BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
Some localities are blessed with an almost continuous flow; spring flowers,white clover, basswood, and fall flowers; and, by the way, a man who is to make a specialty of bee-keeping ought to seek such a locality; but many who are already engaged in bee-keeping are permanently located, have friends and relatives living near, and prefer not to seek a new location even if the profits would be thereby increased. Then, again, it is difficult to find a first-class locality for
## Chapter 1 Advanced Bee culture.
clover and basswood that is equally good for fall flowers; and, the better the locality the greater the danger of its being overstocked by its very attractiveness bringing together so many bee-keepers.
There is no question but what many bee-keepers can secure a bountiful crop of fall honey by moving their bees at the right time, but a word of caution may not be out of place right here. Some fall honey, that from aster, for instance, is sadly unfit for winter stores. So disastrous has fall honey proved for winter stores, in some localities, that the bee-keepers there have given up trying to winter their bees unless they substituted early gathered stores, or fed sugar. I know of one bee-keeper in such a locality who secured bountiful crops of fall honey from the surrounding swamps, but was utterly unable to winter his bees, prepare them as he might, and he finally fell to shaking them off the combs at the close of the season (thus saving the honey), and restocking his apiary in the spring with bees from the South. So, I say, beware when you move your bees to fall pastures of asters and swamp flowers.
There is another form of migratory bee-keeping that has long been the dream of apiarists, that of starting with an apiary in the South at the opening of the honey season, and moving northward with the season, keeping pace with the advancing bloom, thus keep ing the bees "in clover" the entire summer." The difficulties to be overcome are largely those of transportation. There is no single line of railroad running north and south for a sufficiently long distance to make a success of migratory bee-keeping. When shipping bees by freight, on the migratory plan, the delays at junction points are not only vexations but disastrous. It is for this reason that longing eyes have been cast at the Mississippi river and her steam-boats, and, once, Mr. C. O, Perrine tried moving several hundred colonies up the Mississippi open a barge towed by a tug. The plan was to run up the river nights, and "tie up" during the day to allow the bees to work. There are several reasons why the plan was a failure. The start was made too late in the season, and accidents to the machinery of the tug caused delays. In order to overtake the bloom it became necessary to confine the bees and run day and night. The confinement for so long was very disastrous to the bees. Those who aided in the enterprise believe that, rightly managed, the plan might be made a success. Mr. Byron Walker, who has had much experience in moving bees from the South, greatly favors the Mississippi plan of migratory bee-keeping. He would not put the bees on a barge and tow them with a tug, but would load them upon a regular streamer running up the river, setting them off at some desirable point, and then shipping them by another boat to another point farther up the river, as the flow began to wane. In the fall he would take the bees back South for the winter.
Right here a hypothetical question comes to mind. Supposing that an apiary moving up the Mississippi secures as much as six ordinary crops of honey--six times as much as a stationary apiary--would this be more profitable than six stationary apiaries? In other words, which is the more promising field for enterprise, following up the season, or establishing out-apiaries? Upon this point there are many things to be considered, and varying circumstances would lead to different decisions. To establish six apiaries would require considerable capital, and the labor of curing for the honey crop would all come at one time, while there would be only one "chance" of securing a crop. With the migratory plan, only one apiary would be needed, and the work of caring for the surplus would not come all at the same time. With the stationary apiaries there would be no expense for transportation, which is a big item.
## 114 Advanced Bee Culture.
there is the preparation of a cellar for wintering the bees, or they must be carried home in the fall, and back in the spring, or else protected upon their summer stands. But when a man begins to number his colonies by the hundreds, he knows that _something_ must be done. Even if out-apiaries are not so profitable as home-apiaries, they are not usually run at a loss, while the removal of the surplus bees at the home-yard, allows that to make better returns.
When it is finally decided to start an out-apiary, how far away shall it be located? We have been repeatedly told that, ordinarily, three miles mark the limits of a bee's foraging grounds; hence, if apiaries were placed six miles apart, there should be no encroachment. But it must be remembered that the pasture ground of each apiary is somewhat circular in form, hence they might be moved towards each other to considerable extent without one encroaching very much upon the other. Dr. Miller has given a very happy illustration: Lay two silver dollars side by side. Lift the edge of one and slide it over the edge of the other. Notice how far it may be pushed over without covering a very large portion of the other. Notwithstanding all this, those who have had experience in the matter are not inclined to place out-apiaries nearer together than four miles, and prefer to have them five or six miles apart. When the team is hitched up and on the road, a mile or two more travel does not take so _every_ much time, and the increased yield may more than make it up. We cannot always secure the exact spot desired for the location of an out-apiary, and it would probably be well to go a little farther than really necessary, rather than to crowd some other apiary.
The mode of travel to and from out-apiaries will depend upon circumstances. Some men have a honey house, with extractor and kit of tools at each apiary; and ride a bicycle to and from the work, storing the honey at or near the apiary, and hauling it home at their leisure. A few men have been fortunate enough to be able to locate out-apiaries near some trolley line by means of which they can goand come any hour of the day. Probably the majority find horses the most desirable means of travel; in which case one set of tools will answer for several apiaries; it is even possible to dispense with honey houses at the apiaries, a tent being carried, and slipped over a light frame-work kept standing at each yard. A covered wagon is sometimes made to answer as an extracting room.
After locating an out-apiary, and deciding upon the mode of travel to and from it, the matter of management brings up severalquestions. Shall comb honey be produced, or shall the honey be taken in the extracted form? Shall it be managed upon the visiting plan, or shall a man be kept there during swarming time? I believe that, in the majority of cases, extracted honey is produced in out-apiaries; as by this plan, swarming can be nearly controlled, and the apiaries visited only at intervals. Mr. E. D. Townsend, of Michigan, has successfully managed an apiary for extracted honey by visiting it only four times a year. The bees were in ten-frame, Langstroth hives. At the approach of the white clover flow he visited them to remove the packing and put on two upper stories of combs. He visited them twice to extract and again to pack them up for winter. His profits averaged $150 for each visit. He approves of visiting an apiary oftener than this, but his experience shows what can be done. The reason for not visiting this apiary oftener was that it was 50 miles from home. And this brings up another point in connection with out-apiaries: If they are widely scattered, with varying kinds of pasturage, there is almost a certainty of securing a crop each year from _some_ of them.
The difficulty in the past in managing out-apiaries for comb honey has been that of controlling swarming, but the discovery of "shooks-swarming" changed all this, and gave a wonderful impetus to the establishment of out-apiaries. By visiting an apiary once a week, and "shaking" every colony that has started queen cells, there will be little, if any, swarming. A few bee-keepers succeed in preventing swarming by removing the queens, at the beginning of the swarming season, but the practice has never been generally adopted.
As many colonies ought to be placed in an out-apiary, as the location will bear; certainly enough to make a day's work at each visit during the busy season, as it would be unprofitable to drive off five or six miles to do only part of a day's work.
In those parts of the country where out-door wintering is uniformly successful there need be no question as to how bees shall be wintered at an out-apiary, but where cellar-wintering must be de-depended upon, a choice must be made between building a cellar at each apiary, and that of carting the bees home in the fall, and out again in the spring. If the bee-keeper knows, positively, that an apiary is permanently located, it may be worth while to consider the construction of a cellar on the ground; but, usually, there is more or less shifting about of out-apiaries, and, unless _too_ far from home, I should be inclined to follow Mr. P. H. Elwood of New York in bringing them home in the fall and carrying them out in the spring. Mr. Elwood sometimes has many as 1,000 colonies in one cellar,
**Mr. E. D. Townsend, whose out-apiaries are widely scattered, buries his bees or puts them in "clamps," as it is called; and where the soil and location are suitable this is an excellent method of wintering bees.**
**Lake of the Woods, in the Raspberry Region of Northern Michigan.**
Perhaps few can understand the longing there is in the heart of the author of this book to build himself a real log cabin, with stone fireplace and chimney, on the shore of some one of the beautiful little Indian lakes of Northern Michigan, establish an apiary hard by, right in the woods, and pass at least a portion of each summer in that sylvan retreat. What a place to take bee-keeping friends in the autumn, when the evenings could be spent around a fire of blazing pine knots in the fireplace.
## Appendix Aunder shelter; and this latter point is very important, especially in the management of a series of out apiaries that are to be visited periodically. Rain puts an end to bee-work in the open air, and three or four days of rainy weather sadly demoralizes the plan of visiting an apiary once a week, when there is an apiary for each day in the week. In a house apiary the work can be continued regardless of the rain. Of course, there would be the travelling to and fro in the rain, but rubber coats and blankets overcome that difficulty. Shelter from the hot sun is often a great comfort. In taking off honey there is never any trouble from robber bees. Bees are more peaceable, that is, less inclined to sting, when handled in a house.
In short, the advantages, with one exception, are nearly all with the house apiary, and this exception is the cost of the building. Formerly there was the objection that the removal of the surplus liberated many bees inside the building, where they were a great annoyance upon the windows and under foot. The introduction of thebee-escape has removed this most serious objection. By means of the escapes surplus can be removed with scarcely a bee entering the building, and these few find their way out through the escapes with which the doors and windows are provided at the top.
Probably the only really serious objection to the house apiary, aside from its cost, is the great likelihood of queens being lost while on their wedding flight; that is, of their entering the wrong hive up-on their return. The trouble arises from the great number, simi
combs finally become so contaminated with the disease that scarcely any brood can be reared. The old bees die off from natural causes, and, their being no young bees reared to take their places, the colony dwindles away until it becomes a prey to robber bees who carry home the honey, and thus start the infection in their own hives. In this way the disease is spread from hive to hive, and from apiary to apiary.
Such, in brief, is foul brood; and, as there is no apiary in which there is not a possibility that it may appear, every bee-keeper ought to be able to distinguish it, and to know what to do when he is so unfortunate as to find it in his apiary. From reading the published descriptions, many bee-keepers have formed exaggerated ideas regarding the appearance of foul brood, especially of its appearance in its _first_ stages. They are looking for combs black with slime and rottenness, a stench strong enough to knock a man down, and colonies dwindled away to mere handfuls. The possession of these exaggerated ideas by bee-keepers has allowed foul brood to gain a strong foothold in many an apiary long before the unfortunate owner ever dreamed of its presence. At first, only a few diseased cells will be found. Of course, it is not advisable that a bee-keeper be continually opening brood nests, and critically examining combs for foul brood, but there are certain danger signals that it is well to bear in mind. If a colony shows signs of listlessness; or many dead bees are found in front of the hive; or, if a peculiar, unpleasant odor is noticed, it would be wise to make an examination. _Whenceer_ handling combs of brood, it is well to glance _undersundersundersunders_ at the brood. Notice, if the "pearly field" of unsealed larvae is unbroken. If there are desolate patches; and the scaled brood is scattering and in patches instead of in solid sheets, examine more critically. If some of the larvae are discolored, shapeless, ropy, ill-smelling, some of theappings sunken, perhaps perforated, foul brood is present. The one _sure_ symptom of foul brood is the ropieness of the larvae. If a splinter be thrust into a dead larva, and withdrawn, the matter will adhere to the splinter, and "string out," perhaps an inch, or more, then break, and the two ends fly back to the points of attachment. Without this viscidity there is no foul brood--with it there is always foul brood.
Right here it might be well to say that all dead brood found in the combs is not foul brood. There is chilled brood, starved or neglected brood, "pickled" brood that comes and goes from what cause no one yet knows, but in all of these the ropiess is lacking. In the majority of cases the outer skin of the larva does not seem to decay, and enables the operator to draw the whole larva from the cell. Then there is black brood, that has caused so much havoc in New York. In this the dead larva is more of a gelatinous nature than anything else. It may sometimes string out quarter of an inch, but never more than that, while foul brood will string out at least an inch, and sometimes much further. Black brood turns slightly yellow, then a dark brown, and finally becomes black, hence the name. It does not emit that gluey or "old" smell that comes from foul brood. There is scarcely any odor, and what little there is might be called a sour or fermenting smell, like that from decaying fruit. Black brood is very similar to foul brood. It spreads in the same manner, and treatment is the same as that for foul brood.
To come back to foul brood once more. The symptoms enumerated above will be seen only during the breeding season. In a strong colony, after the breeding season is over, the cappings are all cleared away, and the dead brood is entirely dried up--mere scales almost the color of old comb itself, lying fast to the lower sides of the cells, and drawn backmore or less from the mouths of the cells. There is probably no symptom of foul brood that is more difficult for the novice to detect than these dried down scales, and, as just explained, except in the breeding season, they are the only evidence that can be found of the disease. Here are the instructions given by Mr. N. E. France, Inspector for Wisconsin, for finding these scales: "Bring a brood comb up from the hive to the level of your chin; then tip the top of the comb towards you, so your view strikes the lower _side_-walls (not the bottom) of the brood-cells about one-third distant from the front end of the cells. Then turn so that the rays of bright light will come over your shoulder and shine where your eye is looking. Gas or electric light will not take the place of good daylight. On the lower side-wall, a little back from the front end of the infected cell, will be seen the dead larva bee, nearly black, with a sharp pointed head, often turned up a little, the back portion of the bee flattened to a mere lining of the cell, often no thicker than the wax in the wall of the comb. The base, or bottom of the cell, likely looks clean; also all of the other side-walls of the cell."
Honey is the means by which the disease is usually carried from one hive to another. Mr. Frank Cheshire says that the mature bees, the queen, and even the eggs, are infected in a diseased colony. Be this as it may, where the bees of an infected colony swarm, or are shaken from their combs into a new or clean hive, and given no combs in which they can store the infected honey that they have brought with them, the brood hatched afterwards, in this newly formed colony, remains free from disease. Foul brood is often brought into an apiary by the bees robbing some diseased colony in
## Appendix Aa neighboring apiary, and bringing home the honey. The buying of second-hand honey cans often brings foul brood into an apiary. If the bees gain access to them they soon lick up any honey that may have dripped upon the outside of the cans; or the bee-keeper may rinse out the cans and throw out the water upon the ground where the bees will come and suck it up. I have known a bee-keeper to clean out a lot of second-hand cans, and feed the honey directly to the bees, with the result that foul brood developed in every colony that was fed. In rare instances the buying of queens from a distance has introduced foul brood into an apiary. The queens themselves had nothing to do with disseminating the disease, but the bees and honey that accompanied them brought with them the germs of the disease. It is a safe plan to put the new queen into a clean cage and destroy the accompanying bees and cage. After foul brood is once introduced into the apiary, it is disseminated by robbing, by the careless exposure of infected honey, by changing combs from hive to hive, or by extracting honey from infected combs, thus contaminating the extractor and other combs that may be brought in contact with it.
When foul brood is discovered in an apiary, what shall be done? In the first place don't "lose your head," as the saying is. Don't be in such a haste to be rid of the pest that a crop of honey is lost, and the work of eradication imperfectly performed. Curative operations can be carried on only during a successful honey flow, when bees will not rob. If foul brood is discovered after the honey season is over, treatment must be postponed until the following year.
The entrances of all weak colonies should be contracted, and any colony too weak to make the proper defense, or so weak that it is not likely to pass the winter, better be destroyed at once.
The spraying of the combs with acids, the fumigating of them with formalin gas, the feeding of the bees with medicated honey, are all of little avail so far as eradicating the disease is concerned, but may do much in the way of checking the disease and preventing its spread. By the proper feeding of medicated syrup in the spring, the disease may be so held in check as to interfere little, if any, with securing a crop of honey. This medicated syrup is made by mixing one ounce of salicylic acid with sufficient alcohol to dissolve it, after which it may be stirred into about 25 quarts of a not too thick syrup or honey. We should begin feeding the bees this syrup as early in the spring as they will take it, keeping each diseased colony supplied with syrup until the flowers yield fairly well. Weak colonies better be united, but there must be caution in doing the work, gradually bringing them together, that the bees may not be scat tered into other hives, until they are side by side before the union is made.
Finally, the main honey flow comes on. With us this is the last of May, or fore part of June. Now is _the_ time for treating the diseased colonies. Any colony that is strong, and almost or nearly in a condition to cast a swarm, may be treated as follows: Set the colony just back of its old stand, and upon the stand place a hive the frames of which are furnished either with full sheets of comb foundation, or with starters of the same. Remove the combs from the old hive and shake off most of the bees, in front of the new hive. Nothing more need be done to the colony in the new hive. Ere it can rear brood it will have consumed any infected honey that the bees may have brought with them. Don't use drawn combs instead of starters or foundation, because the bees might store some of the infected honey in the comb, where it might remain until brood was being reared, when, if this honey should be fed to the brood, the disease would be again started. I have never found it necessary to give the bees a second set of frames, and a second shaking, as is practiced by some. Neither have I found it necessary to boil or otherwise disinfect the hives. The old hive, with the combs of brood, is placed upon a new stand. Sometimes two sets of combs from which the bees have been shaken are united. In ten days a young queen, or a rip queen cell, may be given the old colony. In 21 days from the time the bees were shaken off, just as all of the healthy brood has hatched, and the young queen is beginning to lay, the colony may be again treated exactly as it was at the first shaking, when the result will be another healthy colony, while the old combs will be entirely free from brood, and should be taken to some place of safety (where no bees can gain access to them) and eventually treated as may seem best.
Colonies not populous enough to make a good colony, each, when shaken, may be treated in "pairs." We select the first pair, set one of them aside, as was done with the strong colony, and put a hive containing frames furnished with foundation, in its place. We now shake out the bees into the new hive, as before, only we get _all_ of the bees, as well as the queen. We now put the old hive with the brood on the stand of the other hive of the "pair," bringing the latter to the location where the first "shaking" took place, and shake out the bees and queen in front of the hive into which the bees from the first hive were shaken, the combs of brood being taken back to their old location and united with the combs of brood from the first-shaken colony. We thus get only one "shook swarm" from two colonies, but it is stronger for that reason. The united colonies of broad will be given a young queen in 10 days, and then shaken upon a new set of frames in 21 days, as was done with the populous colony first described.
A good part of the success of this plan is owing to the medicated food given in the fore part of the season. Of course, the same treatment may be given without it, and will be equally effective, so far as a cure is concerned, but the condition of the colonies, and the amount of surplus secured, will be far different.