58 PROFITABLE BEE-KEEPING 
cheese-cloth, and the skep placed upon its crown 
and secured in an open box. 
Special swarm-boxes are constructed with large 
openings in the sides and top, which openings are 
covered with perforated zinc, providing a plentiful 
supply of air. In all cases label conspicuously, 
‘Live Bees, With Great Care,” and despatch to 
the customer at once. When sending by rail they 
should always be sent by passenger train. 
When swarm-boxes are used it simplifies matters 
if the bees are hived directly into them. This can 
easily be accomplished by darkening all the venti- 
lation openings round the box by means of brown 
paper or cardboard tacked on the outside. The 
box then can be used in the same way as a skep, 
but be careful to uncover the ventilation openings 
before sending the swarm away. 
With Isle of Wight disease so rampant it is 
very inadvisable to send bees from one district to 
another, for there is no doubt disease is largely 
spread in this way. No one can definitely say that 
their apparently clean bees may not be spore 
carriers, and for the time being, at any rate, it 
would be well for all swarms to be sold at home. 
One effect of the ravages of this disease is a sharp 
rise in the price of bees, in the shape of either 
swarms orstocks. These cannot now be obtained 
at the prices quoted in other chapters. The prices 
now are in a sense abnormal, and while it may be 
a considerable time before we get back to the old 
prices—we may not get quite back to them at all— 
there will without doubt be a considerable fall as 
the supply of bees again reaches the normal. 
