220 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 



practiced both ways, I can but think the 

 drumming a waste of time, and a needless 

 annoyance to the bees. If you work properly, 

 the bees should keep bringing in pollen and 

 honey during the whole time, and if you 

 place their brood combs in the same relative 

 position to each other, they need scarcely 

 know that their outer shell has been ex- 

 changed for a different one. Should the 

 bees seem troubled by the different appear- 

 ance of their new home, the front board to 

 the old hive may be leaned up over the en- 

 trance for a few days. 



Many inexperienced persons have report- 

 ed having succeeded perfectly in transfer- 

 ring, by the above directions, which have 

 been in print now for the last five years. 



TRANSFERRING IN DOORS. 



If the weather is bad or the bees at all 

 disposed to rob, you can, if you choose, carry 

 the hive and all into some convenient out 

 building, or into your honey house, to do the 

 transferring. If you can work before a door 

 with a window in it, all the better ; but if no 

 such door is at hand, do the work before a 

 window. When you are through, place the 

 new hive with its combs on the old stand, 

 take out the window, and shake the bees 

 onto the newspaper before the entrance and 

 they will all go in. 



If your new hive is placed directly under 

 the window while you are transferring, a 

 great many of the bees will collect on the 

 transferred combs, keeping the brood warm, 

 and being just where you want them when 

 the hive is carried to its stand. AVe have a 

 glass door in the honey house, on purpose 

 for such operations. When bees are brought 

 in for any purpose, the restless and uneasy 

 ones soon collect on the glass, and by swing- 

 ing the door open, they quickly take wing, 

 without much danger of admitting robbers. 

 My neighbor, Shaw, has a window on pivots, 

 which allow it to be swung the other side 

 out, by simply touching a spring. This 

 throws the bees on the outside instead of 

 the inside of the glass, where they can take 

 wing at their leisure. I have often thought 

 such an arrangement would be very conven- 

 ient for windows in a house apiary. 



Now do not take them into a room filled 

 with all kinds of dust, rubbish, and cobwebs, 

 for they will get all over the room, and get 

 lost, and you will have all sorts of trouble. 

 There should be only one window in the 

 room, and every thing near it should be re- 

 moved; the floor should be clean, and no 

 place left for them to crawl into and get lost, 



just as I told you about the out door trans- 

 ferring. 



UNITING BEES. Uniting colonies 

 is much like introducing queens, inasmuch 

 as no fixed rule can be given for all cases. 

 It is a very simple matter to lift the frames, 

 bees and all, out of one hive and set them 

 into another, where the two are situated side 

 by side. Usually, there will be no quarrel- 

 ing, if this is done when the weather is too 

 cold for the bees to fly, but this is not al- 

 ways the case. If one colony is placed 

 close to one side of the hive, and the other 

 to the other side, and they are small enough 

 for a vacant comb or two between them, 

 they will very rarely fight. After two or 

 three days, the bees will be found to have 

 united themselves peaceably, and the brood 

 and stores may then be placed compactly to- 

 gether, and your chaff cushions put in at each 

 side. If there are frames containing some 

 honey, that cannot be put in, they should be 

 placed in an upper story, and the bees al- 

 lowed to carry it down. You should always 

 look to them 20 minutes or half an hour after 

 they are put into one hive, to see if every- 

 thing is amicable on "both sides of the 

 house." If you find any bees fighting, or 

 any doubled up on the bottom board, give 

 them such a smoking that they cannot tell 

 "which from t'other," and after 15 or 20 

 minutes, if they are fighting again, give 

 them another "dose," and repeat until they 

 are good to each other. I have never failed 

 in getting them peaceable after two or three 

 sinokings . 



If you wish to unite two colonies so large 

 that a single story will not easily contain 

 them, which, by the way, I feel sure is always 

 poor policy, or if their honey is scattered 

 through the whole ten combs in each hive, 

 proceed as before, only set one hive over 

 the other. If this is done on a cool day, 

 and the bees are kept in for two or 

 three days, few, if any, will go back to the 

 old stand. If the hives stood within 6 feet 

 of each other, they will all get back without 

 any trouble anyway, for they will hear the 

 call of their comrades who have discovered 

 the new order of things. Sometimes you 

 can take two colonies while flying, and put 

 them together without trouble, by making 

 the lost bees call their comrades. Only actual 

 practice and acquaintance with the habits 

 of bees will enable you to do this, and if 

 you have not that knowledge, you must get 

 it by experience. Get a couple of colonies 

 that you do not value much, and practice on 



