BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
By this time the water is warm in the cans, and the comb can be put in; and, during this time, the slumgum can be removed from the sack and it is placed back in the gum and preparations made for another pressing. I have made several hundred pounds of wax in one season with this device; but if only a small amount of comb is to be rendered, a much smaller device of the same kind can be constructed. Care should be exercised in melting comb around stoves; for when hot it will burn like oil. It should be melted in pots and cans over a slow fire.
## 11 COMB FOUNDATION.
Comb which the bees have built to store honey and rear their young in is saved by bee-keepers all over the United States, and rendered into bees wax by them; and then it is gathered up by agents and shipped to the manufacturer of bee-supplies, and there it is refined and all the impurities removed from it; and it is also bleached by the heat of the sun, and then run through a roller process which forms the bottom and starts the walls of the cells just as the bees would do it, and therefore is no artificial comb, as it is often called, but a pure article of comb made by bees, and purified and formed by man.
Perhaps next to the invention of movable frames or modern hives comes the invention of comb foundation. By the use of it the bee-keeper can have the comb built where he wants it and as he wants it in the hives. Otherwise, if it is left to the bees to start their comb they will build it angling or crosswise of the frames, and thus spoil the greatest feature of the modern hive, because the frames can not be handled, and the needs of the bees investigated and supplied. But if only a small strip or starter is used in the frames and sections, the bees will, from this, build their comb straight, the foundation guiding them.
Another important feature in the use of foundation is that you can have all your comb built with cells worker size by using full sheets of it.
Otherwise, if it is left to the bees they will build more or less drone comb (comb with large cells), and each season rear a large army of drones which are useless consumers. For further benefits derived from the use of foundation, see "Economy in Bee-keeping."
## 100.6 Robber Bees.
I once heard a veteran bee-keeper remark that honey-bees are in some particulars more like the human race than any other living object. I do not know that this is true; but I do know that they are similar in some particulars; and one is, taking what is another's, or robbing each other, whenever occasion permits. The bee's desire for honey seems to be about as strong as man's desire for money, and will go right between the jaws of death for it. Bees in one hive have no feeling at all for bees in another hive; and if they are permitted they will enter each other's hives and remove the last drop of their honey, showing no mercy at all. There are more or less robbers in each apiary, but the larger the apiary the more robbers there will be, and, of course, the more mischief they will do. There seem to be some bees more roguish than others; and as soon as they get to stealing from some poor helpless colony the fact is made known to all their sisters, and they all prove to be robbers. Strong colonies will defend themselves; but the weak ones are subject to them at any time, and for that reason the entrances of nuclei or very weak colonies should be kept contracted to a very small opening so that they can better defend themselves.
Robber bees can be easily detected by the way they behave around the entrances of other colonies. They fly with outstretched legs, collect around the bees which are standing guard at the entrances, and even slight near and sometimes right among the guards which are awaiting their chance to kill them, and many of them are thus killed. Sometimes robber bees have their profession so nearly mastered that they can alight down among the guards as the field-bees do, and pass in the hive and fill themselves with honey, and escape out without seeming to be detected by the bees; but these "slick" robbers are scarce, and soon disappear, or can be found on the ground in front of some strong colony dead, their bodies punctured with stings. After the robber bees have overpowered some helpless, weak colony, and are fast carrying out their stores, it is more difficult to detect them; but it will be seen that they fly from the alighting-board heavy, and some of them have made such "hogs" of themselves that they attempt to fly, but fall on to the ground, and a number of them may be seen climbing up on grass or weeds, so that they will have a start to fly. Then if you will open the hive you will see them at their mischief, carrying out the honey, tearing down the comb, and running over the helpless inmates of the hive. The best treatment for a hive thus pillaged is to remove all frames containing honey, and the robbers will soon disappear; then exchange these removed frames for frames of hatching brood from other colonies, and set them in the hive and close the entrance up completely with wire cloth for two days; then, remove the wire entrance near night, and contract it so only one bee can pass. By this time the bees will be over their struggle with the robbers, and, more bees being hatched out, they will set up a defense and protect themselves.
If the hive thus affected by robbers should be a strong one, all that is necessary is to fill the entrance with some grass or weeds until night then they can be removed and the entrance contracted. During the night the bees will come to their senses and kill the robbers (those that do not escape) and will set up a strong defense next morning, and likely will defend themselves.
Sometimes bee-keepers cause robbing by carelessly leaving honey cut around the apiary, or the honey-house door open. When there is no honey-flow on, bees are much worse to rob, and just a little sweet carried into the hives by the professional robber will cause a great excitement in the apiary, and some damage is sure to be done; hence great caution should be used in handling sweets about the apiary. Bees should not be fed until about night; for if the fact is made known to them that there are obtainable sweets, many of them, not knowing where the feed is, will rush out of the hives and make great efforts to get in other hives, and perhaps will, and many bees will be lost.
If robbers collect too thickly about hives while extracting, the combs should be stacked up in the honey-house until about night, then given back to the bees, for this will greatly decrease the number of them; then if they should collect too thickly, the extracting should be postponed until the next honey-flow, or done at intervals.
## 111 Fertile Workers.
Fertile workers, or, rather, laying workers, may appear in any neglected apiary. When a colony of bees loses its queen and has no brood, or is not supplied with any from which to raise them another queen, they are hopeless, and they fully realize it, and their last and only resort is for some worker or workers to take upon themselves to lay eggs to continue the existence of the colony. But this last effort is a failure, because worker bees can lay only unfertile eggs, which hatch drones or useless consumers, and soon the colony is in the hands of the bee-moth, and destroyed, for the bees fast diminish, and soon the colony is weak.
It is not difficult to tell when a colony of bees is affected by laying workers, for they will not deposit their eggs in regular order in the cells as a laying queen will, for sometimes they will lay more than half a dozen eggs in one cell, and very often more than one; and to be sure that the colony is affected by them it can be easily examined; and if there is no queen present, there are fertile workers. It is useless to try to introduce laying queens to colonies thus affected, for the bees will kill them, and they will not always accept a queen-cell, especially if the colony has been affected by them for some time; but if not, they may accept a ripe queen-cell (one nearly ready to hatch), and the colony be saved; otherwise it had better be broken up and the combs given to colonies, for the bees are very old, and will soon die, and not be of much value anyway; but if the colony is strong, exchange the frames for hatching brood from strong colonies, and in a few days there will be many young bees in the hive, and they will accept a queen or a queen-cell, and perhaps already have cells started, if there should be any very young bees in the cell of the proper age to raise a queen from.
Fertile or laying workers are a pest, and no apiary or colony of bees should be so neglected as to be become affected by them.
QUEEN-REARING.
Queen-rearing is a very important part of bee-keeping, but comes on later, after the bee-keeper has done considerable practical work among his bees and has given them much thought, and has his apiary in a progressive condition. If queen-rearing is taken up at the same time bee-keeping is, you have bitten off too much at one time, for it is enough to study and care for your bees at first, and, later, you will gradually grow into queen-rearing anyway. But'don't wait until you acquire this knowledge before you supply your colonies with good queens, select yourself a queen-breeder or a bee-keeper who raises a surplus of queens, and has some to sell. He will furnish you with good queens at a reasonable price, and at the same time give you all needed instructions to introduce them successfully to the colonies.
It is not a good idea to buy queens from different queen-breeders, for you are likely to get your stock mixed, and it will give you a lot of trouble. So it is best to select yourself a queen-breeder who is making a specialty of the strain of bees you wish to keep.
It is poor policy to begin bee-keeping with an inferior or run-down strain of bees to practice with, or to gain knowledge from, for it is uphill, and steep at that, and results are not at all satisfactory; and I want to emphasize this fact, because it is the cause of there being rip more progressive apiaries in the South than there are. So it is very necessary to have a good tested queen in each hive as soon as we start bee-keeping.
But going back to the subject of raising queens, it will be noticed that, under the heading of "Honey-bees," a queen bee is developed by the worker bees by highly feeding her, and by the care they give it, and, of course, the more bees there are in the hive to feed and care for it while it is developing, the better the queen she will be. So to expect the very best queens, we must have strong populous colonies to develop them.
It is not necessary for me to call your attention to the fact that queens should be raised from the very best queens obtainable, as we would breed from the best stock of animals to expect the best results of them. If we develop queens in strong colonies from the larvae, or very young bees, of a queen whose workers are great honey-gatherers, we may expect good prolific queens, and that their workers will also be good honey-gatherers.
On the other hand, if a queen is raised by a small colony of bees from poor stock we could expect only a poor queen. So whatever the characteristics of the queen are, her offspring will possess; and if she is not properly cared for while developing she will be dwarfed, and her colony of workers will be small, and results will not be satisfactory. If we will look after our queens, and give them the proper showing, we need not fret about the honey that is going to waste around us, for she will produce bees and save it, if weather permits.
It is evident, from what has been said, that the queen is the main bee in the hive, and that her progeny is a matter of great importance in keeping bees for cents and dollars.
In a few hours after a colony of bees has been made queenless they will start to raise them another queen; and to make sure of this they will start a number of cells. Or if their mother is old, and shows signs of failing to keep' up the colony, they may set to work to raise them another;er queen to supersede their mother. Or if they decide to swarm they will begin to raise them another queen to take the place of their mother after she goes out with the swarm.
Good queens can be raised in strong colonies almost any time during spring, summer, and fall when there is some honey coming in and the weather is warm.
Now, if you have the experience and desire to raise queens in a wholesale way for the market you should get a queen-rearing outfit and book of instructions, and read it over several times, and study it until you have the work clear in your mind and then proceed, following instructions as nearly as possible. If you desire to raise only a few good queens to supply your own apiary or apiaries, and perhaps a few surplus ones to sell, and the queens are desired in early spring before swarming time, as soon as the weather warms up a little and some honey and pollen are coming in from the earliest honey and pollen plants, kill or remove the queen in the apiary that is giving the poorest results, then on the next day go to the strongest colony and lift the frames out carefully, and examine them closely for the queen; and when you find her, set the frame she is on carefully beside the hive to itself. Now lift out all the remaining frames in the hive which have any brood in them of any consequence; then set the frame containing the queen back in the hive, and all the frames of honey, and those that may have a small patch of brood in them, pushing them up close to get her to one side of the hive with the frame the queen is on in the middle. Now put a queen-excluding honey-board on the hive, and an empty hive-body on top of this; then set the frames of brood and the adhering bees in the empty hive and push the frames to one side of the hive just over the frames in the lower hive. Now set the division-board in the top, hive close beside the outside frame of brood; then set a feeder in this opeq space between the side of the hive and division-board, and fill it full of feed and put the cover on.
On the evening of the next day go back to the hive you had killed the inferior queen in two days previously, and lift out all the frames except two or three which have only scattered honey around in them; and as you lift the frames out, brush all the bees off the comb back in the hive and put the cover back on. Now take these five or six frames from which you have brushed the bees and carry them to the hive you had, one day previously, divided into two parts, and lift the top story off gently and remove the queen-excluding board; then look over carefully the frames you have carried to the hive, and set all of them to one side in which the bees have started queen-cells (it is likely they have started a nice batch of them by this time). Then set the frames that have no queen-cells in them in the bottom story of the hive, which will be about enough to finish filling it, and the queen you have confined to the bottom story now has another full set of frames to occupy.
Now put the queen-excluding board back on the lower story, and set back the top story on this. Now make a little grafting-tool by sticking the sharp end of a pin in the hollow of a broom straw, and with the head of the pin remove all the larvae, or young bees, you find in the queen-cells started about on the comb which you brought to this hive.
Now take out one of the frames in the top story; then begin to graft the cells by inserting the grafting-tool, or the head of the pin, down in the cells, gently working the head up under the tiny larva; then lift it out gently and insert it in the queen-cell and leave the larvae down in the bottom of the cells from which you removed the other young bees. Be careful in this operation not to mash the tiny bee, but gently remove it from the head of the pin on to the royal jelly.
The larvae for this purpose must be very small, or not over three days old, and two days is better. After you have thus grafted all the queen-cells started in the comb you have brought to the hive, set the frames in the top story, and again fill the feeder up and put the cover on.
Now, as there is no queen present in this top story (she being confined to the bottom story by the queen-excluding board), the bees seem queenless; and the feed being scattered plentifully over the comb, the bees will feed the larvae well, and good cells will be built. Bees will often build cells when their brood is put up in top stories and no queen present; and they are sure to if started cells are given them, and they may build a nice batch of fine cells. But during this operation the weather must not be too cool or the tiny bees in the cells will get chilled and not produce good queens.
Let us now go back to the colony we made queenless and left two or three frames of honey with. As soon as we get through grafting the cells in the other colony, and the cover is on, they should have a little attention. Part the frames so the bees can cluster between the combs; and as soon as they are all in the hive late in the afternoon, they are in the best possible condition to unite, and should be united with the next weakest colony (see "Uniting Bees").
Eight or nine days after the cells are grafted, go back and look over the comb and see how many cells they have finished, and you will know how many places to prepare for them; then if you have some inferior queens you wish to supersede, kill them, but not to exceed the number of cells you have. Then on the next day, or ten days from the time the cells were grafted, remove the cells from the comb by cutting around them carefully with a knife; but be sure not to cut into them or you may injure them, Then lift them from the comb and place them in cell-protectors; and be sure not to tumble them about, for it is best to keep them as nearly as possible in the same position that they were in on the comb.
After all the cells but one have been removed from the comb and placed in the cell-protectors, they are ready to be distributed around to the colonies made queenless the day previous. The object of making the colonies queenless previous to giving them cells is that they have had time to discover that they are queenless; for should the young queen emerge from the cell before they were aware of their queen being gone, they might kill them as soon as they emerged.
Queen-cells should be inserted in the comb among the bees where they can care for them and keep them warm until they hatch.
Now, the top hive with all the frames and adhering bees and the one queen-cell can be put on another stand; and the bees confined in it for a day will cause them to mark their new home, and you will soon have another good colony of bees. If you have no need of all the cells, and would like to turn them into a little cash later, divide the frames in the top story into two, three, or four frame nuclei, and give each one a cell, and confine them in the hive as you would a full colony, so that they will mark their new home.
In one or two days the queens will emerge from the cells, and in ten or twelve days will be laying.
This is a plan to raise good queens at'any suitable time of the year; but the same result can be obtained by watching the cells closely in hives where bees have swarmed; and as soon as the bees begin to thin them down at the ends, remove all the cells but one or two, and request with them or distribute them about in nuclei (hives with only two, three, or four combs in them, and a part or a very small swarm of bees). When bees are superseding their queen you can also get a good batch of queen-cells which can be used in like manner.
It is not good policy to remove a good queen from her colony just to get her bees to build queen-cells when you can get the same results by keeping her in the hive laying, and keeping up the colony. If it is desired to keep the bees in the prepared top stories building queen-cells, keep them brooded and supplied with started cells, and feed slowly if there is no honey coming in.
In commercial queen-rearing, queen-breeders usually use cell-cups, and not have the bees to build the cells around over the comb. This is more convenient, and does away with the cutting of holes through our nice combs to remove the cells. Of course, the same results will be obtained by having the bees to build the cells over the cell-cups in top stories debarred from queens, and full of young bees and brood.
Where bees are allowed to build queen-cells over the comb, some precautions must be observed or the bees may build cells over undesirable larvae. To avoid this, when a batch of cells are grafted insert a small nail in the comb above each one; then if it is desired to graft another batch three days later in the same top story, insert the nails in the comb to the right of the grafted cells; then if it is desired to graft another batch of cells three days later, insert the nails in the comb to the left of the cells. In this way you know the contents of the cells, and when each batch should be removed. In nine days, and not later than ten from the time the cells are grafted, they should be removed and placed in cell-protectors and distributed around in nuclei or wherever they are to be placed, to emerge from the cells and be mated.
.Many of the queen-cells built around on combs can be removed without cutting through the segment of the comb by using the small blade of a knife, cracked near the point; and if a cell should be slightly punctured where it was connected with the segment of the comb it should be immediately squeezed together; and when inserted in the cell-protector the cover should be placed down on it.
If holes are made through the comb to remove cells, sooner or later the bees will.fill them up and the comb will not be damaged much.
Queens should not be allowed to emerge from their cells in the cell-building colonies, for they will destroy the other cells. During heavy honey-flows as much as two empty combs should be kept in the cell-building supers or top stories to keep the colonies from swarming, or a super of shallow frames can be inserted between the two stories.
## 11 Hall's method of queen-rearing.
The hive por cell-building.
Make the hive wide enough to hold fifteen or twenty full-depth brood-frames, and make the entrance at the side of the hive instead of the end, with a wide alighting-board; then make a close-fitting division-board of queen-excluding zinc, so that, when the cover is on the hive, there is no chance for the queen to pass from one apartment to the other. Place the division-board in the hive so there will be just room enough for six brood frames between it and the side of the hive where the entrance is. This six-frame apartment next to the entrance is for the queen to occupy, and she should never be allowed to enter the other twelve or fourteen frame apartments of the hive, which is for cell-building. The cover for the hive should be made in two sections--one covering the queen's apartment and the other the cell-building apartment, so that the bees will not be disturbed in both apartments by removing the cover when it would not be necessary.
THE COLONY OF BEES FOR THE HIVE.
A very strong colony should be selected for this hive, one that will build a large number of very fine*large cells. Place the queen and six frames of *unsealed brood in her apartment of the hive close up to the division-board and put the cover on her apartment; then place the frames of sealed and hatching brood in the cell-building apartment close up to the division-board, and keep the frames on either side jammed up to it, and put the cover on this apartment.
DIPPING-STICKS AND CELL-MAKING.