72 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



made a week earlier with the old queens. 

 The bees, still getting- honey, had started 

 a great many very fine cells. The 

 divisions were made by taking four to 

 five combs of capped brood, with adher- 

 ing bees, to a new stand, either a comb 

 with cell or a capped cell in cell protector, 

 was given at the same time, if ready; 

 otherwise a cell in protector a few days 

 later. By this method I doubled the 

 number of colonies. 



The spring was dry and very warm 

 m the South. April 22nd I loaded the 

 car. The thermometer registered 84 

 degrees in the shade. It was soon 90 

 degrees in the car. I had a fruit car 

 and seven tons of ice in the bunkers. 

 Although the ventilators were all open, 

 the car did not cool perceptibly till after 

 midnight. 



The bees arrived at West Bend, their 

 destination, in 90 hours from the South. 

 They were closed in the hives from 

 Friday till Wednesday. I arrived here 

 two days after the big snow storm. 

 The bees arrived in good condition. The 

 colonies had sufficient honey and lots of 

 new pollen. The large amount of capped 

 brood hatched. All hives were quickly 

 filled up again with brood in all stages. 

 By June 1 0th, most colonies covered 

 three sets of combs with bees. 



The confinement and subsequent shak- 

 ing up causes the consumption of most 

 the unsealed brood. This I think is 

 actually a gain. The young larvae are 

 a better food than honey. The eating of 

 it gives the bees a setback, and prevents, 

 or delays, swarming. The bees, however, 

 are stimulated to a great degree. The 

 queen is fed heavily, and large quantities 

 of eggs, and just hatched larvae, are 

 found when the hive is opened. 



The honey from willow is dark green 

 in color, rather rank and of an aromatic 

 flavor. I fed 1,500 pounds of it to my 

 home apiary. It is the best stimulative 

 feed that I ever used. 



Some of the colonies when loaded on 

 the car had virgin queens, or capped 

 cells. Most of these turned out worth- 



less. The weather was very cold, and 

 the queens failed to mate, or were very 

 imperfectly mated. These colonies with 

 worthless queens were united with others 

 of medium strength in the following 

 manner: After the queen was sifted 

 out, the worthless colony was smoked 

 till the bees were well filled with honey. 

 Then the colony to receive them was 

 smoked in like manner. A third hive 

 was placed on the stand having the lay- 

 ing queen. The combs with brood were 

 first shaken at the hive entrance, and 

 the combs placed in the third box. Then 

 the other combs were shaken in the same 

 manner. In no instance did the bees 

 quarrel or return to the old stand. The 

 extra combs were used to the best 

 advantage. 



GETTING A HARVEST IN THE NORTH. 



I started the season in Wisconsin with 

 450 colonies. The season was a poor 

 one. I took 23,000 pounds of honey 

 from clover. There was only a little 

 basswood in bloom, and it yielded no 

 honey. For a number of years my crop 

 averaged 100 pounds per colony from 

 these two sources. 



MOVING FOR A FALL-FLOW. 



August 26th (one month too late) I 

 loaded 225 two-story hives on a car and 

 shipped them to Illinois, on the Illinois 

 river. These hives started with an 

 average of about four pounds of honey 

 on their trip. One colony starved. 

 3,500 pounds of surplus honey was 

 extracted Oct. 4th and 5th. This was 

 pure Spanish needle. When the bees had 

 been set in a pasture lot, just outside the 

 levee, hundreds of acres of Spanish 

 needle were beginning to bloom. Now 

 the bees were coming in very fast with 

 aster honey. The Illinois river bottom 

 was covered on both sides, where the 

 land had not been cultivated, with a sea 

 of white flowers. 



GOING SOUTH FOR THE WINTER. 



Oct. 24th, when I closed in these bees, 

 the hives were very heavy with aster 

 honey. With the help of five men, the 



