Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/486

 466 BEE-KEEPING Polish llhe. any amount of room w'M not prevent ticir tends to show the superiority, for practical purposes, of the simpler hives. For protection against the extremes of heat and cold in sum- mer and winter, straw hives are excellent. In Poland, where finer honey is produced and bees are more successfully man- aged than elsewhere in Europe, hives are made by excavating trunks of trees, tak- ing logs a foot or more in diameter and about 9 feet long. They are- scooped out or bored for the length of 6 feet from one end, forming hol- low cylinders, the di- ameter of the bore being 6 or 8 inches. A longitudinal slit is made in the cylin- der nearly its whole length, and about 4 inches wide. Into this is fitted a slip of wood with notches on the edges large enough to ad- mit a single bee. This slip is fastened in with wedges or hinges ; if it is in several parts, it will often be found more convenient. The top is cov- ered, and the trunk set upright with the open- ing toward the south. Through the door the condition of the entire swarm is seen, and the honey taken from time to time. One of the best hives is made of pine boards an inch thick, 12 inches square inside, and 14 J deep. Instead of a top, with holes to allow the bees to as- cend to the boxes, there should be slats three fourths of an inch wide and an inch thick, half an inch apart, three quarters of an inch below the top of the hive. Four or five quarter-inch strips at equal distances across the slats will be even with the top of the hive, and on these the surplus boxes can be set. Over all should be a cover or cap 14 inches inside and 7 inches high. A hole an inch in diameter in the front side, half way to the top, furnishes an entrance for the bees, and additional entrances may be made at the bottom on the sides. If glass boxes are used to receive the honey, guide comb must be placed, as bees will rarely build on glass without it. Glass boxes are the most profit- able, as they show the honey to the best ad- vantage, and are sold by weight with the ho- ney, which pays their cost. A separate cover for each hive may be easily made by put- ting together two boards, letting them in- cline to each other so as to form a roof. It is necessary to guard against shading the hives too much in spring and fall, against pre- venting a free circulation of air all around them in summer, and exposing them too much in the middle of the day to the sun. The bee house should not, in cool weather, make the temperature around the hives much higher than the bees will encounter at a distance. Simple movable covers, which are easily ad- justed as the season demands, with hives made of boards of sufficient thickness, well painted to prevent warping and cracking, will generally prove an ample protection, except in winter, when the hives must be housed, or covered with straw mats. In the movable comb hive each comb is suspended in a frame and the top is not fastened, permitting combs to be removed for examination or for transfer to other hives; drone comb may be cut out and working comb substituted ; swarming for the season, after one swarm has issued, can be stopped by cutting oft' all but one of the queen cells; moth worms can be detected and de- stroyed ; and the amount of brood the colo- ny shall raise can be controlled. The new swarms generally appear during the months of June and July, but sometimes as early as May or as late as August, and in good sea- sons Italian bees have swarmed at intervals for three months. The swarms are usually hived, when the branch or whatever they alight on can be re- moved, by shaking them oft* in front of the hive, a lit- tle raised on one side to al- low their pas- sage. When they collect where they can- not be shaken off, and the hive cannot bo placed near, they may be brushed quickly into a sack or basket and carried to the hive. It is irritating to the bees and useless to endeavor to make the swarms collect by a din of horns, tin pans, and bells. They will sometimes col- lect on a pole with a few branches, some broom corn, dry mullein tops, or similar things fas- tened to the end and held in the air. They may sometimes be arrested when going oft' by throwing water or earth among them. It is very seldom that a swarm starts for its chosen destination without previously alighting. If two or more swarms issue at the same time and unite, they may be 'separated, if desired, by shaking them from the branch between two or more hives placed near together. Should the queens enter the same hive, the bees must be shaken out between empty hives as before, and this operation repeated till the queens sep- arate, or the bee-keeper is able to catch one or Swarming Bees.
 * - -.inning. The result of all the experiments