TRANSPORTING OF BEES. 123 



CHAPTEE XXIX. 



TRANSPORTING BEES FROM ONE PLACE TO ANOTHER. 



Earnest men wlio keep large strong hives find it profitable 

 to remove them to the neighhourhood of orchards, clover, 

 and heather, when these are at some distance from their 

 own gardens. In some Continental parts, carts are made 

 on purpose, sheK over shelf, to carry hives. In Scotland, 

 the bee-keepers, generally speaking, remove the bees to 

 the moors every year. In August, large hives in good 

 seasons wiU. gather from 40 lb. to 60 lb. each off the 

 heather ; whereas, if they had no heather within reach, 

 they would lose weight during that month. We remove 

 our bees' farther iuto the country every spring, bring them 

 home in August, and take them to the Derbyshire moors 

 — a distance of twenty-five mUes. Many of the apiarians 

 of this neighbourhood are copying our example — and we 

 expect their number will multiply annually. There are 

 three seasons for honey — viz., the fruit-trees yield honey in 

 April and May ; sycamore-trees, field-mustard, beans, and 

 clover, &c., in June and July ; heather in August. With 

 large hives bees wUl gather honey enough in one day to 

 pay the expense of removal from here to Derbyshire and 

 back. We put fifteen hives on a green-grocer's cart which 

 leaves here at 4 o'clock in the morning to catch the train 

 leaving Manchester at 5.45 a.m. In less than an hour 

 after, they are dropped from the train at a station on 

 the edge of a moor skirted by the Manchester and Shef- 

 field line of railway. In September the hives are brought 

 home in the same way. 



Our mode of confining bees for removal is as simple as 



