50 
A YEAR AMONG THE BEES. 
closing up the hive and shaking off the bees in front, letting 
them run in at their leisure. But in this case it is unpleas- 
ant to have the bees crawling all over the ground in danger 
of being stepped on. and in danger of climbing up oue’s feet; 
there is also some danger of the youngest bees, and some- 
times also the queen, not finding their way back into the 
hive. 
To remedy this difficulty, I take an old hive and knock 
out the front end ; then this hive can be placed directly in 
front of the hive from which the bees were taken, the alight- 
ing-board of the empty hive resting its full width on the 
alighting-board of the full hive, and the bees can be shaken 
into the empty hive from which they can crawl into the full 
one. To avoid the jog where one alighting-board rests on 
the other, I nail a couple of pieces of lath on the inside of the 
empty hive, letting them project in front about an- inch. 
These projecting ends can rest on the alighting-board of the 
full hive, and thus the bees have now a level surface on 
which to walk right into their hive. To close up the open 
spaces at the sides between the two hives, a curtain of cotton 
cloth is attached to the front end of each side of the empty 
hive, and a single tack, loosely pushed into the full hive, 
holds the curtain stretched across. The 4 or 5 frames left, 
are generally put at the south side, a dummy next to them, 
then a division-board. A super is wider than the space thus 
occupied ; so I put in lath to fill out to the proper width, the 
lath being cut the length of a top-bar. Before putting on the 
super, I put on a Ileddon skeleton honey-board, which is the 
same size as the super ; the south edge of the honey-board 
coming flush with the south wall of the hive, and the north 
edge having an extra top-bar or lath under it. 
Adam Grimm once said to me, when I was on a visit to 
him, that he considered it quite important to have a space 
for ventilation at the back end of the top of the hive, when 
surplus receptacles were on. I have used them so ever since, 
so, when the honey-board is put on, a space is left, at the 
back end, of M to % of an inch. The object of this space is 
