BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
But the advent of the automobile and truck has made a uniform success of migratory beekeeping on a short haul, say of 100 miles or less. Many central western beekeepers now haul their bees from the clover fields to the river bottoms in fall to catch the honey from heartease and spanish needle. In California it allows opportunity to go to the orange groves, thence to the bean fields, to the sage and alfalfa, or to any other crop in reach of the beekeeper.
Some beekeepers, in fact, have had success in carload shipments from California to Nevada and Utah and back, and recent successes were reported of shipments to Utah and Wyoming by Texas beekeepers during their seasons of drouth and dearth in 1916 and 1917.
Migratory beekeeping on hauls of 100 miles or less may be considered a success, but long trans-continental hauls will needan experienced beekeeper who is readily able to incur losses sustained by unfortunate occurrences which are to be expected with this plan in too great frequency, and who knows the ins and outs of moving bees on a large scale.
### The Central Plant
An increasing number of our larger beekeepers dispense with equipment at each yard and have a central plant, all supers being stored at home, and all honey being hauled in by truck to be extracted.
This has the advantage that, in the central plant, all conveniences may be installed permanently. Many items of equipment may be added that would otherwise not be practical.
With such equipment and a central force, a larger daily average of honey can be extracted. The apiarist is usually surer of regular hours, and one set of equipment is all that is necessary.
At the end of the season, all supers are at home where they can be overhauled for the coming crop.
The disadvantages are that there is greater chance of spreading foulbrood; in fact some of the champions of this system would not use it were foulbrood prevalent in their vicinity. There is some danger to run from melting or breaking the heavy combs while hauling them, and, moreover, roads must be good enough for your truck to travel.
In hauling the sticky combs back to the apiaries, robbing is likely to occur. Then, too, if some of your apiaries are 30 or 40 miles away the long haul may increase trucking costs possibly to the point of overbalancing the advantages.
If bees are cellar-wintered, cellars will be needed at the outward in addition.
Probably a large proportion of beginners will do well to establish outyards with some provision for extracting there until the central system can be applied directly to their needs through experience. It would be difficult in most instances to get a large beekeeper who has used the central plant to go back to the older method.
### Keeping Records
Probably in no branch of beekeeping do we find such a diversity in me:hod as in (the keeping of records of individual colonies. Likely the most minute and most efficient system would be a card index with a card for each colony, properly subdivided to record each operation. Close records may also be kept by record books. Systems of colored pegs, signs, discs, etc., placed on the hives or beside them are also used with success.
Figure 19: Rough records on the back of hive caps are used by many large producers.
Probably a great proportion of large beekeepers keep only partial records of colonies, using a ''rough and ready'' system, while some use no records at all. It is advisable to have records sufficient to trace the progress of disease, the age of queens and the honey producing qualities of all colonies.
Extensive records are hardly practical for the outapiarist. That is why we see, in increasing numbers, the use of indelibbe crayon, blue pencil, etc., on the inside of hive cover or on the back of the hive. Such marks will last a year or two before they are obliterated by the weather, only to be replaced by newer records by the beekeeper.
## Chapter 7 Winter and Spring Work
If his bees have been properly prepared for winter the out-apiarist will have iittle to occupy him in the apiary except to see that bees in cellars are wintering properly or that entrances are free from ice if he practices out-of-door wintering. This can usually be arranged in co-operation with the farmer at whose place the bees are kept so that numerous trips to the outapiury will hardly be necessary.
### First Examination
As soon as the bees have a good cleansing flight in spring and a moderate spell of weather seems inument, it will be well for the beekeeper to make the first round of his outwards. Entrances should be freed of the accumulations of winter,dead bees if any cleaned out, alighting boards made clear, and all dead colonies carefully closed so as to prevent the robbing of their honey.
It is to be hoped that the outapiarist does not have American foulbrood to fight, but if he has, and a case has, through oversight or neglect, been allowed to go into winter quarters, the colony's death during winter without consequent closing up in early spring will in all probability give the beekeeper much trouble through spread of the infection by robbing.
It is true that these same combs may be used later by the beekeeper in making divisions, but in such instances they will only be given to one or two colonies and if proper records are kept such disease may be easily traced.
At this examination it wil play to regulate the entrance of each colony commensurate with its strength, reducing the weak or queenless to a very small bee space and enlarging the entrance of the stronger colonies.
Feed should be at hand to replenish such as have run short through one cause or another.
Many apiarists paretiee leveling hives on this first round. It may be advisable, however, to delay this until later when all settling of the ground will have ceased.
### Second Examination
The first examination, of necessity, will be superficial owing to its outlines. One should be wary of disturbing the cluster to look for stores, queens, or disease. This may well be attempted however, on the second trip which will be made as soon as settled weather has arrived.
### Drone-Layers and Queenless Colonies
In a majority of instances it will not pay to spend valuable time on drone-laying or queenless colonies. It is with difficulty that queens are secured at this season and such colonies generally are very hard to get queen-right. Probably the best procedure is to unite all such colonies by Dr. Miller's newspaper plan. This may also be advisable with weak queen-right colonies. These may profitably be unted with drone-layers after the drone-laying queen has first been found and disposed of. In a majority of instances, however, it will be more profitable to unite a drone-layer or a queenless colony with another strong and queen-right colony rather than unite several weaker colonies.
### Feeding--Spring Dwindling
If the beekeeper has been foresighted, he will so have prepared his colonies for winter that!ittle feeding will have to be done in the spring, since one of the principles of successful wintering is ample stores in the fall.
In a similar manner, if proper preparations were taken the fall before, the bugaboo of ''spring dwindling'' will usually itself ''dwindle'' to insignificance. A young queen, ample stores, and plenty of young bees in the late fall are the best cures for dwindling in spring--outapiary or home yard.
### Building up--Stimulative Feeding
The main factor in spring management, of course, is to have all colonies built up to maximum strength for the main honey flow, whether it be for the orange blossom of California or the white clover of Iowa.
Figure 20: The ordinary ten-pound friction-top pair with one or two holes in the cover may be used as a stimulative feeder.
With excellent prospects for a clover flow, it might pay to feed for stimulation between the fruit bloom and clover so as to hold brood rearing at its highest point and reach the main flow with the largest possible number of bees. The drawbacks to stimulative feeding should, however, be weighed carefully by the apiarist as the tamgers of chilling brood through over stimulation are great. Extra cosi of special trips to out-yards must also be considered. Involved manipulation is necessary. Stimulative feeding is advisable mainly in localities where several weeks elapse without any bloom, after first bloom.
### Foulbrood
With the coming of the first flow in spring it is essential that all colonies be examined for foulbrood. Some localities are still free from the disease, but we never know when it may appear in our own yards from causes without. In spring a case of American foulbrood develops rapidly, because the bees are then using up the faulty stores for their brood, the colony quickly dwindles, and the stores, if any, are left at the mercy of the robbers who all too quickly transmit the disease to their own young. Here again the value of contraction of the entrance of weak colonies is evident, since it gives the weak foulbrood colonies opportunity to protect themselves until such a time as the beekeeper can give proper treatment.
With European as with American foulbrood the time to examine colonies and treat them is as early in spring as possible. Proper treatment before or at the beginning of the first flow often may result in subsequent building up of the colony for flows to follow.
### The Hospital Yard
A number of outapiarists practice with suecess the assembling of all colonies with American foulbrood into a single yard for treatment. This has advantages which I believe overbalance the disadvantages.
In the first place, one of the dangers of shaking for foulbrood in the outyard is the chance of bees drifting to neighboring colonies with full honey sacs, thus possibly transmitting the disease. Manipulations in the outyard are necessarily hurried. Proper care, desirable in correct treatment, may not be given.
If the hospital yard is to be established, it should by all means be placed in or near the home yard. Here the best of care may be taken and the necessity of extra long trips avoided.
F. W Hall of Iowa has practiced this plan for several years and finds it very satisfactory.
## Chapter 5 Early Summer Work
The outapiarist now approaches the season which is of great-cut importance in determining whether his efforts towards keeping more bees, and in scattered locations, are to be successful. He must be able to so manipulate that his colonies will, in a iarge measure, remain intact for the flows which are to foilow. Faulty manipulation with consequent swarming, may mean a lessening of the crop to the extent that he will work at a loss, while intense management may result either in not being able to care for all the bees handled or increase operating expenses beyond the returns.
### 5.1 Swarm Control
Your method of management may call for examination of colonies periodically to cut out queen-cells, and to keep all queens clipped to prevent swarms leaving, but this entails a large amount of extra work at a time when the outapiarist is busiest caring for his numerous yards.
Even though the above method is practiced, the mere fact that ail queens are clipped will not prevent the desire on the part of the bees to swarm, nor will it prevent an effort to swarm, with subsequent loss of time in honey production.
What we should strive for is to so manipulate the outyards that we may keep the impulse to swarm at the minimum, for with any system of management a protracted flow may result in a small percentage of swarming. We should endeavor to make this percentage negligible.
\(leph_{ ext{Nix}}\) requisites have been emphasized by C. P. Dadant as desirable to control swarming. They are, a mirinum of drone comb, ample breeding room, plenty of super room for honey. shade for hives, ample ventilation, and young queens.
### Drone Comb
The use of full sheets of foundation, both in the brood chamber and in super frames, has to a large extent done away with super-abundance of drone comb in the hive. Occasionally however, carelessness in inserting foundation and improper wiring, resulting in sagging, will cause considerable drone comb. It will pay well either to cut all drone comb from defective frames and insert worker comb or foundation in its stead, or discard such combs completely.
### Large Breeding Chamber
More and more, extensive beekeepers are inclining towards the hive with the large brood chamber, especially for extracted honey production; a hive in which the queen is unrestricted in laying, which will accommodate the most prolific breeding queens.
Many outbursts using the ten-frame or even the eight-frame Langstroh hive expand the brood chamber by adding a second story for the queen as soon as the first one restricts her laying powers. Their plan, then, is to restrict the queen again to the lower story at the beginning of the first good flow by means of the queen excluder using the Demaree plan or some other with modifications to insure the largest possible breeding room under existing conditions.
This again calls for considerable manipulation, much more than is no essay when the brood chamber has, in one story, the necessary breeding room.
Shade is provided in the outapiary in several manners; by means of shade trees, extra roofs on each hive, or in some sections by ''ramadas'' mentioned elsewhere in this book. Care should be taken not to have too dense shade or there is a possibility of encroaching too much on ventilation which is treated below as one of the requisites we are seeking.
### Ventilation
There is nothing which will more quickly induce bees to cluster out, sulk, and get the swarming fever than a total disregard of ventilation. How many an amateur or ''backwoods' beekeeper reckons the working qualities of his bees by the number clustered at the entrance. How many, too, are sure that this is a sign that the bees are going to swarm. Who cannot recall the inevitable cluster on the outside of the illy-ventilated box-hive on a hot summer day.
As one prominent beekeeper, James Heddon, said, ''bekeeping is a business of details;' and the entrance, as it affects ventilation, is not the least of these.
Beginning in early spring when the entrance should be expanded to suit the needs of the growing colony, the outapiaris! should keep well ahead of his bees, giving at length a full width entrance there adding to the ventilation either by reversing the bottom-board or by raising the body of the hive from its bottom-board. In the height of a honey flow and during intense heat a two inch entrance in front or a one inch entrance all around is not excessive.
Proper spacing of frames in the hive will also give added ventilation. It is only recently that the value of a \(1
rac{1}{2}\) inch spacing of frames has been acknowledged as superior to the stereotyped \(1
rac{3}{8}\) inch spacing which most of factory-nade hives today have.
The \(1
rac{1}{2}\) inch spacing provides a larger hive not in brood area but in ventilation.
### Young Queens
If we have followed recommendations on preparir.g our!ees for winter, we will have young and vigorous queens heading all our colonies for the honey flow the following spring. But it must be remembered that there is no orthodox rule applying to the desirability of young queens. Some may prove their worthlessness before their progeny has had a chance to demonstrate harvesting ability and these should be gotten rid of at the earliest moment regardless of season.
But it is evident that the desire to swarm is generally stronger in colonies headed!N? old queens, so that queens less than two years old are desirable.
It may be that a queen has proven so good, her bees have been such good honey gatherers, that we have more to gain by retaining her, even though we run the risk of swarming.
There is another matter which should have some!earing on queen supersedure, and that is whether or not the queen has been through a long, heavy honey flow. In the season of crop failure, with breeding restricted, the laying qualities of a queen are not put to so severe a test, so that possibly a majority of the more prolific may be valuable enough to be retained for another season.
We cannot leave this subject without mentioning the pain of one prominent Iowa apiarist to get young queens for the harvest and thus control swarming.
At the beginning of the honey flow, (clover is his main flow), the colonies are carefully gone over and all queens over two years old killed. Each colony is properly marked as to which are desirable to breed from.
On the next examination, ten days later, all cells are destroyedand instead is inserted a comb either with a cell or a grafted cell from one of the choice breeding colonies. Again, a week or more later, the third examination makes sure that all queens have been hatched and mated, cells being inserted where needed from colonies previously prepared.
### "Anticipation brings Realization."
This is certainly true in putting on supers. If the outapariist waits till the main harvest is on at home to begin his round of supering at the outyards it is a safe guess that he will be too late at some one of his outapiaries.
Conditions would be ideal, certainly, were it possible to have all colonies ready at the same time. This may in part be attempted by equalizing brood between colonies as is practiced by some. This calls for more manipulation.
The first supers for surplus should be put on at or shortly before the opening of the honey flow. This should be before the queen becomes restricted in her egg-laying through congestion of honey in the brood chamber. Certainly it is not a wise plan to add supers three weeks in advance of their need, since the bees have an added story to keep warm during the cool weather of spring. But it would be more desirable to have the supers on a week early than a week late.
So with the second and third supers, they should be given as required before the bees become crowded for storing room, while in rapid heavy flows two or even three supers may be added at once, they being filled with nectar almost as quickly as one.
Adding another super when the one below is about half full, or when the bees are storing honey from one edge of the super to the other is the usual procedure. This, of course is to be varied with the time of the flow. Toward the close of the flow it will be wiser to crowd the bees rather than add extra supers which may not be needed. This is especially true in fall flows when we wish to crowd the brood chamber for winter and when there is very little chance of inducing swarming by such crowding.
The number of supers which are necessary per hive vary with the system adopted by each beekeeper. If he intends to extract during the flow he can get along with less supers. More and more, outapiarists are practicing the plan of having on hand enough drawn supers to hold the crop of an ordinary flow. Then if the season is bountiful it may be necessary to extract in the middle of the harvest. The Dadart apiaries are run with from three to five, six inch depth, Dadant size supers per colony. This will hold the average crop. Yet in 1916 it was necessary to keep continually extracting to stay ahead of the bees. One apiary was extracted four times during the honey flow.
It is possible to get a.ong with two supers per hive, with careful manipulation, but four or even six would be much better.
### Queen Excluders
Many beekeepers running for extracted honey use queen excluders to keep the queen from laying in the surplus cases. There are two objections to their use. In the first place they hinder to some extent the free passage of the bees into the supers above. In the second place they restrict the queen and are apt to induce swarming.
In hives with a large brood chamber the exeluder is not so necessary, since the queen has sufficient room below and finds no occasion to go above, and with the use of shallow supers in connection with the large brood chamber, queen excluders become unnecessary except in rare instances.
To overcome this objection of queen restriction in the smaller hives many beekeepers practice the Demaree plan or a modification thereof. Until the beginning of the surplus flow the queen is allowed the use of two broad chambers for cgg laying. Immediately the flow starts, she is put into the lower body with a frame or two of brood, the balance of the body being filled with drawn combs or foundation and an excluder is inserted between the two bodies. Thus she is supplied for a considerable time with breeding room. If this he repeated at intervals the queen may be supplied with empty combs and the danger of brood restriction removed.
In the greater number of instances, however, the excluder when once placed is left for the remainder of the flow. An increasing number of beekeepers use the excluder till most of the danger of swarming is over, when it is removed and a super of sealed honey placed next to the brood chamber to keep the queen from going above.
As stated above, the use of shallow extracting supers discourages the queen from going above, especially if such combs are spaced far apart, putting eight, or at most nine combs in a ten frame super. Mr. Chambers of Arizona claims success in putting but eight frames in a regular ten-frame full depth super to keep the queen below.
However, we must not lose sight of the fact that all such plans as tend to restrict the laying of the queen are not as desirable as those which give her sufficient room, nor do they have as much effect in the prevention of swarming.
## Chapter 11 The Harvest
If the beekeeper has sufficient super room for the full crop, there will be no trouble. All honey may be removed at the end of the season. But if we must extract during the honey flow, care is necessary to get only ripe honey,or if any unripe is removed, to place it in open tanks to allow evaporation.
As a general rule, when extracting during the flow it will not be safe to extract any but sealed honey. However, here also the beekeeper must use his own discretion. Very often he can tell whether the honey will! do by its density, by the readiness with which it may or may not be shaken from the comb.
### 11 Removing the Honey
The modern bee-escape is a most useful appliance in removing honey. It is amost indispensable to the comb-honey producer. Since the use of the automobile has become so common, the escape has enhanced in value to the extracted honey man as well. It is but a short trip, nowadays, to the outapiary in the afternoon, putting on the escapes so that the extracting may go on in full force the next morning. In an hour or two, two men can place sufficient escapes for a full day's work for four men, but care must be taken in placing these escapes, especially if there is a dearth of honey, not to allow openings in the supers where robbers may find their way to the unprotected honey. This will not only develop a serious case of robbing but may also mean the complete emptying of such supers as are exposed.
The presence of brood in the supers hinders materially the effectiveness of the bee-escape. Similarly, if the queen happensin the super, the bees will not desert her to go below. These two causes have many times resulted in failure and rejection of the escape when with care it would have worked properly. Beus will also leave sealed honey much more readily than unsealed. Many remove but one super at a time with the escape, but the writer has experienced but small chances of failure when removing two, three or four supers with one escape, and this is our usual procedure.
The greatest hindrance to the escape is very cool weather when the bees are less apt to run down. They do go down, at least, very slowly. Another objection in cool weather is that when the bees go down, the honey cools quickly and when taken off is very stiff and cold and hard to uncap and extract.
Many use no escapes, thus saving themselves an extra trip to the outpaiary. They use a combination of smoking and brushing to rid the combs of bees, driving them below with cautious smoking, after which the remaining ones may be readily brushed. The bristle bee brush is best for this purpose. Carbolic cloths are spread over supers by some to drive the bees down.
The advantage of the bee-eseape, however, cannot be denied, much overbalancing its disadvantages.