n with smoke, and tack
screen over the place of entrance. Then hire someone to help carry
it home. It was set up on end and left to take care of itself and
if a swarm would issue from it and we were successful in hiving it
in the old box hive (the kind mostly in use in my boyhood days), we
thought the last chapter of bee-keeping had been learned. Then,
after the movable frame hive came into use the tree would be cut,
the bees drove into a box, the honey taken from the tree and with a
few pieces of brood all was taken home. The small bits of comb were
tied in the central frames for the bees to cluster on and the bees
shaken from the box in front of the hive. This plan was certainly
superior to the first mentioned but had one serious drawback--the
brood that was in the tree was left to perish.

After seeing the serious defects in the described methods, my next
move was to take a hive with me on going to cut the tree. All comb
containing brood was placed in the frames, the bees run into the
hive, which was left at the tree for a week or more in order that
the bees might have all the combs joined to the frames, and then
brought home. This was another advance in the method of
transferring, for the thousands of young bees about to emerge from
their cells were saved, and the colony having its brood and
strength undiminished should be able to fill at least one super of
honey besides all stores needed for themselves. Taking it for
granted that we cut the bee in the early part of the summer, one
super would be a low estimate, but even this would pay all expenses
connected with the cutting, buying a hive and fixtures, and as the
bee is now in an ideal hive we can hopefully look forward to the
next year when our profits are coming in.

There could be other plans given, some of them having virtue, but I
will now lay a plan before the reader which if followed will prove
more remunerative, and with less expense, than the former methods.
To carry a hive and tools necessary to cut a bee tree will require
the service of an assistant and when, after a week or so, we return
to bring the bee home, more help is needed. A man is worthy of his
hire and of course is paid. Carrying a hive over rough and uneven
ground is hard work. So by the time we have the bee home and sum
the matter up, the financial part of bee hunting don't impress us
very strongly.

I have been in the habit of hunting bees during the fall months,
but if I need a day's