THE BEE-KEEPERS REVIEW 



179 



was all right that 1 would patronize him 

 if I lived in his district. 



Just think of the possibilities of adver- 

 tising honey in this same way. Views of 

 the apiary, of the bees building comb, of 

 piles of finished sections, of the honey 

 extrator. of honey in bottles or cans. 

 Some beautiful little views and short, ap- 

 propriate paragraphs of reading matter. 

 Why doesn't some one get up such a 

 booklet? Why don't 1 do it ? 1 would if 

 I were in the retail honey trade. 



»jr«'^i^U»»*^» 



5ome Criticisms on Flat Covers. 



Mr. A. D. Shephard, of Wisconsin, ob- 

 jects to a flat cover on the ground that 

 the water and wind work in under its 

 edges in the spring. 1 have never seen 

 any great trouble from this source, and if 

 we surround our hives in spring with 

 tarred felt, both of these objections are 

 removed. Soon as it becomes warm wea- 

 ther the bees stop any small crack with 

 propolis. 



Another point that he brings up is that 

 the heat of the sun in hot weather will af- 

 fect the bees more than it would through 

 a cover made of some material that is a 

 poorer conductor of heat - a metal cover 

 lined with several thicknesses of asbestos. 

 for instance. Of course, a shade board 

 would remedy this trouble, but Mr. Shep- 

 ard would like to avoid the expense and 

 labor attending the use of a shade board. 

 I expect that a cover lined with asbestos 

 would shield the bees from the heat of the 

 sun. so far as the top of the hive is con- 

 cerned, but the sides of the hive need pro- 

 tection nearly as much, perhaps as much, 

 as the top of the hive. 1 have never used 

 a cover of metal lined with asbestos, but 

 1 don't know as there is any objection to 

 it aside from the cost. 



^«\i»*«^»^»i« 



Moving Colonies of bees long dis- 

 tances without loss of some of the old 

 bees and the unsealed brood is difficult to 

 accomplish. One year ago 1 thought of 

 moving my apiary here at Flint to North- 

 ern Michigan. That is, 1 wished to move 

 the brood and young bees, leaving the 



flying bees here at Flint, furnishing them 

 queens, and building them up into full 

 colonies, it is these old bees that kick up 

 a fuss and die on a journey, and 1 wished 

 to avoid that trouble, and yet save the 

 bees. 1 don't know as very many folks 

 will wish to move bees in exactly that 

 way. but, if they should, here is a plan 

 that Mr. E. F. Atwater wrote me about 

 at that time. 



Ten days before moving the bees, prac- 

 tice the Alexander method for making in- 

 crease. That is, put the queen and one 

 frame of brood in the lower story, with 

 the brood above, a queen excluder being 

 placed between the two stories. In ten 

 days move the upper story away to a new 

 location and give it back the queen, or one 

 purchased for that purpose. The removed 

 brood nests are now free from unsealed 

 brood, the old bees will return to the old 

 stands, and the old brood nests can be 

 moved with no loss of either old bees or 

 unsealed brood; that is, if moved at once 

 before the eggs laid by the queen can 

 hatch out. The colonies started on the 

 old stands by the use of the old, flying 

 bees ought to build up and be good col- 

 onies. In short, this is practically divid- 

 ing the colonies, and moving away the 

 sealed brood and young bees, which is 

 much better than losing a lot of the old 

 bees and unsealed brood. If the bees are 

 to be confined only two or three days 

 there is not likely to be any serious loss 

 of bees or brood. 



Some Hard Lessons Learned in This 

 Remarkable Spring. 



We had warm weather here at Flint the 

 last of March, and I set out my bees— not 

 a colony dead out of 100. The weather 

 was warm for a week or more and some 

 brood was started, but not enough so that 

 the baes did not cover it in the subse- 

 quent cold that followed in April; hence it 

 was all saved and hatched. 1 kept close 

 watch of the bees here during the cold 

 that came in April, and could not see 

 that they were suffering any, hence I did 



