A YEAU AMONG THE BEES. 
9 
SPRING OVERHAULING. 
Unless there is special reason for it, such as the fear of 
immediate starvation, no hive is opened until the bees have 
had one day for a good cleansing flight. This flight is usually 
taken on the day of setting out. Sometimes, however, a hive 
may be set out so late in the day that very few of its inmates 
fly till the next day, although I usually stop taking out, if I 
think a good flight will not he taken before night. After this 
cleansing flight is taken, the bees are ready to he overhauled 
on the first fine day, or the first day they can fly, for there 
may happen one or more days when bees cannot fly, and if 
frames of brood are taken out, the brood may be chilled. 
Besides, I am afraid it is not good for the bees themselves to 
be stirred up at such times, and it is not pleasant for the 
operator. 
The bees that are taken to the out apiary on one day are 
generally overhauled the next. This out apiary is about 3 
miles distant in a bee-line. It would, no doubt, be better 
farther away, but it is on the farm of John Wilson, my wife’s 
father, who, (with his “ gude wife ” Margaret, are rugged old 
Scotch people, and as my wife and her sister Emma are my 
principal assistants, it is so pleasant for them to make fre- 
quent visits to the spot where they were born, that I forego 
the advantage of having the apiary at a greater distance. I 
believe there might be an advantage in dividing up into a 
larger number of apiaries, and probably I shall act upon this 
belief. 
But now let us proceed to the overhauling. I get my tool- 
box, bee hat and smoker, and go to hive No. 1, although the 
tag on it may say 231. Before this, however, an empty hive 
has been cleaned, more likely several ; perhaps Charlie is 
cleaning them as fast as I use them. 
After trying a number of different things for hive-cleaners, 
I have been best satisfied with a hatchet, the handle sawed 
short, so that it will not be in the way when working in the 
