MANAGEMENT OF OUT-APIARIES 



9 



there must be no slackening now if success is to crown my efforts. To this 

 end, and to lieep the colonies from getting the swarming fever, I use a ten- 

 frame Langstroth hive. Small hives, the hiving of swarms on a full set of 

 startered frames, so they will not swarm out, and later taking half o£ them 

 away, so as to "send" all the white honey into the sections throug'h the 

 contraction of brood-chambers; the turning of the parent colony one way 

 and another every few days, after the prime swarm has been cast, so as to 

 throw all the bees emerging therein with the swarm, etc., may do very well 

 for the home apiary ; but any thing which requires so much manipulation, 

 watching and care has no place in a non-swarming out-apiary. In fact, 

 with the plan I used to produce 114% lbs. of section honey per colony in 

 1905, about the poorest of all seasons in this locality during the last 30 

 years (acknowledged by the editor of Gleanings to be the shortest crop in 

 the United States in many years), the ten-frame hive is to be preferred to 

 any thing smaller. 



A TWO-STORY COLONY "BICH" IN STORES FOR BROOD-REARING. 



Nearly all that has been written during the past was from the "view- 

 point" of the home apiary, under the swarming system. W. Z. Hutchinson 

 has well said that few of the writers in the journals write from the point 

 of view of the extensive beekeeper — the man with out-apiaries. So, many 

 times I remark to myself when reading the description of a method^ 

 "That's all right when a man is in the apiary all the time, but it won't work 

 in an out-apiary." Just so. I have found while working out the plan as 

 here given that very nearly all of my writings during the past were of no 

 practical importance when working aff out-apiary on the non-swarming 

 principle, with a view to the greatest possible amount of comb honey with 

 the least possible labor. But, to return : 



Having decided that 13 colonies are now ready for "treatment" I go 

 to No. 1 and take out the two outside frames, containing mostly honey and 

 pollen, putting two empty combs from the reserve pile in their place. I 

 now put on a queen-excluder, and on top of this I set another ten-frame 

 hive, having eight combs in it, the same being more or less filled with hon- 

 ey, just in accord with the way these reserve combs come off the colonies 

 the fall previous. Perhaps I'd best tell right here how I get these reserve 

 or extra combs. Wired frames were filled with foundation and given to ' 

 colonies to draw out into combs, till I had an extra set of ten combs, or 



