AUTUMN MANAGE:\rENT. 



73 



its place. Having procured the pail, it should be stood on a 

 table or the seat of a chair, to raise it a convenient height from 

 the ground. Now go to the hive, and smoke it well through the 

 entrance. Wait fully a minute or two for the bees to gorge 

 themselves, and then take the skep up gently, and place it 

 upside-down in the pail ; get an empty skep, into which the 



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V\g. 38. — Driving Irons. 



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bees are to be driven, and with the driving irons (fig. 38) fix it 

 to the skep containing the bees, the skewer being put through 

 the two skeps at f (fig. 39), to form a hinge, while the other 

 two serve to keep the top skep up (one of them is seen in fig. 

 39, d). Be careful that f, the point where the two skeps join, 

 is higher than e, as the bees will run to the highest part of the 



Fig-. 39.— Straw Skep, etc., in process of Driving-, and section of same. 



hive ; also see that the combs run from e to f, and not cross- 

 wise in the skep. When all is fixed, the apiarist must keep 

 up a drumming on the sides of the skep, either with the hands 

 or with two sticks ; the bees are so frightened by this that they 

 at once begin to run up to the skep above, and cluster in the 

 top of it. The queen may, if necessary, be caught as she runs 

 up ; but as driven bees are so subdued that, when several lots 



