32 



MANUAL OF APICULTURE. 



as tlie covering is removed. 



maple, etc., are good. The most improved bellows smokers, when sui^- 

 plied with such fuel sawed 5 or 6 inches long and split into bits a half 

 inch or less in size, will burn all day and be read}^ at any time to give 

 a good volume of blue smoke, by which bees of most of the races now 

 cultivated in this country are subdued at once. 



With Italian or black bees a puff or two of smoke should be given 

 at the hive entrance and the cover and honey board, or quilt, removed 

 slowly and carefully, smoke being driven in as soon as the least opening- 

 is made and the volume increased enough to keep down all bees as fast 



The smoker may then be placed on the wind- 

 ward side of the hive to 

 allow the fumes to pass 

 over the top and toward 

 the operator. The frames 

 may then be gently pried 

 loose and lifted out care- 

 fully, without crushing a 

 bee if it can be avoided. 

 Crushing bees fills the air 

 with the odor of poison, 

 which irritates the bees. 

 So also when one bee is 

 provoked to sting others 

 follow because of the odor 

 of poison. 



Too much smoke will 

 often render certain ma- 

 nipulations difficult; for 

 example, when queens are 

 to be sought out, or nuclei 

 or artificial swarms made, 

 volumes of smoke blown 

 in between the combs will 

 drive the bees from them 

 so that they will cluster in clumps on the bottoms of the frames or in 

 the corners of the hives. A little observation and judgment will enable 

 one to know when the bees need smoke and how much of it to prevent 

 any outbreak on their part, which it is always best to forestall rather 

 than be obliged to quell after it is fully under way. 



The frame hive as now made — with metal rabbets and arrangements 

 for surplus honey, and quilts instead of honey boards — reduces propo- 

 lization to a minimum and renders the danger of irritating the bees by 

 jarring when manipulating much less. As a prerequisite to rapid and 

 safe manipulation perfectly straight combs are necessary. 



With the common or black bees it is never safe to do without the veil 

 as a protection to the face, and with these bees it will also be very difti- 



FiG. 13.— Maiiipnlalioii- 



removinc 

 ual.) 



comb from hive. (Orij. 



