1891 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



915 



made directly from the Hawkeye photo. We 

 had supposed, until recently, that our friend 

 kept only a few colonies— only just enough for 

 exi)erim< ntal purposes; but we are agreeably 

 pleased to leai-n that he has 100. Mr. Hasty is 

 a remarkably bright writer. He is a keen ob- 

 server in the apiary, and knows i)retty well 

 whereof he speaks. We wish he might let his 

 ai)icnltural light siiine a little more.] 



MOVING BEES HOME. 



HOW MUCH VENTILATION I.S NEEDED. 



Octobei- 10th I began to mov^e my bees home 

 again. We moved three loads with eighteen 

 hives to the load. In the tirsr, place I was very 

 busy with other work, and got started too late 

 in the day. It was nearly sundown when we 

 arrived at the lake where the bees were. As 

 all of the bees were in large Dadant hives that 

 I intended to move that night, and as the night 

 was cool, and all of the Dadant hives have a 

 little ventilation in the roof to allow the mois- 

 ture to escape. I took no ventilators along. I 

 was satisfied that there was enough ventilation 

 in the roof. The surplus cases were all left in 

 their places. Some of the cases had honey in, 

 and others did not. As we came right by the 

 scales, we vveighed our loads. The first load 

 weighed, gross. 3650; wagon. 1410; net, 2240 lbs. 

 Second load. 3490; wagon, 1280: net. 2210. Third 

 load. 349.5; wagon, 13U0; net. 21S).5. We had our 

 wagons loaded, and got started away from the 

 lake about 8 i>. m. We reached home at about 

 10:30. and found a nice hot supper ready for us. 

 After eating we had four miles further to go. 

 as I wanted this lot at the Ballinger apiary. 

 Some of these hives leaked bees. 1 find that, if 

 bees get out of the hives at night, and the hives 

 are moved, some bees are veiy likely to get on 

 to any one handling them. Then they begin to 

 crawl and sing; and there is nothing that will 

 make a man nervous so quickly as to hear a bee 

 or two singing somewhere on his clothing, es- 

 pecially if they can get under his clothing. I 

 take particular pains to see that my help are 

 properly dressed for the occasion. First, each 

 of them needs a pair of old cotton socks with 

 the toe of the sock cut off so as to allow the 

 four fingers to slip through. A hole is cut into 

 the side of the foot of the sock for the thumb, 

 so that th'' heel of the sock will come over the 

 back of the wrist. The leg of the sock is to be 

 drawn over the sleeve of the coat. Now a pair 

 of buckskin gloves can be drawn over the socks 

 on the hands. This fixes the hands and sleeves. 

 A cloth or a lai'ge handkerchief is folded and 

 wrapped around the neck to keep the bees 

 away from the neck, and fiom getting under 

 the veil. The shirt-collar should be turned up 

 before putting the cloth around the neck. The 

 opening in the shii't front should be so secured 

 that no bee can get through. The opening in 

 the pants legs should be put inside of the boots, 

 or otherwise secui'ed. A man so di-essed will 

 handle tiie hives, no matter how badly they 

 leak, with impunity. 



After loading, take the horse-blankets and 

 spread them over the front of the front hives. 

 If it is a dark night, a lantern should be hung 

 under each wagon. I have tried it. Though 

 we liad nice moonlight nights this fall, we 

 unloaded our hives and got back home at about 



4 A. M. 



Wednesday night, Oct. 14th. we made our sec- 

 ond trip. This trip we made to the Hamilton 

 yard, which is al)out three and a half miles 

 east of where I live; and as we did not go by 

 the scales I did not weigh them. Part of these 

 hives were eight-frame Simplicity, two stories 



high, and had telescope roofs on them. I sent 

 a couple of men down early in the day to nail 

 them up and have the bees all ready by the time 

 we would get there with the wagons. Through 

 a misunderstanding they took no ventilators; 

 and when I got there about 30 Simplicity hives 

 were nailed up without any ventilation what- 

 ever, except what little could get through the 

 cracks at the entrance and at the roof. These 

 were all strong hives.- Now, what was I to do 

 — open all of these hives and go home with an 

 empty wagon and another only partly loaded, 

 or run the risk of smothering a lot of bees'? 

 Anothei- thing, my teams had all the work they 

 ought to do outside of hauling bees all night, 

 I immediately made up my mind to risk it as 

 the night was frosty. I drove the lead team 

 myself, and. to save a long drive, I went over a 

 road tha t I had not been over for some time. 

 In one place I got off the road about a quarter 

 of a mile, and had to turn around and hunt up 

 the right one. We got these bees off the wagon, 

 and got home at about 2:30 a. m. Closing up 

 these bees without any ventilation did not hurt 

 any of them a particle, and we hauled them 

 over eight miles on a straw-rack with no 

 springs under them. 



My conclusion is this: If bees are kept cool 

 they need but very little air, though they are 

 closed up tight and thumped around with im- 

 punity. It is the heat that kills them, and not 

 vitiated air. As we moved nS hives to the 

 Hamilton yard I had only 20 hives left at the 

 upper yard at the lake, and a lot of supplies, so 

 that Friday night, the 16th, I took only two 

 wagons, and took the bees and supplies to my 

 home yard. We got home this time by 9:30. 

 This left 63 hives at the lower yard to come to 

 the home apiary, which was about a mile and a 

 half lower down the lake. As I believe I have 

 found out as good a way as there is to load bees 

 on a wagon. I will describe it. 



The side rails of the rack are 8 inches high. 

 Across these, four cross-pieces are laid; on top 

 of these, a floor of inch stuff' is laid, and slight- 

 ly nailed to prevent slipping out of place. The 

 hives are set on this floor, with the entrance of 

 the hive towai'd the outside of the wagon, and 

 the back of the hive to the center of the wagon, 

 and to the back of another hive with its en- 

 trance on the other side of the wagon. A rope 

 is fastened on one side of a wagon, and brought 

 around the back end of the wagon, and fasten- 

 ed loosely on the other side. Then it is raised 

 into place near the top of the two back hives; 

 then with a stout stick I twist the rope tight 

 and tie the end of the stick to the rope. Now 

 place a six-inch fence-board, 16 feet long, on 

 the alighting-boai-ds, on each side of the wag- 

 on; now pass a rope over the side rails of the 

 rack under the iioor the hives sit on: fasten 

 each end of the rope to one of these fence- 

 boards, near the center of the board, so that 

 the rope will pulldown between two hives. Now 

 with another stick twist this rope up tight, and 

 tie the end of your stick, and your load is se- 

 cure. 



Saturday night, the 17th. we made our last 

 trip for the 63 hives. As one of my horses had 

 got hurt I had to put my buggy horse into one 

 of the teams; and as we had on a little too 

 much for him, and a new driver, he got stuck 

 with his load. I promptly unhitched him and 

 put on one of the heavy teams to pull his load 

 up. The first load had on 26 hives, a driver, 

 and a man to help see that nothing lost off the 

 load, as there were several empty cases and a 

 water-barrel. It weighed, gross, with both 

 men on, 41.50 lbs. As we had had a little rain 

 during the day. this wagon weighed 1495. With 

 the drivers ott\ this load weighed 3850 lbs,, or a 

 net of 2355. The next load had on 3680 lbs., and 



