ADVANCED BEE CULTURE. 133 



questions. Shall comb honey be produced, or shall the honey be 

 taken in the extracted form ? Shall it be manag-ed upon the visiting- 

 plan, or shall a man be kept there during- swarming- time ? I believe 

 that, in the majority of cases, extracted honey is produced in out- 

 apiaries; as by this plan, swarming- can be nearly controlled, and the 

 apiaries visited only at intervals. Mr. E. D. Townsend, of Michigan, 

 has successfully managed an apiarj;^ for extracted honey by visiting 

 it only four times a year. The bees were in ten-frame, Lang-stroth 

 hivesi At the approach of the white clover flow he visited them 

 to remove the packing and put on two upper stories of combs. 

 He visited them twice to extract and again to pack them up for 

 winter. His profits averaged $150 for each visit. He approves of 

 visiting an apiary oftener than this, but his experience shows what 

 can be done. The reason for not visiting this apiary oftener was 

 that it was 50 miles from home. And this brings up another point 

 in connection with out-apiaries: If they are widely scattered, with 

 varying kinds of pasturage, there is almost a certainty of securing a 

 crop each year from some of them. 



The difficulty in the past in managing out-apiaries for comb 

 honey has been that of controlling swarming, but the discovery of 

 "shook-swarming" changed all this, and gave a wonderful impetus 

 to the establishment of out-apiaries. By visiting an apiary once a 

 week, and ''shaking" every colony that has started queen cells, there 

 will be little, if any, swarming. 'A few bee-keepers succeed in pre- 

 venting swarming by removing the queens, at the beginning 

 of the swarming season, but the practice has never been generally 

 adopted. 



As many colonies ought to be placed in an out-apiary, as the 

 location will bear; certainly enough to make a day's work at each 

 visit during the busy season, as it would be unprofitable to drive off 

 five or six miles to do only part of a day's work. 



In those parts of the country where out-door wintering is uni- 

 forml}' successful there need be no question as to how bees shall be 

 wintered at an out-apiary, but where cellar-wintering must be de- 

 depended upon, a choice must be made between building a cellar at 

 each apiary, and that of carting the bees home in the fall, and out 

 again in the spring. If the bee-keeper knows, positively, that an 

 apiary is permanently located, it may be worth while to consider the 

 construction of a cellar on the ground; but, usually, there is more 

 or less shifting about of out-apiaries, and, unless too far from home, 

 I should be inclined to follow Mr. P. H. Elwood of New York in 

 bringing them home in the fall and carrying them out in the spring. 

 Mr. Elwood sometimes has many as 1,000 colonies in one cellar. 



