BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
Desirable Traits--No matter how good a record a colony may have for production, if the bees are cross and drive everybody out of the yard, the queen will not do to use as a breeder. Next to production, gentleness is the most desirable trait. If it were not for the fear of stings the number of beekeepers would be multiplied many fold. There are strains of bees which are very gentle under favorable conditions, and can often be handled safely without protection. Not long since the writer visited queen-breeding apiaries which are among the largest in the world. The propriator stated that he never uses a queen as a breeder when the colony cannot be handled safely without smoke. Beekepers generally use smoke to control the bees. While under general injury conditions it is seldom desirable to undertake operations without a lighted smoker at hand, there are often individual colonies which will not resent the manipulation of the frames even though no smoke is used. The selections of the queens at the head of such colonies for use as breeders, generation after generation, will hasten the time when stings will seldom interfere with the work of the beekeeper.
Following production and gentleness the non-swarming tendency is greatly to be desired. While there is much difference in the strains in this respect, it is to a much greater extent under the control of the beekeeper than the other factors named. If the bees swarm and the working force is divided at the beginning of the harvest, the crop is likely to be reduced as a result, unless the flow lasts for a long period. In most localities where honey production is followed extensively the honey flows are rapid and of short duration. It is of great importance under such conditions to keep the colony together until the harvest is gathered. Hence the non-swarming tendency is desirable.
The Male Percentage--One serious drawback in queen breeding is the difficulty of controlling the male parentage. The queen nuts on the wing and often meets a drone from a distant colony which may be of another race or inferior stock. The man who cannot send his queens to some isolated position where there are no other bees within four or five miles can do little to overcome this condition, other than to raise such large numbers of drones from his desirable colonies that the chances of meeting undesirable males is very greatly reduced.
Another difficulty lies in the fact that the quality of the male offspring is determined rather by the mating of the mother of the queen than by her own. If it so happens that a queen has no opportunity to mate, she may still lay large numbers of eggs which will hatch, but they will all produce drones. If her mother was purely mated her offspring will be pure, but if her mother was mismatched, her drones will be impure, regardless of the fact of whether she is purely mated herself or whether she be mated at all. It thus sometimes happens that a mismatched queen whose mother was purely mated will produce drones which are pure, and her female offspring influenced by her own impure mating will all be crosses. It should be mentioned in passing that one mating is sufficient for life and a mismatched queen is unable to produce pure offspring from later pure matings.
The Practical Result--While the above conditions add greatly to the perplexities of the queen breeder who would breed scientifically, they offer decided advantages to the bekeeper who wishes to improve his stock in the quickest time and with least expense. By buying a purely nated queen and breeding from her he can soon change the conditions in his apiary even though his young queens meet impure drones. If he has, say, one hundred colonies of bees and will rear one hundred queens from the purely mated mother and requeen all his colonies his yard will soon be full of pure drones. At the same time the workers will all be crosses since the young queens have had no opportunity to meet pure drones on their mating flights. If the yard is requeened early in spring a second lot of queens can be reared in late summer from the same purely mated mother. By this time most of the original drones will have disappeared and the apiary will be abundantly supplied with pure males. The second lot of queens will meet pure drones and they can be used to replace the mismatched stock already present. In this simple manner the entire apiary of one hundred colonies can be changed from undesirable impure stock to pure stock of selected strain in one or, at most, two seasons and with little expense aside from the labor of the beekeeper.
The beekeeper can readily secure good stock at from one dollar to two dollars each for queens and selected queens at a somewhat higher figure.
Metrons of Rearing Queens.--The methods used for rearing queens will depend upon the number needed and the conditions under which the beekeeper is working. If only a few are wanted it is an easy matter to remove the queen from the colony from whose offspring it is desired to produce them. In a normal colony as soon as the queen is removed the bees will proceed to build cells to rear queens to make sure of replacing the mother of the colony. As soon as the queen cells are sealed they can be removed very carefully and one placed in each of the lives which are to be requested. The queen to be replaced must be removed about twelve hours before the cell is given, or it may not be accepted. The cell should be fastened carefully in the center of the brood nest to insure that it will not be chilled. One cell must be left in the parent colony to replace the queen taken away in the beginning, unless she is to be returned.
By this method the queens are mated from the lives in which they are to remain, and the bekeeper only needs to make sure that the colonies where the young queen fails to return safely from the mating trip are given another cell or queen. While this plan is simple and will serve all purposes where but a few queens are wanted, it is too slow for extensive use.
When large numbers of queen cells are wanted, artificial cells, nude of beeswax and shaped as nearly as possible like an embryo queen cell are utilized. To begin with, a colony'is made queenless and permitted to start queen cells. From these a supply of royal jelly is secured. **R**oyal jelly is a milky, jelly-like, substance which the bees feed freely to queens in the larval stage. This richer food and the larger cell are sufficient to enable a young larva from a worker cell to develop into a queen.
The brood is now taken from this cell-starting colony and given to another colony. The object of removing the brood is to relieve the nurse bees from brood rearing and to center all their attention on the rearing of queens. The bekeeper then takes a supply of the artificial cells which are attached in rows to an empty frame (Fig. 15). In each cell a small drop of royal jelly taken from the naturally built cell is placed. With a small instrument made for the purpose, a newly hatched larva is removed from a worker cell and placed in each of the artificial cell cups. The larva should not be more than twenty-four hours old, and
not be permitted to finish the cells, but they are taken away and placed in the middle of another live which occupies two stories, with the queen in the lower story and an excluder between to keep her from going above and destroying the cells which are placed in the upper story (Fig. 16). The first colony is then given another lot of cells to start. Only strong colonies should be used for cell starting or finishing, since the best queens are not produced in small colonies.
**Later Treatment.--**While the worker bees require twenty-one days for development
Figure 16: The queen excluder prevents the queen from passing into the super. The workers being smaller readily pass through the openings.
from the time the egg is, laid, as described in Chapter III, the queen completes her growth in only sixteen days. On the eleventh day after the young larva are placed in the cells the queens will be nearly ready to emerge and it will be necessary to remove the rip cells from the finishing colony. If they are to be used to requeen an apiary at once, the simplest way is to place one in each colony to be requeened, twelve hours after the old queens are removed. If they are to be kept for a time, it will be necessary to provide nuclei for the purpose of getting them mated. Fig. 17 shows a very satisfactory one for this purpose. An ordinary hive has been divided into three separate compartments with the entrance to the middle one at one end, and an opening at each side for the outside ones. By this plan one hive serves for three and the bees are not able to pass from one apartment to another. In each, two frames of brood and bees are placed, without queens,of course, and each is given one of the rip cells. Usually the young queen will be mated and laying within two or three weeks from the time the cell is given. If the beekeeper wishes to mate a large number of queens and has a limited supply of bees, he can get along very well by placing one frame of brood and bees in each nucleus and also giving an additional frame with some honey. The newly mated queen will soon begin to lay and the little colonies will gradually grow stronger if conditions are favorable. In this way one strong colony broken up into nuclei will furnish sufficient bees to cure for six or eight queens.
Extensive queen breeders break up large numbers of colonies in spring to enable them to rear enough queens to supply their trade during the summer months, and they are again united in fall and wintered as full colonies. One firm was using fifteen hundred such nuclei at the time of the writer's visit and were sending out nearly ten thousand queens that season.
" Practical Queen Rearing," by the author of this book, gives an exhaustive account of the various methods of rearing queen bees both for home use and for commercial purposes.
## Chapter 12 Setting the honey to market
In most cases the beginner will find his local market the best place to sell his crop. It is usually possible to develop a local market for a small crop at much better prices than could be realized by selling through commission merechants in a large city. The man who sells at home is able to get retail prices for much of his product and to save the amount that would otherwise be consumed in freights and commissions. The man or woman who expects to follow bekeeping as a business will make a great mistake if he fails to ask a good price for his product in the beginning. Too many are willing to sell their honey at retail, at the wholesale prices. This is a serious injury to the market and always tends to depress the prices. If one never expects to have muchhoney to sell he should still have some regard for the rights of others and sell at a reasonable price. If one has anything to give away he may well do so, but should not injure his neighbor who depends upon honey production for a livelihood by cutting prices. Production of a commodity is one thing and selling it is quite another. If the producer chooses to market his product at retail he should get paid for the selling as well as the production of his crop.
Reaching the Distar Market.--On one occasion the writer made a journey to Chicago to see what could be learned about the marketing of honey through the large wholesale centers and also something of the best retail trade in a large city.
In order to learn as much as possible about conditions an effort was made to follow the honey from the producer to the consumer. This involved a study of the conditions of transportation by freight or express, a visit to the
## Getting the Honey to Market
wholesale district and to the retail stores which serve the best trade.
One point that soon became very apparent was that of the hundreds of commission firms on South Water Street only a few handle honey at all. There were hundreds of crates of eabpages, celery, sweet potatoes, oranges, apples, and other staple products to one case of honey. It did not take the writer fifteen minutes to decide that the trouble was not due to over-production.
After talking to a number of commission merchants who do not handle it at all as well as those who do, it began to look like the trouble was of quite a different kind. It looks very much to the writer like it is improper distribution and lack of incentive for the merchants to push our product. A merchant dislikes to establish a trade for a product which he is unable to supply. If even twenty per cent. of the commission merchants should undertake to establish a trade in honey and should succeed to the extent that a few have done the supply would not last one-third the year. If a man orders honey from his grocer and is unable to get it, maple syrup or corn syrup will take its place and the next order will be for the substitute.
Some beekeepers are forever talking about overproduction and lack of demand. When corn flakes first appeared on the market there was no demand but the manufacturers proceeded to create a demand by extensive advertising and to fix the price at a point which would pay for their product and pay for the advertising in addition.
Competition is very keen, especially in the large market centers. One firm visited, handled three million dollars' worth of produce that year. This amount would make a pretty big hole in the honey crop for one season.
As it now stands there is no effort to supply.
many beekeepers take the attitude that it matters very little. for in case the shipment is damaged in transit the railroad company will pay for it anyway. This is a mistaken viewpoint. Claims for damages are a part of the regular expense account of the railroad company and when the damages absorb too large a part of the profits the rate is raised accordingly. It is not only the damage to the honey which results in a loss to the railroad but the damage to other goods which may happen to be in the same car with the broken package. As an example may be cited a case where a broken package of honey damaged a shipment of silk. The railroad had to pay for both the honey and the silk, the latter, of course, worth many times the value of the honey. In many cases the damage from broken packages could be avoided if the producer would use sufficient care in preparing his shipment. It is easy to see that in the end the entire loss must be borne by the honey pro
**GETING THE IRONY TO MARKET 139 ducer.** The careful shipper must divide the expense with the careless one, since the freight rate is made high enough to cover all such losses in addition to the operating expenses of the railroad.
The writer was for a time engaged in the practice of law and never during the years when his time was so occupied did he find any difficulty in getting a fair settlement for a client for loss or damage in shipment by freight. Some railroads are much more prompt in payment than others, but all with whom we had any dealings seemed entirely willing to make good any loss for which they were responsible. There was never any necessity to start suit on cases of this kind, for once proper proof of loss was presented settlement was secured without difficulty. The attitude of the railroads seemed fair enough and if it were possible for them to get into touch with the shippers and make clear the difficulties under which they work there would be much less friction because of high freight rates.
If the beekeepers desire to reduce freight rates, the first move to make is to educate the shipper to use more care in packing for shipment and thus reduce the amount of damage. If the careless man can be kept from shipping improperly crated honey there will be no difficulty in getting a reduction of freight rates on this commodity. Until then all honey shippers must contribute something to pay the losses.
Value of Attractive Packages.--When a man goes into the large markets and sees the large variety of products that are offered, he at once learns that in order to appeal to the consumer any commodity to be used for food must be offered in the most attractive form possible. The writer saw a very good example of that in one of the well-known commission houses when a retailer came in to make a purchase with which to supply his trade. There
## Getting the Honey to Market 11
was a liberal supply of extracted honey in sixty-pound cans on the floor of the warehouse. He examined the various lots with a good deal of care, sampling each lot two or three times to make sure that the quality was good. The thing that impressed the writer, however, was not the care this man used in looking for the best flavor, but that he refused to sample honey in rusty cans. There was one shipment in cans that were rusty on top and which had a rather unattractive appearance generally. He sampled honey only in bright new cans that did not show a particle of rust. When the writer asked the convnission man about the difference in price he was informed that they were compelled to sell the honey in rusty cans at from one to three cents per pound less. In spite of the difference in price this buyer would not even look at it. Probably the shipper of that lot of honey will blame the commission merchant and charge him with stealing a dollar ortwo per case on the shipment. It surely is a poor policy to save fifteen cents by using a second-hand can in which to ship the honey to market and lose from sixty cents to one dollar and eighty cents per can in making the sale. If the writer had not already been convinced of the value of new packages for honey this observation would have convinced him.
**H**owever, another example was in store, with comb honey this time. The honey was well graded and in new shipping cases, but seconds had been used which showed dark streaks of wood instead of the clean white of the first quality shipping cases. This was on the floor of another store so that the two examples did not occur in the same establishment. Although the honey was of about the same quality, the more attractive package sold for fifty cents more per case than the other. Someone had bought inferior cases and had probably saved a few cents in the price, but it cost two centsper pound in the selling price of the honey. The producer who must sell in a distant market should insist on the best possible quality in shipping cases, and before placing an order for supplies should know that the quality is **O**. **K**.
In this establishment the writer was shown a model shipment of comb honey. The grading was remarkably uniform, the sections were perfectly cleaned and the cases as clean and white as one could wish. This honey was selling at the highest price the market would afford.
Attracting the Consumer.--After noting the great advantage that attractive packages had in wholesale sales the writer was more interested than ever in the retail package. Retail stores were visited in the best part of Chicago where the rents paid for space would make most of us gasp. These stores sell to high-class trade and they are as neat and clean as a parlor. The first one visited offered " Airline " honey. When asked if they handled no other kind they replied that they did not. The writer then enquired whether it was because the public insisted on " Airline," owing to its advertising, that they handled no other. The reply was that it was because of the clean packages in which it was offered. The salesmun then showed the comb honey in clean tight cartons, and the extracted jars wrapped in oil paper. There was no drip and every separate section or jar was as nice and clean as any other line which they had on their shelves. The public asked for " Airline " honey because of its advertising, but most buyers would as readily accept any other if equally attractive. This dealer handled " Airline " honey because it was clean and saved him the annoyance of dirty packages. The reason was clear enough and we went out to find a store that handled something else. We found it but a few doors away and the honey was the only sticky package that we found in that store. The extracted honey packages were sealed in the ordinary way and nearly every one showed a slight drip down one side. This little streak of honey would catch all the dust and thus it soon became anything but attractive. The label was printed in only one color so that altogether there was no comparison in the appearance of the brands. **H**ad the writer been in search of honey for his own table it is easy to guess which he would buy if he knew nothing of either producer. Furthermore, he left the store with the feeling that he had learned some lessons which he could utilize to good advantage in marketing his own honey crop. One does not have to look far to see that money spent in putting up our product in the most attractive package will come back several times over when we sell the crop.
Package Must Fit the Trade.--This brings us to another consideration; the kind of package in which to ship. This depends altogether on the trade to which the honey is to be sold. If to a buyer who will sell it again under his own trade name it should have no mark of any kind excepting the net weight which the law requires. If, on the other hand, it is to be sold through some regular channel which recognizes the producer's trade-mark as an asset it should be labelled with the producer's own mark. In one warehouse there was a big pile of shipping cases marked " J. E. Crane & Son, Middlebury, VT." One of the cases was opened and some of the sections removed. They were very nice and each was wrapped in a clean carton with the Crane name and the usual printed matter. The dealer remarked that he had been handling Crane honey for nearly thirty years. In this case the honey was known to the buyer and the name was a guarantee of quality. But a few weeks before the writer had asked for honey in the Boston market and had been shown a jar of extracted honey with the Crane label. There is no question but that it is greatly to the advantage of the seller to market his best product under his own trade name when he can do so. However, it often happens that when he goes into a strange market the only buyers who will present themselves will be those who buy to sell again under their own name and such would not buy honey with the individual trade-mark. It is well to correspond with the commission merchant with whom one expects to deal and learn something of the market requirements. Some of the largest sellers of honey in the Middle West have a trade which they supply with comb honey in their own cartons and with each case they send a placard for advertising purposes. This trade has come to look for the brand. Honey sold to this trade is placed in the cartons and repacked after it reaches their warehouse. Of course, not all of the honey that passes through their hands is handled in this manner.
General Requirements--The writer interviewed a number of dealers both wholesale and retail. When asked for some general advice to the honey seller they agreed on the following:Sell through a firm that specializes in honey, for such a firm can get a better price. Be very careful about grading and packing and use corrugated paper lining for the shipping cases to catch drip. All agreed that in general comb honey sells better in bright wood shipping case with glass, than in corrugated paper cases, and usually arrives in better condition.
The railroad claim agents gave the following advice in regard to shipping: Use only factory-nade shipping cases and load the honey so that the combs will be parallel with the rails. This will place the shock of shipment on the edges instead of face of combs. Use cement-coated rails since they hold better, and use cushioned carriers. Stencil name and address on the package instead of using a shipping tag put on with tacks. Tags often get rubbed off and the shipment goes astray while the stenciled address cannot be lost. Also avoid as far as possible the shipment of comb honey in cold weather.
## Chapter XII enemies and diseases of bees