American ^Bae Journal 



ihcy went in. I removed the cover of 

 tlie liive and it was practically empty. 

 T looked about to see wliat liad become of 

 my bees and was surprised to see them 

 settling on the next hive. I left them 

 there and proceeded to transfer another. 

 This time I made a worse failure than 

 at first, for I could not induce them to 

 enter tliciicw hive at all. I also failed 

 to find llic queen. After flying about 

 for awhile the bees settled on the same 

 hive with the other swarm. By this 

 time the bees were so thick on the hive 

 that tlicy blocked the way for the ones 

 that lived (here. 



I made what I called a "reducer;" 

 that is, a false bottom which makes the 

 big botfom of the new hive fit on the 

 small top of the old hive. And after 

 placing the new hive on the old one T 

 photographed it, which shows both 

 swarms clustered on the outside of the 

 hive. This photograph (No. i) I send 

 to you. In less than 4 hours the bees 



day so agreed to wait until the next 

 week. Before the appointed time, how- 

 ever the river had risen and flooded 



had been washed down stream about 

 200 yards, and had lost its top and 

 smaller limbs. We investigated and were 



No. 2.-STUMP AS It Now Stands. 



Were all inside, and then I put on a- 

 super. The other 2 I did not try to 

 transfer, but made more reducers and 

 placed the new hives on the old ones. 



By the first of August I had one 

 super full of nice honey from the hive 

 in which there were 3 colonies, but 

 the other 2 have not put any honey in 

 the supers yet. We have had a very 

 poor honey season so far, and can't ex- 

 pect much. I am very busy now with 

 my crops so I will have to neglect the 

 bees for the present, but will do better 

 next year, for I am too fond of honey 

 to give up a good thing. 



More than a year ago while hunting 

 in the Mokelumne river bottom, Henry 

 Merrill and I found a bee-tree. It was 

 a huge willow-tree, that was dead. The 

 bees could be seen in and out of a hole 

 in a big limb high up in the tree. We 

 were not prepared to cut the tree that 



No. 3.— Bee-Log Almost Hidden. 



most of the bottom land, including where 

 the bee-tree stood. Following this was 

 a heavy wind-storm which blew down 

 our bee-tree — at least it looked so to 

 us from the the shore. The river kept 

 rising until the water was higher than 

 it had been known before for years. 

 This was the same high water which did 

 so much damage in California a little 

 over a year ago. 



When the water went down we visited 

 the bee-tree and found about 25 feet 

 of it still standing. The top with the 

 bees had been broken off and washed 

 away. Of course, as we thought, that 

 settled our bee-tree. 



surprised to find that bees were still in 

 the same big limb. These bees were not 

 molested until after fruit-blooming time, 

 and then they were robbed. We took 

 about 3 pounds of the old and a pound 

 of the new honey from the limb. 



Now, could it have been possible for 

 those bees to stay in that log during 

 the hig!i water, or had another swarm 

 taken possession of it after the water 

 had gone down? 



The pTiotograph No. 2 shows the stump 

 as it now stands. No. 3 shows the log 

 where we found it, which is almost hid- 

 den from view by the dense growth of 

 weeds and brambles. The bovs in this 



No. 4.— Limb fro.m Which Honey Was Taken. 



This spring the river was low as 

 it was high last spring. One day in 

 February we came across the top of our 

 bee-tree which was high and dry. If 



p'cture are standing just back of the 

 log. No. 4 shows the limb from which 

 the honey was taken. 

 Lodi, Calif. 



