146 ADVANCED BEE CULTURE. 



tered into other hives, until they are side by side before the union is 

 made. 



Finally, the main honey flow comes on. With us this is the last 

 of May, or fore part of June. Now is the time for treating the dis- 

 eased colonies. Any colony that is strong, and almost or nearly in 

 a condition to cast a swarm, may be treated as follows: Set the 

 colony just back of its old stand, and upon the stand place a 

 hive the frames of which are furnished either with full sheets 

 of comb foundation, or with starters of the same. Remove the 

 combs from the old hive and shake off most of the bees, in 

 front of the new hive. Nothing more need be done to the 

 colony in the new hive. Ere it can rear brood it will have con- 

 sumed any infected honey that the bees may have brought 

 with them. Don't use drawn combs instead of starters or founda- 

 tion, because the bees might store some of the infected honey in the 

 comb, where it might remain until brood was being reared, 

 when, if this honey should be fed to the brood, the disease would be 

 again started. I have never found it necessary to give the bees a 

 second set of frames, and a second shaking, as is practiced by some. 

 Neither have I found it necessary to boil or otherwise disinfect the 

 hives. The old hive, with the combs of brood, is placed upon a new 

 stand. Sometimes two sets of combs from which the bees have 

 been shaken are united. In ten days a young queen, or a ripe queen 

 cell, may be given the old colony. In 21 days from the time the bees 

 were shaken off, just as all of the healthy brood has hatched, and 

 the young queen is beginning to lay, the colony may be again treated 

 exactly as it was at the first shaking, when the result will be another 

 healthy colony, while the old combs will be entirely free from brood, 

 and should be taken to some place of safety (where no bees can gain 

 access to them) and eventually treated as may seem best. 



Colonies not populous enough to make a good colony, each, when 

 shaken, may be treated in "pairs." We select the first pair, set one 

 of them aside, as was done with the strong colony, and put a hive 

 containing frames furnished with foundation, in its place. We now 

 shake out the bees into the new hive, as before, only we get all oi 

 the bees, as well as the queen. We now put the old hive with the 

 brood on the stand of the other hive of the "pair," bringing the 

 latter to the location where the first "shaking" took place, and shake 

 out the bees and queen in front of the hive into which the bees from 

 the first hive were shaken, the combs of brood being taken back to 

 their old location and united with the combs of brood from the first- 

 shaken colony. We thus get only one "shook swarm" from two col- 

 onies, but it is stronger for that reason. The united colonies of 



