APPENDIX. 109 



Casting should be prevented by cutting out all queen cells jbut one : 

 (see page 35.) , 



Drones should be trapped as soon as all your swarmed hives are pro- 

 vided with laying queens. Our drone trap, which the makers supply for 

 4s. 6d., will save many times its value in honey if applied to a few hives 

 only. Do not put the trap on till a little after noon, choosing a hot 

 bright day, when nearly every male may be had by about two o'clock. 



JULY. 



This month gives the greatest yield of honey, the supers now grow- 

 ing rapidly heavy, especially if the bees have access to white clover oi 

 lime trees. If storified supers be used (see page 65), let the upper ones 

 be removed as fast as filled. This remark applies equally to boxes (page 

 66), or the amount of surplus will be much reduced. When the honey ia 

 removed, and the bees dislodged (see page 68), paste paper over the open- 

 ings, and store in the position occupied when on the hive, in a dry, cool 

 place. 



Gluts of honey will occasionally force the bees to fill up the brood-nest 

 with store ; in this case they hang idle in front of the hive as before 

 swarming. Assist both bees and profit account by using the extractor 

 or smielatore (see pages 69, 70), or place empty combs in the centre oi 

 the brood-nest, for which room must be made by removing filled outside 

 ones ; or, as the next best remedy, super at once, giviag all available 

 clean empty comb ; but, should the bees already ha,ve a well advanced 

 super, add a shallow one to it, combed if possible. 



Shade is necessary lest combs melt and fall from their attachments. 

 Light-coloured wooden hives (see page 82), with ventilated super case (see 

 page 23), can hardly suffer in the most ardent rays of the sun ; but with 

 skepa, and the less complete frame hives, leafy boughs will be of service, 

 if no more permanent screening can be provided. " 



July Swarms should, as a rnle, be returned. They weaken the stock 

 late, so that it will rather require aid than give a surplus (unless heather 

 is near and abundant), while the swarm itself will not have time to gather 

 (except as above) a sufficiency to carry it through the winter. To return 

 it, open the frame hive and destroy aU queen cells. Then throw the 

 swarm on to a board, propped up to the entrance of the hive : (see pages 

 32 and 44.) If the queen be known to be old, destroy all queen cells but 

 one, and throw down the bees on to a sheet a yard from the hive face. 

 Guide them towards the hive, if they need it, by dropping a spoonful or 

 two near the hive mouth. Watch for the queen as she travels over the 

 space intervening between swarm and hive, and remove her. It is more 

 difSoult to control swarming in skeps than in. frame hives, because we 

 cannot get at the queen cells : with these it is often best to unite a late 

 swarm to another : (see page 62.) 



