THE AMERICAN APICULTUIUST. 



145 



To make sill as plain as possible, let tlie 

 whole hedividtHl into dirtei-eiit operations 

 as follows : — 



1. Cause the bees to till tiieniselves 

 witii iiohf}-, either ijy smoke or by drum- 

 miiii; on tlie hive. 



2. Find and remove tlie old queen. 



3. Siiake every bee oil' the combs and 

 out of liie iiive on a sheet, and put ail the 

 frames hack into tiie hive. 



4. Sprinkle tiie bees with water sweet- 

 ened witli honey, and scented with essence 

 of some kind. 



5. Hive the bees, as you would a nat- 

 ural swarm, into their own hive. 



C. Smear the new queen all over with 

 honey, drop her upon the mass of bees 

 near the entrance and see that she goes 

 in witii tiiem. 



7. Now just let them severely alone 

 for one week. 



Tliis plan has been in use for years with- 

 out one single failure. It is jiuaranteed 

 not to fail. But you nmst comply with 

 these directions. 



N. B. If you do fail you may send me 

 one dollar to pay for the trouble you have 

 had in tryin:^ this plan. 



Milton', W. Va. 



Transferring. —A Funny Experi- 

 ment. 



J. M. Tyler. 



About the first of April, 1887, I pui'- 

 cliased several colonies of black bees in 

 old rickety hives. They had received no 

 attention whatever for a year. Two stands 

 were flat on the irround, with part of bot- 

 tom-l)oards rotted f)Ut; mud, water and 

 mice had taken possession of the lower 

 story. The bees having frames of honey 

 above worked up there and made tlieir 

 exit throuiih open corners and cracks. 

 There was not a particle of comb below 

 and l)ut little honey above. Tliej' were 

 pretty strong and doinji well. The rest of 

 the stands, though nearly ready to fall to 

 pieces, were full of rich stores and bees. 

 This seems to set all our packing at naught. 

 However, they were situated on low 

 ground in tlie corner of a rail- fence, pro- 

 tected by the close pro.ximity of the resi- 

 dence on the north and surrounded by 

 henberry and weeds. 



I tied the hives up in sheets and brought 

 them a distance of live miles ^ind placed 

 them in an orchard about two hundred 

 and fifty yaids from my apiary. About 

 the twelfth of April, a bright, sunny day, 

 I transferred tliein, commencing in the 

 morning. Peach and other fruit bloom 

 was coming out pretty fi-eely, neverthe- 



less, mj' own and neighbor's liees pretty 

 soon foniul me, and I never was so be- 

 sieged liy quantities of deterniiiicd and 

 persistent rol)bers. It put me to my wits' 

 enil for several days to prevent the entire 

 destruction of my l)lack colonies. There 

 was just enough bloom and warm sun- 

 shine to attract the bees to the orchard, 

 but no nectar. If I could havi- waited 

 until the begimiing of honey flow, say 

 about the last of .\pril, or our full fruit 

 bloom, there would have been no trouble 

 from robbing. There would have been 

 but little if any robbing if I had only 

 transferred late in the evening; but the 

 bad condition of the hives caused me to 

 overlook or take the risk of rolibing. I 

 feil them up and they came out all right. 

 An experiment with bees. 



Making an artiflcial swarm from a catch 

 of robber bees from a ijraiidy distillery 

 may be of some interest to the reailers of 

 the Apicultuhist. Last August, about 

 the latter part, tlie owner informed me 

 that the pomace placed out in the sun to 

 ferment was so thickly covered by bees 

 that it was difficult to handle it without 

 being stung. I concluded to ti\v an ex- 

 periment by making an artilicial swarm 

 out of a catch of a few pounds of these 

 robliers. 



I rigged up a bee-trap by making a fun- 

 nel out of wire-cloth al)out fourteen inch- 

 es in diameter at the bottom, tapering to 

 about an inch or an inch and a half at top, 

 which was inserted into a wire-cloth cage 

 used for shipping bees. The distillery was 

 located just beyond the outskirts of the 

 town. 1 drove over to it one bright day. 

 Sui'e enough the little rascals wei'e there, 

 a perfrct army of foragers of all grades, — 

 pure Italians, hybrids and blacks, from 

 my own and neighbor's apiaries, scramb- 

 ling and pushing each other with all their 

 might, apparently in perfect good liumor. 

 They were having a regular picnic of cider 

 drinking. The pomace was setting out- 

 doors in casks and was so thickly covered 

 in places by the bees that you could not 

 see it. 



I set the funnel over the thickest clusters 

 on the pomace and very soon had my cage 

 full of bees to their great clisconiHture, 

 but to the amusement of the distiller and 

 bystanders. I took them home, sprayed 

 them pretty freely with sweetened water 

 scented with peppermint. I put them at 

 night in an empty hive with one frame of 

 brood and honey and adhering bees with 

 a fertilized (pieen attached to the comb 

 in a Peet cage. I tacked a wire-cloth over 

 the front of hive until the fijllowing day, re- 

 moving the cloth at night. I led them up 

 till rtrst of September, when the fall flowers 

 began to bloom. I never had a swarm to 



