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THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



bees can readily work up into the 

 clean hive — putting weights on top of 

 upper hive to keep the lower hive 

 from floating. 



Commence pouring water into the 

 tank in a steady stream so that it will 

 consume about twenty minutes for the 

 water to get high enough to force all 

 bees from the diseased bottom into 

 the clean top. Continue the water 

 until it is forced to the top of the 

 lower hive. 



Great care must be taken to not 



pour in too much to raise the water 

 above the joint of the lower and up- 

 per hive. 



After this treatment has progressed 

 this far, bees are absolutely clean and 

 free from any disease. Then take 

 the clean hive, have your bottom 

 board ready on the same stand as you 

 had the diseased stand, set your clean 

 bees on top of the bottom board and 

 your treatment is complete. 



Take diseased colony or the old hive 

 and destroy it totally by fire. 



My First Season With Bees 



E. M. RENNOLDS, Hansford, Florida 



Editor Bee-Keepers' Review: 



At the close of my first year's ex- 

 perience as a beekeeper I have been 

 prevailed on to give your readers my 

 impressions, experiences, failures and 

 successes. 



At the outset let me say that I 

 kept bees for five months in movable 

 frame hives nearly thirty years ago, 

 which embraced all of my previous 

 experience. The first thing I did was 

 to get literature and find out how 

 many honey fiowing plants grew in 

 my locality and finding five that the 

 books said were good producers with 

 possibly two others that were fairly 

 dependable and the fact that these 

 plants bloom singly I thought the ven- 

 ture worth making, but when I looked 

 at the multitude of different sized 

 hives listed what should I do ? Which 

 one should I buy? 



I reasoned that in the north where 

 the seasons are short and only three 

 general sources which come in rapid 

 succession a large hive would be a 

 necessity because a full colony would 

 do the work quickly, but in this semi- 

 tropical climate where the seasons are 

 longer perhaps a smaller hive would 

 be better, so I bought the light frame 

 Langstroth for the main apiary and 

 added just a few ten frame as an 

 experiment and am fully convinced 

 from experience that the eight frame 

 is large enough if not too large for 

 this locality. 



I started with four hives of Italians 

 in eight frame hives and had twenty- 

 four stands at the end of the season 

 and sixty-two gallons of extracted 

 honey. 



I had several natural swarms, of 

 course, but as I was working for in- 



crease more than honey, I made divi- 

 sions several times. My way of do- 

 ing this was to watch for queen cells 

 and whenever I found one that was 

 not needed I took an empty hive with 

 full sheets of foundation and went 

 to a hive that was pretty strong in 

 bees and brood and put practically 

 two-thirds of bees and brood in the 

 new hive and filled vacancies in old 

 hive with foundation. I then put a 

 ripe queen cell in a protector and in- 

 troduced at once into whatever hive 

 hapiDened to be queenless, sometimes 

 the old, sometimes the new colony, 

 but was always careful to know which 

 one the old queen was in. When I 

 moved the new colony to a new stand 

 at once, of course some of the bees 

 went back to the old home, but the 

 plan worked perfectly with me and 

 experience proved that it was best to 

 put the queen in the new colony and 

 leave the cell in the old one. 



Now, about hives. Should I buy or 

 make them ? 



Having spent my life in carpentry 

 and machinery I believe it will pay 

 me to make them for several reasons 

 which are as follows: First, it would 

 give me employment during rainy 

 days and idle time at a work which 

 I thoi'oughly enjoy and am fully capa- 

 ble of doing right; second, I already 

 had a good shop building with power 

 installed and the only outlay was the 

 actual machines and I made the great- 

 er part of them of junk left on my 

 hands from the saw mill business, 

 which I formerly followed, but let me 

 say that I seriously doubt if it would 

 pay the average beekeeper to make 

 his hives. I have written these lines 

 with the hope that some brother bee- 



