308 SHIPPING AND TKANSPORTING BEES. 



alternately with the frames of brood. The brood removed 

 may be used to strengthen weak colonies. 



As a rule, it is better to ship small lots by Express, but 

 large lots may be sent in early Spring, by freight, if they 

 are not to be more than a week on the way. We have sent 

 bees safely, from Illinois to Utah, by freight. 



689. In shipping bees, or colonies, it is important to 

 place conspicuous cautionary cards or labels on the pack- 

 ages: Living Bees, Handle with Care, This side up, Keep 

 out of the sun, etc. 



The damage done by rough railroad handling, is the 

 greatest item of loss, in the transportation of bees properly 

 packed. If colonies are shipped in carloads, they should 

 be so placed, that the combs will run lengthwise, and 

 not from side to side, as in vehicles drawn by horses. Sur- 

 plus racks or stories should be shipped separately. 



590. Some Apiarists, among whom we will cite the firm 

 of Flanagan and Illinski of Belleville, 111., have practiced 

 shipping bees by water routes to the Southern States in the 

 Fall, for Winter, and returning them in Spring at the begin- 

 ning of the honey harvest. If proper precautions are taken, 

 this plan may be profitable, where low rates of transporta- 

 tion can be obtained, but much judgment must be exercised 

 as to the time of returning them North. As the colo- 

 nies become strong very early in the South, if they are 

 brought back North before the warm weather, their brood 

 may become chilled, and a tendency to the developement of 

 foul-brood is encouraged. 



691. Delia Rocca, in his treatise on " Bee-culture in the 

 Island of Syra," speaks of the Egyptian* method of keep- 



• " Mi. Cotton saw a man In Germany who kept all his numerons stocks 

 rich by changlag their places as aoon as the honey-season varied , 'Sometimes 

 he sends them to the moors , sometimes to the meadows , sometimes to the for- 

 ests, and sometimfcs to the hills. In France — and the same practice has existed 

 in Egypt from the most ancient times— they often put hundreds of hives in a 



bpat, which floats down the stream by night and stops by day." London 



Quarterly Review. 



