We shall run four separate apiaries situated about three miles apart in order to keep each race strictly pure.
We have set out one hundred “prickly comfrey” plants, purchased of Mr. Arthur Todd of Philadelphia, Pa., and shall refer to them again later in the season. We have also sown one and a half acres of Bokhara clover for the bees and it will pay our readers to utilize every waste spot (at least) with either or both of the above. Increase in pasturage means increase in surplus honey. It is now time to prepare for the coming honey harvest and indeed in many sections of the country the surplus boxes have been placed in the hives, or the honey extractor resorted to. When the colonies that are to be run for section honey become populous and begin to build white comb along the edges of the top bars, and perhaps between the combs, it is well to place one set of sections on the hives but they should have only the amount of surplus room that they can utilize and other sections should be added as they are needed.
A piece of comb foundation one-half the size of the section, cut in the shape of a triangle and attached point downward, will be a wonderful help to the bees and prove a paying investment to the apiarist.
If some colonies seem strong but do not utilize the sections readily, just exchange their empty sections with partially filled sets (bees and all) from other colonies. This is a plan practised more than twenty-five years ago by Mr. Alley and Mr. John J. Gould, formerly of Wenham. Mr. G. was at one time one of the largest beekeepers in this State.
Mr. Pond, however, credits a beekeeper in Maine with being the originator of this most excellent plan for inducing the bees to enter the sections.
There is one disadvantage in connection with this practice that Mr. Pond and others fail to give.
It often happens that when a colony at work in the sections is disturbed, the queens will run up into the latter and in the removal may be lost. To prevent this make as little disturbance in the transferring as possible and smoke down, into the hive, all the bees that cluster on the tops of the frames.
The bees removed with the sections will not quarrel with their new neighbors.
There are many items that would prove interesting to our readers but we have already devoted more space than we intended to this department and must await another opportunity.