them a new queen, and the best practice under such conditions is to unite
the queenless bees to a normal colony. If any colonies are weak in the
fall, even if they have a queen, safe wintering is better insured if two
or more weak colonies are united, keeping the best queen. Under various
other conditions which may arise the bee keeper may find it desirable
to unite bees from different colonies. Some fundamental facts in bee
behavior must be thoroughly understood to make this a success.
Every colony of bees has a distinctive colony odor and by this means bees
recognize the entering of their hive by bees from other colonies and
usually resent it. If, however, a bee comes heavily laden from the field
and flies directly into the wrong hive without hesitation it is rarely
molested. In uniting colonies, the separate colony odors must be hidden,
and this is done by smoking each colony vigorously. It may at times be
desirable to use tobacco smoke, which not only covers the colony odor but
stupefies the bees somewhat. Care should be taken not to use too much
tobacco, as it will completely overcome the bees. The queen to be saved
should be caged for a day or two to prevent the strange bees from killing
her in the first excitement.
Another fact which must be considered is that the bees of a colony
carefully mark the location of their own hive and remember that location
for some time after they are removed. If, therefore, two colonies in
the apiary which are not close together are to be united, they should
be moved gradually nearer, not more than a foot at a time, until they
are side by side, so that the bees will not return to their original
locations and be lost. As the hives are moved gradually the slight
changes are noted and no such loss occurs. As a further precaution, a
board should be placed in front of the entrance in a slanting position,
or brush and weeds may be thrown down so that when the bees fly out they
recognize the fact that there has been a change and accustom themselves
to the new place. If uniting can be done during a honey flow, there is
less danger of loss of bees by fighting, or if done in cool weather, when
the bees are not actively rearing brood, the colony odors are diminished
and the danger is reduced.
It is an easy matter to unite two or more weak swarms to make one strong
one, for during swarming the bees have lost their memory of the old
location, are full of honey, and are easily placed wherever the bee
keeper wishes. They may simply be thrown together in front of a hive.
Swarms may also be given to a newly established colony with little
difficulty.
=PREVENTING ROBBING IN THE APIARY.=
When there is no honey flow bees are inclined to rob other colonies, and
every precaution must be taken to prevent this. Feeding often attracts
other bees, and, if there are indications of robbing, the sirup or honey
should be given late in the day. As soon as robbing begins, manipulation
of colonies should be discontinued, the hives closed, and, if necessary,
the entrances contracted as far as the weather will permit. If brush
is thrown in front of the entrance, robbers are less likely to attempt
entering. At all times honey which has been removed from the hives should
be kept where no bees can get at it, so as not to incite robbing.
=FEEDING.=
During spring manipulations, in preparing bees for winter, and at other
times it may be necessary to feed bees for stimulation or to provide
stores. _Honey from an unknown source should never be used_, for fear
of introducing disease, and sirup made of granulated sugar is cheapest
and best for this purpose. The cheaper grades of sugar or molasses
should never be used for winter stores. The proportion of sugar to water
depends on the season and the purpose of the feeding. For stimulation
a proportion of one-fourth to one-third sugar by volume is enough, and
for fall feeding, especially if rather late, a solution containing as
much sugar as it will hold when cold is best. There seems to be little
advantage in boiling the sirup. Tartaric acid in small quantity may be
added for the purpose of changing part of the cane sugar to invert sugar,
thus retarding granulation. The medication of sirup as a preventive or
cure of brood disease is often practiced, but it has not been shown that
such a procedure is of any value. If honey is fed, it should be diluted
somewhat, the amount of dilution depending on the season. If robbing is
likely to occur, feeding should be done in the evening.
Numerous feeders are on the market, adapted for different purposes and
methods of manipulation (figs. 17, 18, 19). A simple feeder can be made
of a tin pan filled with excelsior or shavings (fig. 20). This is filled
with sirup and placed on top of the frames in a super or hive body. It is
advisable to lean pieces of wood on the pan as runways for the bees, and
to attract them first to the sirup, either by mixing in a little honey or
by spilling a little sirup over the frames and sticks.
It may be stated positively that it does not pay financially, or in any
other way, to feed sugar sirup to be stored in sections and sold as comb
honey. Of course, such things have been tried, but the consumption of
sugar during the storing makes the cost greater than the value of pure
floral honey.
=SPRING MANAGEMENT.=
The condition of a colony of bees in the early spring depends largely
upon the care given the bees the preceding autumn and in the method of
wintering. If the colony has wintered well and has a good prolific queen,
preferably young, the chances are that it will become strong in time to
store a good surplus when the honey flow comes.
The bees which come through the winter, reared the previous autumn,
are old and incapable of much work. As the season opens they go out to
collect the early nectar and pollen, and also care for the brood. The
amount of brood is at first small, and as the new workers emerge they
assist in the brood rearing so that the extent of the brood can be
gradually increased until it reaches its maximum about the beginning
of the summer. The old bees die off rapidly. If brood rearing does not
continue late in the fall, so that the colony goes into winter with a
large percentage of young bees, the old bees may die off in the spring
faster than they are replaced by emerging brood. This is known as "spring
dwindling." A preventive remedy for this may be applied by feeding, if
necessary, the autumn before, or keeping up brood rearing as late as
possible by some other means.
[Illustration: Fig. 17.--Division-board feeder to be hung in
hive in place of frame.]
If spring dwindling begins, however, it can be diminished somewhat by
keeping the colony warm and by stimulative feeding, so that all the
energy of the old bees may be put to the best advantage in rearing brood
to replace those drying off. The size of the brood chamber can also be
reduced to conserve heat.
[Illustration: Fig. 18.--Feeder set in collar under hive body.]
It sometimes happens that when a hive is examined in the spring the
hive body and combs are spotted with brownish yellow excrement. This is
an evidence of what is commonly called "dysentery." The cause of this
trouble is long-continued confinement with a poor quality of honey for
food. Honeydew honey and some of the inferior floral honeys contain a
relatively large percentage of material which bees can not digest, and,
if they are not able to fly for some time, the intestines become clogged
with fæcal matter and a diseased condition results. Worker bees never
normally deposit their fæces in the hive. The obvious preventive for this
is to provide the colony with good honey or sugar sirup the previous
fall. "Dysentery" frequently entirely destroys colonies, but if the bees
can pull through until warm days permit a cleansing flight they recover
promptly.
[Illustration: Fig. 19.--"Pepper-box" feeder for use on top of
frames.]
Bees should not be handled in the early spring any more than necessary,
for to open a hive in cool weather wastes heat and may even kill the
brood by chilling. The hive should be kept as warm as possible in early
spring as an aid to brood rearing. It is a good practice to wrap hives
in black tar paper in the spring, not only that it may aid in conserving
the heat of the colony, but in holding the suns heat rays as a help to
the warmth of the hive. This wrapping should be put on as soon as an
early examination has shown the colony to be in good condition, and there
need be no hurry in taking it off. A black wrapping during the winter is
not desirable, as it might induce brood rearing too early and waste the
strength of the bees.
As a further stimulus to brood rearing, stimulative feeding of sugar
sirup in early spring may be practiced. This produces much the same
effect as a light honey flow does and the results are often good. Others
prefer to give the bees such a large supply of stores in the fall that
when spring comes they will have an abundance for brood rearing, and it
will not be necessary to disturb them in cool weather. Both ideas are
good, but judicious stimulative feeding usually more than pays for the
labor. Colonies should be fed late in the day, so that the bees will not
fly as a result of it, and so that robbing will not be started. When the
weather is warmer and more settled the brood cluster may be artificially
enlarged by spreading the frames so as to insert an empty comb in the
middle. The bees will attempt to cover all the brood that they already
had, and the queen will at once begin laying in the newly inserted comb,
thus making a great increase in the brood. This practice is desirable
when carefully done, but may lead to serious results if too much new
brood is produced. A beginner had better leave the quantity of brood to
the bees.
[Illustration: Fig. 20.--Pan in super arranged for feeding.]
It is desirable early in the season, before any preparations are made for
swarming, to go through the apiary and clip one wing of each queen (see
p. 30). This should be done before the hive becomes too populous. It is
perhaps best to clip queens as they are introduced, but some colonies
may rear new ones without the knowledge of the owner, and a spring
examination will insure no escaping swarms. The beginner should perhaps
be warned not to clip the wings of a virgin queen.
Queens sometimes die during the winter and early spring, and since there
is no brood from which the bees can replace them, the queenless colonies
are "hopelessly queenless." Such colonies are usually restless and are
not active in pollen gathering. If, on opening a colony, it is found
to be without a queen and reduced in numbers, it should be united with
another colony by smoking both vigorously and caging the queen in the
queen-right colony for a day or two to prevent her being killed. A frame
or two of brood may be added to a queenless colony, not only to increase
its strength, but to provide young brood from which they can rear a queen
Bee keepers in the North can frequently buy queens from southern breeders
early in the spring and naturally this is better than leaving the colony
without a queen until the bees can rear one, as it is important that
there be no stoppage in brood rearing at this season.
=SWARM MANAGEMENT AND INCREASE.=
The excessive rearing of brood at the wrong season or increase in the
number of colonies greatly reduces the surplus honey crop by consumption.
The ideal to which all progressive bee keepers work, when operating
simply for honey, is to stimulate brood rearing to prepare bees for
gathering, to retard breeding when it is less desirable, and to prevent
swarming. Formerly the measure of success in beekeeping was the amount
of increase by swarming, but this is now recognized as being quite the
contrary of success.
The stimulation of brood rearing in the spring, however, makes it more
likely that swarming will occur; so that the operator must counteract the
tendency to swarm. This is especially true in comb honey production. Very
few succeed in entirely preventing swarming, but by various methods the
situation can be largely controlled.
When a swarm issues, it usually first settles on a limb of a tree or bush
near the apiary. It was formerly common to make a noise by beating pans
or ringing bells in the belief that this causes the swarm to settle.
There is no foundation for such action on the part of the bee keeper. If
the bees alight on a small limb that can be spared it may simply be
sawed off and the bees carried to the hive and thrown on a sheet or hive
cover in front of the entrance. If the limb can not be cut, the swarm can
be shaken off into a box or basket on a pole and hived. If the bees light
on the trunk of a tree or in some inaccessible place they can first be
attracted away by a comb, preferably containing unsealed brood. In these
manipulations it is not necessary to get all the bees, but if the queen
is not with those which are put into the hive the bees will go into the
air again and join the cluster.
If a queen is clipped as recommended under "Spring management" (p. 29)
the swarm will issue just the same, but the queen, not being able to fly,
will simply wander about on the ground in front of the hive, where she
can be caught and caged. The parent colony can then be removed to a new
stand and a new hive put in its place. The bees will soon return and the
queen can be freed among them as they enter. The field bees on returning
will enter the new hive with the swarm, thus decreasing still more the
parent colony and making a second swarm less probable. To make sure of
this, however, all queen cells except one good one can be removed soon
after the swarm issues. Another method of preventing second swarms is
to set the old hive beside the swarm and in a week move the old hive to
another place. The field bees of the parent colony then join the swarm
and the parent colony is so much reduced that a second swarm does not
issue.
To hold a swarm it is desirable to put one frame containing healthy
unsealed brood in the new hive. The other frames may contain full sheets
or starters of foundation. Usually comb honey supers or surplus bodies
for extracting frames will have been put on before swarming occurs. These
are given to the swarm on the old stand and separated from the brood
chamber by queen-excluding perforated zinc. In three or four days the
perforated zinc may be removed if desired.
When clipping the queen's wing is not practiced, swarms may be prevented
from leaving by the use of queen traps of perforated zinc (fig. 6).
These allow the workers to pass out, but not drones or queens, which, on
leaving the entrance, pass up to an upper compartment from which they
can not return. These are also used for keeping undesirable drones from
escaping, and the drones die of starvation. When a swarm issues from a
hive provided with a queen trap, the queen goes to the upper compartment
and remains there until released by the bee keeper. The workers soon
return to the hive. When the operator discovers the queen outside, the
colony may be artificially swarmed to prevent another attempt at natural
swarming. A queen trap should not be kept on the hive all the time for
fear the old queen may be superseded and the young queen prevented from
flying out to mate.
=ARTIFICIAL SWARMING=
If increase is desired, it is better to practice some method of
artificial swarming and to forestall natural swarming rather than be
compelled to await the whims of the colonies. The situation should be
under the control of the bee keeper as much as possible. The bees, combs,
and brood may be divided into two nearly equal parts and a queen provided
for the queenless portion; or small colonies, called nuclei, may be made
from the parent colony, so reducing its strength that swarming is not
attempted. These plans are not as satisfactory as shaken swarms, since
divided colonies lack the vigor of swarms.
A good method of artificially swarming a colony is to shake most of the
bees from the combs into another hive on the old stand with starters
(narrow strips) of foundation. The hive containing the brood with some
bees still adhering is then moved to a new location. If receptacles for
surplus honey have been put on previously, as they generally should be,
they should now be put over the artificial swarm separated from the brood
compartment by perforated zinc.
This method of artificially swarming (usually called by bee keepers
"shook" swarming) should not be practiced too early, since natural
swarming may take place later. The colony should first have begun its
preparations for swarming. The method is particularly useful in comb
honey production. The bees may be prevented from leaving the hive by
the use of a drone trap (fig. 6) or by putting in one frame containing
unsealed brood. Some bee keepers prefer using full sheets of foundation
or even drawn combs for the artificial swarm, but narrow strips of
foundation have some advantages. By using narrow strips the queen has no
cells in which to lay eggs for a time, thus reducing brood rearing, but,
since by the time artificial swarming is practiced the profitable brood
rearing is usually over, this is no loss but rather a gain. There are
also in the brood compartment no cells in which the gathering workers
can deposit fresh honey, and they consequently put it in the supers.
Gradually the combs below are built out and brood rearing is increased.
Later the colony is allowed to put honey in the brood combs for its
winter supply. If no increase is desired, the bees which emerge from the
removed brood combs may later be united with the artificial swarm and by
that time there will usually be little danger of natural swarming.
Artificial swarming can readily be combined with the shaking treatment
for bee diseases, thus accomplishing two objects with one manipulation.
If disease is present in the parent colony, only strips of foundation
should be used and the colony should be confined to the hive until a
queen and drone trap and not with a frame of brood.
=PREVENTION OF SWARMING.=
Unless increase is particularly desired, both natural and artificial
swarming should be done away with as far as possible, so that the energy
of the bees shall go into the gathering of honey. Since crowded and
overheated hives are particularly conducive to swarming, this tendency
may be largely overcome by giving plenty of ventilation and additional
room in the hive. Shade is also a good preventive of swarming. Extra
space in the hive may be furnished by adding more hive bodies and frames
or by frequent extracting, so that there may be plenty of room for brood
rearing and storage at all times. These manipulations are, of course,
particularly applicable to extracted honey production.
To curb the swarming impulse frequent examinations of the colonies
(about every week or 10 days during the swarming season) for the purpose
of cutting out queen cells is a help, but this requires considerable
work, and since some cells may be overlooked, and particularly since
it frequently fails in spite of the greatest care, it is not usually
practiced. Requeening with young queens early in the season, when
possible, generally prevents swarming.
Swarming is largely due to crowded brood chambers, and since eggs laid
immediately before and during the honey flow do not produce gatherers,
several methods have been tried of reducing the brood. The queen may
either be entirely removed or be caged in the hive to prevent her from
laying. In either event the bees will usually build queen cells to
replace her, and these must be kept cut out. These plans would answer the
purpose very well were it not for the fact that queenless colonies often
do not work vigorously. Under most circumstances these methods can not
be recommended. A better method is to remove brood about swarming time
and thus reduce the amount. There are generally colonies in the apiary to
which frames of brood can be given to advantage.
In addition to these methods various nonswarming devices have been
invented, and later a nonswarming hive so constructed that there is no
opportunity for the bees to form a dense cluster. The breeding of bees by
selecting colonies with less tendency to swarm has been suggested.
On the whole, the best methods are the giving of plenty of room, shade,
and ventilation to colonies run for extracted honey; and ventilation,
shade, and artificial swarming of colonies run for comb honey. Frequent
requeening (about once in two years) is desirable for other reasons,
and requeening before swarming time helps in the solution of that
difficulty,
=PREPARATION FOR THE HARVEST.=
An essential in honey production is to have the hive overflowing with
bees at the beginning of the honey flow, so that the field force will be
large enough to gather more honey than the bees need for their own use.
To accomplish this, the bee keeper must see to it that brood rearing is
heavy some time before the harvest, and he must know accurately when the
honey flows come, so that he may time his manipulations properly. Brood
rearing during the honey flow usually produces bees which consume stores,
while brood reared before the flow furnishes the surplus gatherers. The
best methods of procedure may be illustrated by giving as an example the
conditions in the white clover region.
In the spring the bees gather pollen and nectar from various early
flowers, and often a considerable quantity from fruit bloom and
dandelions. During this time brood rearing is stimulated by the new
honey, but afterwards there is usually a period of drought when brood
rearing is normally diminished or not still more increased as it should
be. This condition continues until the white clover flow comes on,
usually with a rush, when brood rearing is again augmented. If such a
condition exists, the bee keeper should keep brood rearing at a maximum
by stimulative feeding during the drought. When white clover comes in
bloom he may even find it desirable to prevent brood rearing to turn the
attention of his bees to gathering.
A worker bee emerges from its cell 21 days after the egg is laid, and it
usually begins field work in from 14 to 17 days later. It is evident,
therefore, that an egg must be laid five weeks before the honey flow to
produce a gatherer. Since the flow continues for some time and since bees
often go to the field earlier than 14 days, egg laying should be pushed
up to within two or three weeks of the opening of the honey flow. In
addition to stimulative feeding, the care of the colony described under
the heading of "Spring management" (p. 26) will increase brood production.
=THE PRODUCTION OF HONEY.=
The obtaining of honey from bees is generally the primary object of their
culture. Bees gather nectar to make into honey for their own use as
food, but generally store more than they need, and this surplus the bee
keeper takes away. By managing colonies early in the spring as previously
described the surplus may be considerably increased. The secret of
maximum crops is to "Keep all colonies strong."
Honey is gathered in the form of nectar secreted by various flowers, is
transformed by the bees, and stored in the comb. Bees also often gather
a sweet liquid called "honeydew," produced by various scale insects and
plant-lice, but the honeydew honey made from it is quite unlike floral
honey in flavor and composition and should not be sold for honey. It is
usually unpalatable and should never be used as winter food for bees,
since it usually causes dysentery (p. 40). When nectar or honeydew has
been thickened by evaporation and otherwise changed, the honey is sealed
in the cells with cappings of beeswax.