232 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



r.Y E. H. RYAN 



I am ail a;naleur beekeeper. J liave been 

 in the business about five years, and have 

 had many reverses in losses of colonies, but 

 only from cold winters. It is sometimes 40 

 below zero here for several nights at a time. 



There is only one way to handle bees 

 successfully here, and that is to use double- 

 walled hives packed underneath the bottom- 

 boards with straw. The bottom-board must 

 be ten or twelve inches from the ground. 



I also rase a gTinny sack over the hive, 

 ruder the cover, allowing it to hang down 

 u\er the sides and entrance to ward off: the 



S-'OW. 



On warm days the sack is turned up 



from the entrance so tliat the bees can .uet 

 out and fi}'. 



I ha\e a house IG x 20, with a basement 

 under it. I extiact (he honey in the house, 

 and pipe it thiough the floor into the 

 strainer over the storage-tank in the base- 

 ment. Here it is canned up and stored. I 

 use a six-frame automatic extractor and 

 gasoline-engine. I have never made less 

 than 200 lbs. surplus per colony, spring 

 count, and some colonies have made as much 

 as 500 lbs. extracted honey in a season. 



There is abundant pasture right at hand, 

 consisting mainly of sweet clover and al- 

 falfa. The honey is principally sweet clover. 



Wisteria Apiary, Riverton, Wyo. 



SETTING BEES OUT OF THE CELLAR 



How fto Prevemlt Drifting arad General Demoraliz-ation 



BY E. S. MILES 



'I'lie time to get the bees out seems to 

 me more of a problem than the time to put 

 them. in. After they are in we care little 

 what kind of weather comes, as it cannot 

 affect the bees in the right kind of cave or 

 cellar. But in the spring it is the other 

 way. After they are out, the weather does 

 affect them considerably. After the time 

 when bad blizzards are not likely to come, 

 or long-continued cold, if the bees can be 

 taken out so as to get a nice warm sunny 

 day for a cleansing flight, they will endure 

 much bad weather and yet mature some 

 brood; and if there are plenty of stores in 

 the hive, as there should be, they will have 

 a nice lot of young vigorous bees by fruit 

 bloom to replace the loss from old age, 

 which is quite heavy in spring. 



Tn getting cellared bees established again 

 on their summer stands there are two thing-s 

 to be guarded against — namely, mixing up 

 and robbing. Where a lot of bees are con- 

 fined to a small space for several months, 

 as in a cellar, they do not always seem to 

 know " which from t'other " when first set 

 on their summer stands. This sometimes 

 leads to robbing, which, when once started, 

 is hard to stoja. Any thing tending to 

 confuse the bees or cause them to lose the 

 location of their own hive, and get into 

 another, will increase the danger of rob- 

 bing getting started. To avoid mixing up 

 and robbing we recommend the following 

 procedure, which, while it may not always 

 prevent, will reduce these ti'onbles to the 

 minimum if care is used. 



For setting the bees out, choose a still 

 sunny day, only moderately warm — from 

 50 to GO Fahrenheit will do. Set out as 

 many as possible as early in the day as the 

 temperature will allow ; put all colonies on 

 the same stands they occuj^ied the fall be- 

 fore, and contract all entrances immediate- 

 ly, before any bees fly. It is a help also if 

 the apiary is located so as to contain some 

 shrubbery or small trees or building-s, as 

 these will divide the bees and make them 

 notice their location better. A small apiary, 

 less than 50 colonies, will not be as hard to 

 manage on this score as one containing 100 

 or 150 colonies. 



The advice has been frequently given in 

 the journals to disregard the previous loca- 

 tion of the hive in setting out in the spring. 

 This is a mistake, especially in a large 

 apiary. To those who doubt that bees re- 

 member the location of their hive over 

 winter, we wish to recommend this experi- 

 ment : When you take out j-our first colony, 

 instead of setting it on its old stand set it 

 on a new one anywhere in the apiary, hav- 

 ing first set an empty hive, like it in looks, 

 on the stand it occupied. Now watch the 

 empty hive a little wliile and see whether 

 any bees, after circling around, will come 

 back to tlie old location. If your bees are 

 like mine a good many will be seen hover- 

 ing around the old location in a short time 

 after the colony starts to fly. If you now 

 set another colony from the cellar in place 

 of the empty hive, quite likely some of 

 these bees will alight and unite with that 



