BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
When a queen comes to hand in a jaded condition it would be a great advantage if she could at once be released upon the combs, but this very jaded condition is against her acceptance. To meet these conditions it is an excellent plan to cage her against the side of a comb. A cage for this purpose is made from a piece of wire cloth seven or eight inches square. First cut out, from each corner, a piece 1/2 inches square, then ravel out several strands from each side, after which bend up the sides, at right angles, thus forming a sort of shallow box. The open side of this box is placed against the side of a comb where young bees are emerging, a few cells of honey also being included, the queen slipped under the edge of the cage, when the raveled out strands of wires are thrust into the comb, clear up to the cross-wires. Before doing this work it is well to free the comb of bees. The young bees that hatch will treat her kindly, and, in the meantime, she will begin laying, when, if the outside bees seem favorably disposed, the queen may be released by boring a hole through the comb with the point of a pocket knife. The hole should be bored through from the side of the comb that is opposite to the cage, and, if the comb is simply broken up sufficiently, the bees will clean out the broken particles and thus allow the queen to pass through, which releases her at a time when the colony is in a normal condition, instead of under the excitement that accompanies the opening of the hive.
I just said that it would be well to release the queen if the bees were "favorably disposed" towards the queen. If they are "balling" the cage, clinging to its masses, like so many burdocks, their behavior indicates what the queen would have to endure were she within their reach. The operator must wait until they are in a different mood, until they are walking quietly about over the cage, as unconcernedly as upon the combs of honey--perhaps the bees may be offering food to the queen and caressing her with their antennae. This shows that the bees are favorably inclined towards the queen, and it is never safe to release a queen unless the bees show in this manner that they have practically accepted her.
Speaking of releasing the queen by boring a hole through the comb, reminds me that there is probably no better way of releasing a queen, let the cage be what it may, than that of stopping the entrance with a piece of broken up comb honey, or with some kind of soft candy, and allowing the bees to eat it out. The bees that first meet the queen are in good humor from the candy they have eaten; and, as has just been mentioned, the queen is released quickly at a time when the colony is undisturbed. After a queen has been released the hive should be left undisturbed three or four days, or a week, until the queen has commenced laying and become fully established as queen of the colony. When a queen has been released only a short time, she is easily frightened, when she is likely to run and "squeal," and the result is that the bees will at once "ball" her.
When a queen from a distance is to be introduced to a full colony, the _condition_ of that colony is of the utmost importance. The most favorable condition is that it be hopelessly queenless. Let it build a batch of queen cells, and remove them after all of the brood has been sealed, and the bees are almost certain to accept a queen if given to them in a proper manner. When I was engaged in queen rearing, I don't know that I ever failed in trying to introduce a queen to a colony that had built a batch of cells. I would sooner release a queen after the bees had discovered the loss of their old queen, and before they had begun the construction of queen cells, than to release her after the cells were under way, _unless_ I waited until the cells were sealed over and had been removed.
If the bees are shaken from their combs into a ventilated box, and kept confined, without a queen, several hours, Mr. Doolittle says that they will invariably accept a queen if given one in the box. In other words, they are hopelessly queenless, away from home, confined, and are ready to accept anything in the shape of a queen.
If the bees can, in some way, be placed in such a condition of mind (or body) as to let the queen alone until she has gathered the reins into her hands, so to speak, there is seldom any more trouble about her being accepted as their sovereign; and one excellent method of placing them in that condition is by the use of tobacco smoke. For several years I guaranteed the safe introduction of queens that I sent out, and the tobacco smoke method was the most successful of any that I ever asked my customers to try. The day before shipping the queen, I sent the following notice:
As soon as you receive this notice, remove the queen from the colony to which you expect to introduce the new queen. When she arrives, put her away in a safe place until after sundown. Just at dusk, light your smoker. When it is well to going, but in a pipeful of smoking tobacco, put on the cover, puff until you get an odor of tobacco, then puff two or three good puffs into the entrance of the hive. Wait two or three minutes, then send in another good puff or two, remove the cover, drive down the bees with a puff of smoke, open the cage and allow the queen to run down between the combs, following her with a puff or two of smoke, and then put on the cover. Half an hour later, light up the smoker again, putting in the tobacco as before, and blow two more good puffs in at the entrance. If no honey is coming in, feed the colony a pint of syrup each night from the inside of the hive, but don't disturb the brood nest for four or five days.
The tobacco smoke partly stupefies the bees, and by the time they have recovered, the queen is in full possession. By doing the work in the evening the bees are in condition to defend themselves by morning, should it be necessary.
There is, however, one method of introducing a queen that _never_ fails, it is that of confining the queen in a hive with several combs of just hatching bees. Go over several hives, and find enough combs, from which the bees are just emerging, to fill a hive. Choose those combs having the least unsealed brood, as the most of this will perish. Shake off every bee, hang the combs in the hive, and close it up _bec-liketh_. Allow the queen to run in at a small opening, closing it after her. This work should be done in the forepart of a warm day. In a few hours enough bees will have hatched to form quite a little cluster, with which the queen is _absolutely safe_. If the nights are cool, it might be well to carry the hive into the house for two or three nights. In five or six days the hive may be given a stand in the apiary, and the entrance opened sufficiently to allow the passage of a single bee. So much trouble as this is not advisable unless the queen is very valuable.
And now, in closing, a word of caution: When buying a queen from a distance, let out the bees and queen upon a window; catch the queen and put her into a clean cage; then kill all of the bees and throw them and the mailing cage into the stove. This is to guard against any possible chance of getting foil brood into the apiary from infected bees or honey. A queen has never been known to carry the contagion from one colony to the other--the only danger is that the food in the cage might have been made with honey infected with the germs of disease. Of course, the danger is very slight, even in this direction, but foil brood has been known to have been communicated in this manner, and there is no harm in exercising caution.
## Chapter 4 Advanced bee culture.
## 10 Advanced Bee Culture.
broad nest, and above these the grade that is about one-half completed.
The feeder that I used is the Heddon, which is exactly the size of the top of the hive, and is placed above the sections. His new feeder is unexcelled for this purpose, as the bees take down the feed from both sides. This might not seem important, but it is, and for this reason; when the feed is carried down upon one side only, the sections upon this side are completed _first_. When the feed is carried down from both sides, the sections are finished up very evenly all over the case. In this feeder, the reservoir is in the center, and just over it the cover slides back in grooves. There is no contact with the bees, no smoke is needed, no propolis is disturbed, and the cover fits so snugly that no odor of honey escapes to attract robbers.
The bees seem to be able to handle the honey to better advantage when it is thinned somewhat, say, one quart of water to ten pounds of honey. I heat ten quarts of water over an oil stove until it boils, then mix it with 100 pounds of honey, stir it up well, when it is ready for use. The first feeding should be done at dusk, as it puts the bees in an excited state, and trouble from attempts at robbing might result. After the bees have become accustomed to finding honey in the feeder, feeding produces little, or no, excitement; still, at dusk is the best time to feed, as the annoyance of having robber bees follow from hive to hive, and dive into the feeder reservoir when it is opened, is thus avoided. The feed is given as fast as the bees take it.
Close watch is kept of the sections in the lower cases, and whenever a case is found in which all or nearly all of the sections are completed, off it comes; the case above it is placed next the brood nest, and above this case is placed a case of sections brought from the honey house, one containing sections of the third grade; that is, those in which the bees have made the least progress. I continue to bring in the the cases of finished sections as they are completed, replacing them with the unfinished ones from the honey house. Whenthe stock of the latter is exhausted, I am ready to begin to reduce the number of colonies upon which I am feeding back, and this is done as fast as the sections are completed.
During all this time, since the feeding commenced, I have been watching each colony, and jotting down, upon the cover of the feeder, its characteristics; and, in reducing the number of colonies, those are rejected that have done the least satisfactory work. I continue to keep two cases upon each hive, and, as the colonies work with greatly varying rapidity, there is no difficulty, by changing about the cases, to keep next the brood nest those sections that are the nearest completion. In gathering the sections together upon fewer hives, I always take bees and all, thus I am continually strengthening the colonies upon which I am feeding back.
It is useless to expect the bees to finish up all of the sections upon a hive. Even though the feeding is continued, the sections will not be completed in a satisfactory manner. So long as the feeding is continued the bees seem to reason something like this;"We must make the cells as deep as possible, and delay the capping until the last moment, in order to make room for all the honey that we can; and, if there are not cells enough, we must build more, even if it be in the little, cramped up places between the tiers of sections." After the combs are drawn out to full length, filled with honey, and nearly sealed, I have secured better results by giving the bees no feed for three or four days, then giving them a light feed, and omitting the feeding for several days. The bees then behave as though they considered the harvest over and ended. They seal up most of the cells, and from those that they do not seal they remove the honey. But there is a much better way of managing the business. When the sections are all nearly finished, I put them upon as few hives as possible, and still not have more than two cases upon one hive, and then upon each hive, above the two cases of nearly completed sections, I place a case of sections filled with comb foundation. The bees proceed at once to draw out the foundation and fill it with honey, and this additional storage room appears to bring about a feeling that there is no further necessity for holding cells open below, and they are sealed, forthwith.
When the two lower cases are completed, the upper case (the one that was furnished with foundation) will, perhaps, be found to contain sections one-half completed, and these upper cases may be gathered together, bees and all, and placed, two upon each hive, over those colonies that have shown the greatest aptitude for this kind of work, and the feeding continued until the sections are almost completed, when it will again be necessary to place a case of sectionscontaining foundation upon each hive. I have continued this operation until all the sections were finally upon one hive, and had all of the sections completed except those in the case last added on top.
After bees have been fed awhile, they secrete large quantities of wax. _I_The little flakes of it can be seen between the scales of the abdomen, and, unless allowed to build comb, the bees will plaster with wax the woodwork of the sections, the inside of the feeders, cases, etc. The moral is to allow them to build comb. Have a row or two of sections in the upper case filled with starters only; thus there is secured, in the shape of comb, what would otherwise be wasted.
Although we cannot control the temperature, it may be well to know that the hotter the weather the more rapid and satisfactory will be the work of the bees when we are feeding back.
If there is any time when separators are needed, it is in feeding back. If the combs, both finished and unfinished, could be left undisturbed upon the hive, and the bees fed until all the combs were finished, feeding back would be no reason why separators should be used; but when the unfinished combs are put back in the cases, a great deal of judgment and patience are needed, unless separators are used. Bees usually leave a space of about 3% of an inch between combs, and, in putting back unfinished sections, where separators are not used, this fact must be kept in mind. When the space is less than this, no harm is done unless it is so small that a bee can not pass through, when the bees will connect the two surfaces by little bridges of wax, and when the sections are taken apart, these little, connecting bridges will pull pieces out from one comb or the other. When the space is much greater than 3%, and the comb upon each side is sealed, the bees, especially if crowded, will construct comb upon the sealed surface of the other comb, which gives it a very botchy appearance. If the comb at one side of the space is sealed, and the other not, the sealed comb will be undisturbed, while the unsealed cells upon the other side will be lengthened out until the space between the two combs is reduced to about 3%. If, in this instance, the sealed comb is smooth and even, and in the right place as regards the section as a whole, all will be well; but, if it be concave or convex, the unfinished comb facing it will be drawn out in conformity with the surface of the finished comb. If two unfinished surfaces, in the same stage of completion, are brought facing each other near the center of the super, they will be drawn out and sealed straight and true and alike; if they are near the outside, the chances are that the comb nearest the center of the super will grow faster than the one farther out, and a bulge will be the result.**Combs near the center of the super are drawn out quicker and finished sooner than those at the outside and corners; hence I place at the outside those sections that are the nearest completion; and especially do I take pains to have sealed surfaces come next to the sides of the super, while combs that are the farthest from completion are placed in the center. By this management, all of the combs are finished at about the same time. Unless some of the combs begin to show signs of travel-stain, it is better to leave on the super until all, or nearly all, of the sections are completed, for, as the combs near completion, this matter of adjustment becomes more difficult. When separators are used, all of these troubles vanish.
When foundation is used, and comb honey produced, "right from the stump," so to speak, by the feeding of extracted honey, we have none of this patching, bulging difficulty to contend with, as all of the combs grow alike; and some of the finest, straightest, plumpest and most handsome comb honey can thus be produced that the eye ever becheld; but I have never found it profitable, except by placing a few cases on top, near the close of finishing up a lot of unfinished sections, to give the bees room, and thus induce them to seal up nearly finished combs, as has been already explained.
I know of only two objections to the feeding back of extracted honey. One is that "fed honey" has a slightly different taste from that stored directly in the combs from the flowers. There seems to be a sort of "off" taste, or lack of flavor. This lack of fine flavor is not very pronounced, but it can be noticed by those who are experienced in the matter. It is possible that this taste comes from the thinning of the honey and the handling of it about in different vessels, as well as the continued use of a wooden feeder. The other objection to "fed honey" is that it will candy much quicker than other honey. When the sections are nearly completed, and feeding is done simply to have them completed and sealed over, the proportion of "fed honey" is so small that these objections are not very serious. "Fed honey" ought to be sold early and in a market where it will be consumed before it candies.
Taking one year with another, I have secured about two pounds of comb honey from the feeding of three pounds of extracted. With the right kind of weather and colonies, I have done much better--secured four pounds from the feeding of five.
The advantages of feeding back honey can be stated in a few words: Comb honey is more salable, and at a higher price, than extracted, and if the latter can be changed into the former at no great expense, there are quicker sales and greater profits. The greatestadvantage, however, is in securing the completion of nearly finished sections.
I think that the feeding back of extracted honey is on the wane, as bee-keepers are learning how to greatly lessen the number of unfinished sections at the end of the season; and my object in describing the practice is not to recommend it for general use, but to furnish the necessary instructions should circumstances arise making it desirable to follow them.
When bees require feeding in the fall, almost any kind of feeder will answer the purpose. If nothing better is at hand, a tin pan, or any open dish, may be set in an upper story, and a piece of burlap laid in the feed as a float for the bees to stand upon. A good-sized feeder, one that will hold from 15 to 20 pounds, like the Heddon, for instance, greatly facilitates the work, however. Bees can be fed with the Heddon feeder when it is so late and cool that no other feeder would answer. Fill the feeder with hot syrup, as hot as it can be and not burn the bees, then set the hive _over_ the feeder, when the heat from the syrup will warm and rouse up the clustered bees, and they will come down and carry up the feed in short order.
The idea seems to prevail that all winter stores must be sealed. This is an error; and probably arose from the fact that late-gathered stores are often of poor quality--not because they may be left unsealed, but from the quality itself. A good, thick syrup made from granulated sugar is an ideal winter food whether it is sealed over or not; in fact, bees in a warm cellar may be successfully wintered on sugar syrup supplied to them daily by means of a feeder. A large, flat cake of candy laid over the cluster, and covered with enameled cloth, with packing of some kind over that, is a handier method of winter-feeding; but, aside from that, is not superior to the use of syrup, when the bees are in a warm cellar, but it would be out of doors.
In closing, let me caution the bee-keeper to beware whence comes the honey that he feeds. Let him be _sure_ that it contains no germs of foul brood. To buy honey in the open market and feed it to the bees would be a most risky proceeding. For stimulative feeding, and for winter stores, better buy sugar. It is cheaper, safer and better--especially so for winter stores.
The Production of Comb Honey.
\(\prod\)AYING now considered some of the most important points in modern bee culture, such as locality, hives, supers, sections, increase, feeding, varieties of bees, use of comb foundation, etc., let us begin at the opening of the season, and go briefly over the ground, showing the relation of these different features to one another, as they are employed in the production of comb honey.
We will suppose that the early spring has passed; that the bees have received sufficient protection; been supplied with ample stores; and that the hives are now teming with life as we stand upon the threshold of the main honey flow. And right here let me say that unless the colonies _are_ strong and populous, simply overflowing with bees, it is fully to expect a paying crop of comb honey. If there is any time when weak colonies may be united to advantage, it is at the opening of the main harvest, when comb honey is to be the product. Better gather together, into one hive, three-fourths, or even all, of the bees and brood from two, three, or even four, hives, and thus have one rousing colony, than to attempt to secure a crop of comb honey with weaklings. A comb or two of brood and bees, and a queen, left in a hive at the beginning of the harvest, will build up into a good colony by fall, and, possibly, store some honey that may be extracted. No matter how it is accomplished, one thing is _imperative_, and that is that the brood nest be crowded with bees and brood at the opening of the honey harvest.