MANIPULATING. 53 



If the comb is not deep enough to reach the bottom bar of frame, 

 a slat of wood must be placed along the bottom edge of it, and 

 the tapes passed under that instead of the bottom bar. The 

 frame with the comb tied in, as illustrated, is to be placed in 

 the bar-frame hive, and every comb in the skep of sufficient size 

 treated in the same manner. Reject all drone-comb. 



A comb can be made up of pieces of others, if they are nicsly 

 fitted in and well secured with tapes. The whole of the combs 

 having now been utilised, the bees are to be put in the hive in 

 the same manner as described at par. 86 ("Placing a Swarm in 

 a Bar-frame Hive") — that is, if the transferring is done quickly; 

 but if but slow progress is made, after having transferred a 

 couple of frames, a quantity of the bees must be shaken in and 

 the quilts put on ; this is done that the brood or eggs may not 

 get chilled, a frame being added from time to time as finished. 

 The combs must be placed in the same position as they occu- 

 pied in the hive — that is, honey at top, brood at bottom — and 

 all brood must be crowded in the centre of the hive. 



92. Transferring with Old and Crooked Combs. — 



Place the frame hive in the exact position as occupied by the 

 skep, and fit up all the frames with sheets of foundation. Then 

 drive the bees, and, after the queen has been seen to go up into 

 the upper hive, stop driving. Lay a sheet of excluder zinc upon 

 the tops of the frames, completely covering the space occupied 

 by them ; then put the skep upon the top of the excluder zinc, 

 and stop up all means of ingress from the lower portion of the 

 frame hive into the upper, around the outside of the skep. Now 

 run the bees, with queen, into the lower portion, or body-box ; the 

 queen, with a portion of the bees, will keep in there, the bees 

 drawing out the foundation. Some of them will stay in the skep 

 and rear the brood. The excluder zinc preventing the queen going 

 up and laying any more eggs in the skep, all brood will be hatched 

 out in three weeks, when the skep can be removed, the bees 

 driven out and returned in at the entrance to body-box, the ex- 

 cluder zinc removed, and quilts placed on, the honey being taken 

 out of skep, and combs melted. Another plan is by making an 

 artificial swarm (par. 79), and placing that in the frame hive ; 

 in three weeks drive the skep from which the swarm was 

 taken, and remove the queen, uniting the bees to the frame 

 hive. It is better to remove the old queen, which will be the 

 one in the frame hive. The skep must be gradually brought 

 close up to the frame hive before the uniting takes place, or a 

 number of the bees will be lost. 



93. After-treatment of Transferred Colonies. — When 

 a colony has been transferred as advised, it should be fed 

 plentifully until the combs have been firmly fixed in the frames, 

 the broken portions mended, and all spaces filled up with new 



