HOW TO KEEP BEES. 33 



CAUTION. 



Avoid handling bees on cold or wet days or on very windy days. 

 Do not go prying into the brood nest of big colonies when they are 

 busy piling up a surplus. Interference at such times is needless and 

 detrimental, besides, a populous colony, for instance, one that is 

 filling the body and several supers, is a difficult thing for anyone 

 but a skilled bee-master to pull to pieces, and he rarely does it if it 

 can be avoided. 



STRONG COLONIES. 



Keep your colonies strong. This is old advice, but good. Unless 

 they are strong they will not give the best results. Vigorous queens 

 will do more towards giving strong colonies than any possible fussing 

 cf the bee-keeper. For Rhode Island it has been found that best 

 results follow when the colonies are re-queened in August with 

 queens which were reared in late July or early August. Also the 

 colonies are not so populous then as earlier and finding the old 

 queen is easier. 



UNITING BEES. 



When honey is being gathered freely the bees of different colonies 

 may be put together without any precaution, but at other times it 

 may be necessary to get them into quite an uproar with smoke before 

 uniting them. The unitirig may be done by setting one hive body 

 directly on another, letting the bees mingle at will; or the combs 

 with bees on them may all be put into one body; or the bees may be 

 shaken from the combs onto a cloth or wide board placed before a 

 hive and allowed to crawl in. Queenless bees unite more readily 

 than those having a queen. If one of the queens is not removed 

 by the bee-keeper the bees attend to the matter, at least one queen 

 or the other is soon despatched. 



MOVING COLONIES. 



Do not change the location of the hives in the apiary after the bees 

 have begun to fly in the spring, unless one of these two methods is 



