Bi'f-h-eeping in J'ictoria. 



23 



and cluster in some inconvenient place, or may even abscond. If sever;il 

 days of inclement weather follow the hiving of the swarms, the bees should 

 be feed with sugar syrup made by dissolving sugar in an equal weight of 

 boiling water. This is given inside the hive in a wooden feeder supplied 

 by dealers. 



Single story hives, made up and painted, containing eight wired frames 

 supplied with strips of comb foundation cost los. each, or if bought in 

 the flat and nailed together and painted at home 8s. each. The hives 

 when placed in position ready to receive the bees should stand perfectly 

 level crossways to the frames, otherwise the combs may have the wires 

 on the outside instead of in the centre, because comb is alwa)s built per- 

 fectly perpendicular by the bees. The hives should, if possible, be shel- 

 tered from the south, with entrances facing east, north, or west. When 

 the combs are nearly down to the bottom bars of the frames (Fig. 2) a 

 super or upper story must be put on. It may be of the same size as the 

 lower one or of half depth with shallow frames. Unless full sheets of 

 foundation are used instead of starters in the frames of an upper storv 

 a queen-excluding honey board (Fig. 3) should be inserted between the 

 two boxes to prevent the queen depositing eggs in drone comb usually built 

 from starters in the super. To start the bees building comb above, it 

 will be necessary to hang a comb or two from the lower into the upper 

 story taking care to leave the queen below and to fill the space below with 

 a frame or two from above. 



3. Box-hives. 



Good colonies in box-hives or unworkable frame hives may sometimes 

 be bought cheaply, and if free from disease the bees may be drummed up 

 into a frame hive, placed, with- 

 out its bottom board, on top of 

 the in\erted box-hive. If the 

 combs containing worker brood 

 are fairly straight they may be 

 cut out and fitted into frames 

 in which they are held in posi- 

 tion by string tied qver the out- 

 side of the frame. When these 

 combs have been fastened to 

 the frames by the bees the 

 string may be removed, and 



when the colony is strong ^^^ 3 



enough the combs may be hung 



in the super over a queen excluder till all brood is hatched, when they 

 can be taken away and melted up for wax. 



If a box-hive is strong and it is earlv in the season the most convenient 

 way of transferring the bees to a frame hive is to let them swarm, hive 

 the swarm in a frame-hive on the spot where the box-hive stood, and re- 

 move the latter some distance if it is desired to make two colonies ; if not. 

 leave it near the new hive but facing in a different direction. Just three 

 weeks later all the worker brood in the box-hive will hnye hatched out, 

 and a new queen will be laying. The bees may now be drummed out 

 into another frame-hive or into the hive containing the swarm, as the case 

 may be. The old box containing only combs without brood should be 



