Making a Start in Bee-keeping 19 



any bees that may be flitting about. An opera-glass is also a great aid 

 in this part of the work. 



Bee-trees are also found by walking through the woods in the first 

 warm days in the spring, before the snow is off the ground, listening to 

 their humming and noticing the dead bees that have been brought out 

 and dropped upon the snow. 



After the bees have been found, then comes the task of getting 

 them out of the tree and into a hive. Sometimes it is possible, if they 

 are located in a large limb, to cut off the limb beyond the portion 

 occupied by the bees, and then cut off the portion in which they are 

 located, and lower it by means of a rope. xA.gain, it is sometimes pos- 

 sible to rig up a temporary scafl'old and cut out a piece of the tree 

 over the bees' home, remove the combs and lower them in a basket. 

 Such proceedings are attended with more or less danger, e\-en when 

 carried out by the most careful of men, and I would rather put up with 

 the more or less broken condition of the combs that usually results from 

 cutting down the tree than with broken legs or arms. Many times a 

 tree can be so guided that it will strike upon smaller trees that will 

 break the fall. The saving of the bees and combs, after they have been 

 reached, is very similar to an ordinary job of transferring from an old 

 box hive to a movable-comb hive. Pieces of comb containing brond 

 must be fastened into frames, and hung in the hive, and as man\ as 

 possible of the bees guided into the entrance. If the hive is left on 

 the spot for several hours, perhaps over night, nearly all of the live 

 bees will gather into the hive. 



As I said at the beginning, if a man has steady work at good wages 

 he will, as a rule, find it more satisfactory to buy bees in good movable- 

 comb hives ; but if he has the time and inclination to get a start by 

 hunting bees, or by putting up decoy hives, what I have written will 

 show him how to do it. 



