BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
As late as October 6, in the year 1902, a pile was left with an upper entrance or ventilating space still open, and on the forenoon of that day I observed lively work at that place, while all was quiet at the lower or regular entrance. I showed the cover back so as to close the space, and then took a snap-shot of the bees trying to get \(\hat{\ln}\), as shown in Fig. 81. Only two stories show in the picture, although the pile was four stories high. Fortunately no other place was open except the regular lower entrance, and it was so far from top to bottom that the robbers made no attempt below--indeed I suppose they would have been promptly repulsed if they had so after trying for a time to get in the place I had closed, they gave up and left the hive.
I think I can tell by carefully looking at bees when flying with unusual commotion at the entrance of a hive, whether it is a case of robbing or bees at play, but I am not sure I could tell some one else the difference in appearance. Looking at bees at play in Fig. 82, and comparing with Fig. 82, there appears little difference. In actual life there will be seen the same excited eagerness in each case.
The time of day helps to decide. During the middle of the day, say from noon till the middle of the afternoon, playing is common ; earlier or later than that time, if there is big excitement at the entrance of a weak colony, the likelihood is that robbing is going on.
Figure 75: Robber-Cloth.
rather lose the object they are after by rapidly changing the base of operation. One day at the Wilson apiary I had taken off some wide frames of sections and wanted to take them from the place where they were piled up, so as to put them on the wagon. The robbers were so fierce and persistent that it seemed impossible to open a crack without their immediately forcing their way in. My wife was provided with a smoker in full blast, and a big bunch of goldenrod or other weeds. A robber-cloth covered the pile. With one hand I lifted the cloth and with the other took out a frame of sections, then quickly dropped the robber-cloth in its place, my wife keeping a cloud of smoke in the way of any robbers which should attempt to enter the pile while the cloth was raised. Instantly the frame was out of the super, the robbers made for the frame of sections. I made for the wagon and my wife made for me. Running in a zig-zag, circuitous
Figure 76: Push-Board.
course, my wife followed me, puffing and switching at every step, and by the time we got to the wagon the robbers were lost, the frame was slipped quickly into the super on the wagon, and the robber-cloth dropped over it. The Scotch folks at the house had a good laugh over the crazy couple chasing one another through the orchard, but we beat the bees. Under ordinary circumstances it would be better to take an easier plan or wait till dark.
## 7.2.7 protection from stings.
I have been a bee-keeper since 1861, and since 1878 I have made the production of honey my sole business, aside from writing about bees, and yet I have not reached that point where I care nothing for protection from stings. When I first commenced keeping bees, a sting on my hand was a serious affair, swelling to the shoulder, and troubling fully as much the second day as the first. Now, if I receive a half-dozen stings or more, I cannot tell an hour or two later where I was stung, except as a matter of memory. Yet I think that a sting, gives me fully as much pain for the first minute now, as it did fifty years ago. Sometimes the pain is so severe that it literally makes me groan, especially if no one is within hearing. I sometimes wonder at those who scout at any sort of protection, and query whether there may not be just a little of a spirit of bravado about it. I think I _could_ go through a year without any sort of protection, but I do not think I ever shall. A bee inside my clothing makes me very nervous, and I cannot go on in comfort at my work with a feeling of uncertainty as to where and when its little javelin shall pierce my flesh. If I feel it cawing on me, and then cease to feel it because it is on the clothing and not on the skin, I am in momentary dread as to where it shall turn up next; and it is a real relief when it stings me, for I know then the precise spot where it is, and have no further expectations from it.
So I seldom go among the bees without a veil. I may not have it over my face, but it is on the hat, ready to be pulled down at any time. The veil is made of inexpensive material, called by milliners cape-lace or cape-net. It is 21 inches wide. A piece is cut off as long as the circumference of the brim of a straw hat, and both ends sewed together. Shirr a rubber cord in one end of this open bag, thoroughly soak or wash out the starch, and sew the other end on the edge of the hat-brim. It is important for the eye-sight that the stuff of the veil be black, but the black coloring crooks one's clothing. So of late years a border of white cloth is sewed on the veil to receive the rubber cord.
The rubber cord holds the veil close about one's neck, yet not close enough but what a bee sometimes gets under it. Although a bee is not at all likely to sting when it gets inside a veil, it is just as well to have it remain outside. So my assistant devised the plan of drawing the veil down _every_ tightly in front, and pinning it to her waist with a safety-pin. Seeing it work so well with her, I have also adopted the plan, pinning to my suspenders on one side, or to my vest if I have one on.
Sometimes a face-piece of silk net is sewed in the veil. Instead of having the veil sewed to my hat, so that the bee-hat must be taken along when we go to an out-apiary, I sometimes have in my pocket a veil made with a rubber cord stirred into each end, and when I reach the apiary the veil is slipped on over the hat I am wearing.
The openings at the wrist and neck of my shirt are small, the cloth lapping over so as to give a bee little chance far entrance. If bees are likely to be on the ground I-put my pants inside my stockings, or still better, put on a pair of trouser guards such as bicyclists wear. I get a great many stings on my hands, but the inconvenience and discomfort of gloves are so great that for many years I felt the stings to be the less of the two evils. But after working for years to get bees that would give the most honey, without paying any attention to the temper of the bees, I finally had bees so cross that in spite of the inconvenience I felt obliged to use gloves.
My assistant prefers to wear gloves, not only to avoid the stings, but to avoid the bee-glue. I may say in passing that I am not always very particular about getting the bee-glue off my hands, but when I do clean them I usually give the bee-glue a good rubbing with butter or grease, and then wash off with soap and water. I confess I don't very much mind having bee-glue on my hands unless there is so much of it that it sticks to the bed-clothes at night. But I do abhor the sticky feeling of honey on my hands, and when they get daubed, if I have no water I pick up some soil to rub them with. That at least takes away the sticky feeling. Perhaps you think the soil is worse than the honey. I don't.
bee-gloves.
For some time Miss Wilson wore a kind of cheap white glove that I think was made of pig-skin. She dislikes the smell of oiled canvas gloves, although to me the smell is not very bad, and the smell of the pig-skin is horrid. Latterly she wears light buckskin, which are free from smell, and wash well, or else a pair of kid gloves with a pair of 10-cent pickle gloves over them. The latter are rather bungling.
getting out stings.
I like to get a sting out of my skin as soon as possible, if not too busy. A little trick in this direction is, I think, not known to all bee-keepers. I am not sure whether I learned it by instinct, or from the writings of G. M. Doolittle. If a bee stings my hand, I instantly strike the hand with much force upon my leg, with a sort of quick, wiping motion. This mashes the bee, generally, and rubs out the sting at the same time.
ing me by getting into my hair or whiskers, and for aught I know the same bee may keep up the same thing for days=-I mean the scolding, not the stinging. It is sometimes worth while to get rid of the annoyance by stepping to one side and knocking it down with a stick by a few rapid strokes back and forth in front of my face. I often mash it by slapping my hands together.
Figure 77: Pushing Sections out of Super.
Sometimes the bees have seemed very cross, and a little observation has shown these bees to proceed from a particular part of the apiary, and really from only one hive. A careless observer might have said all the bees in the apiary were cross. I have had a few colonies so cross that merely walking by the hive was the signal for a general onslaught. Truth obliges me to say that I have sometimes been so badly stung by one of these, when working at them, that I have taken refuge in inglorious flight, glad to get a respite and scrape out the stings. Just why there should be one or two of these in a year in such marked contrast with others I cannot say. The only remedy I had was to kill the queen.
During the principal part of the honey-flow, a prominent element of hardship is the endurance of the heat. Sometimes the heat really has made me sick, so that in spite of a press of work, I have been obliged to give up and lie down for an hour or more. At such times you may be sure I am not very warmly clad. One straw hat and veil, one cotton shirt, one pair cotton overalls, one pair cotton socks and one pair shoes, comprise my entire wearing apparel (Fig. 83). Before noon, shirt and pants are both thoroughly wet with perspiration.
## sponge-bath at noon.
In this heated condition, I sponge myself off with cold water before dinner, put on dry pants and shirt, and hang up the wet ones in the sun to be put on next day. I am sure that by this refreshing change. I am able to do more work. It might be thought that applying cold water all over the body when every part is dripping with perspiration might make me take cold. I have never found it so, even if followed up every day. The body is so thoroughly heated that it easily resists the shock, and a brisk rubbing leaves one in a fine glow.
My overalls are white, such as painters or masons use. I do not enjoy being so conspicuous when I happen to be on the streets clad in white ; but I would rather be conspicuous than to be stung ; and I feel sure that I do not get so many stings as I would with darker clothing.
woman's bee-dress.
My assistant is not dressed so coolly as I. Her desire to keep her dress clean makes her warmer than she
Figure 78: Lifting off the Super.
otherwise would be, for she wears an apron that covers all the dress except the sleeves (Fig. 84). This apron is made of deim, and has two large pockets. It is made after pattern No. 3,696 of the Butterick Publishing Co. To cover the sleeves of her dress, she uses a pair of white sleeves fastened together by a strap sewed to each sleeve across the back, a similar strap in front being sewed to one sleeve and buttoned to the other. The wrists of these sleeves are sewed to the wrists of her gloves, and ripped off whenever it is necessary to wash either gloves or sleeves. For convenience, several pairs are kept.
My sole business with bees being to produce honey, I am not particular to keep a popular breed of bees, only so far as their popularity comes from their profitableness as honey-gatherers. I am anxious to have those that are industrious, good winterers, gentle, and not given to much swarming. For some years I got an imported Italian queen every year or two. Then for a good many years I preferred to rear from queens of my own whose workers had distinguished themselves as being the most desirable. The chief thing considered was the amount of honey stored. Little or no attention was paid to color, and unfortunately no more to temper. So I had bees that were hybrids, hustlers to store, but anything but angels in temper. Then, beginning with 1906. I introduced quite a number of Italian queens, in the hope that among them I might find one as good as my hybrid stock, without so much ill temper. The hope was not realized, but continued effort may bring success.
## importance of selection.
The queen being the very soul of the colony, I hardly consider any pains too great that will give better queens. The first thing is to select the queen from which to rear, for generally all rearing will be from the same queen,whether for the home apiary or an outside apiary. The records are carefully scanned, and that queen chosen which, all things considered, appears to be the best. The first point to be weighed is the amount of honey that has been stored. Other things being equal, the queen whose workers have shown themselves the best storers will have the preference.
The matter of wintering will pretty much take care of itself, for a colony that has wintered poorly is not likely to do very heavy work in the harvest. The more a colony has done in the way of making preparations for swarming, the lower will be its standing. Generally, however, a colony that gives the largest number of sections is one that never dreamed of swarming.
## Breeding from best.
I am well aware that I will be told by some that I am choosing freak queens from which to rear, and that it would be much better to select a queen whose royal daughters showed uniform results only a little above the
Figure 79: Supers of Sections Blocked Up.
average. I don't know enough to know whether that is true or not, but I know that some excellent results have been obtained by breeders of other animals by breeding from sires or dams so exceptional in character that they might be called freaks. I know, too, that it is easier to decide which colony does best work than it is to decide which queen produces royal progeny the most nearly uniform in character. By the first way, too, a queen can be used a year sooner than by the second way, and a year in the life of a queen is a good deal. I may mention that a queen which has a fine record for two successive seasons is preferred to one with the same kind of a record for only one season. At any rate, the results obtained in the way of improvement of stock as a result of my practice have been such as to warrant me in its continuance, at least for a time.
The danger from inbreeding must not be lost sight of entirely. With two or three hundred colonies kept in three different apiaries it is perhaps not great. Should signs of degeneracy at any time appear, it will not be difficult to introduce fresh blood.
## conditions for queen-rearing.
Having chosen the queen from which to rear. I have kept in mind that unless conditions are favorable the royal progeny of the best queen in the world may be very poor. Queen-cells must be started when the weather is sufficiently warm, when bees are gathering enough to make them feel that there is no need to stint the royal larvae in their rations, and until near the point of emergence it is much better that the cells shall be in the care of.a strong colony. So I do not begin operations for queen-rearing until about the time that bees inclined to swarming would begin to make preparations therefor.
## rearing queens in hive with laying queen.
It would be too long a story to enumerate all the plans I have used in queen-rearing. I have reared ex cellent queens, and many of them, by the Alley plan, and by the Doolittle cell-cup plan, together with its modifications by Pridgen and others. I think I was the first one to report rearing a queen in a colony having a laying queen ; and I have reared them in stories under as well as over the story having the laying queen. Neither is it absolutely necessary to have a queen-excluder between the stories.
In lieu of an excluder I have used a cloth with room for passage at the corners. Neither excluder nor cloth is absolutely necessary.distance is enough. That first reported case was on this wise :
Upon a live containing a colony had been piled four stories of empty combs for safe keeping. To make sure that the bees would not neglect the care of the most distant combs, I put aframe of brood in the upper story. A few weeks later I found a laying queen in the upper story with the old queen still below. The bees that had gone up to that frame of brood were so far from the queen that they had reared a queen of their own. A hole in the upper story had allowed the flight of the young queen without invading the domains of her mother. For those who produce extracted honey this plan might be used to advantage.
## unqueeening colony to start cells.
I have reared good queens by the old and simple plan of taking away the queen of a strong colony. Of course this must be a choice queen. Previous to the removal of the queen the colony is strengthened. Frames of well-advanced brood are from time to time given from other colonies until it has two--perhaps three--stories of brood. None of this brood, however, is given less than five or six days before the removal of the queen. The queen is taken with two frames of brood and adhering bees and put on a new stand in an empty hive, an empty comb and one with some honey being added.
## time to start nuclei.
In nine or ten days from the removal of the queen it is time to break up the queenless colony into nuclei. It might generally be left till a day or two lter before a young queen would come out to destroy her baby sisters in their cradles, but it is best to take no chances. If it were true, as formerly believed, that queenless lees are in such haste to rear a queen that they will select a larva too old for the purpose, then it would hardly do to wait even nine days. A queen is matured in fifteen days from the time the egg is laid, and is fed throughout her larval lifetime on the same food that is given to a worker-larva during the first three days of its larval existence. So a worker-larva more than three days old, or more than six days from the laying of the egg would be too old for a good queen. If, now, the bees should select a larva more than three days old, the queen would emerge in less than nine days. I think no one has ever known this to occur.
_Fig. 81,-Robber Bees._
As a matter of fact bees do not use such poor judgment as to select larvae too old when larvae sufficiently young are present, as I have proven by direct experiment and many observations. It will not do, however, to conclude from this that all queen-cells started by a queenless colony left to themselves will be equally good.
Bees have a fashion of starting cells for a number of days in succession, and will continue to start then when larvae sufficiently young for good queens are no longer present. So some means must be taken to make sure that no nucleus has for its sole dependence one of these latest cells. If several cells can be afforded for each nucleus, there is little danger they will all be bad. Neither is there great danger if a cell is chosen which is large and fine-looking. Perhaps the safer way is to give the queenless colony a frame with eggs and young brood three or four days after the removal of the queen, and then they will not be obliged to use the older larvae of the other combs.
## placing queen-cells.
Two or three frames of brood with adhering bees are taken for each nucleus. If one of the frames has a cell or several cells in a good location, well and good. If not, the lack must be supplied. But the cells must be where they will be sure to be well cared for. They must not be on the outer edge of a comb, with the chance to be chilled, neither must they be on the outer side of the comb, but on the side of the comb that faces the other comb. Any cells that are not just where they are wanted must be cut out. For this purpose I like a tea-knife with a very thin and narrow blade of steel.
A staple, such as is used to fasten a bottom-board to a live, is used to fasten a cell in place. The cell is placed where it is wanted, then the staple is placed over it, one leg of the staple close to the cell, and the other leg is pushed deep into the comb (Fig. 85).
Each nucleus is put upon a stand of its own, and the entrance is plugged up with leaves so that no bee can get out. One of the nuclei, however, is left without having its entrance closed, and this is put in the place of the hive which contains the queen, and the hive with the queen is put back on the old stand from which the queen was first taken. The entrances may be left closed until the shrinking of the leaves allows the bees to make their way out, but I generally open them in about twenty-four hours, first bounding on the hive to make the bees
mark their location upon emerging. Although quenceless bees are much better than others at staying wherever they are put, there will be still fewer bees return to the old place if the nucleus is fastened in twenty-four hours or longer.
## Looking for eggs.
Twelve or fourteen days after forming the nuclei I look to see if the queens are laying. I might find eggs in less time, but not always, anl at any rate not in con
Figure 8.2: Bees Playing.
siderable number, and it saves time on the whole root to be in too much of a hurry. If no eggs are found a comb of young brood is given as an encouragement to start the young queen to laying, and a day or two later, if queen-cells are started on this young brood, a mature queen-cell is given.
keeping best queen in nucleus.
Instead of having my best queen in a strong colony, as in the plan just given, she is usually kept in a two-frame nucleus throughout the summer, the nucleus being strengthened into a full colony in the fall for wintering. One object of this is to make the queen live longer. It is generally understood that a worker lives a longer time if it has little work to do, and probably the same is true of a queen. As laying eggs is her work, the less the number of eggs she lays the longer she ought to live, and in a nucleus she lays a smaller number of eggs than in a strong colony.
There is another reason for keeping her in a nucleus. Some who have tried to have comb built in the colony containing their best queen complain that they can get only drone-comb built. That may be avoided by filling the frame with worker-foundation, but the better way is to keep the colony with the queen so weak that only worker-comb will be built. In a nucleus only worker-comb will be built.
starting brood for cells
Having my breeding queen in a two-frame nucleus. I take away one of the combs, and in its place put a frame in which are two small starters four or five inches long and an inch or two wide. One of these starters is put about four inches from each end (Fig. 86). The nucleus must be strong enough in bees so that a week later this frame will have a comb built in it that will fill most of the frame, the comb being fairly well filled with eggs and young brood (Fig. 8s). It is taken away, and another frame with two small starters put in its place as before. Thus this nucleus will furnish once a week a frame of comb with brood of the best sort for queen-rearing.
It will be a day or so after the frame is given before the queen lays in it, so that the brood will not be too old even if the bees were so foolish as to prefer it.
The comb being new and tender makes it probably an easier job for the bees to build queen-cells upon it; at any rate they always show a preference for such comb, and start on it a larger number of cells than they would on older comb.
Having now arranged for the right kind of brood and eggs to be ready on the same day of each week, the next thing is to find the right kind of bees to start the cells. Not only to start them, but to take the very best care of them. We can probably find no bees better fitted to produce good queen-cells than those that of their own accord have already engaged in the business. So a strong colony is chosen which has already started queen-cells in preparation for swarming. All queen-cells already started are destroyed, the queen is removed, and one of the frames is taken away, leaving a vacancy in the center of the hive. Most likely the colony has one or more supers, but these are not to be taken away.
## Proof for queen-cells.