BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
If a colony can be built up strong and these forces can be held working contentedly together during the main honey flow, as, for instance, when white clover is in bloom, that colony is almost sure to be able to gather considerable surplus. On the other hand, if a colony, strong in numbers, swarms in the beginning of or prior to the honey flow, as it is likely to do without attention, neither the parent hive nor the new swarm may be able to gather much more than they need for maintenance. For this reason, and because many swarms are lost, beekeepers have for years given much thought to means of controlling and preventing natural swarming.
The principal factor which appears to induce swarming is the crowding of the hive with bees and brood at a time when stores are being brought in in small to moderate amounts. In case a colony can be brought up to the white clover flow without developing the "swarming fever," they will invariably not develop it while rapid storing is in progress, provided they are given plenty of storage room.
When the swarming fever is developed, the bees set to work to build queen cells, the queen lays in these, and with their development swarming is sure to follow. The first swarm, with the old queen, leaves soon after the queen cells are sealed over and, if nothing is done to prevent it, a second swarm is likely to issue in a week to ten days after the first.
## CLIPping the queen's wings
The practice of clipping the wings of the queen will help temporarily to prevent the loss of the swarm, since the old queen will not be able to fly and the bees finding that she is not in the cluster, will return to the old stand. This, however, is only a temporary preventive of loss of swarms; for if conditions within the hive are not quickly changed, the bees, after making one or two false starts with the old queen, will finally kill her and swarm with a virgin queen. The queen may be held in the fingers or against the comb while wings are being clipped. Cuts should not be made too close to the body, and it is usually well to leave wing stubs about an eighth of an inch in length.
## SWARM prevention
The dependence on natural swarming invariably results in the loss of some swarms, and it requires much daily watchfulness on the part of the beekeeper during the period when swarms may be expected. For these reasons the tendency at times is to use strict repressive measures planned to do away with natural swarming altogether and make increase in other ways.
Whether colonies are run for extracted honey or for comb honey, a very good plan of management up to the beginning of the early honey flow is the same in either case. This consists in giving the queen plenty of room in the early spring, preferably using for the brood chamber two bodies with eight or ten frames each at all times, except during the main early honey flow.
## SWARM prevention in working bees for extracted honey
When colonies are run for extracted honey, swarm prevention is relatively simple. The use of larger hives with more roomy brood-nest and honey storage space as suggested above, automatically does away with most of the impulse to swarm. The few cases that do develop may be readily taken care of by manipulation of the brood. The colony is run in two Langstroth bodies, or the colony which wintered in one story is given an additional body in early spring, some time in May, or as soon as it needs the space. A month later the queen with a frame or two of brood is placed in the lower body, and the rest of the space in this is filled with empty frames or frames containing little brood and stores. The rest of the brood is placed in a second body set over a wire or zinc queen-exluder above the body containing the queen. As soon as the brood above the excluder hatches, the cells are used for honey storage, since the queen is not able to lay in them. Colonies so treated will rarely swarm and will produce the maximum crop.
Queen cells are likely to be built above the excluder when the above method is used. They should be removed on the seventh or eighth day.
June, 1921]Beekeeping for new Hampshire
Swarm Prevention in Working Bees for Comb Honey
The colony should be run in two bodies during early spring and up to the time of the main early honey flow, as described under the general heading of "Swarm Prevention." Manipulation then becomes necessary to secure the crop. There are several plans, but the two following are among the best and most simple.
Plan 1. As soon as the honey flow begins, place all the brood in one body and put on the first super for sections. If there are queen cells present at this time, or if there are indications later of their formation, cut them out, catch and cage the queen, and place the cage containing her just within the hive entrance, allowing it to rest on the floor of the hive wire-cloth side up. The bees will feed the queen through the wire. Leave the cage with the queen thus for ten days, and at the end of the period release her and again cut out all queen cells. It should be noted that, in case no queen cells are started when the first super is given, and the bees start work promptly in the supers, if additional supers are given properly, as a rule there will be no attempt to swarm while the honey flow is on.
Plan 2. Ten days before the main honey flow is expected, place a queen excluding honey board between the two bodies. After ten days examine and note which body contains eggs and young brood. The queen is in this one. Find her, and transfer her and the frame on which she is to the other body, taking out a frame from the same to make room for this frame with the queen. Remove the hive in which the queen has been laying for the past ten days and give it a queen cell in a spiral wire protector, or give it a virgin queen. Set it close to the hive containing the old queen, but with its entrance turned at right angles to the former position. The hive on the old stand with the old queen now has most of the flying bees and for the time being will be the storing colony. Give it the super. Within two days, turn slightly the hive containing the queen cell or the young queen, and within two days more finish turning this hive until its entrance is close up to the old hive and in line with the same. After a week to ten days, or as soon as the young queen begins to lay, set the hive containing her on the old stand in the place of the other hive and move this a few feet off to one side. Transfer the super now to the colony with the young queen on the old stand.
Plan 2 may seem a little complicated until it is first gone through with, but it is relatively simple. It comprises two big factors in swarm prevention, namely, a week to ten-day period in which no eggs are laid, together with a young queen of the season's hatching in the storing colony.
## Proper supering
Placing supers on at the right time is as important as anything in keeping down the tendency to swarm in comb honey production, and also in helping to secure the maximum crop. I think we cannot overemphasize the fact that as a rule, if the tendency to swarm is not present when the main flow starts from white clover or wild raspberries, if the bees are given plenty of storage room in supers, and if supers are given properly, they will not develop swarming while the flow is on. The second super should be given underneath the first as soon as the first is well started. The third super should be placed under the second when this is well under way. As many as five or more supers may be needed to hold the crop gathered by very strong colonies in a good season. Towards the close of the season care should be taken not to give super room much in advance, else there will be a large number of unfinished sections.
## Feeds and feeding
Good Management Will Make Feeding Bees Mostly Unneecessary
Fooding bees is likely to be expensive. It also makes necessary much extra care and work. The tendency today is to do away with feeding altogether by so managing the colonies that there will be no need for it. This is accomplished by either running the bees in a single body and allowing them a super of shallow frames wholly or partially filled with honey in addition to the stores in the main body of the hive, or, in using, as suggested before, two brood bodies with nine or ten frames each at all times except during the early honey flow and in wintering in these bodies. This latter practice is believed to be the best, especially for strong colonies.
Feeding is.at times, however, really necessary to supply a food shortage. Such shortage may possibly occur following the main honey flow as a result of a very dry period when flowers do not yield much, if any, nectar. Again a shortage exists and cannot be at one made up from the field in the case of colonies which are started from package bees or small nuclei. A fair-sized colony of bees and hive parts, but without honey, will weigh about forty pounds; and since a colony needs about thirty-five to forty pounds of good stores to winter well and to raise large numbers of young bees in the early spring, the difference between seventy-five or eighty pounds and the actual weight of the hive should be fed in the fall in the form of heavy sugar syrup. September is the best month for feeding to make up a shortage. Use two and one-fourth pounds of white granulated sugar to each pint of water. Bring the syrup carefully to a boil, and while boiling add a teaspoonful of tartaric acid for each twenty pounds of sugar to invert the sugar and to prevent granulation. For feeding in early spring in the case of nuclei, or weak colonies, a more dilute syrup may well be used. White sugar which has been scorched or burned and brown sugar syrup are both unsuited for feeding bees, since they are apt to produce dysentery. Honey from unknown sources should not be fed, as it may introduce germs of the foulbrood diseases. When feeding is necessary, it is best to feed the total amount of syrup needed to carry the colony through the shortage period in one or two feedings rather than to feed a little each day. There is probably no better feeder made than a shallow tin plate or cake pan set on a couple of small sticks over the frames inside an empty covered super. Into this tin the syrup is poured, and some shavings or small sticks are placed to keep the bees from drowning.
## 6 Colony Records
If one is to keep more than one or two colonies of bees, it will be found a great advantage and almost a necessity to keep colony records. There are many details to this art of beekeping, and success will depend on carrying out the different operations which are necessary at the right time. Besides this a record of the performance of each colony will give one the data necessary in deciding from which to breed queens for general improvement of the apiary.
It has been found well to give each colony a number and a separate page in one's notebook. Every time the apiary is visited the notebook will be taken along as part of the regular equipment, and conditions for each colony will be recorded at the time as observed. Records will then read, as, for example:
_Colony No. 1_
May 1. Has queen--eggs and brood in all stages in 7 frames; gave second body.
June 1. No queen cells--colony conditions good, reduced to one body placing all brood in same and gave first super for comb honey.
## 7 Wintering Bees
The preparation of colonies for winter, and the giving of abundant protection during cold weather, is one of the prime requisites for success in beekeping in northern New England. The neglect of this is the cause of large losses each winter.
Several conditions are necessary for successful wintering. In the first place, there should be an abundance of young bees hatched in the late fall. This will be secured best by means of a young queen, a well-sheltered location, and some insulation about the bives in the fall. Secondly, to winter well the bees must have plenty of good quality stores. Most kinds of honey are excellent for winter food, but some of the darker honey contain small amounts of materials other than sugars, not entirely digested by the bees. Mr. F. W. L. Sladen, in charge of beekeping for the Canadian Government, has stated that in his experience colonies winter better when fed in the late fall ten pounds of thick white syrup in addition to their natural stores.
Colonies to winter well must be strong and should cover at least five or six frames, so as to generate easily the heat required to keep up the normal temperature of the cluster. Phillips and Dentuh have shown that the lowest temperature ever recorded in any part of this winter cluster of bees within the hive is \(57^{\circ}\) F., the so-called "critical temperature" at which bees form a cluster within the hive. It has also been shown that bees generate the heat necessary to maintain this temperature by the consumption of honey or sugar and by physical exertion while in the cluster. The fewer the bees to the cluster and the quicker the heat they generate is lost by radiation or by air currents, the more must the bees eat and work; then comes danger of dysentery and exhaustion resulting in colonies which die, or are so weakened by spring as to be of little value.
Hence, another requisite in wintering is to conserve carefully the heat generated by the bees. This can be done by cellar wintering or by wintering the hives out-of-doors in large cases with packing. Bees are usually placed in the cellar after a warm day, permitting their flight in early November, and are brought out about the time silver magles are in bloom. Cellular wintering calls for the use of a moderately dry collar in which the temperature is fairly constant, ranging from 45\({}^{\circ}\) to 55\({}^{\circ}\). The cellar must also be absolutely dark, and there must be no jarring or vibration of the hives. Entrances to hives are left open, but may be screened with quarter-inch mesh wire to prevent mice from entering.
Cellar wintering is the best for the severe months, provided a suitable cellar and good stores are at hand. The practice falls short, usually, in that neither in the fall prior to the time the colonies can be put in the cellar, nor in the early spring does it provide sufficient protection to colonies. The incubation temperature for eggs and young bees is about 95\({}^{\circ}\) F., and the single wall hive loses heat so rapidly that this temperature cannot be easily maintained during the cold nights of late fall and early spring. For the best interest of the colony and the bekeeper, brood rearing should go on at both these seasons.
Therefore, the plan of wintering colonies out of doors in well-insulated hives is increasing in favor. The hives are placed in large cases with eight to twelve inches of packed dried forest leaves or shavings between the bottom, sides, and top of the hives and the outer case. A tunnel entrance is provided for each hive through the packing to the outside air. Each hive may be given its own winter case, or they may be packed in large cases of two or four.
Careful investigations have shown that the best of insulation is of little value if the hives are placed in wind-swept locations, again emphasizing the necessity of selecting at the start a well-sheltered apiary site.
## 2 Diseases
The two more or less common and important infectious diseases of bees are bacterial in their nature, and are known technically as American Foulbrood and European Foulbrood. As the names indicate, both these diseases attack and kill the brood, or undeveloped bees, and so prevent these hatching out to take the place of older ones which die off from natural causes. Thus the strength of the colony is quickly reduced, and frequently it then becomes an easy prey to bee-moth, which soon completes the work of destruction. Incidentally it may be noted that bee-moth or wax-moth can make no progress in healthy colonies of Italian bees.
Symptons and major characters of both these diseases are here given. In case one suspects disease but is not able to identify the same with certainty, he should write the Division of Entomology, Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., stating the facts as he observes them. The Department will send a free shipping case for a sample of diseased brood and will, where possible, identify the disease. The Department of Agriculture bulletins Nos. 975 and 1084 deal with these diseases, and should be owned and studied by every bee-keeper.
### Characteristics of American Foulbrood
(After Phillips)
1. The hive emits a strong odor corresponding to that of cooking glue.
2. American Foulbrood more frequently kills the young bees after they are capped over, and theappings are often later removed. Scattered cells will often not be affected, and the bees in them will hatch out, giving rise to a patched appearance of the brood comb.
3. The diseased larvae are first a light brown, later changing to a dark or coffee brown.
4. In the later stages the contents of the dead larvae become glue-like, and the purtefying material will string out several inches if a toothpick is pushed into it and gently lifted. This is considered to be the most characteristic feature of the disease.
5. Larvae and pupae dry down to a brown scale which adheres finally to the base and lower or bottom wall of the cell.
### Symptoms and characters of European Foulbrood
1. The disease usually attacks larvae in younger stages of growth than does the American Foulbrood disease.
2. The affected larvae show a slightly yellow or gray shading. They take on a watery consistency and become more or less translucent. The rings of the body segments show plainly, and often the digestive track throughout the body is visible.
3. Later the translucency is lost, and the larvae assume a distinct gray or yellow shade and pasty consistency, which later is considered to be the chief distinguishing character of the disease.
4. When dried down, the larval scale does not adhere to the base or the lower wall of the cell.
Another disease of the undeveloped bees is the so-called Pickled-Brood or Sae-Brood. In this case the larvae die at the stage just before or after capping.
Brood may also be killed from chilling in case of a very cold spell following a period of warm weather in early spring.
The writer has been a beekeeper for many years, and each recurring season he has enjoyed the pleasure and recreation of studying and working with these most wonderful and fascinating little insects. He believes the science of bee culture will always afford pleasure and some profit to both men and women who really love nature's ways and the out-of-door life. Beekeeping does not call for a great deal of strenuous work, but rather for judgment, patience and system, and these come through years of study and experience. He suggests that every beekeeper should own at least one or two of the best books on beekeeping, and study these, together with the excellent technical bulletins on the various phases of the subject. Above all else he would recommend the study of the bees themselves, since they are the best teachers of last resort in respect to their own industry.
## The Beekeepers' Bookshelf
The following is a partial list of some of the best publications relating to bee culture:
"Productive Beekeeping," by F. C. Pellett, Lippincott Publishing Co., Philadelphia, Pa. "Beekeeping," by Dr. E. F. Phillips, The Macmillan Co., New York City.
"Fifty Years Among the Bees," by Dr. C. C. Miller, A. I. Root Co., Medina, O.
"Langstroth on the Hive and Honey Bee," revised by C. P. Dadant, published by the American Bee Journal, Hamilton, Ill.
"Advanced Bee Culture," by W. C. Hutehinson, published by A. I. Root Co.
"Practical Queen Rearing," by F. C. Pellett, published by the American Bee Journal.
"How to Keep Bees," by Anna B. Comstock, A. I. Root Co.
"A.B.C. and X.Y.Z. of Bee Culture," A. I. Root Co.
This is an encyclopedia of modern beekeeping. Topics arranged alphabetically.
"A Thousand Answers to Beekeeping Questions," by Dr. C. C. Miller, published by the American Bee Journal, Hamilton, Ill.
"Beekeeping for Beginners," by C. P. Dadant, published by the American Bee Journal.
United States Department of Agriculture Farmers' Bulletins (these may be had free on request from the Department, or may be bought from the Superintendent of Public Documents, Washington, D. C.):
No. 447 Bees
No. 1012 Preparation of Bees for Outdoor Wintering
No. 1039 Commercial Comb Honey Production
No. 695 Outdoor Wintering of Bees
No. 1014 Wintering Bees in Cellars
No. 975 Control of European Foulbrood
No. 1084 Control of American Foulbrood
No. 820 Utilization of Sweet Clover
No. 503 Comb Honey
Magazines on Beekeeping
"The American Bee Journal," published at Hamilton, Ill.
"Gleanings in Bee Culture," published at Medina, Ohio.
# Beekeeping for West Virginia
CHARLES A REESE
Assistant Entomologist and Apiarist
J. H. STEWART,
Entered September 17, 1915, at the postoffice, Charleston, W. Va., as second class matter under the act of Congress, June 6, 1900.
The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library.
[http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003429366](http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003429366)
## Office of commissioner of agriculture
### Official Roster
J. H. Stewart. Commissioner of Agriculture. 'harleston. C. H. Henning. 'thiertau of Markets. Charleston. B. H. Hite. 'thier 'thiertau of 'thiertau'. Morgantown. Cecil W. Wosil. 'thier' Steel Laboratories. Charleston. W. E. Rumsey. 'Narty Entumologist 'Morgantown. Chas. A. Ieeeee. 'Narty Entumologist and Apirark'. 'harleston. A. J. Holt. 'Consulting Veterinarian. Charleston. C. C. Hudkins. 'Consulting Veterinarian. 'harleston. J. V. Stewart. 'Piscal Agent. 'harleston. W. H. Sommers. Special Agent in Marketing. Berkeley Springs. Arthur Gold. Special Agent in 'Horticulture. Mason. Bert E. Sayre. Special Agent in 'Harleston. Frank G. Miller. Special Agent in 'Horticulture. Elun (rive. C. A. Dunn. Special Agent in 'Horticulture. Red Suphur Spex. H. M. Rowe. Special Agent in 'Horticulture. Charleston. R. F. 'Nesbitt. Asst. Seed Analyst. Charleston. J. E. Bird. Special Agent. Charleston. O. A. Petty. Special Agent. Charleston. Frank B. Kunsst. Assistant Chemist. Morgantown. J. B. Erak. Assistant Chemist. Morgantown. C. G. Dawson. Inspector of Fertilizer. Charleston. Paul D. Reese. Special Agent of Gardens. Charleston. Joseph Ankrum. Special Agent of Gardens. Charleston. A. I. Wick. Mailing: Clerk. Charleston. R. W. White. Clerk. Charleston. Meta Grove. Nenographer. Charleston. Olive Wallace. Stenographer. Charleston. Pearl Allender. Strongzrupher. Morgantown. Helen Brady. Stenographer. Berkeley Springs. N. E. Merhie. OdEvent Photographer. Charleston. Chas. E. Wheeler. Orchard Inspector. Matioka. S. P. Mathews. Orchard Inspector. Sissonville. L. H. Woolford. Orchard Inspector. Forti Hill. S. A. Park. Orchard Inspector. Keyser. Maurice Scanlon. Orchard Inspector. Three+ Churches. Marvin W. Moore. Orchard-Inspector. Montrose. D. E. Swisher. Orchard Inspector. South Branch. James Dunn. Orchard Inspector. Berkeley Springs. L. V. Thompson. Orchard Inspector. Springfield. T. K. Massie. Inspector of Bees. Hatcher. P. L. Jones. Inspector of Bees. Parkersburg. L. D. Sharp. Inspector of Bees. Slaty Fork. M. K. Malcolm. Inspector of Bees. Institute. Stephen Davis. Inspector of Bees. Morgantown. Grant Luszder. Inspector of Bees. Pennsboro. Adam J. Yahm. Inspector of Bees. Triedephia. R. P. Simms. Special Agent. Bluefield. A. M. Curtis. Special Agent. Institute. C. Ruth Campbell. Special Agent. Union. Lilliman Bugnall Gray. Special Agent. Giatto. Geo. E. Fountain. Special Agent. Parkersburg. Isaac Noel. Special Agent. Keystone.