Management of Out-Apiaries 



— — or 



AN AVEBAGE OP 1141/^ POUNDS OV SECTION HONEY PER COLONY IN A POOKI 

 SEASON, AND HOW IT WAS DONE. 



CHAPTER I. 



The sun rose bright and clear on the morning of April 14, 1915, the 

 morning of my sixtieth birthday ; and as old Sol peered over the hilltop in 

 all his golden splendor, kissing the swelling buds and cheering all animated 

 nature with the intuition that "spring has come," I proposed to Mr. Clark, 

 my partner, that we go over to the out-apiary, five miles distant, and set the 

 bees out of the cellar, the bees in the home apiary having been set out two 

 or three days previously. The horse was soon hitched up, as the roads were 

 too muddy and full of deep ruts for the auto, and we were at our destina- 

 tion before nine o'clock, with the stands all prepared for the bees. This 

 preparation of the stands for the botton^-boards is more important than 

 most apiarists think. The action of the winter's freezing and thawing, to- 

 gether with the snow and rain, generally causes an upheaval of the ground 



DE. MILLER'S BOTTOM-BOARD, SUMMER SIDE UP. 



to a greater or less extent, so that when the ground settles in the spring 

 these stands are out of level, and they should now be brought back to their 

 condition when they were first fixed level at the establishment of the apiary. 

 Otherwise, we shall suffer loss where combs are built in frames, or through 

 the swinging of the foundation in the sections, which results in "brace 

 combs" at their completion ; and these tear and spoil the salableness of our 

 section honey when they are removed from the separators. 



As I use the Dr. Miller bottom-board, the same having a two-inch-deep 

 side for wintering, and a three-eighths-inch-deep side for summer, a reserve 

 board was placed on the stand of No. 1, row No. 1, summer side up, for the 

 first colony taken out to be placed upon. Before going to the cellar, two 

 smokers were set to burning — one in the bee-yard, side of stand No. 1, 

 row 1, and one at the cellar door just outside. Besides this last smoker, 

 there was placed a soaking-wet (right-sized) piece of cotton cloth at the 

 cellar door, ready for immediate use as soon as any hive was brought out, 

 for there is nothing that will keep bees from pushing out of their hive be- 

 fore you want them to like a wet cloth. 



Colony No. 1 was now brought through the cellar door ; and while Mr. 

 Clark shut the door, so the bees remaining in the cellar might be kept as 

 qukt as possible, I put the wet cloth over the entrance of the hive, and then 

 sent a few puffs of smoke in at the entrance through a little hole made by 



