BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
Carniolan and Caucasian bees are the only later imported races of bees that possess enough desirable characteristics to be of practical interest. The black bees are a trifle smaller than the Italian or Carniolan bees, but are hardy, and if a. plentiful supply of good food is present will withstand well the cold winters and climatic changes. They are easily angered, will sting upon the slightest disturbance and are non-resistant to the wax moth and European foul-brood disease. The queens are quite prolific and noted for brood rearing.
## Italian Bees Best Honey Gatherers
The Italian bees have three or more yellow bands on the abdomen, are often slightly larger than the black bees, but as a rule are not quite as hardy. As a race they are more gentle, are strongly resistant to the wax moth, and much less liable to European foul brood. Their queens are very prolific.
There are two varieties of Italian bees--leather colored and five banded or Golden Italians. Of late years the former are more generally preferred as honey gathers and because they possess greater resistance to European foul-brood. The Carniolan bees are gray, whereas the Italian bees are yellow, very hardy, working in the field longer than other races of bees, are gentle, resist wax moths well and the queens are extremely prolific. They are noted for abundance of swarming. The Caucasian bees are dark colored, but not as black as the common black or German bee. They are noted for glueing up hive and frames with beeglue or propolis and sections of comb honey require much cleaning so that at present compared with the Italians they seem an undesirable race of bees.
## The Different Members of a Colony
A normal colony of bees during the summer is composed of one queen, many thousand workers, and several hundred drones. The queen bee is the only perfectly developed female bee, she being practically an egg laying machine capable of laying from a few daily, in the spring and fall, to over 2,000 daily during the height of the brood rearing season. She has little if anything to do with the government of the colony, but is the most essential individual for its existence, and it has been truthfully stated that about the queen hinges all
Figure 4: THE HONEY BEE FAMILY
there is in the management of bees. The worker bees are undeveloped females, incapable of laying fertile eggs. They do all of the required work as gathering nectar, pollen, propolis, water, also feed and nurse young bees, build comb, clean house, and guard the hive from intruders. The sting or mandibles are used for defense as occasion requires. The drone is the male bee. He does no work and his existence is for the sole purpose of mating with the queen which takes place while they are in flight.
## Some Essentials in Bee Management
**Inlatesummer and fall.--**Whether or not bees winter well depends, in no small degree, upon how well they are managed in the late summer and fall. Essential wintering conditions that can be controlled by late summer and fall management are the winter food supply, the presence of young fertile queens, and plenty of young workers.
The securing of a crop of honey from late summer and fall flowers is not general throughout Wisconsin. It is confined mostly to localities having in sufficient quantities special occurrences of one or more of these plants; buckwheat, sweet clover, goldenrod, "fire weed" or willow herb, blue and white asters, wild sunflowers and related swamp and lowland plants. Under our conditions, however, very little surplus honey is obtained, as a rule, from these sources. Probably sweet clover, goldenrod and asters yield the most fall surplus when any is secured.
## Choose Winter Bee Food Carefully
For winter food, combs of two-thirds capped-over clover or basswood honey is, without question, the best. Often, however, this honey supply has been removed for sale and insufficient amounts of other good honeys have been secured by the bees. If an excess of buckwheat honey, or honey from fall flowers, is present in the hives, the bees do not usually winter as well as when they have less than one-half of their stores of that undesirable type of honey. If the bees have gathered, in the late summer and fall, quantities of honey dew from plant lice and exudations of plants, a very heavy winter loss is almost certain to result. Sometimes from 50 to 75 per cent of the colonies wintered on such food die before the first of March, largely from dysentery.
When large amounts of undesirable food are present, the successful beekeeper will remove most of it in the late fall and feed the colonies according to their needs for winter, corresponding quantities of either good honey or some kind of good sugar syrup. Sugar syrup for late feeding should be made by boiling for a few minutes two parts of sugar with one of water by measure. To aid in preventing the sugar from crystallizing in the combs three-fourths of an ounce of tartaric acid should be added to each 50 pounds of sugar used. The syrup should be fed while warm, preferably above the bees in large feeders and in as large quantities as possible until a sufficient amount is stored. For an average colony wintered in the cell, from 25 to 30 pounds of actual food should be available. For colonies wintered out-of-doors 30 to 40 pounds of actual stores is necessary.
## Colonies Need Young Fertile Queens
Young fertile queens are practically necessary for successful wintering of bees. The late summer and early fall is the correct time for the successful beekeeper to manage his colonies in such a way that each one will have a fertile queen reared the same or the previous season. Where a fairly good flow of honey is obtainable from sweet clover, goldenrod or early fall flowers, a good method for raising queens in late summer is to feed the desired queen-rearing colony each evening a small amount in addition to the natural honey flow. This will cause the colony to become exceptionally strong and incite the bees to raise a considerable number of fine large, well nourished queen cells. When these have been capped and may be expected to hatch, in three or four days, divide the two or three strongest colonies in the bee yard into three and four frame groups. Give to each a capped queen cell and to prevent robbing, be certain that the entrances to them are as small as convenient. When these queens are laying, they may be introduced into the desired colonies.
The remaining essential for successful wintering of bees, controlled by late summer and fall management, is that there be plenty of young worker bees. This factor is of more importance than is usually supposed. Very often colonies, having plenty of good food with an old fertile queen, come out of the cellar with plenty of bees, but in two or three weeks dwindle down to a mere handful. This is due largely to the fact that old bees constitute the colony in the fall. They naturally die of old age shortly after passing through the winter and for this reason the value of the presence of plenty of young worker bees in the fall is evident. When the beeskeeper has reason to believe that most of the bees in his colonies are old and there is no prospect of a fall flow of honey, it is advisable to feed, beginning with the first of September, a little honey or sugar syrup every two or three days in order to stimulate the queen so that plenty of young bees will be obtained for winter. This should be done only when there is a sufficient quantity of food for winter already present. If there is not sufficient food for winter and feeding is desirable for the production of young bees, larger quantities of food will be required according to the respective needs of the colonies as the bees must store away their winter's food supply at the same time.
## Avoid Early Stimulative Feeding
There is one point which should be carefully observed, however, and that is not to begin this stimulative feeding too early. When it is begun by the middle of August the queen often receives a very strong permanent stimulus so that the colony continues to raise a large amount of brood until the last of September or first week in October, and thereby consumes a large part of their winter stores. Of course, a very large number of fine young bees are thus obtained for wintering, but this is likely to result disastrously because an insufficient amount of food is left for winter. Usually a sufficient number of young worker bees are obtained when stimulative feeding is begun September 1. With that management, practically all of the young bees are produced from the stimulative food given them and the winter stores remain to be used when most needed.
**In winter months.--**The wintering of bees is to be understood as their maintenance from the beginning of settled cold weather in late fall to the proper time for their removal from the cellar in early spring, or if wintered out-doors, to the time for the appearance of the first natural pollen. In Wisconsin, this period will usually be from March 20 to April 15.
Winter loss is a term applied to the bees that die from the time that settled cold weather begins to the time for the appearance of the first natural pollen in the spring. Nearly all Wisconsin bees are wintered in cellars. Of 186 Wisconsin beekeepers reporting in October, 1914, to the State Apiary
Inspector, 160 or 86 per cent wintered their bees in cellars, 21 or 11.8 per cent wintered their bees out-doors, and only five, or two per cent used special repositories and packed apiary-houses.
## Factors in Successful Wintering
There are four main essentials that must be provided for successful wintering of bees. The first three factors, sufficient and proper food supply, young fertile que
Figure 5: AN 1DEAL BEE CELLAR
young worker bees, have already been considered. In out-door wintering several methods are used to provide the desired protection. One method is to wrap the hives in heavy paper. As insufficient protection is usually given the bees against our cold and changeable weather, more Wisconsin beemen who winter their colonies out-of-doors might well follow this plan.
Probably the most common method of wintering bees out-doors in Wisconsin is to enclose a single hive in a box or "winter case" large enough to permit two or three inches of packing to be placed around and over the hive. Sometimes these winter cases are made large enough for each to accommodate two or four colonies. Sometimes colonies are arranged in long rows in tenement sheds of permanently or temporarily constructed side walls and roof. Suitable packing is then placed over and about the hives. Double walled hives are also used for out-door wintering, but only to a limited extent in Wisconsin.
Many Bees Wintered in Cellar
When bees are wintered in the cellar, the cellar itself is the protection against the winter weather. Successful cellar wintering of bees resolves itself into the observance and maintenance of proper bee-cellar conditions. The cellar must maintain a fairly constant temperature, not high or low, 42 degrees F. to 48 degrees F. being generally considered the most practical temperature; it must be well ventilated with pure air, naturally through the floor, ceiling, and walls, or artifically with ventilating tubes; it must also be dry and it must be dark. A bee-cellar which possesses these conditions, provided naturally or artifically for the entire winter will always winter bees with absolutely no loss providing the colonies are properly prepared for wintering.
Winter Loss Can Be Controlled
Winter loss is due to the partial or total absence of one or more of the essential requisites for successful wintering. The amount or extent of winter loss is absolutely under the control of the beekeeper. The winter loss in Wisconsin for 18921893 was 70 per cent; for 1911-1912, 30 per cent; for 1912-1913, 10 per cent; for 1913-1914, 8 per cent and for the past five years the average has been 15 per cent. There has been an apparent decrease in the winter loss in the last few years and it is to be hoped that an increasing number of Wisconsin beekeepers are providing more and better wintering conditions for their bees each succeeding year. This probably will be tested within the next five or six years when we may expect the severe winter that appears once in every ten or twenty years.
At that time "bekeepers" will be distinguished from "keepers of bees" by their possession, in the following spring of a large percentage of live colonies instead of empty hives. The extent and seriousness of winter loss will always remain a problem to be solved by the individual beekeeper as no locality presents sufficient factors to establish general wintering conditions.
**Duringsummerseason.--**Most Wisconsin honey is made during five to eight weeks of the summer months, the season often beginning in the southern counties as early as June 10. For this reason, in many localities, if surplus honey is obtained at all, it must be secured during a period of three
Figure 6: Four-colony wintering cases
to five weeks. The colonies should be managed throughout the year so as to have the largest possible working force in each colony at the beginning of the main honey flow in order that the maximum amount of honey may be made. In general then, spring management largely consists of building up the colonies suffering from winter losses.
Summer management alone consists in so handling the colonies as to encourage honey production and hive increase. For comb honey production it is necessary to create pressure in the hive so as to force the bees up into the small unnatural square compartments in which the comb honey is stored. This pressure is gained by keeping the main hive practically filled with combs containing brood and honey so that nearly all of the freshly gathered nectar will have to be stored in the supers above.
## When the Bees Are Ready to Swarm
As a result of the crowded condition in the hives, swarming often results and this forms one of the chief troubles of the comb honey man. Swarming can be prevented to a certain extent by the removal of queen cells, proper manipu
Figure 7: WINTER quarters from side wall and roof colonies may be arranged in long rows and covered by tenement sheds.
lation of the brood combs, giving the queen more room in which to lay eggs and proper addition of supers for honey storage.
Care, however, should be taken so as not to provide too much room at one time, otherwise the bees will not fill the sections properly. Partly filled and unfinished comb honey sections are practically worthless.
In most of Wisconsin, dandelion and fruit bloom give sufficient stimulation so that the bees are about ready to swarm at the beginning of clover bloom in early June. At that time, remove all queen cells and the two outside honey laden combs in the brood chamber of the hive, also spread out the other combs and insert two empty frames containing full sheets of brood comb foundation. Then put on one super of sections containing full sheets of foundation and use separators or fences between the sections. When the sections are two-thirds full of honey, raise the first super and slip a second between it and the hive body. Continue this process throughout the season and to prevent from being travel stained remove filled supers as soon as the sections are filled and capped. Manipulate the brood chamber part of the hive as occasion demands.
A beekkeeper can often be distinguished from an "owner of bees" by properly marketing only the best grades of honey, feeding back to his bees the unfinished sections. In producing extracted honey the "pressure" needed for comb honey is unnecessary as the regular large sized combs are used instead of sections. It being natural for bees to store honey in as large combs as possible, they apparently lose less time in storing honey in combs than in sections. Much time is also saved to the bees because the large combs are emptied of honey in the extractor and returned uninjured to be refilled, instead of being sold with the honey. Thus, two to three times as much liquid honey may be secured as comb honey.
Managing Hives to Increase Honey Production
When clover begins to bloom, the colonies should be relieved of "pressure" and if all started queen cells and three or four combs from brood chamber are removed and replacedwith frames containing full sheets of comb foundation alternated with the remaining brood combs, the desire to swarm will be greatly decreased. It may be further decreased by the addition of a hive body of surplus combs. Following this manipulation, place a wood and wire queen excluder between the brood and extracting super to prevent the queen from laying in the extracting combs.
Extract the honey from upper combs as soon as they become one-half to two-thirds capped over, or when the uncapped honey is not thin like water. In the latter case, it may be extracted or placed with additional combs in another hive body. Additional supers and combs should be added as needed and room given in the brood-chamber by the removal of more brood as seems advisable, replacing the frames taken out with wired frames containing full sheets of comb foundation. The combs of brood and honey removed should be used to aid weak colonies or in making increase. Always extract "ripe honey" and properly market the best possible grade that can be produced.
A very common way to make increase, is to let each colony swarm once; hive the swarm in a new hive on empty combs or frames with full sheets of foundation, and then give the old hive a new queen. Before introducing the new queen, however, destroy all queen cells or if desirable to let the bees' roqueen themselves do not add the queen and leave one queen cell to develop. A better way, and one which avoids the trouble of catching swarms, is to use the brood combs taken from colonies during the process of "room-making," place six or eight of these, usually made up of capped brood, in a new hive with a peck of bees' stolen from some exceedingly strong colony and give them a ripe queen cell with which to develop a new queen. This method should only be used during honey flow. Another way to increase the number of colonies without the trouble of swarming is to divide a strong colony at the beginning of honey flow, letting the queenless part raise a queen from the best ripe cell that can be found.
## 7 Disease May Consume Beeman's Profits
The presence or absence of bee diseases in a beeyard often means the difference between a profit or loss as applied to the crop of honey for any particular year, as well as the destruction of the combs should the disease be American foul brood. The inconvenience and trouble of treating to get rid of disease is considerable, sometimes sufficient to discourage the beekeeper, especially when the disease treated, reappears for a year or two following the treatment. Again a beekeeper may successfully treat his bees, absolutely freeing them of any disease only to have them become inoculated again the same or following year from diseased bees of a neighbor even two or more miles away. If foul brood appears when bees are neglected or run on the let-alone-plan, it is quite certain that no honey will be obtained the first year and every colony will die of disease in two years. American foul brood and possibly European foul brood is carried in combs and honey from diseased colonies, and from such material whether sold in the market or even moved to new localities, the disease may be carried and spread broadcast by visiting bees.
## Bee Diseases Found in Wisconsin
Bee diseases known to appear in Wisconsin are: paralysis, sackrood, or the so-called pickled brood, and American and European foul brood. Paralysis and sackrood do not cause extensive damage in Wisconsin beekeeping while American and European foul brood are quite extensively distributed, and are of great consequence. Both are infectious.
Because of the practical impossibility of observing the life history and habits of bees housed in boxes, "skeps" and log gums during the early days of beekeeping, there is some doubt as to the exact time of the first appearance of bee disease in Wisconsin. We find no record of diseased bees in Wisconsin till after the introduction and use of movable frame hives, nor is it known when or how the first foul brood was brought into Wisconsin.
During the marked successes of Mr. Grimm in the "70's," probably about 1877, American foul brood appeared among his bees. From 1880 to 1885 it appeared in apiaries in many other sections of the state when a rather extensive and rapid interchange of bees, hives and combs was going on. It was a very easy thing for diseases to spread broadcast over the state at that time because of the ignorance of its presence and the rapid and extensive sale of and interchange of queens and bees, especially of the newly introduced Italian race which is credited with a portion of the rapid spread of foul brood. At that time queens were usually shipped with a small piece of comb containing some honey, these pieces being the carrying agents of foul brood. Thus, whenever queens were sold from an affected apiary, they were probably quite effective in spreading the disease.
## American and European Foul brood
About 1890, the seriousness of the foul brood situation became apparent, many beekeepers in various parts of the state rapidly losing their bees. Frequently the bees died with plenty of honey in the hives and conditions became so bad that it was evident that some serious trouble existed among the colonies. About that time information reached Wisconsin regarding the presence of bee diseases in Ontario, Canada, and in the eastern United States. It was soon found that the cause of much of the loss among bees here was due to foul brood of the American type. The result of this was the passage of a foul brood law by the Wisconsin Legislature which became effective in 1898. The senior author of this bulletin was appointed Foul brood Inspector and has been reappointed successively so that 1915 made his seventeenth year of continuous service.
Previous to 1907, the foul brood observed in Wisconsin was of the type now known as American foul brood. This same year a new disease occurred at Portage which proved to be what is now known as European foul brood. Since this appearance of European foul brood the records of the Inspector show that it was present at Portage in 1908, 1909, and 1911 and that the same disease appeared at Elkhorn in Walworth county in 1909; Mauston in Juneau county; Ellsworth and Spring Valley in Pierce county; and Ashland in Ashland county, 1911; Darien in Walworth county, and West De Pere, in Brown county, 1912; Lyndon in Juneau county; Forest Junction in Calumet county; Verona in Dane county; Maiden Rock, Bay City, Beldenville in Pierce county in 1913; and Milwaukee and West Alls in Milwaukee county; Two Rivers in Manitowoc county; Green Bay in Brown county; Kaukauna in Outagamie county; Rock Elm, Elmwood, Plum City, Spring Valley, in Pierce county in 1914.
During the years that the disease was found at Portage, the best possible care and treatment was given each case so that the occurrence at this one place indicates that the
disease is exceedingly difficult of control and eradication. At present there is no indication of European foul brood at Portage and there has been none since 1911.
## The Present Foul Brood Situation
At Greenwood in Clark county 12 to 15 years ago there were 1,000 colonies of bees where at present there are but
Figure 8: Appearance of FOUL BROOD IN 1914
10 colonies. The destruction of the basswood timber in that locality is partly responsible for this condition, but the presence of bee diseases, allowed to continue almost without any consideration, is the principal cause. On many farms there were from 50 to 250 colonies of bees, now only an occasional farmer having 4 to 30 colonies may be found, and in the Greenwood region itself there probably are not more than four parties owning individually as high as 100 colonies. As in previous years, the disease appeared again in 1913 and 1914, but it is under absolute control and will probably be eradicated the coming season.