BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
In packing bees to travel by road or rail, it is necessary to take care that the combs are not too heavily stored with honey, particularly in hot weather, as otherwise only a horrible mixture of dead bees, broken combs, and oozing honey, all lying in a mass at the bottom of the travelling crate or five, is likely to arrive at the journey's end.
In packing straw skeps for a journey, several thin pointed sticks (such as gardeners use for staking carnations and other tall growing flowers to) should be stuck right through the skeps in various directions three or four days before the bees are to be dispatched. The bees will then fasten the combs securely to these sticks which have been thrust through them, and the combs will be better held in place. The straw skep should then be turned bottom upwards, and two thicknesses of strong gauze or muslin tied over its bottom (now uppermost), and in this position (bottom uppermost) it should travel.
Bees, when forcibly confined to their hives in this way, are thrown into such a state of excitement that the temperature of the hive is raised immediately, and unless abundance of air were admitted the bees would be suffocated.
When stocks of bees on bar-frames are to be sent by road or rail a wooden frame covered with perforated zinc or fine mesh wire gauze must be screwed over the top of the hive as shown in fig. 44, and a piece of perforated zinc or wire gauze must also be nailed over the entrance of the hive, whilst the lower parts of the frames must be kept from jolting one against the other by means of a wooden distance rack (fig. 45), which is nailed to the floor of the hive or travelling
crate, and into the slots of which the bottom bars of the frames fit. Where metal ends (fig. 7) are used, these will keep the tops of the frames in place, otherwise another similar distance rack must be furnished at each end of the tops of the frames also, to keep them in their place.
**The Final and most Important Hint of all--The Golden Rule of Bee--Keeping--''Keep all Colonies Strong.''**
The bar-frame or movable comb hive, without which bee--keeping, as we understand it to-day, could never have existed, was invented by the Rev. L. L. Langstroth in October 1853. His book, ''The Hive and Honey Bee,'' is still, and is always likely to remain, the classic work on apiculture. The parting words of advice, with which he closes his classic, are as true and important to-day as when he wrote them seven and fifty years ago. ''The essence of all profitable bee-keeping,'' he says, ''is contained in the Golden Rule, ''Keep your Stocks Strong.'' If you cannot succeed in doing this, the more money you invest in bees, the heavier will be your losses ; while, if your stocks are strong, you will show you are a _bee-master_, as well as a bee-keeper, and may safely calculate on generous returns from your industrious subjects.''
* ''The Hive and Honey Bee,'' by L. L. Langstroth, revised by Dadant, is published by Dadant & Sons, Hamilton, Illinois, U.S.A., price $1.50. A reprint of the first edition, exactly as it was originally written, and which is of much greater interest to many lovers of bee-keeping, is also obtainable from the A. I. Root Co., of Medina, Ohio, U.S.A., price $1.00.
Figure 45: Wooden Distance Racks for keeping Bar-Frames in Place.
## Part II Be-Keeping in Hot Claims
## Chapter 2.2. _Be-Aeping in Hot climates_
**Thick Wood should be used for the construction of Bee-hives in Hot Climates.**
The first thing to note in keeping bees in hot climates is that the wood of which the bee-hives are made should be thick--at least \(
rac{7}{8}\) inch or 1 inch thick--firstly as being less liable to warp under the fierce rays of the sun, and secondly as affording more protection to the bees from the heat.
More attention also is necessary in shading hives that are very much exposed to the sun, and it is desirable whenever possible in arranging an apiary to keep the hives under the sheltering shade of trees and shrubs.
**Frequent Removal of Surplus Honey is advisable.**
In many parts of Australia and Africa, where the honey flow lasts practically throughout the year, it is found very necessary to remove the honey at frequent intervals, or the bees apparently become accustomed to the unfailing supply of their wants from field or veldt at every period of the year, and often show a tendency to gather but little surplus beyond their everyday requirements.
**The Best Method of artificially increasing the Number of Stocks of Bees in Hot Climates.**
In warm climates, where the honey flow lasts for many months out of each year, the number of our colonies of bees can be increased with much greater ease than in the cold climate of Great Britain, with its comparatively short honey flow. In these warm parts only a few hundred bees are required in each nucleus to insure the mating of the queens, provided that robbing is carefully guarded against; and the nuclei can subsequently be built up into strongcolonies with the greatest ease by giving combs of hatching brood at intervals of a few days, the chances of such brood being chilled by the paucity in number of bees to cover it being infinitely less than in England,
### Sections should be used as Miniature Frames in Baby Nucleus Hives.
In forming very small or "' Baby " nuclei, as they are called, the use of 11-inch by 41-inch sections in place of frames, or of tiny frames 41 inches by 41 inches inside measure (just large enough to hold one section), will be found very advantageous.
### South African Standard Size Frames.
In South Africa I long ago introduced a frame, similar to the British Standard size except that it is \(
rac{\delta}{4}\) inch deeper (_i.e._, \(9^{1}_{
rac{1}{4}}\) inches instead of \(8
rac{1}{2}\) inches deep) and the side bars are \(
rac{\delta}{4}\) inch thick instead of \(
rac{1}{4}\) inch, while the bottom bars are \(
rac{1}{4}\) inch thick instead of \(
rac{1}{8}\) inch. This leaves a space inside the bars of \(12^{3}_{
rac{1}{4}}\) inches by \(8^{1}_{
rac{1}{4}}\) inches, or exactly sufficient to hold six sections \(4^{1}_{
rac{1}{4}}\) inches by \(4^{1}_{
rac{1}{4}}\) inches.
### Preparing Sections to put into Frames.
To cut the sections down to the necessary width (_i.e._, not less than \(
rac{3}{4}\) inch or more than 1 inch) to fit into one of these frames, the ordinary \(1
rac{1}{2}\) inch or \(2\) inches wide sections are sawn down the middle, each original section thus making two narrow ones. These sections are then fitted with full sheets of brood foundation, and placed in the frames. If they fit loosely they must be jambed into the frames with tiny wedges of wood, so as to hold them firmly in their place ; and the frame will then be ready to insert in the brood nest of a strong hive, as described later on. In fitting up sections in frames, the two-bee-way sections should be chosen in preference to the four-way, while the best sections of all for this work are those which are perfectly plain and without any bee-ways at all (fig. 46). When these latter sections are used, anyone accustomed to do carpentering or joinery work will find it very much easier and quicker to cut them down the middle,there. They are, however, very extensively used, not only in America, but throughout most of our colonies.
When using No-bee-way sections in section racks it is necessary, in place of the ordinary dividers illustrated on page 39 (fig. 26), to use a special wood divider or " fence," as it is called, illustrated in fig. 47, which provides the necessary space between the sections for the passage of the bees by means of the small battens or uprights which fit against the edges of the sections.
These dividers are objectionable, being so flimsy that they are liable to warp, and are very easily damaged and broken. The sections also, for ordinary work, are objectionable, since whenever the honey comb extends even an eighth part of an inch beyond the woodwork--as it sometimes does--it is liable to get crushed and damaged in packing ; but for the purpose of splitting in half to put into frames for forming baby nuclei no se
Figure 46: Plain or " No-Bee-Way " Sections in the Flat and made up.
Figure 47: Fence Divider for use with No-Bee-Way Sections.
**Hatching Broad in Chicken Incubators**.
**Having selected a good strong colony from which to form our nuclei, we should go to it and remove all frames that do not contain brood ; thus crowding the bees somewhat. In the very centre of the brood nest we then insert a frame of sections fitted with full sheets of foundation. Forty-eight hours afterwards we must examine the hive, and if the foundation in the frame of sections has been drawn out and is full of eggs--as it should be--we write on it the date on which it was inserted (so that we may know on what date the brood is due to hatch) and return it to the hive, adding another frame of sections as well, also near the centre of the brood nest, and repeating this operation every two or three days until such time as we find that the frame last inserted is not full of eggs, when we must wait until it is full before inserting another frame.**
**So soon as the brood in the sections in the first frame we inserted is capped over, we withdraw the frame, and taking the sections out of it, place them in an ordinary chicken incubator, which should be kept up to a temperature of from 85deg to 95deg Fahrenheit. This is done, not only to relieve the bees in the hive of all further trouble in connection with this brood, and thus enable them to draw out the comb and bring up brood in the six other sections which we shall give them in place of the frame of sealed brood we have withdrawn, but it is for another purpose as well.**
**The experience of the meerest tyro who has attempted but a few times to artificially increase the number of his hives will have impressed upon him very strongly the fact that the greatest difficulty he has to contend with, in the formation even of large nuclei, is the number of bees which leave the nuclei and return to the old stock or its stand, thereby so depleting the new nuclei of their population as to bring about failures innumerable. This being so with strong nuclei, how much more is it the case with baby nuclei?**
**It is, therefore, to entirely do away with this difficulty that I find it best to resort to an incubator. The nuclei are then entirely made up of young bees from it, which, no matter how small the lots into which we divide them, will notdesert their baby hives, never having known any other home to which they could return. Moreover, up to the age of two days or so they will accept any queen--whether virgin or fertile--we may wish to give them, without any formalities of introduction.
For hatching small lots of bees I have found the "Texas " incubators quite satisfactory. They are made by the New Poultry Syndicate, of Clonbrock Road, Stoke Newington, London, and are quite the cheapest obtainable, the 15 egg size (which will hold six sections) costing only 16\(s\). complete, while the 30 egg size (which will hold a dozen or more sections) costs 21\(s\). Before the war these incubators cost 2\(s\). 6\(d\). and 5\(s\). each respectively. As it is not necessary to maintain such high temperature for hatching bees as chickens, the tin lid of this incubator may be dispensed with, while the felt cover provided with the machine should be supplemented with some more felt or flannel to keep out the cold that may enter at spots where the felt cover does not quite cover up the sections, which in most cases stand a little higher than the edge of the incubator's outer case. Care must, however, be taken to leave little holes or spaces for ventilation. In all other respects the printed directions for hatching hens' eggs, sent with each of these incubators, should be followed, excepting that the sand in the tin should not be wetted, and the heat we should aim at maintaining should be from 85deg to 95deg.
When nuclei are to be formed on a large scale these little incubators are, of course, quite inadequate. A very large chicken incubator should then be employed, although with care I have used an ordinary plant propagator (which is much cheaper) with great success.
##### Converting Sections into Miniature Frames
Before placing the sections of scaled brood in the incubator, a thin strip of wood, 43 inches long by \(
rac{1}{8}\) inch broad and \(
rac{1}{4}\) inch thick, should be screwed to the top of each section with little screws \(
rac{1}{2}\) inch long. These strips or bars will thus extend \(
rac{1}{2}\) inch beyond the sides of the sections, and, becoming thin top bars, will convert each section into a little frame, which, when the bees are hatched out, we may hang in a little nucleus hive (fig. 48). But where more than two or three nuclei are to be made each season it will be found much quicker and easier (instead of screwing little bars to the top of each section) to make small frames (fig. 48, c), each exactly \(4
rac{1}{4}\) inches by \(4
rac{1}{4}\) inches _inside measurement_, into which a section can be slipped in a moment. These frames should be made of wood \(
rac{1}{4}\) inch thick, and where they are used, the nucleus hives should be made \(
rac{1}{4}\) inch wider than shown in the illustration (_i.e._, \(7
rac{1}{2}\) inches instead of \(7\) inches, as there shown), to allow for the additional thickness of the side bars of the frames. The side walls of the nucleus hives should be made of wood \(
rac{3}{4}\) inch thick, and along the lower portions of these sides, on the inside of the hive, strips of wood \(5\) inches wide and a _full_\(
rac{1}{4}\) inch thick (shown in black in the illustration, fig. 48, b) should be nailed for the top bars of the little frames to rest on.
Where practicable, I prefer not to move the bees from the incubator to the nucleus hives until twenty-four hours after they are hatched.
Figure 48: A, Baby Nucleus Hive, made of wood \(
rac{3}{4}\) inch thick ; n, Section of same hive, showing feeder and quilt ; c, Miniature frame, \(4
rac{1}{4}\) inches by \(4
rac{1}{4}\) inches inside measurement, to hold one section.
In a warm climate the bees hatched from three sections will be quite enough to form a baby nucleus. They should be given one frame (section) of stores--_i.e._ honey or syrup, both sealed and unsealed--and two frames (sections) of the combs from which they have hatched, or some others containing sealed brood which is due to batch within a few days; and last, but not least, a newly hatched virgin queen or a ripe queen cell. These nuclei, when made up, should be placed in a warm room for from two to four days (two days if we have given them a queen, four days if we have given them a queen cell), the entrances kept closed meanwhile with perforated zinc.
After this time has elapsed the workers will be old enough to defend their little hives, which must then be put out in a shady place in the apiary, allowing, where room permits, a space of about 5 feet between each nucleus, in order to avoid the chance of mishaps through the queens, when returning from their mating trips, entering the wrong hives by mistake and thus getting killed.
##### 11.3.2 Beware of Robbing.
A sharp look-out must be kept for robbing, and on the first appearance of it the entrance of the hive attacked must be reduced to such a size as will allow only one bee to pass at a time. If this does not check it, the entrance of the hive attacked must be closed altogether with perforated zinc for a day or two.
##### 11.3.3 Baby Nuclei must always be fed, no matter what the Time of Year.
As soon as the nucleus hives have been placed in position, they should be gently and regularly fed with a stimulative feeder, similar to that shown in fig. 34, p. 52, except that in this case a bottle holding a quarter of a round of syrup will be amply big enough, and that need only be half filled and given twice or three times a week, according to the size of the nucleus. When using the stimulative feeders, care should be taken to see that a thin cork wad is placed between the top of the bottle's neck and the metal cap that screws on to the bottle, a piece about the size of a shilling being cut out of the centre of the wad over the place where the holes have been pierced in the cap. Without the cork wad the syrup will leak out when the bottle is inverted.
Another excellent stimulative feeder is that known as the "Perfection " (fig. 49), in which the supply of food may be regulated from one to nine holes by moving the index round; but I think that far the best feeder of all for these baby nucleus hives is a little dummy board feeder of the kind shown in fig. 36, page 36.
**Baby Nucleus Hive**.
The nucleus hive, shown in fig. 48, being 21 inches long inside, and having a flight hole and alighting-board at each end, may be used as a twin hive when so desired, the two nuclei being divided from each other by a dummy in the centre of the hive. This dummy may be either of plain wood, or perforated after the manner of the Wells dummy (see page 37); but whichever form of dummy is used, the quilt should be firmly nailed all along its top edge to prevent any chance of the bees from one nucleus finding their way into the other.
**Rapid Method of Building up Baby Nuclei into Strong Stocks**.
Such nuclei may be very rapidly built up, as soon as we have ascertained that the queens are mated and laying, or even before that if we choose, by the addition of sections of newly hatched bees from the incubator or of sealed brood from the hives. As soon as there are enough bees in these nuclei--say, for example, as soon as they contain the bees hatched out of six to nine sections--we should unscrew the top bars from the sections, pack these sections into full-sized frames again, and transfer them, bees and all, from the nucleus hives into ordinary sized hives, which we must place on the stands or sites occupied by the nuclei, adding to each nucleus a large frame of sealed brood from some other hive. At intervals of a few days, as the brood hatches, other frames of sealed brood may be added, and in this way a baby nucleus may be built up into a strong stock in three weeks.
**Take a Little Brood from Each Stock in the Apiary.**
The brood may be taken from various stocks in the apiary, and in such small quantities from each that no one hive is appreciably weakened by the loss.
In practice the advantage of using frames filled with sections will soon become apparent where small nuclei are to be formed and incubators employed in the way just explained. Where incubators are used they are indeed an absolute necessity; for, while it very seldom happens that we can find a whole frame filled with sealed brood without any unsealed brood in any part of it (which, of course, would unfit it for insertion in an incubator), it is no difficult matter to pick out plenty of these little 4\({}^{1\over 4}\) inch by 4\({}^{1\over 4}\) inch sections filled with nothing but sealed brood on both sides, returning the other sections to the hive for a few days until the unsealed larvae in them shall have been sealed over, when they also may be removed to the incubator.
**Hatching Queens in Incubators.**
We can also get our queen cells built in sections if we wish and remove them, when sealed, to the incubator. In this case care must be taken to separate the queen cells a day or two before the queens are due to hatch, placing each cell in a little cage or box formed of perforated zinc or wire gauze, in which there must be some unsealed honey for the young queen, when hatched, to feed on. I like also, when possible, to put four or five newly hatched workers in each of these cages to attend to the queen when hatched; they may be left thus for several days, although it is best to place the young queen in her nucleus as soon after she is hatched as possible.
**How to make and use a Natural Incubator.**
In very favourable climates, when artificial incubators are not obtainable, a natural incubator, depending for its temperature on the heat from a strong hive of bees, may often be used successfully. This is simply made of a shallow doubling box, 6 inches deep, with a sheet of fine wire gauze or perforated zinc nailed over the bottom. This is placed over the body box of a very strong hive, from which the quilts, all except one very thin one of wool or calico, have been removed. The sections of sealed brood and a thermometer are then put in it, and covered up very warmly with many thicknesses of flannel. If the doubling box has double walls on all sides, with an intervening space of \(1
rac{1}{2}\) to 2 inches between the inner and outer walls filled with cork dust or saw-dust, the plan is all the more likely to succeed.
**The late C. L. Pratt's Methods of Managing Baby Nuclei.**
The most useful books on the formation and management of baby nuclei (as well, incidentally, as the safe introduction of queens) are those by the late Mr. Pratt, who wrote under the _nom de plume_ of "Swarthmore." They were published in America, and were formerly obtainable at the offices of the _British Bee Journal_, but they are now out of print and very difficult to obtain.
To those who keep bees in hot climates the fact that these pamphlets are now out of print is a great loss: nothing else quite so lucid, clear, and helpful has ever been written on the subject.
The particular form of baby nucleus hive invented and recommended by the late Mr. Pratt is shown in fig. 50. The little frames used in this hive are of such a size that three of them exactly fit into an ordinary Langstroth frame. Feeders are hollowed in the solid walls of the hive in the same manner as they are hollowed into the dummy board feeders shown in fig. 36c.
**American Hives and Bar-Frames.**
In nearly all our colonies great numbers of American beehives, bar-frames, and other bee-goods are to be met with, this being largely due to the enterprising way in which American manufacturers have always laid themselves out for the export trade by manufacturing hives, etc., which, being dovetailed at the ends, can be sent out in the flat and unpacked and nailed together by the purchaser in a few minutes. Some of our English manufacturers, foremost amongst whom might be mentioned Messrs E. H. Taylor, of Welwyn, Herts., are now following the American example, but the American goods, having been first in the field in our colonies, are likely to remain there for some time to come.
Fig. 51 shows two typical American dovetailed hives, manufactured respectively by the W. T. Falconer Manufacturing Co., of Falconer, New York State, U.S.A., and by the G. B. Lewis Co., of Watertown, Wisconsin, U.S.A., while fig. 52 shows two other typical American dovetailed hives, manufactured respectively by the A. I. Root Co. and the Leahy Manufacturing Co.
Fig. 53 shows a Canadian hive, called the " Buckeye," manufactured by the Canadian Supply and Honey Co. Ltd., of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Very many different sizes of bar-frames are used in America, one of the largest being the " Modified Quinby," and one of the smallest, the " Gallup"; but the standard frame of America remains the " Langstroth," which is 173 inches long by 93 inches deep, with a top bar 191 inches long. When this frame is made with a thin top bar it will hold eight 414-inch by 414-inch sections. It is now, however, very often manufactured with a thick top bar, and sides which are wide at their top part for spacing the frames equally, and with a groove on the under side of the top bar to receive the Figure 51: Two typical American Hives, manufactured respectively by the A. I. Root Co., of Medina, Ohio, U.S.A., and the Leahy Manufacturing Co., of Higginsville, 3lo., U.S.A.
Figure 52: Two other Typical Hives, manufactured respectively by the A. I. Root Co., of Medina, Ohio, U.S.A., and the Leahy Manufacturing Co., of Higginsville, 3lo., U.S.A.
foundation, and a wedge to keep it in place. In this form it is known as the " Hoffman " frame (fig. 54).
**American, Australian, and Canadian Bee**
**Journals.**