THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



303 



as to taking off honey, giving additional 

 super room. etc. 



IMPORTANCE OF KEEPING YOUR FINGER ON 

 THE PULSE OF A DISTANT YARD. 



July 4th 1 received a card stating 

 things were getting very dry; still the 

 scale hive was showing a fairly good gain. 

 This card led me to believe that the sea- 

 son was probably two-thirds over; and it 

 was about noon, July 5th, when I arrived 

 at this yard, on my fourth visit. There 

 were only about 300 pounds of section 

 honey finished and ofTthe hives; but there 

 was m.ore being finished, as the dry 

 weather was favorable to the curing and 

 sealing of honey. No more empty supers 

 were given; and it proved that we had 

 made a good guess as to the duration of 

 the honey flow, for we got all the supers 

 finished except eight or ten, that needed 

 just a little feed to finish sealing. 



I stayed four days at this trip; and my 

 son and I worked faithfully with the sole 

 purpose of getting this crop of comb honey 

 finished up. The first thing we did, was 

 to put bee-escapes under all the heaviest, 

 or best finished supers. This was kept 

 up until nearly every super in the yard 

 had been handled, and all the finished 

 sections removed. The partly full sections 

 were put in supers, and returned to the 

 colonies that were the most likely to finish 

 them. When we got through there was 

 no colony that had more than one super 

 to finish, and several had none. These 

 colonies that were left without supers 

 were the new swarms that were still on 

 one section of their hive. These were now 

 given their other section of their hive. 

 This gave them a week or so of the last 

 end of the honey flow for their own use, 

 which put 'them in better shape to build 

 up for winter. 



During the time that this shifting was 

 going on, we kept in mind the fact that 

 some colonies were finishing up honey 

 faster than others, and these free-working 

 colonies were given those supers contain- 

 ing the most work to do. We think we 

 gained quite a considerable time by doing 

 this. 



it is a custom of ours to do lots of this 

 shifting of supers from colony to colony. 

 To illustrate, a colony that is a little sulky 

 about drawing out foundation in the sec- 

 tions, will often finish up and seal combs 

 quite readily; taking advantage of this 

 fact, we keep these sulky fellows finishing 

 up Vi'ork. 



We had, at this yard, about 35 new 

 swarms; 30 from the 84 comb honey col- 

 onies, and 5 from the 84 worked for ex- 

 tracted honey. This just made up our 

 loss through queenless colonies during 

 spring, and was about the number we 

 wanted. The first new swarms were 

 hived in one section of our shallow hive, 

 on combs where the bees had died during 

 spring. The sections were removed from 

 the parent colony, and given to the new 

 swarm, on the old stand. This was done 

 immediately after hiving; and with this 

 treatment, there was not a single swarm 

 absconded. Towards the last of the sea- 

 son, new swarms were hived in the dead- 

 swarm-hives in the extracted honey yard; 

 so that the yard had the same number of 

 colonies in the fall that it had the previous 

 fall. 



This about finishes the story, except 

 that Delbert stayed and finished harvest- 

 ing the crop of honey, and put it in 

 marketable shape. There were 2,300 

 pounds of No. 1 and fancy comb, and 

 6,000 pounds of extracted. This being a 

 poor season, the crop was short. Delbert 

 also fed three or four barrels of sugar 

 to colonies short of winter stores. This 

 yard being located on the bank of Rapid 

 river, one of Michigan's famous trout 

 streams, do not imagine for a minute that 

 producing honey was all we did. 



FEEDING BACK TO GET PARTLY-FILLED SEC- 

 TIONS COMPLETED AT THE CLOSE OF 

 THE HONEY SEASON. 



Delbert came home the last week of 

 August, having been in this yard a little 

 over three months. My last, and fifth 

 visit was the 5th and 6th of November to 

 put the bees into their winter quarters, of 

 which 1 will write at some later time. 



