BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
Although bees can fly, in search of food, over three miles, still, _if it is not within a circle of about two miles in every direction from the apiary, they will be able to store but little surplus honey._+ If pasturage abounds within a quarter of a mile from their hives, so much the better; there is no great advantage; however, in having it close to them, unless there is a great supply, as bees, when they leave the hive, seldom alight upon the neighboring flowers. The instinet to fly some distance seems to have been given them to prevent them from wasting their time in trying into flowers already despoiled of their sweets by previous gatherers.
Footnote : margin: *
Bees will go farthest in a direction where no obstacles exist, such as hills, woods or large areas of unproductive land. If the blossoms from which they gather honey extend out in a continuous stretch in one direction, they may travel five miles away or perhaps farther when the wind brings to them the smell of flowers. But the faet that apiaries only four miles apart give different yields under the same management shows that the opportunities differ even at that short distance.
"Mr. Kaden, of Mayence, thinks that the range of the bee's flight does not usually extend more than three miles in all directions. Several years ago; a vessel, laden with sugar,anchored off Mayence, and was soon visited by the bees of the neighborhood, which continued to pass to and from the vessel from dawn to dark. One morning, when the bees were in full flight, the vessel sailed up the river. For a short time, the bees continued to fly as numerously as before; but gradually the number diminished, and, in the course of half an hour, all had ceased to follow the vessel, which had, meanwhile, sailed more than four miles.''--Bienenzeitung, 1854, p. 83.
Our own experience corroborates the statements of Kaden. We have known strong colonies of bees to starve upon the hills in a year of drouth, while the Mississippi bottoms, less than four miles distant, which had been overflowed during the Spring, were yielding a large crop. It is evident that districts, where honey blossoms are scarce, can be much more readily overstocked than those rich lands which are covered with blossoms, the greater part of the Summer. A great amount of _land in cultivation_, is not always a hindrance to honey production, for cultivated lands often grow weeds, which yield an abundance of honey. Heartsease and Spanish needle grow patifully in semifields and wheat stubble in wet seasons. Pasture lands abound with white clover.
**709**. It is impossible to give the exaet number of colonies that a country can support profitably. In poor locations, a few hives will probably harvest all the honey to be found, while some districts can support perhaps a hundred or more to the square mile. The bee-keeper must be his own judge, as to the honey capacity of his district.
''When a large flock of sheep,'' says Oettl, ''is grazing on a limited area, there may soon be a deficiency of pasturage. But this cannot be asserted of bees, as a good honey-district cannot readily be overstocked with them. To-day, when the air is moist and warm, the plants may yield a superabundance of nectar; while to-morrow being cold and wet, there may be a total want of it. When there is sufficient heat and moisture, the saccharine juices of plants will readily fill the nectaries, and will be quickly replenished when carried off by the bees. Every cold night checks the flow of honey, and every clear, warm day
end of the year 1905. Mr. Alexander reported a crop of about 70,000 lbs. of honey in one season. But in years of scarcity of honey, it is quite probable that many colonies will starve in a very large apiary, while a small apiary might gather enough for Winter.
**710**. According to Oettl (p. 389), Bohemia contained 160,000 colonies in 1853, from a careful estimate, and he thought the country could readily support four times that number. This province contains 19,8\(\stackrel{{>}}{{\sim}}\)2 square English miles.
We say square English miles, and we insist on the word English, for we have read of reports from Germany, showing incredible figures as to the number of bees, and the amount of bees wax and honey gathered on areas of a few square miles; and yet, some of these reports may have been true, for there are different sized miles, in Germany. The German geographical mile is equal to \(\pm\) 611-1000 English miles; the German short mile, to 3. 897-1000; and the German long mile to 5. 733-1000, &e., the shortest German square mile being as about 13 of the English, and the long mile being about equal to 33 of our square miles. This we mean from "Chambers Encyclopedia."
According to an official report, there were in Denmark, in 1838, eighty-six thousand and thirty-six colonies of bees. The annual product of honey appears to have been about 1,841,-800 the. In 1855, the export of wax from that country was 118,379 lbs.
In 1851, according to official returns, there were 58,904 colonies of bees in the kingdom of Wurtemberg.
In 1857, the yield of honey and wax in the empire of Austria was estimated to be worth over seven millions of dollars.
Donbless, in these districts, where honey is so largely produced, great attention is paid to the cultivation of crops which, while in themselves profitable, afford abundant pasture for bees.
**711**. California, which seems to be the Eldorado of bee
bark Papillon. This had _all_ been purchased from Los Angeles Apiarists.
**712**. In the excellent season of 1\(\!\times\!\)83, the honey crop of Hancock County, Illinois, was estimated at about 200,000 pounds, which made an average of less than half a pound per aere. 36,000 pounds of this was our own erop, and the county did not contain one-tenth of the bees that could have been kept profitably on it. Yet, at this low rate, the crop of Illinois alone, with the same percentage of bees, would have been 15,000,000 pounds. We cannot form an adequate idea of the enormous amount of honey which is wasted from the lack of bees to harvest it.
**713**. In our own experience in the Mississippi valley, we have found eighty to one hundred colonies to be the number from which the most honey could be expected in one apiary. Dr. C. C. Miller in his interesting work "A Year Among the Bees," says also that one hundred colonies is the best number in one location. Mr. Heddon strongly urges bee-keepers not to locate within any area already occupied by an apiary of one hundred colonies or more. The extensive experience of both these Apiarists confirms ours, but we must remember that locations differ greatly.
**714**. In all arrangements, aim to save _every step_ for the bees that you possibly can. With the alighting-board properly arranged, the grass kept down, or better still, coal-ashes or sand spread in front of the apron-board, bees will be able to store more honey, even if they have to go a considerable distance for it, than they otherwise could from pasturage nearer at hand. Many bee-keepers utterly negleet all suitable precautions to facilitate the labors of their bees, as though they imagined them to be miniature locomotives, always fired up, and capable of an indefinite amount of exertion. A bee _cannot_ put forth more than a certain amount of physical effort, and a large portion of this ought not to be spent in contending against diffinelties from which it might easily be guarded. They may often be seen panting after their return from labor, and so exhausted as to need rest before they enter the hive.
**715**. With proper management, at least fifty pounds of surplus honey may be obtained from each colony that is wintered in good condition. This is not a "guess" estimate, it is the average of our crops during a period of over twenty years in different localities.
Such an average may appear small to experienced beekeepers, but we think it large enough when we consider that we are in a district where wheat, corn, oats, and timothy are the staple crops, none of these being honey producing plants.
A careful man, who, with Langstroth hives, will begin heekeeping on a prudent scale, enlarging his operations as his skill and experience increase, will succeed in any region. But, in favorable localities, a much larger profit may be realized.
Bee-keepers cannot be too cautious in entering largely upon new systems of management, until they have ascertained, not only that they are good, but that _they_ can make a good use of them. There is, however, a golden mean between the stupid conservatism that tries nothing new, and that rash experimenting, on an extravagant scale, which is so characteristic of our people.
## Chapter XVII.
Honey Production.
**716.** History does not mention the first discovery of honey, by human beings. Whether it became known to primitive man by accident, from the splitting of a bee-tree by lightning, or by his observation of the fondness of some animals for it,--certain it is that when he first tasted the thick and transparent liquid, the fear of stings was overcome, and the bee-hunter was born. Since that time, the manner of securing honey has undergone a great many changes, improving and retrograding, as we can judge from writings now extant.
Killing bees for their honey was, unquestionably, an invention of the dark ages, when the human family had lost--in apiarian pursuits, as well as in other things--the skill of former ages. In the times of Aristotle, Varro, Columeila, and Pliny, such a barbarous practice did not exist. The old cultivators took only what their bees could spare, killing no colonies, except such as were feeble or diseased.
The Modern methods have again done away with these estensions among enlightened men, and the time has some when the following epitaph, taken from a German work, might properly be placed over every pit of brinstched bees:
HERE RESTS,
CUT OFF FROM USEFUL LABOR,
A COLONY OF
INDUSTTRIOUS BEESS
BASELY MUDERED
BY ITS
UNGRAFFUL AND IGNORANT
OWNER.
128To the epitaph should be appended Thomson's verses :
"Ah, see, where robbed and murdered in that pit,
Lies the still heaving hive! at evening snatched,
Beneath the cloud of gilt-concealing night,
And fixed o'er sulphur! while, not dreaming ill,
The happy people, in their waxen cells,
Sudden, the dark, oppressive steam ascends.
And, used to milder sects, the tender race,
By thousands, tumble from their honied dome
Into a gulf of blue sulphureous flame!"
**717**. The present methods are as far ahead of the old ways, as the steel rail is ahead of the miry road; as the palacc car is ahead of the stage coach.
It is to the production of surplus honey that all the efforts of the bee-keeper tend, and the problem of apieulture is, how to raise the most honey from what colonies we have, with the greatest profit.
**718**. In raising honey, whether eomb or extracted, the Apiarist should remember the following :
_1st._ His colonies should be strongest in bees at the time of the expected honey harvest (**565**).
_2d._ Each honey harvest usually lasts but a few weeks.
If a colony is weak in Spring, the harvest may cone and pass away, and the bees be able to obtain very little from it. During this time of meagre accumulations, the orchards and pastures may present
"One bounlless blush, one white empurpled shower
Of mingled blossoms;"
and tens of thousands of bees from stronger colonies may be engaged all day in sipping the fragrant sweets, so that every gale which "fans its odoriferous wings" about their dwellings, dispenses"Native perfumes, and whispers whence they stole Those balmy spoils."* By the time the feeble colony becomes strong\(-\)if at all\(-\) the honey harvest is over, and, instead of gathering enough for its own use, it may starve, unless fed. Bee-keeping, with colonies which are feeble, except in extraordinary seasons and loeations, is emphatically nothing but "vexation of spirit." _3rd._ Colonies that swarm cannot be expected to furnish much surplus, in average localities and seasons. _4th._ A hive containing or raising many drones (**1S9**) cannot save as much surplus as one that has but few, owing to the cost of production of these drones, who do not work and are raised in place of workers. We have insisted on this point already, but it is of such importance, that we cannot refrain from recalling it. The hives should be over-hauled every Spring, and the drone coub eut out and replaced by neat pieces of worker coub, or of coub foundation (**67.4**). Every square foot of drone coub, replaced with worker coub, represents an annual saving, in our estimation, of at least one dollar to the colony.
Camb Honey.
**719**. Although more extracted honey can be produced than comb honey, from the same number of colonies, yet a newly made and well sealed comb of honey is unquestionably most attractive, and, when nicely put u\({}_{1}\), will find a place of honor, even on the tables of the wealthy. White comb honey will always be a fancy article, and will sell at paying prices.
Dark honey in the comb does not usually find ready sale. Hence, the bee-keepers, in districts where white honey is harvested, are mostly producers of comb honey; while those in the districts producing dark honey, in the South mainly, rely more on extracted honey.
**720.** We have not the space to describe the different evolutions, through which the production of comb honey has passed since box-hive times; production in large frames in glass boxes, in tumblers, etc.
Honey in large frames does not sell well, and cannot be safely transported. Were it not for this, its production in this way would be advisable. The experienced bee-keeper well knows that bees will make more honey in a large box, than in several small ones whose united capacity is the same. In small boxes, they cannot so well maintain their animal heat in cool weather and cannot ventilate \(\mathbb{M}\) readily in hot weather. In the exceedingly hot season of \(1878\), the colonies that were provided with glass boxes yielded on an average, less than one-fourth of the average yielded by others.
The bees have another important and natural objectijn to the small receptacles, mentioned by a noted \(\Lambda\)piarist, as will be seen farther (741). Practically, there is more labor for the bees in small receptacles, as the joints and corners of the combs require more time and more wax.
**721**. But to produce scalable comb honey, we have no
ehoice. We _must_ produce it in a small receptacle. The _tuliar_ section boxes, which we used as early as 1868, marked the first progressive step, so far as we know.
These sections forming a case by the overlapping of their top and bottom bars, and furnished with glass at each end, were much admired, and we sold several tons of honey, in this shape, in St. Louis, at the now fabulous prices of from 25 to 28 cents per pound.
**722**. But the one pound setiens, as now made, have been universally adopted of late years.
**725**. These principles are based on the diffieulties, that have to be overcome in comb-honey production, as follows _1st._ Inducing the bees to work in small receptacles; _2d._ Foreing them to build the combs straight and even, without bulge, so that the sections can be interchanged without being bruised against one another, when taken off anderated for market; _3d._ Keeping the queen in the brood apartment, and preventing her from breeding in the sections; _1th._ Preventing swarming as much as possible; _5th._ Arranging the sections so as to have as little propolis put on them as possible (**237**); _6th._ Getting the greatest number of sections thoroughly sealed, as unsealed honey is unsalable.
**726**. _1st._ Inducing bees to work in small receptacles. Rather than work in small, empty receptacles, the bees _sometimes_ crowd their honey in the brood chamber, till the queen can find no room to lay in, and swarming, or a smaller erop of honey, is the consequence. To remedy this evil, some of our leading bee-keepers have resorted to an old, discarded, Freneh practice, "reversing." Reversing consists in turning the brood chamber upside down and placing hives containing empty combs, whose bees died the preceding Winter, or emptysupers, over it. The honey contained in the brood chamber, which is always placed above and behind the brood, safe from pilfering intruders, is now at the bottom, near the entrance. The cells are wrong side up (fig. 190), and the most watery honey is in danger of leaking out. Hence an uproar in the hive, and the immediate result is, that the bees promptly oeeupy the upper story, and store in it all this ill-situated honey. The result is so radical, that "reversing bee-keepers" admit that their bees have to be fed in the Fall, as too little honey is left in the brood chamber for the hives to winter on. In the box-hive times, the following was already the almost unanimous report of bee-keepers on the results of "reversing." The recruiting and feeding for Winter of reversed colonies being considered too costly and risky, the apiaries were supplied every year with new colonies bought from bee-keepers whose business was to raise swarms to sell.
"If you want the greatest quantity of honey, reverse your colonies; but if reversing was practiced everywhere, we would diminish the number of our colonies, and would finally even destroy the race of bees, for as far as bee reproduction is concerned the'reversing Apiarist' reaches the same result as the 'brimstoning Apiarist.' ''-French Apiarian Congress, Paris, 1861. L'Apielteur, Volume, 6, page 175.
In the present state of progress in bee culture, "reversing" is less damaging, but its disadvantages to the bees cannot overbalance its advantages, unless it is practiced very eautiously and sparingly.
**727**. Yet this practice is sufficiently entieng--as it forces the bees to oeeupy the supers so quickly--to have caused the invention of a number of reversible hives or frames. The reversing method caused quite a craze about 18S8, but it was a "fad" which soon wore itself out.
**Fig. 191.**
MEDRON's REVERSIBLE HIVE.
(From Cheshire.)
_st._ stand : _bb, body : _hb, honey board; sr._ section racks; _c,_ cover: _hh,_ hand holds : _lb,_ entrance blocks; _c,_ entrance; _l,_ clatt to give_ beep-space; _d,_ crews to hold frames.
**72S.** Reversing during the harvest does not cause the bees to gather any more honey; may, they harvest even a little less, owing to the time occupied in transporting the honey, _but it is all placed in the surplus apartment_ at the mercy of their owner.
A much safer method to induce the bees to work in the supers, is to place in them, nearest the brood, a few unfinished sections from the previous season. This is what Dr. C. C. Miller calls a "bait." These unfinished sections have been emptied of their honey by the extractor, and cleaned by the bees the previous Fall. The supers should be located as near the brood apartment as possible, with as much direct communication as can be conveniently given.
**729**. But, with the greatest skill, it is impossible to attract the bees into the supers, as long as there are empty combs in the brood-chamber.
If the queen is unable to coeupy all the combs with brood, the empty ones should be removed at the beginning of the honey harvest, and either given to swarms or divided colonies, or placed outside of the division hoard (**349**). This is called "eontraection." We would warn our readers against excessive contraction, for, after the honey season is over, a hive which has been contracted to, say, two-thirds, of its capacity, has become dwarfed: in honey, brood, and bees, and will run some risks through the Winter. Besides, that part of the super, which is above the empty space, is but reluctantly occupied by bees.
'If the reader has ever constructed a hive, whose surplus department was wider than the brood chamber, jutting out over the same, he has noticed the partial neglect paid by the bees, to the surplus boxes which rested over wood instead of combs.
'Now this same difference made by the bees, between wood and comb, they will also make between combs of honey and combs of brood, and with our 8-frame Langstroth hive, we notice far less neglect of the side surplus combs than we noticed when using the 10-frame hives. This is one objection to the method of contracting by replacing the side combs of brood chambers with fillers or dummies.''--J. Heddon ''Success in Bee-Culture.''
**730**. A method which avoids contraction, and makes the best honey-producing colonies still better, consists in taking brood combs from colonies that are not likely to yield any surplus, and exchanging them, for empty combs from the best colonies, just before the honey harvest. This method requires too many manipulations to be very advantageous, and prevents the poorest colonies from becoming stronger.
The most potent argument that has been advanced against the Dadant large hive is that, in the raising of comb honey, it becomes necessary to remove all the combs that may not have been filled with brood, by queens of inferior prolificness. This contraction is necessary if we want all our honey in the sections. But many bee-keepers like to produce both comb and extracted honey and with this hive they secure both. The eight-frame Langstroth hive, on account of its diminutive size has been preferred by many, because just as soon as there is a surplus the bees are compelled to put it into the sections, so that the Apiarist gets more honey, in a poor season, from small hives than from large ones, but if he were to weigh the amount of honey actually harvested, whether in the body or the supers, he would soon ascertain that the large hives averaged a great deal'more crop, owing to the greater population in hives containing very prolific queens. We mention this because the ten-frame Langstroth hives are usually preferred for the production of comb honey.
We have already stated (**312**), how Doetor C. C. Miller, with eight-frame hives, manages to secure the greatest amount of brood before the opening of the honey crop, by adding another story for brood to his strongest colonies, then reducing them at the opening of the crop, to one story full of brood, using the extra brood combs for weaker colonies. To this method Dr. Miller ascribes his constant success. It is only another method of achieving the same end, securing the greatest amount of brood and contracting the brood nest for the honey crop. By our method it is done with only one brood apartment. The bee-keeper who uses small hives must either
take one of these methods or expect less crop than he would otherwise get from the most prolifie queens.
**731**.: _2d._ Securing straight, even cogs, in sections. With thin comb foundation (**6S3**), in strips filling 1/2 to 3/4 of the section, the combs are always straight, but their surface, when sealed, is not always _even_. Some cells are built longer than others, and, in packing the honey, these bulged combs might come in contact with one another and get bruised. To prevent this oceurrence, many Apiarists use "separators," made of tin, wood, or coarse wire cloth, placed between the rows of sections, as in figs. 189 and 192.
This invention, claimed by Mr. Betsinger, of New York, was first tried in the brood chamber, by Mr. Langstroth in 1858. It was suggested by Mr. Colvin. (See former edition, page 374.)
Another method has been devised. Plain sections, without insets for the passage of the bees, are made, and a "fence" is used between the sections. This fence is made of slats, fig. 193, with upright strips which rest perpendicularly against the edge of the sections. The bee space is thus made by the help of the fence, the entire length of the sections at top and bottom. Either method succeeds in securing straight combs,though the results differ somewhat, as will be seen farther (736).
But many bee-keepers succeed in securing straight combs without separators simply by the use of full sheets of comb foundation in the sections.
**732**. \(\bar{s}d\). Keeping the queen in the brood apartment. If the supers have been put on just previous to the opening of the honey crop, with sufficient bait to attract the bees in them, there will be but little danger of the queen's moving up into then, unless her breeding room is too much eramped by honey, or by the exiguity of the brood nest.