70 
APIARY 
BACKLOT APIARY OF ROBERT PESCHKO, DANBURY, CT. 
This yard, like other backlot apiaries where there is a small number of colonies, has given a large 
yield per colony. One can judge by the height of the hives. As explained in the text, a small apiary will 
give larger yields in proportion than a large yard, provided, of course, there are no other bees in the 
immediate locality. While Mr. Peschko puts his hives up on stands, he realizes the importance of having 
easy runways from the ground up to the entrance. In cool or chilly weather this saves the lives of a good 
many bees. 
HIVE-STANDS OR PLATFORMS FOR SWAMPY 
COUNTRY. 
Where land is swampy, or liable to be 
overflowed as it is in many places in the 
South, elevated trellises or platforms 
should be constructed. It is customary to 
have these long enough to take on 30 or 
40 colonies. Illustrations of this form of 
elevated platforms are shown in the A. I. 
Root Company’s Apalachicola River api¬ 
ary. 
ARRANGEMENT OF HIVES. 
Having decided upon the location, kind 
of shade, windbreaks, and hive-stands, how 
shall we arrange the hives in the apiary? 
This question can best be answered by 
studying the plans adopted by some of the 
prominent apiarists. The lay of the land 
and exposure to high winds will, of course, 
have to be taken into consideration. 
The usual plan is to arrange the hives in 
long straight rows, each hive so many feet 
distant from its neighbor, and on an exact 
line drawn by a string. While such an 
arrangement is pretty, it has one serious 
objection. When hives all face in the 
same direction, and in-straight rows, each 
hive by itself, the bees are apt to become 
mixed up at the entrances, especially if the 
hives are only two or three feet apart. 
When the young bees are out at their play- 
flights, they are liable to join the group 
where the bees are flying the thickest. The 
result is, their own colony is depleted while 
the one that makes the biggest demonstra¬ 
tion for the time being is getting more bees 
than it can easily take care of. This causes 
some colonies to be too strong, and swarm 
too early, while the others are too weak, 
and do nothing all summer. See Drifting. 
It very often happens, also, that when 
bees are taken out of the cellar and put 
into regular rows they will drift in the 
same way; and this drifting makes trou¬ 
ble. 
This whole drifting difficulty can be cor¬ 
rected by giving each hive or group of 
hives an individuality of its own. It is 
desirable to put hives in groups of two, 
three, or five; two here, three there, five 
there, and so on. They may be regular 
groups of two or groups of three, but in 
either case there should be a bush or tree 
at or near each group to enable the bees 
to distinguish one group from another. 
The following plans have been suggested 
where great economy of space is desired; 
but instead of following any one of the 
plans, it is desirable to adopt a combina¬ 
tion so that the groups will be irregular 
in size and number of hives, especially if 
