No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 355 



they are inclined to be troublesome about coming out of the hives, 

 enough smoke may be used to keep them in until the hive is set on 

 its stand. Some are particular to put each hive in the same place 

 where it stood the previous fall, but most bee-keepers pay no atten- 

 tion to this. If a few bees remember the old place where they were 

 in the fail, and enter the wrong hive because they have changed 

 places, no great harm will come of it. 



FEEDING IN SPRING. 



In spite of the fact that bees should be disturbed in spring as 

 little as possible, it is better for them to sutler from disturbance 

 than from starvation. If the right amount of stores were present 

 in the hive in tlie fall, there will be no need of any anxiety, and 

 the bees may be left undisturbed. Unfortunately, it will sometimes 

 happen, especially if the hives are small, that there may not be honey 

 enough in the hive to last till the bees can gather from the flowers. 

 With box-hives, you can do no better than to heft the hives and 

 geuss. Jf you guess they may run short of honey, you can put 

 pieces of comb honey or candy under the hives, unless the hive is 

 so arranged that it v.ill be more convenient on top. 



With raovable-comb hives you can go at the matter more under- 

 standingly. With smoker alight, blow one or two light pulTs of 

 smoke into the entrance, lift off the cover, giving the bees a little 

 smoke on top if they seem inclined to fly at you, but do not deluge 

 the poor things with smoke unnecessarily. You wouldn't like smoke 

 in your ow^n eye®, and if your bees are gentle, and if your move- 

 ments are gentle, very little smoke will be needed, possibly none. 

 If you see sealed honey along the tops of the frames, you may feel 

 sure there is no immediate danger from starvation, and it mav not 

 be necessary to lift out a single frame. If sealed honey is not to be 

 seen, lift out one or more frames until vou are satisfied as to how 

 the case stands. 



If you have been wise, you have on hand from the last season 

 &orae frames of sealed honey, and one or two of these can now be 

 given to any needy colony, putting the comb of honey close to the 

 cluster of bees. The probability, however, is that no comb of honey 

 is on hand. If you have no brood-comb filled with honey, it is pos- 

 sible that you still have some sections of comb honey that you had 

 saved for the table. It may seem like extravagance to feed honey 

 that may be worth possibly fifteen cents a pound, but having brought 

 a colony through the winter, it would be very poor economy to lose 

 several dollars -by allowing it to starve now, rather than to feed 

 twenty-five or fifty rents' worth of honey. But if you have not honey 

 of your own, it is not wise to buy and feed honey as to whose source 



