THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



15 



protected as directed, and only about 

 40 colonies were alive; althoufjh it was 

 the first winter in many years when 

 the ordinary loss exceeded 10 per cent. 



MOVING BEES WITHOUT KASTENING 

 THEM IN THE HIVES. 



These bees were moved to the place 

 where we were wintering' our 93 col- 

 onies. No time was spent in confining 

 the bees, but all were subdued, lids 

 and floors stapled on, then loaded on 

 a wajjfon, a wajjon sheet thrown over 

 all, using the smoker as needed, the 

 horses hooked on, and the drive made 

 with complete success. They were all 

 Italian bees. 



As our 93 colonies under the tarred 

 paper were flying strongly, they were 

 not disturbed. No other work was 

 done at this visit; and this April visit 

 would not have been needed, had all 

 the bees been moved to their perma- 

 nent location the fall before. 



On May 10th we hitched the team to 

 the wag"on, which was loaded with ex- 

 extracting supers containing wired 

 frames with full sheets of foundation, 

 bed, lunch-box, etc., and drove to the 

 distant yard, taking most of one day 

 for the trip. On arriving we piled 

 the supers in piles, six full-depth 

 supers high, with a tin lid, and a rock 

 to hold it, on each pile. 



That night the tarred paper was re- 

 moved, and the bees placed on their 

 summer stands, the work being finished 

 early the next morning, all colonies 

 then being smoked and jarred, so the 

 bees would take their locations, which 

 they did, in a very satisfactory man- 

 ner. 



Then we (two of us) spent 1)4 days 

 in a thorough overhauling of every 

 colony. Some scraping off burr combs 

 from frames and hives was done, each 

 queen found, and clipped, if of the 

 previous season's rearing, and an ac- 

 count of her age kept, with the Alex- 

 ander tin tags on the hive-fronts. 

 Stores were equalized in some cases, 

 supers put on all strong colonies, and 



on all colonies showing, by the area of 

 sealed brood, that they would soon be 

 strong. 



As there was sufficient nectar com- 

 ing in, to prevent the bees drawing 

 very heavily on their stores, and the 

 hives being mostly of the lO-frame size, 

 no feeding was done. As we were 

 after all the brood that it was possible 

 to secure, queen-excluders were used 

 on very few of the colonies at this 

 time. At this trip we found two col- 

 onies preparing to swarm; so, nearly 

 all of their brood was removed, and 

 combs containing more or less honey 

 put in their places, with a super of 

 combs above. The removed brood 

 was distributed among some of the 

 colonies of medium strength. 



VENTILATORS FOR EXTRACTING SUPERS 



We next bored a 1)4 inch hole in one 

 end of each full-depth super already in 

 the yard, and nailed over it, clinching 

 the nails, a Hansen ventilator made of 

 galvanized iron. The supers hauled 

 from home at this and subsequent 

 trips, were all supplied with similar 

 ventilators. After mowing the grass 

 and weeds that had grown about the 

 entrances, we began our journey home. 



On June 5th, as the flow from alfalfa 

 was opening at home, we again loaded 

 the wagon v/ith extracting supers and 

 drove to the distant yard. On arriv- 

 ing we found the flow a little more 

 backward than at home. The bees 

 had not "boomed" brood-rearing to 

 quite the extent that they had in the 

 home district, not having such abun- 

 dant early pasturage, yet their condi- 

 tion was safsfactory, better than most 

 of the apiaries in that neighborhood 

 that had been under the constant care 

 of their owners; to be credited, per- 

 haps, to the sheltered location and 

 tarred paper protection. 



Now I realized that everything de- 

 pended on the control of swarming, 

 and while there are seasons and per- 

 haps localities when and where plenty 

 of room in the comb may prevent 



