BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
**Perhaps the best system in vogue is the Swarthmore System, originated by the late E. R. Pratt of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and, with the few inexpensive appliances purchasable at almost any supply house, one can raise as many queens as are needed. This system requires a number of little wooden
cell cups which are filled with melted beeswax, and with a small hand press made for the purpose, the rudimentary of the queen cell is made.
Into each one of these little cell cups a larva must be placed, and a small piece of wire is made for this purpose.
While a colony will accept these little cells, and supply the larvae with the necessary food, yet it is best to make a colony queenless several days before the larvae are grafted, and from the natural cells a small quantity of the royal jelly can be placed in each wooden cup with the grafted larvae, as the bees more readily start on such cells than on those that are not so supplied.
The larva is taken from the worker cells of the colony from whose queen you desire to rear queens, and must be not more than about three days old, as such larvae alone can be depended upon for good queens. If you secure a larva that is only a day old, so much the better, and in lifting it from the worker
as there is no brood present from which they can raise one, and it is this condition that induces them to accept the queen cups you give them and work on them at once.
The top of the swarm box is so cut out that
a couple of cell bars are fitted to it, and in each of these bars are sixteen little waxed cups which close the holes, and in which you will place the transferred larvae, about four o'clock. At four o'clock, go to some colony whose queen is a choice one and lift out a frame that has a lot of larvae not over three days old, shake off all the bees, and carry it to the house. See that the room in which you are to do the grafting is heated to at least eighty degrees so as not to chill the larvae when grafted. Lift out one of the cell cups and place a dummy
**R AISING QUEEN BEES**
**cell cup in the hole it occupied in the cell bar. Cutting open a cell taken from the colony that was made queenless to rear them, transfer alittle royal jelly to the base of the artificial cell, stir it a trifle with the little metal - spoon, and then with the wire grafting needle, gently lift a tiny grub or larva from the frame of the brood at hand, place it in the bottom of the cup right in the midst of the royal jelly, and put it in the hole occupied by the dummy cup. Proceed in like manner with the other cups, and when all have been attended to, the frame of the brood can be returned to the colony from which it was taken. Now cover the swarm box with a blanket for warmth, and leave it in a warm room until the following morning, and when, on the marrow, you lift out a cup to examine it, you will be surprised to find that the imprisoned bees will have accepted the majority of larvae given them and will have fed them liberal allowances of royal jelly, and will have built down the cell to nearly an inch in length.**How to keep bees for profit
As soon as the little cells have been started, they should be given to some strong colony to complete. Formerly, the custom was to make a colony queenless before grafting cells, and to give the started cells to that colony to complete, but since we now have the little incubating cages, and perforated zinc queen-excluders, we are able to give the started cells to a queenright colony for completion, as the zinc allows the workers free access to the cells, and at the same time excludes the queen from destroying them. If your colonies are occupying but one body for the brood nest, it will be necessary to use a holding frame fitted with an incubating cage in its top; this frame can be placed in the centre of any strong colony having a queen, the cell bar holding sixteen of the started cells can be slipped into the top of the cage, and the frame put in place in a strong colony. In about ten days the cells will be all sealed over and ready to be transferred to individual cages in which each virgin will hatch by herself and be safe from being de stroyed, as would be the case if they were a permitted to hatch in one compartment. If the colony to which the cells have been given for completion is a strong one, and is occupying two brood bodies one above the other, it will be a very simple matter to place the queen down in the lower brood body, and between it and the upper story a queen-excluding zinc, which keeps her below; in this case as many as three bars of cells can be given to the upper story, each bar being put in the holding frame without the incubator cage.
When the cells are about twelve days old from the time the egg was laid, remove them, and put each one by itself in one of the little nursery cages. As many as forty-eight of these little cages can be secured firmly in an empty frame, and the frame given back to the strong colony to keep warm until the virgin queens shall hatch, which will be in sixteen days from the time the eggs were laid.
There is a little compartment in each of the nursery cages in which should be placed a small quantity of candy made from mixing pulverized sugar with honey until it makes a stiff dough, so that the virgins will be provided with food when they emerge, in case the bees refuse to feed them through the wire netting, which they often do.
After the cells are completed, the only thing the bees do for the cell is to maintain the proper temperature of about ninety-eight degrees, and again and again I have hatched choice queens in an ordinary chicken incubator by keeping it at the required temperature. The cells taken care of by the bees, however, show a larger percentage of hatch, as the bees will gnaw the ends of the cells given to their care until they are as thin as paper, which is a great aid to the virgin in getting out.
Going back to the time of taking the cells from the swarm box, after the cells are removed, the imprisoned bees can be shaken at the entrance of the hive from which they were taken, and they are glad indeed to join their fellows. By the Doolittle Method, the breader has to make his own cells by dipping a wooden rake tooth in melted wax, and sticking it to a bar of wood with more or less danger of its becoming detached, and it is difficult to handle such cells individually.
The Swarthmore System is superior to either the Alley or the Doolittle System, as they compel the queen-rearer to permit the bees to start the cells on a strip of brood comb under the Alley Method, and the objection to this is that there is more or less risk in injuring the queens when cutting the cells from the combs, to say nothing of the nuisance of having each cell all raged at its top in handling.
The Swarthmore plan has every advantage, as each cell is fastened in a little wooden cup, and can even be handled roughly without fear of injury, and as for cell-starting, it is more convenient than any other system.
Now that your virgins have been hatched, the next thing is to mate them, and the small mating-box does this effectually, and does in our to keep bees for profit
away with the old method of having to use a full colony for each queen mated. Virgins may be given to a queenless colony and allowed to mate from them, but great care will have to be exercised in introducing them, as a colony will not accept them as readily as a queen that has mated and begun to lay. Then again if the beekeeper is rearing queens with which to supply the trade, the demand is for mated and laying queens, and it becomes a necessity to have them mated before being sold.
The best mating-box is the Root twin mating-box, which is so divided in the centre that each compartment contains two small combs that have been built in a strong colony; and as there are two small entrances to the box, each little nucleus of bees has the spirit of a colony.
When the virgins have hatched, take the small mating-boxes to a strong colony, and into each compartment of the mating-box brush about a teacupful of bees, being careful not to secure the queen; securely close the entrance of each compartment and remove the imprisoned bees to a shady place. About four in the afternoon run a virgin in at the entrance to each compartment, and if the bees were shaken in about ten o'clock in the morning, fully realizing their queenlessness, they will gladly accept her. Toward night, the entrance can be opened, and in the morning you will find that the miniature colony will have the spirit of a full colony, with their sentinels posted at the tiny entrance. In a few days the virgin will fly from this box and mate, and when you find that she has begun to lay, she can be used or sold as an untested queen.
An untested queen is one that has mated and begun to lay, and can be sold as a tested queen only after she has been kept laying long enough for some of her eggs to have hatched; and if the young bees prove by their markings that their mother has been purely mated, then she can be said to be a tested queen.
These little nuclei need encouraging, and How to keep be less for profit
it will be necessary to feed them a small quantity of syrup every other day in the little feeders that are a part of the hive. The syrup should be made of equal parts of hot water and granulated sugar.
**Many queen-rearers,** when they put a virgin into the mating-boxes, also put another
A queen's egg under the microscope.
in on its floor, imprisoned in its nursery cage so that it soon acquires the odor of the little nucleus. When the first virgin has mated and is removed, the caged virgin can be liberated at once, for the bees will accept her, as she has the proper odor. This procedure can be carried on all through the season, a caged virgin being placed in each compartment as soon as a mated queen is sold and another virgin liberated.
How to keep be less for profit
with the honey dough previously described. Open the hive to which she is to be introduced, and after tearing away the little piece of wire or paper that covers the hole to the compartment where the dough is stored, py apart a couple of frames in the centre of the queenless colony and slip the cage with the queen in it down between them with the candy side down, and leave the colony undisturbed for three or four days.
During this time the queen will be acquiring the odor of the colony, and the wall of candy will prevent the bees from getting at her to kill her, which they would do if they could the first day or so, but by the time the bees have eaten their way through to her and made a passage for her to get out, she will usually have become so impregnated with the odor of the colony that they will accept her.
In rare cases, however, they will destroy her, and sometimes even if they do not do this, they are suln about accepting her, and will upon your opening the hive "ball her," in which case you will find a large ball of angry bees, trying to kill her; but this can be broken up at once by filling the smoker with tobacco and sending clouds of tobacco smoke through the hive and at the cluster, and this seems to have the effect of making them all smell alike, thus averting all further trouble.
Every colony has its distinctive odor, and it is by this the bees recognize each other, as well as their queen, and the reason we cannot liberate a strange queen at once is that she has an odor from the hive or mating box from which she was taken; for this reason we are compelled to let her hang in the colony to which she is introduced for a few days until she has the odor of her new home. It may seem strange, but you can take a laying queen from her bees and hold her in your hand for a few minutes, and, when you will put her back in her regular hive the bees will ball her at once, thinking she is a strange queen simply because of her contact with your hand, and the odor she derives from it.
Whether you keep few colonies or many, make it a point to raise some queens if only for the fun of the thing, for it is intensely interesting work; and should you need a large number of queens as your colonies increase, it will prove a considerable saving to raise them yourself.
Those of us who keep a large number of colonies know that every year or so we find that we have a queen of rare worth, whose offspring are beautifully marked, remarkably gentle, and as honey-gatherers are hustlers, and it pays to breed from this queen, and in time make all the bees of this strain.
## Chapter X How to produce comb honey
TONEX is marketed in two forms, either as comb honey, in the individual one-pound sections in which the bees store it, or as extracted honey, this being extracted from the large brood combs used in an upper story above the brood nest, the queen being prevented from laying her eggs in the extracting-combs by means of a perforated zinc board, which confines her below, at the same time giving the workers access to them for storing. Whether the beekeeper proposes to produce comb or extracted honey, it is very necessary that the colonies shall be strong at the time of the honey flow, and this can only be brought about by seeing that every colony put into winter quarters is strong, supplied with ample stores, and, ifintered outdoors, is fully protected.
When the old-fashioned box hives were the thing, the principal way the surplus was gathered was by brimstoning the bees, a bar-barous method to say the least, and when the bees were killed, the combs were cut out and set aside for use.
At best, this is an untidy method, and the combs secured are often more or less filled with brood and pollen, and such honey seldom finds a ready sale.
With the advent of the modern hive, it is possible to secure comb honey of snowy whiteness, in little boxes containing about a each, and, best of all, the colony does not have to be sacrificed, but is still in possession of the brood nest, with ample stores for winter, and ready for the next season's work.
In the production of comb honey under obsolete methods, twenty-five to thirty pounds was considered a good yield per colony, but with the modern lives with section box supers it is possible to produce three and four times that amount of the choicest honey imaginable.
While it is possible to secure a good surplus from any strong colony in an average season, with the ordinary lives having the full depth brood frames, such as the Hoffman Self-Spacing frames, yet a good many progressive beekeepers are adopting a shallower hive, as tests have proved that the shallower brood nest compels the bees to store more of their honey up in the sections where the comb-honey producer wants it. F\({}_{
m cr}\) the production of comb honey, there are no better lives on the market than the Danzenbaker and similar hives, several kinds of which are manufactured, all how to keep bees for profit having a brood nest about four inches shall lower than the ordinary hive.
Let us suppose that the winter is past and that the spring has come, and that with the first warm days of April, each and every colony has been looked over, and those that were found to be queenless were given queens, and those that were weak have been strengthened by giving them frames of sealed brood and bees from the stronger hives, so that things are generally equalized.
In transferring frames of bees and brood to the weaker colonies, be sure that you do not take from the stronger colonies the frame containing their queen, or else you will needlessly sacrifice her, since the colony to which she is given will destroy her, while the colony from which she was taken will be made needlessly queenless and will lose time and honey in having to rear a new one.
As fruit bloom comes on, examine the brood frames of a few colonies, and if the cells near the top bars are sealed with nice new white
## How to produce com b honey
cappings, indicating that the flow is well under way, then make haste to have the super cases
all filled with the little section boxes with a full sheet of thin comb foundation in each box.
It is a good thing, if many sections are to be put together, to attend to this work during theHow to keep bees for profit
slack winter months, and thus have them all in readiness for the flow, as a good deal of worry will be saved thereby.
The little section boxes are made of white basswood and are grooved at the places where they are to be bent to put together, and before putting them together it is an excellent thing
Different methods of cutting foundations for the sections,
to lay a lot of them on a table, so that the grooves will all coincide, and then pour a little hot water from a teakettle over the grooves, as this will make the wood soft and flexible and save the breaking of many a section.
The foundation should be cut in strips just long enough to almost fill the section boxes, leaving a space of about a half inch at the bottom and about a sixteenth of an inch space at the sides, as it is necessary only to secure
All the strong colonies should be treated alike, and by the time the clover honey begins to come in the bees will be at work in a state of great activity in the sections, and when an examination \(\stackrel{{\mbox{ iny$arepsilon$}}}{{\mbox{ iny$\cdot$}}}\) the supers shows that the sections are nearly all drawn out and filled, it is time to give the colony another super case of sections.
Instead, however, of putting the
additional one on top, it must be slipped in between the super in which the bees are already working and the brood body, as tests have proved that the bees will more readily accept it and start to work in it than if it were placed on top.
By doing this, the bees that are working in the super on top are compelled to pass through the empty one in order to get to the one in which they are working, and thus become familiar with it, and, being near the brood nest, it is accepted.
When it is found that the colony has pretty nearly filled the second one, and the field indications are that the flow is to continue, a third super can be placed beneath the upper two, and so on, one at a time, until sometimes as many as four or five may be placed on the hive. This is called tiering.
Tiering, however, should be carried on with caution, and no more supers given to each colony than it is able to take care of, and if the honey flow shows any signs of a cessation, no more supers should be given, or else there will be a lot of unfinished and unsalable sections on hand; whereas if the colony had only been given as many as they could take care of, and finish a nice surplus of, nearly all finished sections will be secured. No rule can be laid down; the beekeeper must be governed by the condition of the colony, and the local flora, and, using his best judgment, give to each colony individual treatment.**
**As I look out over my own apiary, I find that some colonies have but one super, others have two, while a goodly number have as many as three and four, varying according to the rapidity with which each colony fills its sections.**
**Sometimes the bees will sulk and refuse to enter the supers, preferring to cluster on the outside of the hive, and in some instances will swarm with ample storage room, and when such is the case the beekeeper must resort to some method of compelling them to go above and get to work. This can often be accomplished by the use of bait sections, that are partially completed, and can either be had from some left over from the previous season, or a few can be taken from the supers of colonies that are working well, and three or four of them scattered among the empty sections in the supers on the sulking colony. It is astonishing how quickly this will set some
## How to produce com hony
sulkers to work, so that in a day or so the colony will be working with rim and energy, in striking contrast to their idleness of a few days before.
If this does not work, another good plan is to give the colony a good smoking, driving almost the entire force up into the supers, and often this will accomplish the desired result, but should this not succeed, then there is one plan more that can be worked, which I have never known to fail. Lift from a good working colony, in which the bees are working in full blast on the sections, the entire super, bees and all, and place it on the sulking hive, and it will not be long before the colony will catch the fever of the force above and begin to work, and as the bees transferred will return to the hive from which they were taken, no loss of its working force will ensue. A disadvantage of smoking the bees out of the comb honey supers is that as soon as we smoke them a lot of bees are certain to uncap many cells in their endeavor to fill up before going below,How to keep bees for profit
and this will spoil the looks and sale of otherwise perfect sections.
Comb as well as extracted honey usually comes from two flows, the early or light honey, and the late or dark honey; they should be separated, as the early light clover honey is of lighter color than the late, and, being of more delicate flavor, is worth more per pound. For this reason most beekeepers take off the early surplus as soon as the flow is over, which is usually the middle of July, and, removing the honey to a safe place, give back the supers, or extracting-cases as the case may be, for the later fall flow.
Nothing is gained and much is lost by leaving all the surplus on till the fall, for in the case of the early honey the nice white combs will become travel-stained and unsightly and not bring the top-notch prices, so for this reason it is best to take the honey off as soon as it is sealed, for when it is sealed it is fully ripe and ready for use or sale.
There is really only one satisfactory way to take off comb honey, and that is by means of a bee escape board, having a Porter bee escape in it that escapes all the bees into the brood nest below, thus enabling us to take off the surplus without having to smoke the bees below, and getting a lot of stings.
The bee escape boards are furnished by the supply houses, and are used in the following manner : --
First lift all the supers from the hive and slip the bee escape board on top of the brood nest, and place the supers on top of the escape board. In twenty-four hours all of the bees will have passed out below, and, being unable to get back again through the trap, the supers will be completely emptied without the aid of smoke and no uncapping of cells. The best time to put on the bee escape board will be late in the afternoon after the bees have ceased flying, and by the following evening the supers free of bees will be ready to come off.
These supers with their section boxes should be stored in a warm room secure from the
How to keep bees for profit
bees, for should the bees find them, they will steal the honey, and carry it back to their hives in short order. For this reason see that it is stored in a safe place until you are ready to take the sections of honey from the supers and pack in shipping-cases.
When you are ready to put your comb honey in marketable shape, it will be necessary to take the sections out and with the blade of a sharp knife, scrape from the wood of the section boxes the propolis or bee glue, more or less of which will be on the boxes, but be careful and not jab the combs.
At best, there will always be some unfinished sections on hand, but their number can be greatly reduced by a little care.
As we stated above, nothing is gained by leaving the combs on the hive after they have been sealed, but the having a number of unfinished sections can be avoided by waiting until narly all the combs are sealed, and when this condition is reached, the supers should be taken off by aid of the bee escape board
## 10.11 How to produce com h money
and the fully sealed or finished sections removed from them. If the bees are working nicely, there will be very few of the unfinished sections on a hive, and these can be separated from the finished ones, and be placed in supers by themselves, and returned to the bees immediately, and if the flow lasts a few days longer, they will practically all be finished.