A. AND M. COLLEGE APIARY. 33 



able for an apiary of forty colonies or less, is shown in Fig. 14. The bee- 

 escape, illustrated in Fig. 15, should be placed at the tops of all screen 

 doors and windows of the extracting house to allow the escape of bees 

 carried in on combs. 



Other apparatus, such a? shipping cases, wax presses, etc., will suggest 

 themselves to the bee keeper as he progresses in experience and as his 

 apiary increases in size. 



TRANSFERRING. 



The bee keeper having his bees in box hives or wishing to secure a col- 

 ony from a bee tree will desire information on transferring them into a 

 frame hive. The "Heddon method" of transferring is perhaps the sim- 

 plest and easiest for the amateur. This is described by the A. I. Root 

 Co. as follows : 



"We will assume that your hive or hives, having been received in the 

 flat, are put together and painted, and contain frames of wired founda- 

 tion ready for the bees. Light your smoker and put on your bee veil. 

 Move the old hive back four or five feet, and put the new hive in its place. 

 Prepare a small box about eight inches deep, and one side open, that will 

 just cover (not slip over) the bottom of the box hive. Turn it upside 

 down ; set the hiving box over it, and then drum on the sides of the hive 

 with a couple of sticks until about two-thirds of the bees pass up into the 

 box. Gently lift off the box containing the bees, and dump it in front of 

 the entrance of the new hive. Make sure that the queen is among them, 

 by watching for her as she passes with the rest into the entrance. If you 

 do not discover her look inside the hive. If you still fail to find her, 

 drum out bees from the old hive again until you do get her, for, to make 

 the plan a success, she must be in the new hive." 



"Return to the box hive and turn it right side up and set it down a 

 couple of feet back of the new one, with its entrance turned at right 

 angles. You now have in the hive about one-third of the original colony, 

 the combs, and all the brood. Allow the old hive to stand for at least 

 twenty-one days, at the end of which time the brood will be hatched out, 

 with the exception of a little drone brood, which will be of no value. 

 Turn the hive upside down and drum the bees out again into the hiving 

 box, after which dump it in front of the entrance to the new hive as be- 

 fore. If the queen in the new hive is one you wish to keep, put an 

 entrance guard over the entrance to catch the young queen hatched in 

 the meantime in the old hive, for she would go in and one or the other 

 would be destroyed. If there is no choice of queens let the second drive 

 of bees go in and the queens will fight it out. Your job of transferring 

 is now completed, and all you have on hand is an old box hive containing 

 a lot of crooked combs, with perhaps a little honey and drone brood in it. 

 The honey can be extracted, or used for chunk honey on the table, if fit 

 for use." 



This method, however, must never be used except during a strong honey 

 flow, when the bees of other hives are busy gathering honey in the fields. 

 At any other time the box hive, after the bees are removed, will be at- 

 tacked by robbers bees from other -hives the brood killed, and all honey 

 carried away. Aside from the damage done directly, a bad case of rob- 

 bing may seriously demoralize the entire yard and result disastrously. 



3-A 



