Yours, faithfully,
W. B. J.
Carry your super, or side-box, if yours is the collateral system, to a little distance from the hive. Raise one side of your box, and they will gradually escape and go home. If it be August, when wasps and corsair-bees are abroad, remove it about 7 P.M. Few, if any, thieves will arrive, and your bees will equally go home.
Or if you take it into a room or closet with a window on hinges, they will fly to the light and cover the window. Open the window smartly, and all on it will fly away. Shut it again till covered with bees, and repeat opening it. No thieves can thus get in, and your bees will all get out, if you have patience.
Stokenchurch, August 1st
Sir,—I hope you will pardon the liberty I take in addressing you; but having read your letter in The Times, entitled "Bees and Bee-hives," and wishing to gain information on those subjects, I venture under the circumstances to write to you.
There have been for many years a quantity of bees under some leads that cover a bow added to this house. About eighteen years ago the leads were removed, the honey taken, the bees destroyed, and all the entrances (as was supposed) stopped up. Notwithstanding this, fresh swarms arrived in the course of the following year, forced their entrance, and again took possession of the leads. Since then they have not been disturbed, but now my father expresses a wish to take the honey and get rid of the bees, as we suffer some inconvenience in the spring, on account of the bees entering the bed-room.
As I think it a pity that all the bees should be destroyed, and also have a great wish to keep them in common hives, I should feel much obliged could you give me any information as to when and how to take the honey without destroying the bees, and to place the latter in common straw hives. I regret much that I did not see your letter in The Times on the "Honey Harvest," nor do I know the day it appeared, therefore I cannot refer to it. Apologising for troubling you,
I remain, yours faithfully,
A. P.
I do not think it possible to remove the bees. The only alternative is to lessen, if possible, the area and contents of their residence, and thus force them to swarm. If you can lay open their residence, you might stupify the bees with fungus smoke, and abstract a portion of their honey.