MANAGEMENT OP OUT-APIARIES 31 



going on, so I have no desire for further enlarging this year. I still have 

 four colonies with a hive of brood on each, the one having completed the 

 queen-cells being the stronger. As I wish to work sixteen colonies for sec- 

 tion honey, and having shaken only thirteen at my last visit, I now prepare 

 to shake three more. To do this, I pick from the reserve combs enough 

 to fill three hives, using those the nearest full of 'honey. ^ One of these hives 

 is now carried to the colony completing the queen-cells, a reserve bottom- 

 board placed on its stand, after it has been set off, and the hive with combs 

 of honey set thereon. 



A comb only partly full of brood is now selected from the upper 

 story, one from which many young bees have emerged, and more rapidly 

 gnawing from the cells, this being set in the center of the combs of honey ; 

 then two supers are set on in the way those were at the fourth visit, when I 

 proceed to shake and brush the bees off from the whole of the nineteen 

 combs still remaining in the two hives ; then from the hives and the bottom- 

 board, thus giving this colony all the bees from two hives of brood, or, as 

 a rule, very many more than those had that were made at the fourth visit.. 

 After two more of the strongest colonies have been treated in the same way 

 the beeless brood is tiered up on those remaining, when a moment of taking 

 an inventory shows that I now have sixteen "shook" colonies, two others 

 containing three hives of brood and one of four hives, the queens of which 

 are confined to the lower hive by the queen-excluder, and nine colonies 

 just made, having ripe queen-cells, together with nine frames of brood, 

 which will all emerge in eleven days, making twenty-eight colonies in 

 all. In order that the remainder of the reserve combs may not be de- 

 stroyed by moths they are now placed, ten in a hive, and one set on top of 

 each of the twelve hives not having sections on them, a queen-excluder hav- 

 ing first been placed over the nine just made colonies not having any on. 

 The year 1905 was an exceptional one, in that the colonies in the apiary 

 had been allowed to become so few through overwork. 



When the whole thirty, fifty, or seventy-five stands (or whatever num- 

 ber we decide upon for an out-apiary) are occupied at the time of setting 

 out in the spring, there is no need of making colonies as here given. When 

 we have the full number, four-fifths of the best colonies are worked for 

 section honey, while the weaker one-flfth are to care for the beeless brood, 

 and combs, which become the "reserve combs" in the fall, for the next 

 season. That the reader may understand more fully, suppose that the out- 

 apiary is laid out for seventy-five colonies, and that we have that number 

 in the spring; then we shall want sixty hives of reserve combs to go on to 

 the four-fifths of the stronger colonies, which in this case would be sixty, 

 the work with each being done as given in chapters three and four. 



In thus working, these sixty hives of beeless brood will be stacked on 

 the one-flfth, or fifteen colonies, where they will remain till the end of the 

 honey season, when they are taken off and stacked away for reserve combs 

 for the next year, as will be given later on. This will make each of the 

 fifteen colonies have five hives of brood, the queen being confined to the 

 lower hive by the queen-excluder.i At first glance it would seem that some 



* This would result in abnormally strong colonies when the tiered-up brood has 

 emerged in these hives. Since the combs of emerging brood were tiered up on these 

 hives on June 16 and the honey ilow lasted until late in July, these mammoth colo- 

 nies composed chiefly of young bees should be able to fill much more than the four 

 hive-bodies with honey while the shaken colonies each stored an average of 114^ sec- 

 tions of comb honey. JJo doubt in this case more surplus would have been secured if a 



