BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
Bees go at a rate and a half by express, hence it is very necessary that the packages be as light as possible; and for that reason the combs should hold no more honey than just enough to carry them through to their destination. Nearly printed directions on the outside will explain stimulative feeding so that a nucleus may be made into a strong colony.
how to prepare a calendar of bees.
If you use loose hanging frames, it then with the spacing-strips illustrated on a previous page. Frames of the self-spacing type, of course, require no preparation. Remove the top, and cover the hive with wire cloth. The best way is to make a two-inch rim and nail the wire cloth on this,as explained on a previous page. There should be about two inches between the brood-frames and the wire cloth. Put four or five inches of loose straw on the car floor and then place the colonies upon this. After the car bottom is covered put some 2x4 pieces (four-inch way vertical) across the tops of the halves, and then the next tier of hives on top of these. For convenience in loading, leave a passageway through the center of the car, and then, if you accompany your bees, you can easily get at any of the colonies. The purpose of the straw is to give a spring to soften the heavy coneussions. One thing more is important: Be sure to load the hives so that the frames are parallel with the rails; and don't pile them up more than two or threetiers high. After the hives are in place they should be securely stayed with suitable braces. Long strips of wood two inches wide, one on each side, should be nailed on the hives, thus tying all the hives in a row together so that they can not be disturbed when the car is bumped. In loading,on a wagon, have the frames parallel with the axletree.
When bees are to go any great distance it is imperative that some man go along with them\(-\)either the owner himself or some competent apiarist. Every now and then the tops of the wire cloth should be sprinkled with water;and on hot days, especially where the car is a closed one, and not a cattle-car, the water should be administered several times a day. If the bees are found in any particular hive clustering on the wire cloth, spray water on them at once. For this purpose a small spray-pump and several five-gallon square guns filled with water should be taken along.
It is not practicable to ship strong colonies any distance. Attempts to do so almost surely result in the loss of the bees. Where one hus, say, 100 strong stocks he is advised by all means to divide them into halves, using 200 hives instead of 100 in which to ship the bees. The division should take place several days before hauling to the car, if possible, and the quencelless portion supplied with a cell or virgin, or, better still, a laying queen, because bees on a journey are likely to worry. \(\Lambda\) queen will do much to keep them contented and quiet on the combs.
The question is often asked, "shall a cattle-car or a closed one be used for the purpose?" If the shipment is made in hot weather, or through a hot section of country, a cattle-car is advised. In this case a piece of canvas large enough to cover one side or end of the car should be taken along. This will be needed only when a stop is made for a few hours to protect the sunny side of the car. If it is very warm, the canvas should be thoroughly wetted down with water. When shipment is made in cool weather a box-car would be preferable.
In moving bees a long distance the shipper should first have then thoroughly examined by a competent inspector to see if
that they are homeless, and then let them fly, they will after a time come pretty nearly back to the place from which you released them; but they will soon wander away and be lost, unless you give them a queen to which they will come back and probably remain if _she_ does not stray away. She, like the rest, must fulfill her destiny, or disappear; we shall, therefore, have to provide her a comb wherein to lay eggs. The bees would build the comb themselves, provided they were numerous and had plenty of food. A dozen would never build any comb, nor make any attempt to rear and hatch her eggs if the comb were given them. Perhaps a hundred bees put in a suitably small box, with a fertile queen, might start a colony, and this is what we call a nucleus. It is the center, about which a colony of bees may in time be formed. should they develop a full colony, the building-up would be done by the queen filling her combs with eggs, which, when cared for by the nursing bees (see Bees), would be converted into larvae, and in \(\pm 1\) days hatch out perfect bees. These bees would then help the original hundred, and the queen fill a still larger area with eggs, which would hatch in the same way, and so on. The diliculty in the way of building up from such small beginnings seems to be that the queen will lay all the eggs a hundred bees can care for, perhaps in an hour or two, and then she has to sit or leaf around for the whole 21 days, until she can have another "job,". Before the 21 days are up, she will be very likely to get disgusted with such small proceedings, and swarm out, or at least induce the bees with her to do. See Absconding swarms. If we should increase the number of bees to 500 or 1000, we could get along then very much better, and there would be little danger of swarming out unless the hive given then were too small. A very spry and ambitious queen might fill all the cells the bees had prepared for her, then set about filling them the second time, as they sonetines do, and then swarm out; but with a quart of bees--about 3200, if I have figured rightly--things will generally go along pretty well.
To have this quart of bees work to the best advantage, something depends upon the sort of hive they occupy. A single comb, long und narrow, so as to string the bees out in one thin cluster, is very bad economy. Two combs would do very much better, and three a great deal better still. It is like scattering fibroblasts widely apart. One alone will soon go out; two placed side by side will burn very well; and three will make quite a fire. It is on this account that we would have a nucleus of three, instead of one or two frames. Bees seem to seek naturally a space between two combs; and the queen seldom goes to the outside comb of a hive unless she is obliged to for want of room.
## forming nuclei for increase; how to do it.
Dividing colonies into nuclei for the sake of increasing the number of hive tenants is usually very bad practice, especially in the hands of beginners. When running for honey, colonies can not be much too strong. Yet there are times, especially after a severe winter, when many colonies have died, that some form of artificial increase is desirable. Here is one of several plans we have practiced with success. We will start with one colony:
As soon as settled warm weather comes we would divide our colony into four two-frame nuclei, introducing an untested Italian queen to every division as formed; confine them at least three days (72 hours), tacking wire cloth over the entrance. At the end of this time remove the wire cloth, when the bees will stay contentedly without returning. If honey is not coming in we would feed a little every day.
When the queen fills the frame or frames with eggs, and there are bees enough to ever, we would put in another frame on the _enti-side_. As the weather warms up it might be advisable to put in still another frame, putting this one in the _center_ of the cluster, in the mean time keeping up gentle feeding daily. A very good feeder for this purpose is the Boardman. See Feeders. This can be sliped into the entrance, and by screwing the can tightly or loosely into the cap the flow of feed can be regulated for the daily needs.
Make the syrup by mixing together sugar and water in equal proportions by measure. Stir thoroughly, and pour into feeder-cans.
As soon as the nuclei have four or five frames of scaled brood, larvae, and eggs, take out one or more frames from each, and form another. This plan can be continued till one has 15 and possibly 20 little colonies; but he should stop dividing at least 60 days before the setting-in of cold frosty nights.
If one can not afford to buy queens he will have to raise them and then the increase will be cut down more than a half, probably.
## Nucleus
In 1862 the writer, without any special effort, reared all the queens, and increased an inquiry from 10 colonies, some of which were almost nuclei, to about 85 good colonies that went into winter quarters. They had no empty combs, but they were given full sheets of foundation. They were not fed, but made to depend entirely on natural sources for their supply. Had he fed after the honey season, and given empty combs, he might have made double the increase.
## Confining to keep the bees in
Another method, first introduced to the bee-keeping world by Mr. W. W. Sonnerford, is reported to give such good results that we are glad to place the plan before the readers of this work.
To begin with, remove the queens or cage them in all your fancy stock, after getting the brood-nest well filled with brood (the more brood the better-8 or 10 frames in a hive if possible). Wait can disys a finer removing the queen, when the bees will generally have cells on each and every comb, and be in a brood or listless condition, waiting for cells to hatch. Divide and remove the frames quietly, giving each new hive two frames of brood and all adhering trees, and one good frame of honey, using it for a division-board (and, by the way, such division-boards are to my notion the best in the world); put the two frames of brood and bees next to the wall of the hive, and let the honey-frame be the third from the side of hive. He sure to see that you have at least one good ripe-looking cell in each new hive, or division, and don't forget the frame of honey. As soon as each division is made, stop the entrance of the hive by stuffing it full of green moss. If you haven't any green moss, use green grass or leaves, and be sure to stuff them in tight-as tight as though you never intended the bees should gawaw out, and be sure there are no cracks or holes that a single bee could get out at; for if there are, your division will be ruined by all, or nearly all, the bees that can fly leaving it. Each parent colony should make four or five good divisions that will make homing colonies in 40 or 30 days, and 1 have had them the best in the apiary in less time. Leave or loose the old queen on the old stand (if not too old), and the bees from it will work straight ahead, as they don't have to be confined to make them stay at house.
Don't be uneasy about the divisions that are stopped up, unless you failed to stuff the entrances well, for they _well not_ smother, but busy themselves gnawing at the moss or grass for two or three days, possibly four or five, if you have done an extra good job at stuffing the entrance. At the end of that time you will find they have all gnawed out so as to secure egress and ingress. Then you can move enough of the grass or moss to give them a clean entrance, 1% or 2 inches wide; and by looking into them you will be astonished at the quantity of bees you have in each hive (and they, too, well satisfied), having consumed so much time in gnawing out that the queen had time to hatch and kill off her rivals and be ready for the wedding-trip by the time the entrance is cleared. So, instead of, in a week's time, having a worthless weak division with a _child_ inferior queen, as is the case in the old-style way of dividing, where nine-tenths of the bees return to the old hive, you have a strong vigorous queen and a nice little _satisfied_ swarm of bees, ready for business in the way of pulling foundation before they are three weeks old.
I have succeeded with nineteen out of twenty divisions made in the above way, when 1 did not even see them until the third week after dividing as above; and for the average bee-keeper who has out-apiaries 1 think there is no better way in the world to make increase. If there is I'd like to see or hear of it while the expansion question is being aired.
In the above method of increasing, you have no queues to buy, no robbers to hother with, and but little time lost, as an expert can make 20 divisions an hour, Navasota, Tex.
For particulars regarding the use of small nuclei for mating queens, see Queen-breaking.
Another plan of making two colonies out of one is given under the head of _Nicrenae_, which see. For full consideration of the subject of Bayu Nuclei, see Queen-breaking.
## 0.1 Observatory Hive
See [1].
[1] will run up into the thousands. Its object is to protect bee-keepers in their rights, to secure pure-food laws, to disseminate useful information, to fight adulteration--in short, languages under that high-sounding name never came from the orange-tree at all.
Pure orange-blossom honey is exquisite in flavor, light in color, and of heavy body. While its quality is superb, its quantity is somewhat limited. The pure article is obtained in only very limited regions, while a mixture of orange-blossom and other Southern honeys is often obtained.
will run up into the thousands. Its object is to protect bee-keepers in their rights, to secure pure-food laws, to disseminate useful information, to fight adulteration--in short, to look after the interests of bee-keepers as a whole. It has secured many valuable preceients in law, and has shown that bees are not a nuisance _per se;_ that they can be kept in incorporated villages and towns, and that they are like any other property.
The annual membership fee in the Association is $1.00. This secures to the member all the rights and privileges of the society, the right to vote at its annual meetings and at the annual election of officers; the annual report of the work done, and a stenographic report of the three - day conventions that are held in all t he principal cities of the country. This report contains verbatim discussions by the most successful bee-keepers in the United States. A report alone is well worth the membership fee.
The Association consists of a President, Vice-president, Secretary, (General Manager, and a Board of twelve Directors. These latter, as nearly as possible, represent the various sections of the United States where the honey business is most prominent.
One who has very many bees can not afford to do without one or more bee-journals. Neither can he afford not to be a member of the National Association. He may never know when he may be sued for damage on an alleged trespuss by his bees, or notified to move them out of the town or city. The small membership fee of $1.00 entitles him, under certain conditions, to the protection of the General Manager, who, when circunstances warrant, will employ an attorney and light the case to a finish. One can not secure protection by joining the Association _after_ the gets into trouble.
The General Manager's address can be ascertained in any of the bee-journals.
**OUT-APIARIES.--**Within late years this term has been used to apply to beautyals remote or distant from the home you by some two or three miles. It is a well-known fact, that only a limited number of colonies, comparatively, can be accommodated in any one locality, different places being able to support widely different numbers of colonies.
number of colonies in an array.
## 6.2. **Uut-apiaries**
The agreement between the bee-keeper and his landlord, for rent, is as varied as the cases that occur. Some pay a fixed sum, five or ten dollars per year; others agree to pay a per cent of the crop; some make a bargain to pay so much for every swarm hived by some one of the landlord's family, and so on, while some can not get the landlord to agree to take any rent whatever. In this latter case it is only right to make sure that the landlord has a good supply of honey for his family to use during the coming year. In any case, be sure to do _a little letter_ than is expected of you.
## 6.3. **Havling bees**
Whenever you decide to start a second apiary, you must give some attention to the matter of hailing. If you winter on summer stands, there will be less hailing than if you bring all your bees home to winter in the eellar and then take them back again in the spring. If you use ehaff hives you can have light cases made to carry merely the brood-frames with the bees. The first thing to see to is to make _rereysure_ that no bees can get out to siting the horse or horses. Of course, you think you are careful, and that there is no need of anxiety in your case; but, wait and see. The probabilities are that, with all your care, one of your first experiences in hailing bees will be to get your horse stung; and you may be thankful if you get off without a runaway and a general smashup. Some little leak evaded your notice, from which the bees escaped, or you drove your horse too close to the apiary, or in some other way you may find yourself in such a serne that you may wish you never had any thing to do with bees. A. E. Maum used on his horses a sheet of out-apiaries.
I then cloth which completely covered head and body, and kept it on until some half a mile distant from the apiary.
You can hau bees on almost any kind of vehicle. Some use wagons with springs; some use a hay-rack with two or three feet of hay on it, while others use a common lumber-wagon, or a hay-rack with neither hay nor springs, leaving the frames with no other fastening than the propolis and brace-combs. With smooth roads this latter plan is very satisfactory. With good level roads it may be best to have the brood-combs run across the wagon, as most of the shaking comes from the wagon rocking from side to side, while a road very rough may make it best to have the combs running parallel to the line of travel. Where combs are secure enough, it will matter little how they are placed. To entry colonies of bees to advantage, some sort of rack is necessary. As we are not farmers we had to extemporize a rack for our one-horse wagon.
Whatever the kind of hive you may decide to use, some plan must be adopted for fastening in the bees, so that they may have abundance of ventilation while being haul-ed. As, however, the hailing is done in spring and fall, less ventilation is needed than during hot weather. The ordinary entrance, say 14 inches by \(\sharp\), covered by wire cloth, will answer, as that gives a ventilating surface of about 5 inches, although more would be better, and it might be bad to have so little if the day should be warn. Of course, the bees must be shut in when not flying, and in spring it is a good plan to shut up in the evening all that are to be hauled the next day. In the fall the weather may be such that bees will not fly at any time in the day, otherwise you must get to the out-apiary early enough in the morning to shut in all the bees you will hauh that day. If you are to take bees to an out-apiary in the spring, the sooner it is done the better, as pusturage is then apt to be rather serne at best. Where bees are to be brought home in the fall to be cellared, they may as well be brought just as soon as heavy frost occurs, or as soon as they stop gathering; at least, they should be brought early enough to have a good fly before going into winter quarters. After being unloaded from the wagon the bees may be liberated at once by blowing in a little smoke or dashing in some cold water; or, if looked too late in the evening to try, they may be left till the next morning when they will be quietly settled down; and if carefully opened, no smoke need be used,toids needed for an out-apiary, different from those that are needed at home, unless it is a robot cloth. We should not like to be without one of these in the home apiary, but they are specially valuable in out-apiaries where,sometimes, notwithstanding robbers are troublesome, your plans are such that you want to force through a certain amount of work. By having two or three robber-eloths we have sometimes been able to go on with our work when,without them, we should have been obliged to design. We'll tell you how to make one. Take about a square yard of stout sheeting or cotton cloth : if your hives are small, less will do. Lay one of the cut edges on a piece of lath, about the length of your hives. Lay a similar piece of lath on top of it, and drive wire nails through both, at a distance of perhaps three inches apart. Let the nails be long enough to reach through and elinch. Then treat the opposite edge the same way, and your robber-eloth is complete.
This robber-eloth is exceedingly convenient to throw quickly over any hive or super that you want to cover up temporarily. You can grasp a lath at the side with one hand, and, with a single thing, throw it over a hive making it instantly bee-tight. It does not kill bees, if any happen to get under it. If you have one hand occupied with something else, you can very quickly uncover and cover with the other. We have sometimes worked with a colony when robbers were so bad they would bounce into every opening ; but a robber-eloth on each side covering the frames allowed us to make an opening at the frame we wished to take out. As a general rule, of course, we would try to manage not to work the bees it such times.
But, to return. It would be very convenient, as you go about from one apiary to another, to have a little tool-house at each yard. We are not sure, however, that it would pay. A hive or box covered over water-tight (we use a tin hive-cover) answers very well. We would have one or more of these at each apiary in any case, for there are some things you want to be sure of having on hand, as smoker fuel. Matches should also be kept under in such a place, in a tin hive-cover box. A laking-powder box does well. Beethats, smokers - in fact, a full set of every thing can be kept in the same way.
It is possible, however, to get on very well by always taking your tools with you, provided you never forget them. One day we went to the Hastings apiary, without any smoker, and we realized then how important a smoker is. Don't trust to memory. In your record-book have a list of the things you generally need to take ; and after you are all ready to get in, read about the list and the sure that every thing is in the wagon, as: Hats, smokers, dinner (we never forgot our dinner), chisel, etc. Our own practice has been a sort of compromise between having a full kit of tools at each apiary and tak
few locations in York State that formerly gave very little honey until the farmers, in recent years, introduced buckwheat to such an extent that these are now splen-did buckwheat countries ; and the yield of this dark rich honey plays a considerable part in the net profits of the season. In a word, we want our apinaries so we can load them up at a moment's notice, and move them at practically little expense to any new field that may be more inviting. We can not always tell at first whether it will be a favorable location. If it does not come up to our expectations, we can " pull up stakes " and again try elsewhere. How are we to make our apiraries movable? Keep them on fixed frames, to be sure. Neither Mr. Elwood, Captain Hetherington, nor Mr. Hoffman fusses with fastening frames. When it becomes desirable to move a yard, all that is necessary is to close the entrance and load up the bees. See Frames, Selfgacing.
## a scale live at an out-yard.
It is a well-known and established fact, that one yard may yield quite a crop of honey while another, only a few miles distant, requires to be fed. It is highly important to be able to tell just what the bees are doing at stated --periods during the season. Mr. Manum kept a hive on scales at each yard; and every time he visited one he consulted the scales. If they indicated an increase of several pounds, he knew the bees in this apiary needed more room, and were also liable to swarm; but if they indicated a loss of several pounds, he inferred that the whole yard was losing likewise, and that some colonies needed to be fed. Of course, the hive on the scale should contain a fair average colony. In many cases it is not always possible to visit yards at regular periods, and so Mr. Manum had some resident near the apiary to watch the scale, and report by postal card any unexpected developments.