THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



Just as soon as the snow is nearly all 

 gone, and the mercury goes up to about 

 60°, I begin to carry my bees out of the 

 cellar; doing the work at evening, as a 

 general thing. At first I carry out about 

 two-thirds of the colonies. This is the 

 number of colonies that I intend to be- 

 gin with at the commencement of the 

 honey-flow. The other one-third is in- 

 tended to be united, later, with the others 

 already taken out. As soon as I can, and 

 the weather will permit, I make a tem- 

 porary examination of the colonies which 

 I have taken from the cellar, and thus 

 find out which are the weak and medium 

 colonies. Having located the weak 

 and medium colonies, I then bring out 

 the remaining colonies, and place them 

 by the side of the weak and medium 

 colonies, for the purpose of uniting them 

 later in the season. The uniting is done 

 in the latter part of April, or in May; un- 

 less it may be the very weak colonies, 

 which are united with medium colonies 

 as soon as possible. 



By practicing this method, my colonies 

 are all in good condition, and ready to go 

 into the sections, at the beginning of the 

 honey flow; besides it does away with all 

 poor-laying queens, and reduces the col- 

 onies in number, thus making room for 

 prime swarms, which are the best comb 

 honey producers. 



It is a very easy matter to unite two or 

 more colonies in the Heddon hive. I have 

 someS-frame Langstroth hives in use, but 

 will dispose of them first chance I have; 

 I am using them because I have them on 

 hand and they are too good to throw 

 aside. Of all the different kinds of hives 

 that I have used, I find none so hand}' 

 as the Heddon. If at any time I intend 

 to unite two colonies I go to the colonies, 

 and remove the lower brood-case of each. 

 If there are some bees in the lower cases, 

 they are shaken off the combs in front of 

 the upper cases which are set down on 

 the bottom-boards. This is done at any 

 time during the day when it is warm 

 enough so that the bees will not chill. 

 Towards evening, when the bees have 



stopped flying, I simply take the two 

 brood-cases of the two colonies which I 

 wish to unite, and put one on top of the 

 other, put on the cover, and the work is 

 done. If I have no preference for one of 

 the queens, I let the bees take their 

 choice; and in many cases they have 

 chosen both; and the two queens have 

 lived together in one hive over a year. 



I keep all my colonies that I have in 

 Heddon hives in two brood-cases; but of- 

 ten have a queen-excluding honey-board 

 Vjetween the two, during the honey flow, 

 to keep the queen in the lower one. 



I use the i,% x 4j!4^x 7-to-the-foot sec- 

 tions, and the Heddon super, without sep- 

 arators. I fill the sections nearly full of 

 foundation. This is done sometime be- 

 fore the honey-flow begins. I always fix 

 up one super for each colony at this time; 

 then, as soon as the honev flow has begun, 

 I put on the supers, one super on each 

 colony. All hives are then set level, ex- 

 cept that they slope an inch towards the 

 entrance, so as to keep the rain out of the 

 hive. 



Now commences the real work of the 

 season. If the honey-flow is good, the 

 bees keep me and my two sons busy from 

 four o'clock in the morning until eight in 

 the evening, putting foundation in sec- 

 tions hiving swarms and looking after 

 the bees to keep them busy in the sections. 



As soon as a colony has its super about 

 three-fourths full, I put another super on 

 top\ then, while the bees are filling the 

 rest of the lower sections, and starting to 

 seal the combs, they will also go in the 

 upper super and draw out the foundation. 

 In this way I get straighter combs. As 

 soon as the combs in the lower super are 

 about half capped I raise it, putting 

 the upper one below. This is the way I 

 manage all my colonies until they swarm. 

 If another super is needed, I go through 

 the same performance, and soon, through 

 the honey-flow. 



Now the time has come when they be- 

 gin to swarm. The queens are all clip- 

 ped. When a swarm issues I go to the 

 hive, pick up the queen, put her in a wire 



