186 AUSTRALASIAN 



Proceed thus till all the straight worker combs containing brood 

 or honey are transferred ; take no others, unless there happen 

 to be any perfectly straight worker comb empty large enough 

 to fill the frames in one piece, when these may be used also. 

 Under no circumstances should crooked or drone comb be 

 transferred. The hives may be filled up with frames of comb 

 taken from other hives or with frames of foundation, the brood 

 combs being kept in the centre. Place the hive, as soon as it 

 is ready, where the box-hive stood ; raise the front a little, and 

 shake the driven bees out of the box, so that they can enter 

 the hive, which they will do at once, and if all be well, and no 

 accident have happened to the queen, they will proceed without 

 delay to fasten the combs in the frames. In the course of a 

 day or two the wires can be removed. 



Other methods are sometimes recommended for securing the 

 combs in the frames, but having tried most, and having trans- 

 ferred some hundreds of colonies with their combs, there is no 

 plan I have found to answer so well as the wires I have 

 described. They are easily put on, and may be taken off 

 without lifting the frames from the hive. 



I have often transferred without driving the bees into an 

 empty box, merely turning the box-hive up, driving the bees 

 with smoke to one end, then tearing off the other end, cutting 

 out and transferring the combs and shaking the bees into the 

 new hive, which had in the first instance been placed where 

 the old box-hive had stood. The first described process takes 

 a longer time, but it makes cleaner work, and is the proper 

 plan for a beginner to adopt. 



ME. HEDDON S NEW PRACTICE. 



Mr. Heddon recommends doing away altogether with the 

 transferring of the combs into frames. He drives the bees 

 into an empty box, as already explained, and then shakes them 

 at once in front of the new hive, already filled with frames of 

 comb or of comb-foundation, and placed where the box-hive 

 had stood. The old box-hive with its contents is then set 

 aside for twenty days, until all the young bees have emerged 

 from the cells. If the weather turns cold the box should be 

 placed in a warm room until a sufficient number of bees have 

 emerged to keep up the temperature of the box. The young 



