MARCH 1, 1913 



145 



General Correspondence 



HOW A WOMAN MANAGES THE HEAVY 

 WORK IN AN APIARY 



BY MISS EMMA WILSON 



[As most of our readers know, the writer of this 

 article is Dr. C. C. Miller's sister-in-law, and his 

 right hand man(?) in the apiary. Because of her 

 lone: experience and training under such a teacher 

 as Dr. Miller, we think that Miss Wilson deserves 

 the title of " Dean of our Beekeeping Sisters. — Ed.] 



The question is no longer asked, " Can a 

 woman successfully run an apiary alone?" 

 It has been demonstrated too many times 

 that she can and does, for there are many 

 aiiiaries run entirely by women, and suc- 

 cessfully too. But there is no denying that, 

 in the running of an apiary, there is heavy 

 work that must be done. How can a woman 

 manage tliis heavy part of the work? 



The experienced bee-woman has learned 

 to take advantage of many little kinks that 

 lighten her work, and knows, like the good 

 general that she is, how to plan her work 

 so as to accomplish what has to be done with 

 the least expenditure of streng-th and labor- 

 Especially is this necessary for the rather 

 delicate woman who has no great amount of 

 strength to spare. 



To lift out a frame of brood, bees, and 

 honey, and look it carefully over is quite 

 easy; but to handle these frames at arms' 

 leng-th, or nearly so, gets to be work before 

 night; and especially is this true before the 

 muscles become accustomed to the work. 

 So, begin by doing only a little at a time, 

 gradually increasing the amount done each 

 day.^ 



When a colony must be moved, don't try 

 to lift it all at a time. Take an empty hive 

 and lift out part of the frames, putting 

 them into the empty hive; then the rest can 

 be lifted easily. Still, there may be times 

 when it is desirable to move hives without 

 opening them, as when taking in or out of 

 the cellar. In that case it may be best to 

 get a man to do the lifting. But if no man 

 is available, possibly some woman can be 

 found who will help ; and if the hives have 

 cleats on each end, the cleats running clear 

 across the liive so that a rope can be slip- 

 ped over them, you will find that two can 

 carry a hive quite easily by each taking 

 hold of the rope on opposite sides of the 

 hive. An endless rope is used, and it can 

 be quickly thrown over the cleat on each 

 end. 



The really hard work begins with the 

 harvest, when there are so many supers to 

 be lifted off (often four or five, and some- 

 times more), before you can reach the 

 brood-nest; and when you go through your 

 colonies every eight or ten days it means 



work to lift these same supers off and put 

 them all, or the larger part of them, back 

 again, after going through the colony. But 

 it makes some difference how the work is 

 done. Instead of putting them on the 

 gi'ound, or leaning them against the hive, 

 have an empty hive-body ready and pile 

 the supers on that as you take them off. It 

 is much easier to lift them from these than 

 from the ground, and they will go back to 

 the hive exactly in their previous order. 

 Sometimes, however, it is desirable for some 

 reason to change the order. Each super is 

 inspected as it is taken from the hive; and 

 any change in the order will be made as 

 the supers are taken from the hive. Then 

 when they are to be put back on the hive 

 no time is lost in a second inspection. An- 

 other good thing about this airangement is 

 the immunity from robbers. When robbers 

 are at all troublesome a robber-cloth can be 

 thrown over the pile of supers, and they 

 are safe, often allowing you to keep on 

 woi'king when otherwise you would be 

 obliged to quit. 



But if I were obliged to name just one 

 item in saving hard work in the apiary it 

 would unhesitatingly be — keeping queens 

 clipped. I have not had a great deal of 

 experience in climbing after swarms; but 

 the little I have had has led me to believe 

 that there is nothing more exhausting than 

 climbing after swarms on a scorching hot 

 day; and climbing after swarms will make 

 any old day scorcliing hot. It is an exhaust- 

 ing, nerve-racking, temper-trying experi- 

 ence that, to my mind, is totally unneces- 

 sary. Of course, there will be an occasional 

 swarm that may elude you, and issue with 

 a virgin queen; but such swarms are the 

 exception, and only serve to make you su- 

 premely thankful tliat you don't have to 

 climb after every swarm that issues. In- 

 deed, after one such experience, what bliss 

 it is, when the next swarm issues with a 

 clipped queen, to i^i'ck her up, cage her, lay 

 her at the entrance, and nonchalantly walk 

 away to attend to your own affairs and 

 leave that swarm to do the same ! Doesn't 

 that sound alluring to those of you who 

 still have undipped queens, and are climb- 

 ing after those dreadful swarms? Just try 

 queens with clipj^ed wings, and see if you 

 ever want to go back to the undipped ones 

 again. 



" Would be glad, too, if you could only 

 do the clipping, but you can't." Oh ! yes, 

 yon can — no trick at all after you are used 

 to it. Just practice on a few drones until 

 you get over feeling nervous about it. 



You ask me, Mr. Editor, for something 



