THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART XI. (>63 



all corners, but do not press down too tightly. These dry papers absorb 

 all the moisture from the bees below, and bees are always dry and nice 

 when opened in spring, then put the top of the hive on and you are ready 

 for the outside covering. 



This we make from light boxes, taking the boxes apart and making 

 them into an outside hive six inches larger than the hive we wish to cover, 

 and two inches higher in the rear than in front. This is to cause the water 

 to run off rapidly, so as not to stand on the top and soak through to the 

 packing below. Then we line the box with from four to six thickness of 

 old dry papers and fill the space with excelsior or dry leaves packed in 

 fairly tight. In this way the bees are kept warm and dry during coldest 

 winter weather, and will come out in spring in fine condition. If the 

 spring should be cold and backward it will be necessary to feed about one- 

 fourth to one-half what you feed in the fall, and your bees will "Breed up 

 and be in fine condition when the honey crops begins to come in, which 

 is about the 5th to 10th of June in this vicinity. I believe this takes the 

 bee through the winter and this is as far as I had them to deal with in 

 this paper. 



With the coming honey crop, comes something that worries more bee- 

 keepers the most of all else. That is what we call the swarming fever. 

 Now the best method we have tried is to cut the caps from drone brood, 

 cutting the head of the young drone off with the cap. If they are scattered 

 through the comb so as to be hard to decap, split the cell to the bottom, 

 and thus kill the drone, and whenever we find a queen cell in this opera- 

 tion we cut it out, and invert the frame in the hive and you will not be 

 bothered any more with that hive for ten or twelve days if at all. 



When you desire to increase by swarming, clip the queen's wing (we 

 clip all queens). We clip the left wing for a queen that was hatched in 

 the odd year and the right for those hatched in the even year, and thus 

 we can keep some track of their ages. When the bees swarm we only have 

 to go to the hive and pick up our queen and place a new hive in the place 

 of the old one and move the parent colony to a new stand and this gives 

 you a good, strong working force in the new hive, as all the field bees will 

 return to the old place, and find a new empty hive will work with more 

 vigor than ever before. 



After the bees have returned from the swarm let the captured queen 

 loose on the running board in front of the hive and she will run in and be 

 received gladly by the bees in their new home. In managing a swarm 

 thus one can get nearly as much honey in this way as if they had not 

 swarmed, with this methi L o e can double their stocl 

 get a good crop of honey, as the parent colony will raise a queen from cells 

 that were started before the swarm came off, and be a good, strong colony 

 to go into winter quarters as there will be no after swarming when this 

 method is used. 



