and he is more likely to pay attention to our bees, and to produce crops that will yield some honey. Association of interests means progress, peace, and harmony.
**585.** Six apiaries, containing in all 600 colonies, are probably the greatest number that one man can oversee properly. In good localities, an Apiarist will find more profit from six such apiaries, than an intelligent farmer from half a section of land, and the outlay of money is less.
**586**. Few pursuits require so small an outlay for tools and implements as practeial bee-culture. Outside of the cost of hives, frames, sections, and honey packages, the total outlay need not amount to $50. Almost any spare room will do for a honey-room.
**Fig. 120.**
Yet when the.Apiarist wishes to be at ease, we would advise him to build his honey-house in the middle of his apiary. The windows and hours of this building must all be provided with wire-eloth netting, to exclude bees, flies, etc. We here give an engraving of a simple method ofplacing the wire screen, so as to allow these insects to escape. The netting is nailed on the outside of the window projecting about six inches above. Three small slats are nailed between the frame and the netting, so as to leave a space of \(\sqrt[1]{4}\) of an inch between the wire-cloth and the wall, at the top of the window. The bees and flies that have been brought in with the combs, or that have entered the room, at some time or other, fly against the wire-eloth, and soon find the small fissure above, through which they escape; but, in returning, they smell the honey through the wire-eloth, and forgetting that they have escaped between the wire and the wall, they try in vain to pass through the wire-eloth.
In the engraving, the window sashes have been removed, but their use in no way interferes with the screen, if the lower one is raised, or the upper one lowered, while there are bees in the room.
The same method might be adopted in groeery stores on windows where flies congregate. In the morning, the flies would climb out of the screen of their own accord.
## Chapter 31in every comb, and the weather is warm, it is safer to remove a part of the brood, and put frames of dry comb alternately with the frames of brood. The brood removed may be used to strengthen weak colonies.
We have sent bees safely, from Illinois to Utah, by freight. **5S9**. In shipping bees, or colonies, it is important to place conspicuous cautionary eards or labels on the packages: Living Bees, Handle with Care, This Side Up, Keep out of Sun, etc.
The damage done by rough railroad handling, is the greatest item of loss, in the transportation of bees properly packed. If colonies are shipped in earloads, they should be so placed, that the combs will run lengthwise, and not from side to side, as in vehicles drawn by horses. Surplus raeks cr stories should be shipped separately.
**590**. Some Apiarists have praetieed shipping bees by water routes to the Southern States in the Fall, for Winter, and returning them in Spring at the beginning of the honey harvest. If proper precautions are taken, this plan may be profitable, where low rates of transportation can be obtained, but much judgment must be exercised as to the time of returning them North. As the colonies become strong very early in the South, if they are brought back North before the warm weather, their brood may become ehilled, and a tendency to the development of foul-brood is encouraged.
'Mr. Cotton saw a man in Germany who kept all his numerous stocks rich by changing their places as soon as the honeycomb varied. 'Sometimes he sent them to the moors, sometimes to the meadows, sometimes to the forests, and sometimes to the hills.' In France--and the same practice has existed in Egypt from the most ancient times--they often put hundreds of hives in a boat, which floats down the stream by night and stops by day.'--London Quarterly Review.
**591**. Della Rocea, in his treatise on "Bee-culture in the Island of Syra," speaks of the Egyptian method of keeping bees on boats, which were floated up and down the Nile to take advantage of the different crops of honey at different points.
It would even appear that the Greeks in the time of Columbia transported their hives to Egypt by sea, "The season of blossons being later than in Greece; for after the month of September there is no pasture in Achaia for bees, whilst in Egypt flowers are in full bloom even after that time, owing to the receding of the high waters of the Nik." He relates a laughable story about one of these floating apiaries. One hive having been upset by accident on a boat, the enraged bees atateked the mariners unexpectedly, and forced them to jump into the river and swim to the shore, which likely, was not far distant, nor did they dare return, until they had provided themselves with a supply of snoke-producing ingredients.
**592**. There is a certain amount of fascinating roanance connected with the idea of a floating apiary. following the blossons, on the waters of the great Mississippi, or of some of its tributaries. An attempt of this sort was made on a large scale, years ago, by a Chicago firm. It was a total failure, but we are inclined to think that the failure was due to the lack of practial knowledge in bee-keeping, on the part of the managers, rather than to any other cause.
**593**. Transportation of bees from a location where blossons are scarce to a good field, and returning them after the crop, is sounetimes attended with fair success. Some Apiarists, located in places where the June crop alone can be depended upon, make it a practice to transport their hives to Fall pasturage every Summer. We, ourselves, have taken 120 hives of bees, about eighteen miles, to the Mississippi river bottoms, in August, 1880, when the drouth had destroyed all hopes of a Fall harvest on the hills. The high waters of the Mississippi, which had receded a few weeks before, had left those immense bottom lands covered with a luxurian vegetation. The result fully answered our antieipations. Those lately starving colonies, yielded a bountiful surplus,while their sisters on the hills had to be fed for Winter. But the labor of transportation, the risk incurred, if the colonies are strong and heavy, and the difficulty of transporting old bee-hives, without danger of some bees escaping, make the habitual shipping of bees for pasturage hardly advisable.*
Footnote *: Yet, in some locations, it is practiced regularly with success. Mr. R. F. Holtermann, of the Province of Ontario, at the National Bee-Keepers' Convention held in Chicago in December, 1905, described the method by which he transported bees to different spots for the different crops during the season, with success. In Northern countries the transporting of bees in summer is attended with less danger than in warmer sections.
## Shipping Queens.
**594**. It was in the numerous and partially suceessful attempts, which we made before 1874, to import bees from Italy, that we became acquainted with the conditions necessary to the shipping of queens.
**595**. When they are to be confined a long time, the question of food is the most important. Many were the blunders made by the first shippers, who imagined that they required a large amount of food, and literally drowned them in honey. By repeated and costly experiments, we ascertained that the bees that arrived in the best condition were those that were fed on the _purest saccharine matter_. Those that suffered the most, were those that had the most watery, or the darkest, honey. Water (**271**), which some Italian shippers persisted in giving them, in spite of what we could say, was noxious; as the consumption of it, with the food, helped to load their abdomen with matter that could not be discharged, causing what is improperly called _dysentery_ (**784**). _Water is needed only in brood rearing_.
**596**. Old bees, or rather, bees that have begun to work in the field, will stand a longer. trip than young bees, as the latter consume more honey, and need to discharge their abdomen oftener.
The shipping boxes in which bees are sent from Italy, are about three inches deep, by three inches in width, and four inches in length, with two small frames of comb, one with thick sugar syrup, the other dry. From fifty to seventy-five bees are put with one queen- in each box. Air holes are cut into the sides of the boxes, and these are fastened together in a pyramidal shape, with an outer covering of tin, to which is fastened the handle. Queens thus put up, reached us after thirty-six days of confinement with very little loss, and it is in this way that the greatest number of imported queens were received.
**597**. We might mention in connection with this, an often-repeated incident, so touching and sweet, as to seem more like a romancer's fable, or a poetic idyl, than a mere fact. On receiving the boxes containing Italian queens, we noticed that frequently all the bees shipped with the queen had died, she being the only one alive in her prison. We afterward found out that the faithful little subjects denied themselves-ourishment, and starved to death, sacrificing themselves, that their queen might not be deprived of fool.
**598**. At the present day queens are forwarded almost exclusively by mail. To Mr. Frank Benton is due the credit of first mailing queens safely across the ocean, but the mailing of them, with more or less success on the American continent, has been praeticed for years. Messers. J. H. Townley and H. Alley, appear to have been the first to succeed, as early as 1868.
Yet the mails are so roughly handled generally, that we would not advise the sending of valuable queens in this way.
The food given is the Scholz eandy (**613**) made of powdered sugar and honey kneaded together. A sufficient number of bees must be put with the queen to keep her warm,
them with some brood and conbs. A two-comb nucleus provided with a liberal supply of bees and put into a shipping box of right size and of light weight, may be sent to great distance and will build a very fair colony if purchased at the opening of the clover harvest and properly cared for and supplied with combs already built.
**600**. How many bees are there in a pound? This question has been propounded to us several times. _L'abbe 'Collin, \(b_{N}\)_ careful experiments, found that in a normal condition it takes about 5,100 bees to weigh a pound; while in the swarm, when they are supplied with honey, it takes less than 4,300.