THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



175 



I will add that we consider it indispensable 

 to have the inside of all our hives ready for 

 a change of location, a change that may be 

 occasioned either because the farm has been 

 sold or rented, or because tlie number of our 

 colonies has become too large, etc. For 

 that purpose the inside of every one of our 

 hives is furnished with a l)ent wire, beut 

 something like a rail fence, in which the 

 bottom bar of each comb tits into a bend 

 and is maintained in place. As the top bars 

 of the frames are always glued in the rab- 

 bets of the sides, we can, with our device, 

 transport our hives from one apiary to an- 

 other on hay racks, in early spring, without 

 a single comb getting out of place. 



Now I have to add that during the first 

 season, especially if the crop is good, the 

 farmer will be very careful to hive every 

 swarm which may issue : but after a few 

 years, when his enthusiasm has slacked, if 

 the swarms are very numerous, disturbing 

 him too often when he works in the field, he 

 will become tired of bees. It is therefore 

 better for the bee keeper intending to es- 

 tablish out apiaries, to use large hives, to 

 work them so as to get the least number of 

 swarms, and to raise extracted honey in 

 those apiaries. Every bee keeper knows 

 that the production of comb honey requires 

 more work, more visits consequently to the 

 apiaries and longer stays in the out apiaries. 

 Then we ought to be careful not to over- 

 task the good lady of tho house with very 

 frequent and long visits ; we can avoid such 

 unpleasantness by devoting our apiaries to 

 the production of extracted honey ; we will 

 then be enabled to manage successfully GOO 

 colonies in six apiaries. 



Hamilton, 111., Oct 13, 1890. 



Out Apiaries.— No Buildings Needed.— Right 



Number of Coionies. — May be Managed 



by Visiting Regularly. 



DR. C. C. MILLEK. 



f DON'T see any vulnerable point iu your 

 leader about "Out Apiaries," except 

 the statement that " suitable buildings 

 must be secured or built ; and an addi- 

 tional set of tools will be needed." I have 

 never used any buildings at out apiaries and 

 I don't believe they would be u.seful enough 

 to pay the rent. As for tools, whilst it might 

 be convenient to have a set in each place, it 

 is not essential, as the weijrht is so lit*le that 

 you can take your tools from one api.iry to 

 another. Still, the cost of a set for each 

 apiary is very little. What is needed more 

 than a bee hat, smoker, and chisel ? 



There is one thing that I would have for all 

 the apiaries in one. and that's a record l)Ook. 

 However you may be wedded to the slate 

 system, pebbles or what not, in the home 

 apiary, when you come to have an out apiary 

 jou need to have a book in which you can 

 look at any time and see the condition of 

 any colony in any apiary. I do a good deal 

 of my planning for future woik by looking 

 over my record book whilst on the way from 

 one apiary to another. 



If you are on ground where it is a little 

 difficult to decide between out and in-door 

 wintering, an out apiary will give you a 

 leaning toward out door winleriirg. 



The hardest tlung to decide is the limit as 

 to the number of colonies to be reached 

 before it becomes necessary to supi)ress in- 

 crease or start an out apiary. You'll never 

 know for certain. But a break once made, 

 and ..u out apiary started, a second ©ut 

 apiary would be desirable with a smaller 

 increase than made the first necessary. In 

 my location I would not start an out apiary 

 until my number of colonies exceeded 125. 

 I think 125 would do better, yes quite a little 

 better, in two apiaries than in one, but I 

 don't think they would do enough better to 

 pay for the extra trouble of working them 

 in two places. But I wouldn't wait until I 

 had 125 in each of these apiaries before I 

 would start a third apiary. It may look a 

 little inconsistent to say " If I had 125 col- 

 onies I would keep them in one apiary, but 

 if I had 200 colonies I would keep them in 

 three apiaries," but that's the truth. After 

 I have everything arranged to run one out 

 apiary it is but little more trouble to run 

 another. If sixty-seven colonies make a 

 full day's work, then I would have to go 

 back a second time to get through an apiary 

 containing more, and what ditference would 

 it make whether I went back the second day 

 to the same place or to one in an opposite 

 direction ? 



And now I've sat for some time, pen in 

 hand, trying to think what to say about 

 swarming. You ofifer two alternatives- 

 keeping a man on the ground all the time, 

 and i-emoving queens a la Elwood. I'm not 

 satisfied with either. If I adopted the firs*, 

 I'd just as soon have a bright boy or girl as 

 a man ; I'd have all queens clipped, and 

 when a swarm issued all that the boy would 

 do would be to cage the queen and put it in 

 some part of the hive where the bees could 

 take care of it, and make a memorandum of 

 it for me to see on my next visit. Possibly 

 a queen trap migM be made to take the 

 place of the boy or girl. In my hands cag- 

 ing or removing queens haa not given entire 

 satisfaction. There is some danger of lay- 

 ing workers, and too often a queen cell 

 escapes notice, a young queen emerges and 

 goes off with a swarm. I feel pretty sure 

 that better work is done by a colony that is 

 never without a laying queen, provided it 

 doesn't get the swarming fever. So instead 

 of removing the queen I think I prefer to 

 let all queens remain and make regular ex- 

 aminations. All queens being clipped, the 

 worst that can happen is that a swarm may 

 issue and the queen be lost, when the colony 

 will be in the same condition as if I had re- 

 moved the queen, and will receive the same 

 treatment. Some of them, however, will 

 not offer to swarm, and I will gain on these, 

 and I will also gain on all those which swarm 

 later than the regular time of removing 

 queens. 



But I don't feel very sure of my ground in 

 this whole business of preventing swarming. 

 The fact that you devote a number of the 

 Review to out apiaries shows that the num- 

 ber of bee keepers who run them is on the 



