The Apiary Site 229 



plants which furnish it only in the mornings. If possible, 

 the apiary should not be near the public road and should 

 be situated where the bees will not prove a nuisance to 

 passers-by or sting live-stock. If the only convenient loca- 

 tion is near the road, the line of flight of the bees may be 

 deflected upwards by a high hedge or a solid fence, for after 

 they fly over such an obstruction they will keep above the line 

 of travel on the road and will not molest teams or pedestrians. 

 This is an important consideration as bees sometimes sting 

 horses fatally. The apiary should preferably be located 

 away from the clothes-drying yard so that they will not spot 

 the clothes with their feces. This applies especially in the 

 North, and this objection may largely be overcome by re- 

 moving the cellar-wintered bees when no clothes are to 

 be hung out. Perhaps it would be more in keeping with the 

 usual practice to advise that no clothes be hung out just 

 after the bees have been placed on their summer stands. 

 The hives should, if practicable, occupy the higher ground 

 of the plot chosen for the apiary, so that in carrying heavy 

 supers to the apiary house the load will be carried downhill 

 and the empty supers uphill. Such an arrangement will 

 materially reduce the labor in a commercial apiary. 



Exposure to the sun. 



While exposure to the sun is to be advised in the early 

 morning, it is often well to protect the hives from the sun 

 in the middle of the day, so that the bees will not hang 

 out in front of the hive and to prevent the melting down of 

 combs. On the other hand, too dense a shade is not advan- 

 tageous and usually it is not best to locate an apiary in woods. 

 To provide shade, the hives may be placed in two rows under 

 a shed or arbor with the hive entrances to the outside (Fig. 

 98). Such sheds usually run north and south, but in hot, 

 dry countries an east and west direction is sometimes better. 

 In temperate climates, sheds are not in favor, but many 

 beekeepers use shade-boards, so constructed that they 

 extend about a foot in all directions from the hive except to 



