WINTERING BEES 35 



TIME OF DAY TO TAKE BEES OUT. 



The usual plan for taking bees from a cellar in the spring 

 is to wait until fairly settled warm weather has come, and 

 then on some warm bright day all the colonies are removed 

 at once. The great trouble with this method is that the bees 

 are likely to become badly mixed, owing to their eager flight 

 without carefully marking the location. This results in a 

 bad state of affairs, and should be avoided. 



Another method followed to some extent is to put some 

 of the colonies out during an evening when all appearances 

 indicate that it will be warm and bright the next day. A 

 third of them, perhaps, are taken out, and these fly quite 

 well the next day. The next evening another third is re- 

 moved, and the last third the night following. The great 

 trouble with this plan is that the bees removed first get to 

 flying well and then start to rob colonies taken out later, 

 thus making a fearful uproar. 



Mr. E. W. Alexander, in Gleanings in Bee Culture, page 

 286, Vol. XXXIV., gave a plan open to none of these ob- 

 jections. In his own words it is as follows : 



" First, get every thing all ready for a big job, and watch 

 the weather closely, especially after a few nice days, for it 

 is quite changeable at this time of the year. Then when the 

 wind gets around in the east, and it commences to become 

 overcast with heavy clouds, and has every appearance of 

 bad weather for the morrow, we commence about sundown 

 and carry out all our bees — yes, even if it takes not only 

 all night but into the next day; and if it com m ences to rain 

 before we are done, all the better, for we don't want any to 

 try to fly until they have been out two or three days if we 

 can help it. By this time they will have become "nice and 

 quiet; and when a fair day arrives they will commence to 

 fly, only a few at a time, and get their location marked, so 

 there will be no mixing up or robbing, because they all have 

 their first fly together. Then when the day is over we find 

 by examining our hives that nearly every one has apparently 

 retained all its bees." 



