96 



BEES FOR PLEASURE AND PROFIT. 



Fig. 43.— Screw-on 

 Leg for Beehive, 



honey, 



travelling crate 



now buy these plinths separately from Mr. Edward J. Burt, 



of Stroud Road, Gloucester. 



Legs (fig. 43) which can be screwed to 

 any beehive may similarly be bought sepa- 

 rately. 



Packing Bees for Travelling by Road 

 or Rail. 



Tn packing bees to travel by road or rail, 

 it is necessary to take care that the combs are 

 not too heavily stored with honey, particularly 

 in hot weather, as otherwise only a horrible 

 mixture of dead bees, broken combs, and 

 all lying in a mass at the bottom of the 

 or hive, is likely to arrive at the journey's 

 end. 



In packing straw skeps for a journey, several thin pointed 

 sticks (such as gardeners use for staking carnations and other 

 tall growing flowers to) should be stuck right through the 

 skeps in various directions three or four days before the bees 

 are to be dispatched. The bees will then fasten the combs 

 securely to these sticks which have been thrust through them, 

 and the combs will be better held in place. The straw skep 

 should then be turned bottom upwards, and two thicknesses of 

 strong gauze or muslin tied over its bottom (now uppermost), 

 and in this position (bottom uppermost) it should travel. 



Bees, when forcibly confined 

 to their hives in this way, are 

 thrown into such a state of 

 excitement that the tempera- 

 ture of the hive is raised 

 immediately, and unless abund- 

 ance of air were admitted the 

 bees would be suffocated. 



AA'hen stocks of bees on 

 bar-frames are to be sent by 

 road or rail a wooden frame 

 covered with perforated zinc or fine mesh wire gauze must 

 be screwed over the top of the hive as shown in fig. 44, 

 and a piece of perforated zinc or wire gauze must also 





C 

 E 



Fij,'. 44. 



-Hive of Bees prepared 

 for Travelling. 



