Our Bee Farm.

Otago Witness, Issue 1555, 27 August 1881, Page 8

Our Bee Farm.

(Communicattoni to be addressed to N. N., Witnets office).

To Correspondents.

Several queries have been received, and have been forwarded to our coatributor, who will no doubt reply in due course.

BEEKEEPING IN OTAGO.-NO- 111. . Transferring Uan operation by whioh the combs and bees from one hive are brought into auother. and if the beginner will adopt the method I am now about to desorlbe, he will accomplish this little apiarian feat without much diffioulfcy, just as well, if not quite ho smartly, as a more experienced beekeeper could do it. To begin, you will first have ; to provide a box of tue exact size of the hive 'in which the bees to be transferred are in ' the meantime, then you want several skeins of narrow tape, u> long «h*rp knife, a small hand-saw, hammer and chitul, a few goosewing feathers, a hasm of water and cloths, a sheet, a table, and also another om»ll box of sotac sort if the day on whioh youiutend transferring 1 ' is not sufficiently warm enough, you will have to do your business inside a room that has a temperature of about 70 degrees, for you must not chill ths

young brood, clay they will die, and might become the cause of "foal brood," Of

course, if you transfer because of ''foul brooV then you m*y let the brood die by all means, but on ho account allow the bees

of other hiv^s to ootne tasting while you Are at work with a hive that has "fouj brood." Remember, I told you that it is oontagiou3, and ou that aocount you must not transfer any oombs from an infected hive, unless quite sure they are clean. We will now proceed to basiness. If in the open air, stand your table some distance away from fcb.Q other hives, take your sheet and fold it up several timts, and lay it on the table, to form a pad for laying the combs ou when you are outviug them into the frames (for we are transferring into a frame hive), and have all the obher articles I mentioned near th» table; now take rhe spare box I Bpoke of and carry it to where stands the hive to be trans* ferred : it is to be placed in its stead when the latter is away, to amuse the returning bees that have been away working while you are busy transferring, Now blow a few whiffs of smoke from a pipe into the fly-hole-—this will quiet the b«es Inside, and drive them up In among the' oombs. Then quickly lift the hive away, putting the spare box in fits place, and, o*rry it to the side of the table. Place it on the ground, with the open end or bottom up. Now be sharp and pat the other box month to mouth on the inverted hive, and olose up^ any openings about the two. Then take a oouple of small sticks, one in eaoh hand,' and begin gently to tap the lower box all round for a few minutes, when the bees in the hive will gorge themselves with honey from their oombs; that done, they. will ascend into the upper box. Keep on tapping, and if you like you oan occasionally or altogether oant the upper box on one Bide and watch them going up ; but you will require to tap all the while, until you find, they have pretty well left the lower box. When they are all out, take the upper box containing the bees gently down and place it on the ground, putting a cloth over them until you want them again. Now, with you tools, take out one side and the fly-hole end of the hive, having, of course, previously oat away, the o mba from the sides you- are taking' off. Put two tapes on the folded sheet on the table, letting their ends hang down to the ground. Then out out one of the oombs and lay It over the tapes on the sheet, and place your frame on tbe comb. Then run a sharp knife all round the inside of the frame through the comb, take away the outside bits, and your frame will now fit aioely over the comb. Then take your tapes and tie them overall and cut your ends off; that done, hang the frame in the frame hive, and proceed with the other oombs in the same manner until they are all out in. la all probability all your oombs will not be large enough to fill a frame. In that case you will have to patch; put your pieces nicely in. The bees will fasten them together in a day or so, only you will have to tie more than two tapes round them, for if the pieces are not perpendicular- one above the other — they will fasten them just that way, and bo make unsightly, crooked oombs. We want them as straight as possible ; any drone comb you oome across keep 'out and be careful to put all the brood oombs together in the centre of your hive, and it will be necessary for you to bear in mind to fix the oombs in the frames in the same way that they were in the hive, otherwise you will give the bees some trouble, because the cells have all- a slight inclination upwards. They are not horizontal in tbe combs, and whi c you are working amongst the honey I hope you are occasionally making use of the watar for your hands. You know it ia not nioe to work with sticky fingers, and there might now and then a beo, adhere to your hands and sting you ; also, don't forget to

keep all the spilt honey wiped up, otherwise there will ba more beea buzzing around you than you would just care about. I will jaat remind you to b» as smart as jou oan all the time. And now that all the oombs are 1b the new hive, put it back in the same

place where the old one stood, then bring your bees, open the lid of the frame hive, «nd shake the bees gently on the top of the frames. They will go down in a few minutes, but make sute above all things that the queen is not left behind in the box. With your feather gently brash out all remaining bees, then gently olose your lid, and you are finished so far. The whole job should not take you longer than about forty minutes. That was the time it oocupied me when I transferred my first oolony. And now that you are finished don't you think it easy enough? you will do the next one in less time, provided the bens run well. They don't always, especially whan the oombs are not built well down to the bottom. Should the hive to be transferred be weak in numbers you can then dispense with the box and the rappiDj/, and just out out the oombs right away, brushing what beea may adhere to tho comb back again into the hive ; and

as soon as you have a couple of frames done

■ and '>i ih) nor uiv«, bnmh the b <&* m to | these, always keeping a sharp look-oat; for ; I her m&jeflty the queen, so as not to harm her,.

for she Is the most important personage in the oolony. If yon have more than one hive on your stand, it will always be better to take that side of the old hive whioh has the flyhole, and tack this on to the front of the hive. This enables the bees to distinguish their new home from the others, and in a day or so you oan take it away again, and all will go swimmingly, or nearly so. On the second or third day after transferring inspect your hive, and any combs that have been fastened to the frames oan then dispense with the tapes, out them, and draw them out oarefully. Should they have had but little honey in the oombs when you transferred, then you will have to feed them, for they cannot produoe wax without honey j but when you are feeding see that the other bees do not get a ohance to rob — for that same reason I wanted you to wipe up all the splU honey— for when they once get a fair start it is hard to say where they may stop, and very often a whole apiary becomes demoralised to suoh an extent that one does not know what to do sometimes to put an end to the indiscriminate slaughter. It is with beea ub with some people, if they once find that they oan make a living by unlawful means they will seldom return to honest labour again, end in that case it ' Is the best economy to rid yourself of a oolony that Is always inolined to rob, for some colonies are worse than others, for iniquity runs in the blood as wo say, and yet, before you resort to extreme measures, I will, further, on tell you of some methods to stop robbing, and if you succeed with any of them so mnoh the better for you. Although transferring may be accomplished as any season of the year, it is advisable to defer that operation until spring is well advanced. About the time the fruit trees are in bloasom is about the right time, but unless compelled otherwise, I prefer to do my transferring immediately the second swarm haß left, as there is then very little anhatched brood in the hive to hurt. Keep the second swarm safe in some airy box while you are transferring the oombs and remain' ing bees of the old hive, and when you have accomplished that, shake the swarm into the hive, and never mind about more than one queen being there ; the beos will most likely settle that for themselves, unless indeed you are in want of a queen for some other hive I have shown the manner of transferring at this early stage principally for the benefit of those who may find it necessary to do so now on aooouat of " foul brood," and it will' be well for beekeepers if they will just examine their hiveß now, for I oan assure you It'does exist with us. Prevention is best, for there hardly Is a permanent cure.