The Apiary Site 
229 
plants which furnish it only in the mornings. If possible, 
the apiary should not be near the public road and should 
be situated where the bees will not prove a nuisance to 
passers-by or sting live-stock. If the only convenient loca¬ 
tion is near the road, the line of flight of the bees may be 
deflected upwards by a high hedge or a solid fence, for after 
they fly over such an obstruction they will keep above the line 
of travel on the road and will not molest teams or pedestrians. 
This is an important consideration as bees sometimes sting 
horses fatally. The apiary should preferably be located 
away from the clothes-drying yard so that they will not spot 
the clothes with their feces. This applies especially in the 
North, and this objection may largely be overcome by re¬ 
moving the cellar-wintered bees when no clothes are to 
be hung out. Perhaps it would be more in keeping with the 
usual practice to advise that no clothes be hung out just 
after the bees have been placed on their summer stands. 
The hives should, if practicable, occupy the higher ground 
of the plot chosen for the apiary, so that in carrying heavy 
supers to the apiary house the load will be carried downhill 
and the empty supers uphill. Such an arrangement will 
materially reduce the labor in a commercial apiary. 
Exposure to the sun. 
While exposure to the sun is to be advised in the early 
morning, it is often well to protect the hives from the sun 
in the middle of the day, so that the bees will not hang 
out in front of the hive and to prevent the melting down of 
combs. On the other hand, too dense a shade is not advan¬ 
tageous and usually it is not best to locate an apiary in woods. 
To provide shade, the hives may be placed in two rows under 
a shed or arbor with the hive entrances to the outside (Fig. 
98). Such sheds usually run north and south, but in hot, 
dry countries an east and west direction is sometimes better. 
In temperate climates, sheds are not in favor, but many 
beekeepers use shade-boards, so constructed that they 
extend about a foot in all directions from the hive except to 
