BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
**Winter Protection.** A natural wind break, such as a thicket of blackberry or other shrubery, an evergreen hedge, or such woods as will not allow the wind to sweep thru under the trees, is essential for proper wintering. It is absolutely necessary that the apiary be located in a place where the wind in winter is practically eliminated. Artificial windbreaks such as closed board fences often do more harm than good, by causing whirls that destroy many colonies. Buildings are also unsatisfactory since they usually serve only to divert the wind.
Probably the best method of protecting bees during the winter is according to the plan outlined in Farmers' Bulletin 1020 of the United States Department of Agriculture. Briefly this plan is as follows: The hives are arranged previously in groups of four, two facing in an opposite direction from the other two, and about one foot apart. The winter case is best made out of 8-inch shiplap, large enuf to accommodate four 10-frame two story hives, with additional four inches of space below the hives, six inches around the sides of the hives (these are now placed close together) and 8 inches on top of the hives. All this extra space is filled up with sawdust, shavings, excelsior, or dry leaves. The entrance of the hives leads thru a tunnel and a series of holes bored in the side of the case to the outside. The top is covered with roofing paper and made so that the contents of the case will remain perfectly dry in all kinds of weather.
These wintering cases are being used at the experiment station and by a few of the beekeepers in the state. While they represent a considerable outlay, they also bring very good results, and if properly cared for will last for many years.
Various other methods of wintering, some of them less expensive than the one outlined above, are fully discussed in the books on beekeeping listed on page 32.
**Winter Stores.** An ample supply of winter stores is just as important as adequate protection. There must be a sufficient supply of stores to keep the bees thruout the winter, and also to meet the demand occasioned by early brood rearing. Thirty pounds of honey is often given as the amount necessary to keep a colony thruout the winter. This will perhaps do for small colonies. For strong colonies fifty pounds will be a better and safer estimate. Not only the quantity of winter stores, but also their quality must receive due consideration by the beekeeper. Winter stores and feeding are more fully discussed on page 39.
**Spring Management.** This has for its chief aims to rear a large number of worker bees in each colony, and to prevent swarming.
If the bees have had ample protection in the winter, they are likely to come thru in good condition, and it is better not to disturb them too early in the spring. However, they may have run short of stores, and therefore a superficial examination on a warm day is advisable. In case the stores are exhausted, the colony must be fed (see page 39). Colonies that have come thru the winter in a very weak condition should be united. A colony that does not have enuf bees to cover two frames should be united with a strong colony, (see uniting, page 39) to prevent robbing.
A careful examination of all the colonies should be made as soon as warm weather sets in to determine whether or not any colonies are queenless, and whether or not sufficient stores are present in the combs. A fertile and vigorous queen is recognized by the presence of a generous amount of evenly deposited worker brood. If there is a large amount of drone comb in a hive, or if the colony is queenless, it should be united to a strong colony, taking the necessary precautions to prevent fighting. At this time of the year uniting a queenless colony with a strong one having a good queen is better than requesting. While queens may be secured from queen breeders located in the extreme Southern states; requeeing is not advised for such colonies at this time because of the frequent delay in the delivery of queens. Weak colonies should never be made to rear their own queens, because such queens rarely render good service.
The colonies should now be examined from time to time when the weather permits. Care must, of course, be taken not to open the hives on very cool days because it may result in chilling of the brood and causing it to die. At this time the beekeeper should see that the brood nest expands properly. If necessary, he can aid in this process by a judicious spreading of the brood.
A very important need for the bees in spring is a constant and ample supply of fresh water. If there is no small stream near by, fresh water should be provided in some other way.
In some localities there is at times a dearth of pollen in the early spring when brood rearing is begun. Some authorities have recommended various kinds of flour or meal as a substitute for pollen. While the bees will greedily gather flour when pollen is not available this does not prove that it is a good substitute. As a matter of fact it is not, for the bees cannot digest the large amount of starch present in the substitutes. Moreover, in Arkansas where soft maples, elms, and willows are common all over the state, the bees will rarely if ever lack the required amount of pollen.
### Swarming
Nature has given bees the instinct to swarm under certain conditions. It is the natural method of making new colonies, the perpetuation of the species. For this reason swarming cannot be eliminated. However, it can be largely controlled, and the losses due to swarming can be almost entirely prevented. When the bees get the desire to swarm they start a number of queen cells. Under favorable weather conditions the old queen with a large portion of the bees leaves the hive shortly before the first of the young queens emerges.
In the years past beekeepers have been in the habit of measuring their success in terms of swarms that issued during the season. At the present, however, success is based solely on the amount of surplus honey produced. The two do not go together; if a surplus is to be gained, swarming must be kept under control.
### Swarm Control
In attempting to control swarming, one should know the cause. As stated above, the primary cause for swarming is the instinct that prompts bees to leave the hive under certain conditions. Another way of stating this is that we don't know the primary cause of swarming. However, we do know what some of the contributing factors are when bees are swarming. These are principally crowding and overheating or lack of ventilation. Evidence that either of these fartors is at work is seen when the bees cluster on the outside of the hive. Since definite preparation for swarming is easily recognized by the appearance of queen cells, swarming can be to some extent prevented by examining the colony every seven days and destroying all the queen cells.
Clipping the Queen. By cutting off the wings on one side, one-eighth of an inch from the base, the queen is rendered unable to fly. A swarm, if it does issue, will not leave without the queen and is therefore easily hived. Clipping the queen is a very common practice and is usually done when examining the bees for the second time in spring.
More important, however, in swarm control is plenty of room. In spring when a heavy flow is on, and brood rearing almost at its height, one single story 10-frame hive does not provide enuf room for a strong colony. Supers or extra hive bodies must be provided as soon as needed. If there is a lack of room in the hive the bees get too hot because so many of them are moving around in the limited space. If there is a large number of young bees in the brood chamber, it gets too warm. All this creates discontent among the bees, a spirit that seizes also the field workers and causes them to remain at home, thus still more increasing the congestion. The discontent develops into the swarming impulse. By providing sufficient room, moving some of the brood into the upper story, or adding it to a weaker colony, and by providing proper shade, the congestion and overheating are prevented and the swarming impulse does not develop.
Even when the bees have the full entrance, (seven-eights of an inch clear across the hive) which should always be given except in case when there is danger of robbing, on warm and saltry days they will cluster on the outside of the hive because of lack of proper ventilation. This is remedied by raising up the front end of the hive, from the bottom and inserting small blocks of wood about an inch thick.
The different manipulations that aid in swarm control, briefly summarized are in order of their importance; (1) providing plenty of room for brood and stores, (2) allowing for necessary ventilation by giving full entrance, and more if necessary, (3) clipping the queen's wings, and (4) examining the colony every 7 to 10 days and destroying all queen cells. This manipulation will probably be found necessary only if the beekeeper produces comb honey. In the case of extracted honey the bees usually need to be disturbed only a few times during the summer.
**Hiving a Swarm.** If a swarm issues from a hive and is accompanied by the queen it usually settles in a tree nearby. Here it may remain for several hours. Apparently the bees do this in order to make sure that the queen is with them. Sometimes a colony in which the queen has been clipped makes an effort to get away, a large number of bees will leave the hive and some of them may settle in a tree nearby. However, they soon discover that the queen has remained behind and as a rule they speedily return to the hive.
A swarm, when it has settled in a tree, may easily be hived by removing it either by cutting off the twig on which the bees have settled or by shaking the swarm into a large sack. The bees are then shaken directly into a hive equipped with frames and full sheets of foundation. Sometimes bees settle on the trunk of a tree or in some other place from which they cannot easily be removed. In this case a branch of a tree or an inverted basket is placed over the swarm and with the aid of a little smoke the bees are induced to ascend into this branch or basket. Bees in the act of swarming are in a peacable mood and rarely cause much trouble to the operator. To make sure that the bees will not forsake the new hive it is well to place a wire entrance guard over the entrance and leave it there for the remainder of the day.
**Artificial Increase.** If an increase in the number of colonies is desired, this may be accomplished by allowing some of them to swarm, and hiving each swarm as it issues. This requires rather close attention, and even then the issuing swarm may get away.
**A very common method of artificial increase is the one known as the "shaking" method. When evidences of swarming appear in a colony, the hive with its contents is placed to one side, and in its place is put a new hive equipped with frames and full sheets of foundation. The super is taken from the old hive and placed on the new hive. The combs are then taken from the old hive and the bees are shaken in front of the new hive.**
**The queen, of course, must first be located and placed in the new hive. By shaking her off she may easily be injured or lost. The old hive with the brood and some young bees is now put in another place. When shaking bees from off the frames it will be noticed that the young bees are not so easily shaken off as are the old bees. In order to give the brood proper protection it is well to leave a considerable number of young bees on the combs and return them to the old hive. If no bees are left with the brood in the old hive a large proportion of it may get chilled or starve to death. To prevent robbing the entrance should be almost closed up with grass or weeds. The bees in this hive will care for the brood and also rear a queen, so that after about 21 days it will be a complete colony. A better plan than allowing the bees to rear a queen will be to give them a ripe queen cell, (one that has been capped over, and in which the queen is nearly ready to emerge). This will save considerable time, and furthermore, such a queen will probably be better than the one reared by a relatively small number of young bees.
Another method of artificial increase is to remove the queen and four or five frames with bees and brood and place them in a new hive in another location. The extra space in both hives is filled up with frames having full sheets of foundation. In the old hive, if none are present, a ripe queen cell should be given to the colony. If such is not available, the bees will rear a queen.
### Uniting Colonies
If in the fall the beekeeper finds that some of the colonies have been dwindling and are not in the condition to winter well, he should unite them so as to form strong colonies. Nothing is lost by uniting; even if the number of colonies is decreased, the number of bees remains the same. There is this to gain: a weak colony may be robbed out in fall or early spring, while a strong one will not. A method of uniting very commonly used is the one devised by Dr. C. C. Miller. This method is essentially as follows: The poorer queen of the two, or the queen of the weaker colony is first killed. The cover is removed from the stronger colony, and two thicknesses of newspaper are placed over the hive so as to leave no openings. The hive with the weaker colony is now lifted from its bottom board and placed on the newspaper covering the stronger colony. The cover of the upper hive should be slightly raised, about one-sixteenth of an inch, to allow for a little ventilation. By the time that the bees work through the newspaper separating the two colonies, which may be 24-28 hours, they will have become "acquainted" and little or no fighting will take place.
### Feeding
Feeding the bees often becomes necessary for various reasons. When bees are transferred to a new hive with nothing but full sheets of foundation because of foul brood, or for any other reason, they should be fed once or twice. Many beekeepers feed the bees in spring to stimulate brood rearing. Feeding is more especially important, however, in fall when the bees have failed to gather a sufficient quantity of honey to last them thru the winter. In the fall the stores should be carefully estimated and any shortage should be made up by feeding. A 10 frame Langstroth live with bees, pollen, and combs, but without cover, is generally estimated to weigh about 30-35 pounds. So the approximate amount of stores is obtained by subtracting30 pounds from the total weight of the hive including all but the cover.
Another simple method of estimating stores is to count the number of frames fairly filled up with honey, figuring five pounds of honey in one frame. Seven frames well filled are sufficient to maintain a small colony thruout the winter. If the colony is a strong one it must have more.
If the bees are well protected against cold weather they may in case of an emergency, be fed on mild days during the winter; but it is much better to feed them before cold weather sets in. If the bees have sufficient stores to last them thru the winter but not till the spring honey flow; feeding may be delayed until warm weather of spring sets in.
White honey from sweet clover or from holly, or from cotton is probably the best material for feeding provided the beekeeper is certain that the colonies that provide the supply are free from fuel brood. A syrup made of \(2\) parts of granulated cane sugar to one part of water will serve very well for feeding. This syrup is prepared as follows: The mixture of sugar and water is heated to boiling in order to dissolve the sugar, then one ounce of tartaric acid to every 40-50 pounds of sugar is added. The acid inverts the sugar and retards granulation in the combs. When feeding is done in the summer in only a limited way a one-to-one mixture without the tartaric acid will do very well.
Various devices for feeding are offered among beekeepers' supplies. Among these the Doolittle division board feeder is perhaps the most commonly used. A tin can with a friction top into which a number of holes have been punched, when placed upside down on top of the frames inside of an empty super or hive body, answers the purpose. Another method of feeding is to put the syrup in a shallow dish or pan and place it on the frames inside of an empty super. To prevent any bees from drowning a number of snall shavings are put in the syrup, or a cotton cloth is spread over the pan large enuf to drop over the edges of the pan. The cloth should be large enuf so it can drop to the bottom of the pan as the syrup is removed.
### Robbing
During warm weather, especially when no honey is being brot in, bees are sometimes inclined to rob. Robbing is often caused by careless manipulations of the beekeeper. Leaving honey or combs exposed in the apiary may incite the bees to robbing. The same may take place during such tedious tasks as transferring bees from box hives.
Robbers are recognized by the fact that they enter the hive with the abdomen contracted, and leave with the abdomen distended flying straight home.
Robbing should be stopped at once by throwing a bunch of wet grass or weeds over the entrance of the attacked colony.
Any manipulations in progress should be stopped if possible.
Another method to stop robbing is to contract the entrance of the attacked colony to about a half an inch and wipe the front of the hive with a cloth dipped in kerosene or carbonic acid.
Colonies that have been weakened by disease, improper protection in winter, or queenlessness are likely to be robbed. This type of robbing is usually slow and done by one colony. The preventive here is not to maintain weak colonies.
**Honey Production.** For the beginner in bekeeping it is necessary to decide at the outset what kind of honey he wants to produce. The advantages and disadvantages of the two types, extracted and comb honey, deserve full consideration before the decision is made. To save the expense of an extractor which is needed in producing extracted honey, the beginner often decides in favor of comb honey. He overlooks the fact that to produce comb honey one must know bee behavior and must have more than a beginner's knowledge of bekeeping. Furthermore, comb honey can be produced with good results only in certain localities. In Arkansas the best localities for comb honey production are in the northeastern portion where there is an abundant growth of sweet and white clover; and in the southeastern and south central part of the state in the holly region. Besides these, certain localities in river bottoms are quite favorable for comb honey production.
This leaves a large portion of Arkansas which is not considered favorable for comb honey, because there is no honey flow that is exceedingly heavy. In most parts of the state there are several flows, as for instance in the northwestern portion, there is first the fruit bloom, then the sweet clover, and later in September the Bidens (Spanish needle). Taking these together they make possible a handsome profit for the bekeeper, but none of them is suitable for comb honey production. After the combs in extracting frames are once drawn by the bees they can be used again and again for a great many years, thus saving the bees the time and trouble of building combs.
These are decided advantages in favor of extracted honey. Furthermore, bees instinctively are disinclined to enter comb honey supers to build up combs and deposit honey in the sections. They must be forced in part by a very heavy honey flow and in part by clever manipulations by the bekeeeper. The beginner will find it much easier to produce extracted honey than comb honey. A colony will yield about twice as much extracted honey as comb honey. This, however, is partly balanced by the fact that comb honey often brings a price considerably above that of extracted honey.
Extracted honey can be marketed at all seasons of the year, it is readily shipped, and will keep for many years. Comb honey production is a very important tool for the development of the new honey.
honey, at good prices, sometimes has but a limited and unsteady demand, it is rather fragile for shipping and difficult to keep. On the other hand, it must not be overlooked that comb honey is an article of luxury that appeals to certain people and in a suitable locality and under the proper conditions the production of it provides a very handsome income.
**Extracted Honey.** This is the product that is removed from the combs by means of a machine known as an extractor. The advantages of it over comb honey and some of the essential manipulations have already been given in the preceding paragraphs. For an extracting super an ordinary hive body may be used, equipped with the regular frames, fitted with full sheets of foundation and wired in the usual way. A shallow super holding frames only 5\(\%\) inches deep has some advantage over the full sized hive body, because it is not so heavy and therefore more easily handled. The shallow frames are fitted with full sheets of foundation and wired like the full sized frames. It insures straight combs and renders them strong enuf to withstand the extracting process.
To prevent the queen from depositing eggs in the super a queen excluder is placed between the brood chamber and the super. Until recently, a sheet of perforated zinc was most commonly used for this purpose, but it is now being rapidly displaced by the wire-and-wood excluder (preferably 7-wire) which allows the workers to pass thru more freely. If there is a tendency for the bees to swarm, the use of the excluder is quite a problem. In this case it will not be wise to use it immediately before nor during a strong honey flow unless the bekeeper is at the same time pursuing a method of swarm control which involves the use of the excluder. During the last few weeks of the honey flow the excluder should be used to rid the super of brood. In this case the bekeeper must, of course, make sure that the queen is below the excluder.
The supers are placed on the hives in spring just before the honey flow sets in, provided the colony is strong enuf to warrant the expectation of a surplus. Before the first super is entirely filled, it should be raised and another one placed underneath it. This encourages the storing instinct, gives the bees plenty of room, and discourages swarming. Supers should not be removed from the hive until the honey is well ripened, which means when all, or nearly all, of the honey has been sealed over.
In removing the supers of honey the bees may be brushed or shaken off, or the supers may be cleared of bees by introducing a bee escape 24 hours before they are to be removed. The honey may be extracted as soon as the supers have been taken off; it will extract more readily if it is not allowed to cool.
Before putting the frames in the extractor, the combs are uncapped with a sharp knife that has been heated in hot water, or preferably with a steam heated knife. The uncapping is done over some vessel that receives the cappings. These are later melted up, or placed in a solar wax extractor.
Honey from different sources is often kept separate. This is especially important if there is a small amount of bitter weed honey, or some other honey with a disagreeable flavor. Extracted honey should be freed from particles of wax, either by straining it thru a cheese cloth, or allowing it to stand till the wax particles have all come to the surface. If stored in a dry place good extracted honey will keep for years.
Comb Honey. The production of comb honey can be handled successfully only by experienced beekeepers. Since this publication is intended for beginners in beekeeping this subject will not receive any further consideration here. Anyone who is interested may get the desired information by referring to Farmers' Bulletion 1039 (this may be secured by writing to the Experiment Station or to the U. S. Department of Agriculture).