BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
Now let us look at the other side of the question -- the side of expansion. Perhaps here is a bee-keeper who has 300 colonies. During the busy season he is comfortably busy. But during six months in the year his time is not very profitably employed -- a distinct loss; for it will take him only a short time, comparatively, to get his supers ready for the next season, nail his hives, repair them, or do other preliminary work that can easily be done indors, and yet his interest, or his rent and his living expenses are going right on. Suppose, for example, that this bee-keeper has 600 colonies, or 1000; that he has good business ability; that he has plenty of bee-range. Suppose he scatters this number in 15 different yards, none further than 15 miles from his house, and a good part of them not over four or five miles away. In the busy season he will, or course, have to employ help. If he has the right kind of executive ability he will see that that help is profitably employed. When the rush of work is over he will look after the marketing of the crop, put the bees into winter quarters, perhaps doing the work himself with the occasional help of one man and a team. In cold weather he can devote _all_ of his time profitably in preparing for the next season. Now, while he is operating 1000 colonies it costs him no more to live; the same horse and wagon that will carry him to two or three hundred will carry him to the other seven or eight hundred. If he is running for extracted honey, the same extractor, uncapping-knives, and smokers can be used at each yard. He is thus enabled to put his invested capital where it will be earn going money for him _all the time_ in the busy season instead of eating up interest part of the time. We will suppose that some of his swarms get away from him; we will also suppose that some of the work is not done as well as when he had only 300 colonies; but he has increased his honey crop by three times, possibly, and has increased his actual operating expenses only to the extent of the help that he has to pay for, extra hives, and sugar to feed. \(\Delta\) couple of men and a boy three months in the year--the man at $2.00 and a boy at $1.00 per day--would make his expense $450. To this we will add $50 for extra team hie. The cost of the extra 700 colonies with hives and supers divided by ten (assuming that they would last ten years) would be $250 more, or $750. But we must add $250 more for sugar for feeding, and $250 for sections, foundation, and shipping cases, making $1250 as the total added expense for the 700 extra colonies. Say he is producing comb honey, and that he can average 35 lbs. per colony. If this nets him 14 cts. he would get from 300 colonies$1500. If he has 1000 colonies his gross income will be $5000 by adding only $1250 to his general expenses.
This is a supposable and a possible case. The most that we would show is that the operating and overhead expenses will not be proportionately increased if the number of colonies be doubled or trebled -- all on the assumption, of course, that our bee keeping friend has the necessary skill and business ability.
In deciding the question whether we ourselves should keep more bees, we must go very cautiously, not increasing the number all at once, but a little at a time, _working the bees play their way_. Generally speaking, it would be the biggest piece of folly for one to borrow the money to treble his equipment of bees and hives in one season.
**PROVIS.** This is the gum or vurish that bees collect for coating over the inside of their hives, filling cracks and evevices, cementing loose pieces of the hive together, and for making things fast and close generally. It collects, in time, on old hives and combs, so as to add very materially to their weight. It is not generally gathered in any great quantity until at the close of the season, when it seems to be collected in response to a kind of instinct that bids them prepare for cold weather. We see then almost every day, during a dearth of honey, collecting propolisis from old hives, old quilts, and pieces of refuse wax, when we are so wasteful and untuly us to leave any such seuttered about. That the principal part of it comes from some particular plant or eluss of plants, or tree, we are pretty well satisfied, for almost the same aromatic resinous flavor is noticeable, no matter what the locality or season of the year. Bees gather propolisis with their mandibles, and pack and carry it precisely as they do pollen. It is never packed in the cells, however, but applied at once to the place wanted. It is often mixed with wax to strengthen their combs, and is supplied to the cells as a varnish, for the same purpose. In the absence of a natural supply, the bees frequently resort to various substances, such as paints, varnishes, resins, pitch, and the like; and the superstition, popular in some sections, that bees follow their owner to the grave, after his death, probably obtained credenee from seeing the bees at work on the varnish of the cofin. To save the bees the trouble of waxing up the evevices in their hives, it has been suggested that a mixture of melted wax and resin be poured into the hive and made to flow along the erecks and corners. This may do very well, although we fancy the bees can do this better and cheaper than we can. Our principul trouble has been to get rid of the surplus propolisis, and we would much rather hear of some invention to keep it out of the way than to add more.
How to keep Brooks from sureplus honey.
Of course, the readliest means is to remove all sections just as soon as a single one is capped over; and, as but little propolisis is gathered during a strong yield of honey, but little will be found on the honey unless it is left until the yield has ceased. The bees not only cover all the wood-work of the sections if left on too long, but they also varnish over the whole surface of the white capping, almost spoiling the looks and sale of the honey.
It is next to impossible to keep propolisis from the sections entirely. Hees will dephosphor at least some in the interstices between the sections. As Nature abhors a vacuum, so do the bees dislike a crack or erevice. The nearer we can get surplus arrangements so as to leave but few evevices or places of contact accessible to bees, the less propolisis will be deposited. Some surplus arrangements are made so as to produce compression upon the sections, thus reducing the space formed by contact with sections to a minimum. Some prefer to have the outside of the sections covered entire. This can be accomplished either with the wide frames or with surplus arrangements having the top and bottom to correspond with the outsides of the sections. For removing propolisis from sections, see Comi Honey.
How to keep propolisis from sticking to the fingers.
At certain times of the year, notably in the fall when propolisis is very abundant and sticky, after the honey-flow is over and the bees have nothing else to do, they will sometimes gather a great deal of resinous matter which they chink into every available place, sometimes snearing over the broodames. When these latter are handled the ingers gather up a great deal of the sticky stuff, making the work unpleasant, not to say annoying. At such times one may wear gloves; but as many do not like them, the trouble can be overcome to a great extent by dipping the fingers in vaseline.
How to beieve propolisis from the fingers.
A variety of substances have been suggested. Alcohol is perhaps the neatest, but is rather expensive; benzing or gasoline or common lye for soap-making answers nearly as well, and is cheap; soap will answer if a little lard be rubbed on the hands first but will have little effect on it otherwise. A friend down south says, he has a pair of light cotton gloves which he slips on when haudling his wavy frames, and his hands are left clean whenever he is obliged to stop work. For removing it from glass, etc., alcohol is perhaps best. When we have much glass soiled, it can often be cleaned most expeditiously by boiling it in a kettle of water with a quantity of wood ashes, or, better, lye. Right here we can not do better than to reprint an article by Miss Wilson, Dr. Miller's assistant, from _Gleanings in Bee Culture._
When I cleaned the T lines with concentrated lye, l felt pretty sure that lives, supers, separators, etc, could be cleaned in the same way, but was so busy I could not take time just then to experiment, hence concluded tosay nothingabout it will could find time to test the matter. This morning, May 6th, being the first opportunity I have had, I concluded to experiment a little.
1 put on my wash-solver with water and lye, then went to the shop and selected the most badly projed supers and separators that I could find as fit subjects on which to experiment. I dropped a few separators into the boiler while the water was yet cold, to see what effect it would have on them. I couldn't see that it affected them in the least until the water almost reached the boiling-point, when the propols disappeared.
What I was most afraid of was that the separators while wet would cling so closely together that the lye would not reach every part, and hence they would not all be perfectly clean. I was glad to find these few did not bother at all, but came out perfectly clean. I stirred them with the poker while boiling, although I don't know that it was necessary, as I tried another lot without stirring, and they came out just as clean. I next tied up a bundle of 89 separators, that being the number I had hands. Of course, they were tied loosely. I dropped them in, having a strong cord tied around the middle of the bundle to lift them out by. I let them hold two or three minutes, and took them out; 26 of them were perfectly clean. The rest, the center of the bundle, still had some propols left on, and were treated to a second dose.
Taking a very large quantity of the separators at one time, there might be more trouble than I think, what getting them clean, but I don't believe there would be if the water were kept hot enough, and enough of the lye used. I don't think any harm would come from having it unnecessarily strong.
I next tried dipping the T supers. My boiler was large enough to clean only half a super at a time, so I had to dip in one half, reverse it, and dip the otherhalf. Had I been able to dip one all at once, I think I could have cleaned one a minute. And they are heavily cleaned. I don't know of any other way they could be cleaned so nicely--quite as clean, I think, as when new, who scraped all our supers before the lye was thought of; and while they are much improved by the scraping, they are not nearly as nice as when cleaned with lye, while the scraping is harder work.
I did not have any thing large enough to dip a hive into, but of course a hive would clean us readily as a super. With convenient apparatus to work with, a large number of such articles as separators could be cleaned at a time with no very great amount of labor. It is such a comfort to have every thing clean! Wold separators are so cheap that we have always thought it did not pay to clean them. I rather think we shall conclude that it does pay, after this, providing we can get them satisfactorily dried in good shape.
## 6.0. The Rees Need Propolis?
Much discussion has arisen in regard to the habit bees have of making all openings tight with propolis. Theory says, if allowed to follow their bent, or instinct, they will smother themselves to death. Practice says they do, at least at times, so prevent the escape of moisture that their home gets damp and wet, filled with icicles, etc., so that they suffer; or, at least, such is the case in the lives we have provided for them. Who is right--the bees or the enlightened bekeeper? The greater part of the fault lies in the hive we have given them. The enameled cloth which we formerly used for covering bees is as impervious to air and moisture as the propolis they collect with so much pains and trouble. If the outside of this is allowed to get frosty, it will, most assuredly, condense the breath of the bees on the inside; and if the outside is but thinly protected from the weather, icicles will certainly form on the inside, and freeze the bees all fast in a lump. Now we would have no fear at all in having the bees wax up every thing as tight as they wished, if we could have their winter apartment made so small that they completely filled it--filled it so full, indeed, as to be crowded out at the entrance, unless in verycold weather--and have the entire outside protected with some non-conductor that would enable the bees to keep the inner walls warm at all times. We think then we should have no dampness. With chuff packing and chaff cushions, we have succeeded so well that we are perfectly willing the little fellows shall fix up just as snug for winter as their instinct prompts them to do.
## 6.1. Value of Propolis.
The gun has been used to some extent in medicine; also in the preparation of certain leather polishes. It is claimed that propolis for this purpose possesses a property that renders it superior to any of the pitches or resins.
**QUENN -REARING.** Every honey-producer should know how to raise his own queens. There are times when it is better to buy them, and other times when it is certainly cheaper to rear them. Other things being equal, a queen that has never been compelled to go through the mails, shut up in a mail-sack, to be bumped about in this way and that for a period of two or three days or perhaps that many weeks, ought to live longer and give better results than one that is compelled to undergo such treatment. It very often happens that a queen which has been doing excellent service for a year or so, when introduced after being sent through the mails, dies within a few days, for the very probable reason that the journey was too much for her. It would seem, then, that every bee-keeper should himself rear the majority of the queens that he uses, buying only just enough to renew his stock or to introduce new strains. But before proceeding further with this subject, the reader would do well to read Queens (found in its alpha-betical order), as this furnishes the groundwork of the subject we shall now discuss.
conditions favorable and unfavorable for nearing queens.
When a colony from some cause or other becomes queenless, the bees will set about rearing another.
In nature, the best queens are those that are reared either during the swarming-time or when the bees are about to supersede an old queen soon to fail. At such times we see large beautiful queen-cells, reminding one of big peanuts, projecting from the side of the comb. The larvae in such cells are lavishly fed with royal jelly; and when the queens finally hatch they are usually large and vigorous.
We said there is one class of cells that bees rear when they are about to supersede an old queen. When a queen is two or three years old she begins to show signs of failing. The bees recognize the fact that their own mother will soon die, or at least need help from a daughter, and very leisurely proceed to construct a number of cells, all of which are supplied with larvae, and fed in the same lavish way as those reared under the swarming impulse.
But we can never determine in advance when the bees will rear supersedure cells, and it may be true that the queen about to be superseded is not desirable stock from which to rear. In this case such cells should not be utilized. For a like reason, also, cells reared under the swarming impulse should be rejected; because it is certainly penny wise and pound foolish to rear queens from any thing but the very best select stock. But all swarming-cells from good queens should be reserved by placing them in West queenless protectors; then hunt up queens two or three years old, pinch their heads off, and repl ace them with one of these cells in each colony. But perhaps you have good queens even two or three years old. Perhaps; but the majority of our honey-producers think it profitable to replace all queens three years old, while a good many make it a practice to requeen all colonies having queens two years and over, and of late years there is a slight tendency on the part of a few to graft every year.
While these swarming-cells produce the very best queens, yet it may not be convenient to requeen during the swarming season, which in some localities may be a very bad season to do so, owing to the interruption that it makes in the regular production of honey; for it is well known that a good many colonies will not do as well in honey-gathering when they are queenless as when they have a good queen in the hive. But such cells can then be given to nuclei, for they ought not to be wasted.
Among the several systems of rearing queens, the one first put out by Mr. Doolittle many years ago forms the basis of some of the best now in vogue, is very simple, requiring no special tools more than one can improvise for himself. Thoroughly understanding this, the reader will be in position to carry out the more advanced ideas put forth by Samuel Sinnins, E. L. Pratt, Henry Alley, and others.
THE DOOLITLE method of reaining queens.
While Mr. Doolittle's system is slightly artificial yet he endeavors to make his methods conform as nearly as possible to
Nature's ways. The first thing of prime importance in the rearing of queens is to bring about conditions that will approach, as nearly as possible, those that are present during the swarming season at a time when the bees supply the cell-cups lavishly with royal food. One of the first requisites, then, for cell-building is strong powerful colonies ; second, a light honey-flow, or a condition almost analogous, viz., stimulating feeding if the honey is not then coming in. Queens reared during a dearth of honey, or in nuclei, are apt to be small, and the cells from which they come look small and inferior. The mothers that do the best work are those that are large, and capable of laying anywhere from 2000 to 3000 eggs per day. A queen that is incapable of this should not be retained. For instance, a colony with a good queen might earn for its owner in a good season $5.00 in clean cash. In the same season the same colony (or, perhaps, to speak more exactly, the same hive of bees), with a poorer queen, would bring in less than half that amount. A queen that can lay 2000 or 3000 eggs a day at the _right time of the year_, so that there will be a large force of bees ready to begin on the honey when it does come, is the kind of queen that we need to rear.
The old way of raising queens was to make a colony or a nucleus queenless ; wait for the bees to build their own cells, then distribute them to colonies made queenless beforehand. This plan is very slow and wasteful, and, worst of all, resu'ts in the rearing of inferior queens. Mr. Doolittle takes advantage of Nature's ways to such an extent that he is enabled to rear a large number of queens from some selected breeder, in that he makes it possible to increase the number of cells ordinarily built; for the prime requisite in queen-rearing is cells--plenty of them--that will rear good strong healthy queens.
How to make doolittle cell-cups.
Many times, when an apiarist is going through his yard he can cut out embryo cell-cups, such as the bees make. These can be utilized at some future time for the purpose of grafting. But such cells, after they are gathered, are exceedingly frail, irregular in shape, will not bear much handling ; and most of the time one can not find enough.
Mr. Doolittle was among the first who conceived the idea of making artificial cell-cups that should not only be regular in form but of such construction as to stand any reasonable amount of handling. Con try to what one might expect, such cells are just as readily accepted by the bees us those they make in the good old-fashioned way ; and, what is of considerable importance, they can be made in any quantity by one of ordinary intelligence.
Mr. Doolittle takes a wooden rake-tooth, and whittles and sandpapers the point so that it is the size and shape of the bottom of the queen - cell (see illustration). Two or three other sticks are then fashioned of the same shape and pattern. Preparatory to forming the cells Mr. Doolittle has a little pan of beeswax, kept hot by means of a lamp ; also a cup of water. Seating himself before a table he is now ready for work. Taking one of these cell-foming sticks he dips it into water, after which he plunges it about \(\,
aise 0.43pt\hbox{$\mathchar 316$}\) of an inch into the melted wnx. He then lifts it up and twirls it at an angle (waxed end lower) in his fingers. When cool he dips it again, but not quite so deep, and twirls it as before. He proceeds thus until the cup is dipped seven or eight times, but each time dipping it less deep, within \(\,
aise 0.43pt\hbox{$\mathchar 316$}\) inelt of the previous dipping. The main thing is to secure a cup having a _thick heavy bottom_, but which will have a thin and delicate knife edge at the open top, or at that point where the bees are supposed to assume work. After the last dipping is cooled, a slight pressure of the thumb loosens the cell-cup slightly. It is then dipped once more, and before cooling it is attached to a comb or stick designed to receive it.
## 6. Graphing cells.
The next operation is to insert a small particle of royal jelly in every queen-cell so made. The amount in each should be about equivalent in bulk to a double-B shot, says Mr. Doolittle. But we have found that a much less quantity will answer. Out of an ordinary queen-cell well supplied with royal jelly we get enough to supply 20 cups. If we took a quantity equal in bulk to a BH shot we would have to rob two or three cells to supply that many. This royal jelly should come from some queen-cell nearly ready to seal, as that will contain the most. It should be stirred to bring all to about the same consistency,after which it may be dipped out of the cells by means of a stick whittled like an ordinary ear-spoon, or a toothpick bent to that shape.
QUEN REARING.
The next operation is to take a frame of young larvae just hatched from the eggs of our best breeding queen. Each little graub should be picked up with the aforesaid ear-spoon, and gently laid on the royal food previously prepared in one of the cell-cups. \(\Lambda\) larva should be given to every one of the cell-cups in this manner, and when all are supplied they are to be put into the cell-building colony.
Before grafting, however, it is advisable to stick a row of about a dozen of these cups on a flat stick with not wax. When they are all mounted one may then graft as explained.
After this stick of grafted cups has been mounted in a brood-frame we are all ready for the bees to begin where man left off. If it is during the swarming season I would select some _every strong_ colony having a queen, place on it a queen-excluding honey-board, and over this an upper story with a few frames of brood. If the colony is already a two-story one, the perforated zinc-board should be inserted between the two sections of the hive. When honey is not coming in freely it should be fed liberally for several days before giving the prepared cups, and until the cells are all capped over. This is important. Into the upper story of such a colony we place our frame with prepared cells between two frames of brood and bees. If the colony is _strong_ enough the bees will go to work immediately, drawing out the queen-cells, giving them an added supply of royal jelly, and finally completing them. But if it is not very strong or has not been fed before and while the cells are being built, it may and probably will clean out and leave every cell.