TRANSFERRING. 



73 



be so firm as not to need nails or sticks, but in the beat of the liive, and 

 with the weight of the bees that will cluster on it to repair the cut edges 

 and fasten them to the bars of the frame, unsui)i)orted combs are very 

 apt to giv^e way, creating disastrous confusion. Thus the sticks, nails, 

 or their equivalent should always be used (tig. 54). All frames should 

 be filled with perfectly straight combs so as to be interchangeable. 

 With care in fitting in and some trimming and i)ressing into shape 

 afterwards, fully three-fourths of the worker combs cut from box hives 

 can be made into good, serviceable combs in frame hives. The process 

 is much fiu^ilitated if such combs are used in the extractor during the 

 first season or two after transferring. 



Should the time be near the swarming season tlie combs will be so 

 filled with brood and honey that the task will be much gxeater, and the 

 transfer should be postponed until three weeks after the first swarm 

 issues. The brood left by the old queen will have matured and issued 

 from the cells by that time, and the young queen, if no accident has 



Fig. 54.— Transferred comb and inserted queen cell. (Original.) 



happened to her, will have begun laying; yet there will usually be only 

 eggs, with perhaps a few very young larvie, present in the combs at this 

 time, so that the cutting out and fitting of the latter into frames will 

 not be as troublesome nor attended with so much waste as just before 

 the swarm issued. 



Still another plan — one which it would not be best to employ before 

 fairly warm weather has set in, but which will render the work of 

 transferring the lightest — is to turn the box hive bottom ui)ward and 

 place on it the brood apartment of a frame hive, having in it frames 

 filled Avith worker combs or with comb foundation, arranging at the 

 same time to give the bees ready access from their ccmibs to those above 

 and no entrance to their hive except through the frame hive above. 

 This can easily be done by making a temporary bottom board lor the 

 frame hive, with several holes through it, or with one huge one about 

 the size of the open end of the box hive. As soon as it is perceived 

 that the queen has taken possession of the new combs — as she will be 



