Transcriber Note
Text emphasis denoted as _Italics_ and =Bold=.
BEE KEEPING FOR PROFIT.
A NEW SYSTEM
OF
BEE MANAGEMENT
THIRD EDITION
BY
Mrs. Lizzie E. Cotton,
WEST GORHAM, MAINE.
ILLUSTRATED.
PRICE ONE DOLLAR.
1891.
[Illustration: MRS. LIZZIE E. COTTON.]
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1891, by MRS. LIZZIE
E. COTTON, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
WM. M. MARKS, PRINTER, PORTLAND.
CONTENTS.
_Chapter._ _Page._
I.--Honey Bees 15
II.--The Controllable Hive and New System of
Bee Management 26
III.--Patent and Non-Patent Hives 34
IV.--Feeding 37
V.--Boxes for Surplus Honey 43
VI.--Swarming and Hiving 48
VII.--Anger of Bees 60
VIII.--Bee Moth 65
IX.--Robbing 68
X.--Profits of Bee-Keeping 73
XI.--Changing Old Queens for Young Ones 83
XII.--Bearing and Introducing Queens 86
XIII.--Sources of Honey 94
XIV.--Location of Hives 100
XV.--Wintering Bees 104
XVI.--Transferring Bees 112
XVII.--Italian Bees 117
XVIII.--Comb Foundation 123
XIX.--Monthly Duties 128
XX.--Conclusion 136
Price List 143
PREFACE.
In presenting this work I have no apology to make. After an experience
with bees dating almost from childhood, and a careful study of all
works published on the subject of bees, and the journals devoted to
that particular branch of rural affairs, I find theory, guess-work,
prejudice and selfish motives are so prevalent, as to confuse and
discourage the beginner, and finally, all who are seeking after
information by which they may make bee keeping a source of profit, and
who wish to adopt a correct and scientific system of bee management.
In my early efforts at bee keeping, I met with many failures and heavy
losses, from being confused by the contradictory teachings of selfish
or ignorant bee keepers, and from a lack of that personal knowledge
which experience, and a close study of the nature and habits of bees,
has now placed in my possession. After many unsuccessful experiments,
and careful investigation, and a close study of the natural habits and
instincts of bees, I have succeeded in inventing a hive and new system
of bee management which completely changes the whole process of bee
keeping, and renders the business safe, pleasant and profitable.
The hive and system of bee management recommended in these pages, is
entirely original with me and is not patented. L invented the hive
and plan of management for my own use, as I am engaged in raising
honey for the market, and wish every swarm of bees I keep to produce
the greatest amount of surplus honey, and in the most convenient and
attractive marketable form. I am induced to place this work before
the public at the earnest and oft repeated requests of friends and
correspondents. The work has been hurriedly written, as I had but
little spare time to devote to this matter, consequently sentences are
not all, perhaps, grammatically arranged. I have made the beautiful of
secondary importance to the useful. I have endeavored, however, to make
my statements so clear as to be readily understood and comprehended by
every person of intelligence, although he may be wholly unacquainted
with bee keeping.
Every person, who has a farm or garden should keep bees, at least one
or more swarms, to furnish honey for the use of the family. There is no
greater luxury than nice honey in clean, snow-white comb in nice glass
boxes, such as is produced by my new system of bee management. This
best of all sweets is now within reach of every one who has a plot of
ground large enough to set a hive of bees upon.
After bees are once located in my hives but very little expense is
required to keep them in proper condition, so that they will give a
good quantity of nice box honey every year.
Under the old methods of bee keeping, bees required a great deal of
care and attention, especially during the summer season. And then the
winters were very destructive to them, many often losing their entire
stock; or if they were not a total loss, they were so damaged by the
winter as to be of no profit, and two severe winters in succession were
quite sure to finish them.
This was very discouraging, and many have abandoned bee keeping,
entirely discouraged.
On my plan a complete revolution is effected in bee management, as will
be shown in this work.
There is in my opinion no pursuit which offers greater inducements than
bee keeping, especially to women. There are very many who are confined
indoors nearly the whole time, excluded from the air and sunshine,
to the great injury of their health; and after this sacrifice they
barely succeed in obtaining a livelihood. To such, bee keeping offers
great inducements, such as improved health, and a handsome recompense
for all labor performed. I am acquainted with many who have commenced
bee keeping on my plan, who are meeting with complete success. A
lady bought a swarm of Italian bees of me in 1874, and she writes me
that from that one she increased her stock to over twenty swarms the
third season; besides she got over one hundred pounds of nice honey
from the swarm I sent her the first season. Here I wish to be clearly
understood; I do not wish to hold out inducements which will never be
realized, for the purpose of causing any one to commence bee keeping;
yet I believe bee keeping on correct principles should be encouraged,
until bees enough are kept to collect all the honey now allowed to
go to waste, and which if collected by bees and stored in nice glass
boxes, would add millions of dollars to the wealth of the country.
Since the day I introduced my Controllable Hive and New System of
Bee Management to the notice of the public, the worthless bee hive
swindlers and their tools have been boiling over with wrath against me,
lying and slandering me through the public journals, and especially
through the Bee Journals, and all because, that I, a woman, had
succeeded in inventing a bee hive and a new system of bee management
superior to anything yet produced, and which was fast coming into use
on its merits, among bee keepers: consequently the sale of other hives
was decreasing in the same proportion. I first perfected the hive and
system of management for my own use, with no thought of making it
public; but through the kindness of my personal friends and others who
have visited me to enquire into the new system, it has become known
from Maine to Oregon, and adopted by many of the most intelligent bee
keepers in the United States. And in compliance with that command in
the good book which reads--"Let your light shine," I am determined to
spread the truth, regardless of all opposition from the ignorant and
selfish crowd which is constantly attacking me.
Without egotism, I claim a thorough knowledge of the habits and
instincts of bees. Consequently I claim a thorough knowledge of the
requisites of a hive, and all fixtures pertaining to it, as well as a
knowledge required to make bee keeping successful and profitable and
all this has been acquired in the school of experience and practice.
Kind reader, I respectfully submit the following pages, and ask for
them a candid and unprejudiced consideration. Read carefully and
understandingly, and apply to bee keeping, and I feel certain you will
realize many times the cost of this book in the increased profits of
your bees, managed as here directed.
The statements herein set forth are the result of many years' practical
experience with bees with a view of making the raising of honey for
market profitable, and the general management of bees successful.
Mrs. Lizzie E. Cotton.
West Gorham, Me., Aug. 5, 1880.
* * * * *
Since the publication of the first edition of this work, in 1880, and
the use of the Controllable Hive for more than twelve years, I find
only a very few minor points in the hive which can be improved. I have
made a complete revision of the hive and all fixtures, with the view of
correcting every imperfection, however slight, and I feel certain that
the hive as now arranged is perfect in every particular.
Thanking my patrons for past favors, and respectfully soliciting a
continuance of the same, I present the third edition of this work, and
invite to it the careful and unprejudiced consideration of every one
who may read its pages.
Mrs. Lizzie E. Cotton.
West Gorham, Me., Jan. 1, 1891.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
HONEY BEES.
[Illustration: Queen]
A SWARM of bees contains _one_ Queen, thousands of workers, and in the
summer season a limited number of drones. The queen is the only fully
developed female in the swarm. She never leaves the hive except on two
occasions--when leading a swarm, and when but a few days old, to meet
the drone, or male bee, in the air, for the purpose of fecundation. It
appears from close observation that only one impregnation is operative
during life, as old queens have never been known to leave the hive for
that purpose.
The natural life of a queen averages from four to six years. Queens
sometimes become entirely barren before death; at other times the eggs
of old queens are found to produce only drones. No matter whether
deposited in drone cells, or worker cells, the progeny will be drones
invariably. When drones are reared in worker cells, they will be very
much dwarfed in size, notwithstanding the worker bees attempt to
overcome the difficulty by lengthening the worker cells to accommodate
the monstrosities. The queen has a sting yet she may be handled with
impunity, for she will not use it except when in deadly combat with a
rival queen. She receives the most marked attention from all members
of her family; deprive a swarm of their queen, and they will, as soon
as the loss is known, manifest the greatest agitation and alarm, and
if the swarm is one just hived, and only a few hours from the parent
stock, they will all return at once to the old home. They appear
to fully realize the vast importance of a mother, and that with no
means to supply her place they must soon perish; and to avoid their
impending fate they return to the old hive. With old stocks deprived
of their queen the result is different, as will be shown further on.
Every one who keeps bees should strive to become familiar with the
appearance of the queen, that they may be able to recognize her at a
glance among thousands of workers, as it will often be necessary to
look her up in my new system of bee management. In looking for the
queen in full hives, she is usually found on the brood combs, unless
in opening the hive she may have been frightened and taken refuge in
some hiding place, at the corner of the hive, at the bottom ends of the
comb-frames, or some similar hiding place. After we become familiar
with her appearance and movements we are able to find her quite
readily, even when the hive is crowded with bees.
[Illustration: Worker]
The worker bee is much smaller than the queen. On the worker devolves
all the labor of the swarm. They collect honey, pollen or bee bread,
and propolis, or bee glue. The workers produce wax from honey, and from
the wax they build comb, in which to store the honey and bee bread they
collect, for their own use in time of need. Wax is produced from honey,
as butter is produced from milk. Bees do not collect wax, but they
collect honey, which by a natural process in the stomach of the bee is
changed, and exudes from between the rings of the abdomen in minute
scales of wax, which is detached by the bee and moulded into comb. The
worker bee possesses a sting, and is ever ready to make use of it in
defending home and treasure. This is a wise provision of nature, for
were it otherwise, the other insect and animal tribes would appropriate
the treasures of the bee--honey, wax, etc., and this industrious little
insect would soon become instinct.
The worker bee possesses an instinct but little inferior to reason in
the human family. A few examples will show their wonderful instinct:
Twenty hives of bees, placed in a row, but a few inches distant one
from the other, all of like size, shape and color; the bees to our
perception exactly alike, no difference in size, shape, color or
action;--yet every bee of this vast number (which at some seasons of
the year would amount to more than six hundred thousand bees) in these
twenty hives knows its own hive, and if let alone will not enter any
other, except it be for the purpose of securing the honey therein for
its own use, or in other words to plunder and rob its neighbor. There
is no intercourse between swarms; each is a separate colony governed
by a queen. If through mistake the subjects of one enter the domain
of another, a war of extermination is commenced at once. To test
this point, I changed two hives so that they were reversed, the one
occupying the place of the other. This was done while the bees were out
collecting honey in a warm day. The first bees that entered the hive
were instantly killed, and this was kept up until the hives were set in
their proper places. The ground in front of the hives was covered with
hundreds of dead bees. A bee is killed almost instantly by the sting of
another.
The young bee on its first excursion from the hive does not leave its
home without precaution. With a view to a safe return, it turns its
head towards its home, rises slowly on the wing, at first describing a
circle of only a few inches in diameter, as it recedes slowly backward,
seeming to so mark every object surrounding the hive, as to enable it
to return and enter, without the slightest danger of entering any other
hive. Bees in spring, in their first flight, mark their location in
this manner. After the location has been thus marked, the bees leave
the hive in a direct line, and return by their way-marks with perfect
accuracy and regularity.
[Illustration: Drone]
The drone bee is a clumsy fellow. The drones are the male bees. Where
a dozen or more hives are kept, there is no necessity for more drones
than one swarm would naturally rear, yet each one of the twelve swarms
carries out its natural proclivities, and rears a large number of
these useless consumers, not one of a thousand of which is ever of any
use. Swarms should not be permitted to rear a large number of these
non-producers. A few are indispensable, yet we should take this matter
into our own hands. Not one drone in five thousand ever fulfills the
purpose for which it was created. Fifty drone cells are enough for one
hive, and when more than this number are constructed (sometimes they
will number a thousand or more in a hive) cut out all but a very few,
and fit in a piece of worker comb in their place--it is more profit
to raise workers than drones. Drones leave the hive to sport in the
sunshine in large numbers, every fine afternoon in June and July. When
on the wing, they make a very loud, coarse buzzing. They have no sting
and may be handled without the least fear.
When the honey season is over, the worker bees drive out the drones,
and a prosperous swarm will not tolerate a drone in the hive through
the winter. In September I have seen a quarter or more of drones
clustered together near the entrance of the hive, whence they had been
driven by the bees. The workers on guard about the entrance of the
hive, would not let one pass into the hive, though they were constantly
making the attempt. As soon as one would approach the entrance to the
hive to pass in, a half-dozen or more workers would seize him, and
drag him struggling to the edge of the platform and pitch him off, at
apparent great danger to his portly and clumsy body.
I wish to impress strongly on the minds of all who adopt my plan of bee
management, the great importance of cutting out drone cells, except a
few in every hive. Don't leave _more_ than fifty, half of that number
will do. After you have once cut out the surplus drone comb and fitted
in worker comb, there is no further trouble with an excess of drones
from that hive. It takes a great deal of honey to rear a large brood of
drones, and still more to support them in idleness two or three months.
[Illustration: HONEY CELLS, WORKER CELLS, QUEEN CELL]
This engraving represents a section of comb in a miniature comb frame,
containing all the different cells found in a hive. At the top are
cells for storing honey. At the extreme right, near the bottom, is a
queen cell complete, as it appears in queen raising, or in one week
after a swarm has been deprived of its queen, in a full stock or as it
is found in stocks that swarm naturally, at the time the first swarm
issues. Though often found in different places on the comb, and often
to the number of a half-dozen or more in one stock or hive, yet its
relative position is _always the same_. It will always present the
same appearance, whether at the edges or on other parts of the comb.
Near the queen cells is seen the worker cells, containing brood in all
stages of growth from the tiny egg just deposited by the queen to the
full-grown grub or young bee. Near the worker cells, at the bottom, are
the empty cells.
BREEDING.
The natural increase of the honey bee is very imperfectly understood
by the great majority of bee keepers. Very many suppose that young
bees are raised only in the warm summer months, and their ideas of the
_modus operandi_ of increase are exceedingly vague. I find that strong
stocks have maturing brood nearly every month in the year--I have found
brood in stocks in December and January.
The queen lays all the fertile eggs in the swarm, consequently all
increase is dependent on her. I say the queen lays all the fertile
eggs, because occasionally under certain circumstances we find eggs
laid by workers but under my observation, such eggs never mature.
Egg-laying workers are known to be such, by eggs being found in stocks
that have been deprived of their queen, and the means of rearing
another. This is one of the wonders of nature, of which no satisfactory
solution has been given. The points established as to the sex of bees
are these: The queen is a fully developed female; the drones are fully
developed males; the worker,--_what is it?_ The worker is said by some
to be _neuter_. If this last is true, how are the eggs produced? Others
say the worker is a female with generative organs not fully developed!
A pretty nice point--to credit them with the power to produce eggs
without imparting vitality sufficient to germinate.
We will leave this knotty question, as it is of no consequence in the
practical management of bees for profit. Suffice it then to say, the
queen is the mother of the entire family, and without a queen no swarm
of bees can long exist.
The time taken to perfect the three different kinds of bees--queen,
worker and drone--varies slightly. The queen will mature in about
sixteen days from the time the egg is deposited in the cell. The drone
and worker each in about twenty days. This time is subject to some
variation, governed by the weather, and number of bees in the hive,
which causes the temperature of the hive to be greater or less. A high
temperature will forward, while a low temperature will retard, the
maturing of the brood.
Swarms with healthy prolific queens increase rapidly through the spring
and summer. The queen at this season will deposit from one thousand
to fifteen hundred eggs per day. Some writers estimate higher. To
secure so large a number of eggs, and consequent increase of bees,
we must have healthy prolific queens to start with, and offer every
available facility to encourage the desired increase. How to do this
successfully, is shown further on.
If we wish to secure a good harvest of honey, we must have the bees
to collect it, and we must have them at the proper time, viz: when
the harvest is ready. To do .-this, we must encourage breeding to the
utmost in early spring.
Early in the spring the queen enlarges the circle containing the brood;
perhaps, if the stock was very strong, and everything favorable, she
laid a few eggs in one or two combs near the centre of the cluster of
bees in January. Perhaps the cells occupied at that time were less than
a dozen, all compact together in a circle, occupying less space than
the size of a half dollar. As she progresses, this circle is enlarged,
and the cells on the opposite side of this comb are used; then the next
comb and so on, at the same time enlarging the circle, keeping the
brood compactly together, so that the bees, by clustering around it can
keep up the required warmth to forward the brood to maturity. As the
young bees hatch, the queen proceeds with her duties of laying eggs
until every brood cell is occupied, and as fast as a bee matures and
leaves its cell, she is on hand with an egg to occupy the vacant place.
This is kept up without cessation till swarming time, when the hive
becomes crowded with bees, then, as preparation for swarming, the queen
deposits eggs, from which the bees, by a special course of treatment,
rear queens. When they are sealed over, as shown in the plates, the old
queen leaves the hive with the first swarm to seek a new home. In about
ten days the young queens hatch and lead out after-swarms--second,
third, etc. When swarming is over, the strongest queen destroys the
others, and reigns over the old swarm till another swarming season.
This is the process in natural swarming; on my plan we improve upon the
process, as will be shown in the proper place.