THE BEE-KEEPRS' REVIEW. 



237 



ood things 



From Ottitjf Joufnals. 



MiniNG BEES SHORT DISTANCES 



Most of bee-keepers at times wish to 

 move one or more colonies of bees a short 

 distance, but are kept from doing so be- 

 cause of the difhculty of preventinj^ the 

 return of many of the bees to the old 

 stand; but Mr. E. R. Jones, of Milano, 

 Texas, tells the readers of the Southland 

 yueen, in the June niiinber, how to do it. 

 He says: 



"Choose a day that bids fair to be 

 pleasant and warm enough so that all the 

 adult bees will fly as .soon as given their 

 liberty. Earh" in the morning, before a 

 single bee has left the hive, close the en- 

 trance with wire cloth to all hives that 

 are 10 be moved, and let them remain 

 closed a short while ( one to two hours 1 

 when all the colonies so imprisoned will 

 exhibit great uneasiness. Now move 

 them all once, as nearly as possible, and 

 disturb them sufficiently to cause all the 

 bees to till their honey sacs. Place them 

 on the stands they are to occupy antl give 

 them their liberty at once. If you follow 

 these instructions, and have any bees 

 worth mentioning return to the old stand 

 it will be an exception such as I have 

 never seen; and I have moved hundreds 

 of colonies short distances. I know this 

 is a pretty hard lick on some of the old 

 veterans, the doctors and wise men of 

 the east. " 



There, Mr. Jones, those words, "some 

 of, " saved your bacon; for I'm one of the 

 " doctors " who keep bees and I've been 

 practicing this same method for more 

 than twenty-five years, and you've been 

 doing so for only nine years, as you say. 



We all know that if we move our bees 

 several miles we have no fears of their 

 returning to the old stands, and the " sec- 

 ond thought " will tell us that it is not 

 the distance they have been moved that 

 causes them to remain at the new location, 

 but the disturbance that has been caused 

 by shutting them in and moving them. 

 I have never tried it, but I am quite sure 



that if one or more colonies could be 

 moved in the night during the working 

 season, without being shut in, and so 

 quietly that the bees would not know 

 that they had been moved, they wovild be 

 badly depopulated because of the loss of 

 bees leaving the hive without marking 

 their new location; so that it is not the 

 di.stance they have been moved that caus- 

 es them to mark the new location, but 

 the disturbance; and believing this to be 

 the case, I have often moved a few col- 

 onies a few feet or a few rods, as might be 

 desirable, and I have usually done the 

 moving with a wheel-barrow. I generally 

 close the entrance with wire cloth in the 

 morning, before the bees begin to fly, 

 making sure to give enough ventilation 

 so that the heat generated by their ex- 

 cited condition shall not smother them, 

 and then move them at my leisure. 



Living as I do in the city, and wintering 

 the bees in our house-cellar, and keeping 

 them during the summer on vacant lots 

 from ten to thirty rods from the house, 

 I usually set the bees in our back yard, 

 between the house and barn, when remov- 

 ed from the cellar in the spring, so that I 

 can more conveniently care for them till 

 warm weather has come to stay, when I 

 move one or more colonies, as I have 

 time, to their summer location. 



The bees are fastened in as above de- 

 scribed, and if I can't move them at once 

 they are set in the shade until I can move 

 them. They will sometimes remain shut 

 in for a half day or even longer, and 

 when I am read}- to move them I place a 

 colony on the wheel-barrow and go out to 

 the sidewalk with it and wheel it along 

 for several rods, backward and forward, 

 till I have wheeled them forty rods or 

 more, (the sidewalk being uneven keeps 

 up a constant jar ) and then wheel them 

 to their summer stands, and never till 

 this season have enough bees returned to 

 the old location to attract attention. 

 This season, however, for some reason, 

 this method which I have practised so 

 many years, has been a flat failure. I had 

 four colonies standing near each other. 



