The apiary; or, bees, bee-hives, and bee culture [1878]: being a familiar account of the habits of bees, and the most improved methods of managementNeighbor, Alfred
Science
The apiary; or, bees, bee-hives, and bee culture [1878]: being a familiar account of the habits of bees, and the most improved methods of management
The frames now filled are placed in the hive, when the bees may be
let into it in the manner Mr. Woodbury recommends for a swarm (see
page 220). It may be as well to keep them confined a few hours, giving
them water at the top, by means of a soaked sponge laid on perforated
zinc, until they make the combs secure; the object of this being to
exclude the bees from other hives, who, if feloniously inclined, might
come to rob. For the same reason the operation of adjusting the combs
should not be performed in the open air, or the bees from surrounding
hives will be sure to come in great numbers to obtain a share of the
honey necessarily exposed. It should be done inside a room with the
temperature at about 70 degrees--not cold enough to chill the brood,
nor yet hot enough to soften the combs. An expert apiarian could
perform the operation in less than three-quarters of an hour, and
with little loss. A week or so after a swarm has left the old stock
is perhaps the very best time for such a removal. In some instances a
routing of this kind has a beneficial effect; old stocks of hives that
have previously appeared to be dwindling are often aroused to activity
by their removal into a fresh domicile. After the winter's doze this is
especially the case, say if done on a warm day early in April. We have
ourselves frequently shifted the stock from a well-occupied frame hive
to a fresh one, in which the bees find a clean floor-board and walls,
as well as freedom from insects that may have harboured in crevices
during the winter.
§ IV. DRIVING.
Driving is an operation by which bees are induced to vacate an, old
settled hive and to enter an empty one. Many apiarians prefer this mode
of effecting an exchange of hives to the plan of fumigating the bees.
The greatest success attending such a transfer will be in the case of
hives well filled with combs that are worked nearly to the floor-board;
and it may be remarked that bees are generally so far provident that
they leave an open space in which to pass underneath their combs over
all the floor of the hive. When the old hive is inverted the bees crawl
up the combs, and thus more easily pass up into the new hive, which the
operator places over the old one with the intent that they should enter
it.
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