138 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



One plan is to open the hive hastily and 

 send smoke down amongst the sections for- 

 cibly to hustle the bees out before they have 

 time to open the cells. The other plan, with 

 the bee escape, they are allowed their own 

 time to get out, and not being scared they do 

 not molest the cappings. In adjusting the 

 escape board it should be done carefully and 

 without disturbance because a jar or rap on 

 the hives is as liable as smoke to set them to 

 taking honey from the cells. In some in- 

 stances enough cells may be uncapped that 

 it would seem necessary to return the sec- 

 tions to the hives to be refilled and resealed. 



Black bees are easier to start out than 

 Italians or hybrids, but a little smoke seems 

 to frighten them so greatly that they run 

 heedlessly about as though they had forgot- 

 ten where the place of exit was so that a few 

 stick to the sections to a most vexatious de- 

 gree and to every turn they make they grasp 

 to the cap of a new cell. Italians do not lose 

 their heads so easily. They know the way 

 out but require a little longer time. Nor are 

 Italians so liable to tear open the cells but 

 show a marked disposition to preserve them. 



In finding queens in black colonies the dis- 

 position of the bees is less favorable than of 

 Italians. Of course the black queens are 

 smaller and dark, on which account they are 

 more ditiicult to find, but where there is 

 enough Italian blood so that the queens are 

 large and sometimes yellow the distinctive 

 dispositions of the blacks are often retained. 



Where there are several combs of brood it 

 is seldom that three or four can be examined 

 before the blacks will begin to roll and tum- 

 ble, hang in festoons and drop off on to the 

 ground and set the hive in the most con fused 

 condition, so that the queen could only be 

 discovered by chance. At the same time 

 every bee breaks open cells and fills up with 

 honey until it would be easy to mistake work- 

 era for queens. In a very short time the 

 brood will have no bees at all upon it and 

 when robbers are around I have thought that 

 the bees joined in pilfering their own combs. 



The worst Italians are only slightly inclin- 

 ed this way, and they will stand still and in 

 regular order over the brood, really spread- 

 ing out as a protection from cold or robbers 

 and though we look the combs over and over 

 again they maintain their position as if to 

 aid us in the search. With such bees we can 

 see just where the sealed and unsealed brood 

 and honey are and find the queen within a 

 circular line of guards at her regular work 

 on the unsealed comb. 



As we begin to remove the combs on one 

 side of a hive of a colony of blacks they be- 

 gin to charge downward and under the bot- 

 tom bars toward the far side of the hive and 

 when we take out the last combs they are 

 covered with bees four or five deep and when 

 the last comb is taken out a great throng, 

 perhaps the queen with them, will go rushing 

 into the corners and under the replaced 

 combs. While blacks are so easily scared by 

 smoke they deserve even more smoking than 

 Italians or hybrids because in examining 

 the colonies we are far more liable to be 

 stung. 



There is found to be an astonishing differ- 

 ence in the dispositions of different colonies 



of the same strain of bees and the conse- 

 quent need of selection in breeding. Breed- 

 ing can do much toward getting bees out of 

 sections and in the handling of hundreds of 

 colonies it may amount to days of labor. 



But to return to escapes. How much labor 

 they may save is a question. I estimated in 

 the Bee-Keepers' Review some time ago 

 that twenty escapes could be adjusted to the 

 hives in twenty minutes. In taking the 

 combs out of the hives singly and brushing 

 the bees off I consider five minutes to the 

 hive good speed. My time has been about 

 ten hives extracted in about three hours. 

 When escapes were used it was fifteen to 

 eighteen hives in the same time. But the 

 main advantage is not in the tinie consumed. 

 When brushing the bees off very seldom 

 were the times when sweat in a veritable 

 stream did not pour off my nose into the 

 hives. Then, again, it is very hard on the 

 back to lean in a sort of sidewise way with a 

 seven pound comb in one hand and the brush 

 in the other, and continue it for a long time. 

 If we stand up straight the bees may be 

 thrown harshly against the alighting-boards 

 or young bees lost in the grass. The most 

 escapes I ever put on at once were 48 and it 

 seemed the work of a few moments upon a 

 set of specially arranged colonies. 



Twenty escapes in twenty minutes is equal 

 to six hundred in ten hours, a busy, but easy 

 day's work ; in fact, the difference between 

 escapes and the smoke and brush way of get- 

 ting the honey away from the bees may be 

 compared to the old way of binding grain on 

 the old harvesters, by hand, and the new way 

 by using the self- binding machines. The 

 one is down right hard work for two men 

 while the other is fun for a boy, who drives 

 the team. 



Pasadena, Cal." 



A Condensed View of Current 



Bee Writings. 



E. E. HASTY. 



HURRAH for that Porter method of hold- 

 ing down a bee veil ! Stuffing veils adown 

 the neck is a hot, uncomfortable nuisance in- 

 deed. And when the " gude wife " makes a 

 pair of shirts and gets one collar strangling- 

 ly tight, and the other so loose that one can 

 almost pull his head down in as the turtle 

 does his, then the veil won't stay in — else, 

 vice versa, won't go in short of assault and 

 battery with intent to kill. Review came at 

 eve, and I had the thing in successful opera- 

 tion next morn. But, would you believe it ? 

 I am not altogether happy yet. Like the 

 Children of Israel in Egypt I sometimes 

 " fall a lusting," and want to put my honey- 

 dripping fingers in my mouth. To untie the 

 string of the new device and loosen up takes 

 too much time. Who will invent an elastic 



