SEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X. 587 



carrying to the hives, or if out of reach and not suitable to cut the 

 limb, use the swarm catcher, which answers the purpose. After they have 

 adopted their new quarters, place the hive in its permanent position and 

 shade for a few days. "While bees in the act of swarming are not much 

 inclined to 'Sting, there is once in a. while a swarm that is very aggres- 

 sive, and do not forget to have your veil and smoker in readiness. I 

 think It advisalble for new beginners to allow their bees to proceed in the 

 most natural way possible. Of course it is essential to have your bees in 

 good, improved, controlable hives and assist them in building their comb 

 straight by placing full sheets of foundation or artificial comb in the 

 brood frames, well rowed in. After you have built up an apiary of ten 

 or twelve hives try your hand at artificial swarming, for which there are 

 a number of ways and the entire prevention of swarming. 



After the swarming season is over the bee keeper's time is occupied in 

 getting supers in readiness and in taking care of the surplus honey 

 that is either in the comb state in the form of sections or in the ex- 

 tracted product. 



"When the first super you have given to a colony is about three-fourths 

 filled put another one underneath it. By the time this second super is 

 three-fourths finished the top one will usually be full. If not put on a 

 third super below these two. As soon as every section in a section is 

 completely capped over it should be removed from the hive. Be par- 

 ticular to place the seconid super on before the bees have completed the 

 first and do not take the super off until tihey have established them- 

 eelves in the second. To prevent having a lot of unfinished sections at 

 the close of the season you should, during the first few weeks of the 

 honey flow, gradually reduce the number of supers on the hives to one 

 each, and finally have only a super on the very strongest and best 

 working colonies. 



Store your honey in a warm, dry place free from dust. Put only 

 section with nice straight, well filled and well capped comb on the mar- 

 ket. 



Scrape off all traces of bee glue; grade your honey carefully and put 

 up in neat, clean shipping cases. Make sure that the front row is a fair 

 representation of the contents of the case, if you are marketing it. 



"Wintering Bees — This is undoubtedly the most important part in bee 

 culture and can describe it best by relating some of my experiences. Dur- 

 ing the last five years I have had from fifty to 100 colonies to care for 

 and have experimented on several methods of wintering them. In the 

 fall of 1902 and 1903 I placed all of my bees in an outdoor cellar, or 

 cave, as we commonly call them. Some of them were late swarms and 

 their stores were short. They came out in the spring in fairly good 

 condition, losing only one or two colonies, but the weaker ones had to 

 be fed as soon as I took them out. In the fall of 1904 I only placed part 

 of them in the cave and put the rest in the cellar. The ones I wintered 

 in the cave came through in good condition, did not lose any, while 

 those I wintered in the cellar, a few colonies died, but I was fairly well 

 satisfied with the result. In the fall of 1905, having more colonies than 

 my cave would accommodate, I selected nineteen of the heaviest colonies 

 and tried to winter them out of doors by banking them in. Out of these 



