BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
Good colonies in box-hives or unworkable frame hives may sometimes be bought cheaply, and if free from disease the bees may be drummed up into a frame hive, placed, without its bottom board, on top of the inverted box-hive. If the combs containing worker brood are fairly straight they may be cut out and fitted into frames in which they are held in position by string tied qver the outside of the frame. When these combs have been fastened to the frames by the bees the string may be removed, and when the colony is strong enough the combs may be hung in the super over a queen excluder till all brood is hatched, when they can be taken away and melted up for wax.
If a box-hive is strong and it is early in the season the most convenient way of transferring the bees to a frame hive is to let them swarm, hive the swarm in a frame-hive on the spot where the box-hive stood, and remove the latter some distance if it is desired to make two colonies ; if not, leave it near the new hive but facing in a different direction. Just three weeks later all the worker brood in the box-hive will have hatched out, and a new queen will be laying. The bees may now be drummed out into another frame-hive or into the hive containing the swarm, as the case may be. The old box containing only combs without brood should be taken indoors and secured against bees, and as soon as convenient the combs boiled down for wax. If there is any suspicion that a box-hive colony is diseased, it is best to drum it off at once, and destroy the box and old combs by burning. The bees themselves will be clean in their new hive provided they do not get access to any honey or comb from the old box after being driven off.
## 4. Nuclei
Bee-keeping may also be commenced with nuclei colonies. A nucleus is a small colony of bees with a queen and two or three frames of comb with brood, and some stores. When received it is transferred to a hive and frames with starters or full sheets of foundations added to fill the box. Three-frame nuclei may be obtained of Italian bees at 15s. to 25s., according to the kind of queen chosen with them, and black or hybrid bees at 10s. to 20s., or either may be bought in full-sized hives with the additional frames in position for 5s. each extra. Under favorable conditions, if obtained early enough in the season, nuclei will rapidly build up into full colonies and have the advantage that the beginner is not troubled with hiving, and possibly losing swarms during the first season.
The first cost of hives, frames, and comb-foundation appears high, and many beginners think that money can be saved by making their own hives and frames. It will be found, however, that when timber of the proper quality is purchased in small quantities the cost per hive is very little less than that of one bought already prepared. In any case, it is advisable to purchase at least one hive and frames so as to have a pattern to, work by. Californian red wood is decidedly the best timber for hives ; it is free from knots, shrinks very little, does not warp, and is never eaten by white ants, which in some localities are very destructive to hives.
If the first cost has to be cut down to a minimum, temporary hives may lie made out of kerosene or petrol cases. The frames which should be of the self-spacing kind (Hoffman) had better be bought, as they require to be made very accurately, so that later on they can be transferred to permanent hives. To construct a frame hive out of a kerosene case, one of the broad sides is taken off, while the opposite one serves as a floor for the hive. The original lid of the case is nailed on as a side, the former bottom of the case forming the other. At the bottom at one end an opening 6 in. by 3% in. is cut out as an entrance for the bees, and a strip of wood 3% in. thick (such as the thin boards of the case), is nailed to the inside of the ends of the case 3% in. from the upper edge. This is to suspend the frames from. A roof for this hive may be made out of the broad side taken off the case. It should, however, be covered with some waterproof material and shaded to prevent excessive heat melting the combs in the hives. Hoffman, or other full-depth frames should always be wired, as without wires new combs often break out in handling the frames, or fall down in hot weather. When two sets of half-depth or shallow frames are used wiring may be dispensed with.
If in making two shallow bodies out of a kerosene case, 3% in. is cut off the ends of the case crossways before sawing it in two lengthways the resulting half-depth bodies will exactly fit on an eight-frame hive, on which it may be used as a super when a proper hive is adopted. A difficulty usually experienced by beginners is that, not wishing to purchase a honey extractor right away, they attempt to raise comb-honey in 1-lb. sections. It is well known amongst apiarists that the profitable production of section honey requires considerable skill and a good honey locality.
In the case of beginners both these factors are usually absent, with the result that the bees sooner than start work in the sections will repeatedly swarm, and the season will be over before the swarms have become strong enough to store any surplus of honey, whereas if frames had been used in the super instead of sections swarming would have been prevented to a great extent, and a fair amount of honey secured. With shallow unwired frames the honey may be obtained by cutting out the comb, leaving about \(\frac{1}{2}\) in, on the top bar to act as a guide for a new comb. The dimensions of shallow frames are :--Top bar, 1g in. long, r in. wide, 3% in. thick ; bottom bar, 17% in. long, r in. wide, 3% in. thick ; side bars, 3% in. long, 1% in. wide, 3% in. thick, nailed together as shown in Fig. 4.
#### Locality.
It must be understood that although bees may be kept almost anywhere, even near cities, and when properly managed some return may be secured,
no one should take up bee-keeping for profit or as a sole means of living unless prepared to go into the country as soon as the elementary knowledge and some experience in handling bees have been acquired. As wheat-growing is profitable only where fair-sized areas of easily tiled land are available, so bee-keeping requires a wide range of honey-producing flora to make it a paying occupation. To supplement the insufficient honey resources of a locality by growing flowers specially for bees is impracticable. The land available for this purpose in the neighbourhood of cities and towns is too limited in area, and too valuable. While in remoter localities where large areas of bee-pasture might be planted, the expense would be out of proportion to the return secured even if neighbours' bees and wild bees could be prevented from trespassing. Australia has such
a splenid honey-producing flora, if bee-keepers will only go to it, that there is no need whatever to raise plants specially for honey. In Victoria only a fraction of the nectar produced annually by our native flora is at present being gathered by bees.
## VI.--Transferring Bees.
Owners of bees in box hives who wish to adopt the more profitable frame hive, or upon whom it has become obligatory to do so, can transfer their bees to frames by whichever one of the three methods described below best suits their circumstances. It may here be pointed out that the adoption of frame hives does not necessarily involve the purchase of expensive hives, honey extractor, and other appliances. Bees may be kept in home-made frame hives, and the honey taken by cutting out of the frames those combs which contain no brood and returning the frames to the hives to be refilled with comb by the bees. A strip of comb 1 inch wide should be left along the top bar of the frame; if this is cut to a V edge, very little honey will be left in the frame, and the necessity for putting a fresh strip of comb foundation into the frame is avoided, while yet straight comb building is insured.
Under the _Bees Act_ 1910, the Governor in Council may proclaim districts in which bees may not be kept in other than prescribed hives. By a regulation under the Act,'Prescribed hive'shall mean any hiva, the combs of which are in frames and capable of easy removal for the purpose of inspection. In a further proclamation certain districts are enumerated in which the transferring of all box hive bees to prescribed hives becomes obligatory.*
Footnote *: The districts mentioned in the Proclamation are the Borovaths of Arstat, Clues, Hamilton, Horsham, Port Fairy, Portland, Sale, Maryborough, Stawell, Talbot and the Shircs of Arqules. Arstat Avoca, Avoca, Bajmshdale, Pelfast, Bright, Colae, Dundas, Hampden, Kowree, Lexton, Melvor, Maltra Minhraite, Mortake, Mount Rousse, Portland, Stawell, Strathieldsaye, Talbot, Wannon, Warnambool and Wimmer.
In order to effect the change with as little inconvenience as possible, hives with frames having starters (parrow strips) or full sheets of comb foundation fastened to the centre line of the top bars, should be in readiness so that all swarms which issue may be hived in such.
Transferring at Swarming Time.
When a swarm has settled (or clustered), it should be hived in an ordinary empty box, and, as soon as the bees are in, carried to the spot which the frame hive is to occupy.
Towards evening, when the bees are not likely to rise in the air again, the frame hive is placed in position, a bag or cloth spread out in front of the hive entrance in such a way as to provide an easy passageway into the hive, and the swarm shaken or dumped out of the box on to the cloth. If the bees are slow in entering the frame hive or a considerable number remain outside, they may be gently driven in by blowing a little smoke on them; none, however, should be blown into the hive.
What to do with the box hive from which the swarm came will depend upon whether an increase in the number of hives is desired or not. If no increase is wanted, the bees remaining in the old box may, after turning it open side upwards, be drummed up into an empty box placed on top (as in robbing box hives), and the bees thrown down in front of the frame hive containing the swarm.
The contents of the box hive may now be disposed of in the way usual with box hives. The combs will contain a considerable amount of brood (much more than when box hives are robbed at the usual time), and the many thousands of young bees, which would in the ordinary course have hatehed within the following three weeks, may be saved if, instead of drumming the remaining bees off at once, this operation is deferred for twenty-two days, to allow all worker brood to hatch out. By this time there will be a young fertile queen, and the bees, after being drummed off, are hired on frames in the same way as the swarm, if increase is desired, or, if not, the old queen which went with the swarm may be removed from the frame hive and the driven bees with the young queen united with the bees of the frame hive by running them in towards evening after blowing a puff of smoke into the hive.
When re-uniting, as described, is intended, it is best to hive the swarm, in the first instance, on the spot oecupied by the box hive from whence it eame and place the old box alongside, with the entrance facing in a different direction from that of the frame hive. This will serve two purposes--first, the old bees which remained in the box after the swarm left it, when returning from their foraging flights, will go to the spot they are used to and join the swarm, with the result that no after swarm will come from the box hive; and, secondly, there will be no bees flying back after uniting, as would be the case if the new and the old hive were some distance apart.
Transferring at Robbing Time.
All hives do not swarm every year, and there may be a number still left in box hives when the swarming season is over. These may be transferred at the time usually selected for robbing by box hive beeepers. At this time, which varies in different localities and seasons, there is generally a maximum of honey and a minimum of brood, so that the saving of it is of no great consequence, and the transfer is best effected by robbing the boxes in the usual way, but putting the bees into frame hives instead of empty boxes. If any of the stocks are too small, two may be put together into one frame hive. As far as possible, adjoining boxes only should be united, otherwise the bees which had their hive taken away altogether will enter the hive nearest their old location. Hives which did not swarm during the season, and particularly those which are weak in bees, may be suspected of disease. The box should be raised on one side and a piece of brood comb broken out, the box lowered again, the comb taken indoors and carefully examined for foul-brood. This is done by removing the caps of some of the brood cells, especially those which look darker than the surrounding ones, and any that have sunken in instead of raised caps. This pricking open of the cells should be done with a toothpick, a wooden match, or straw. Healthy larvae are of nearly whiteness and plump; diseased ones are yellowish, grey, or brown, and flabby in appearance, and, later, collapse into a shapeless brown mass, which, when touehed with a match, draws out stringy or ropy. This disease is often, but not always, accompanied by an odour of stale glue.*
Footnote *: For symptoms of Foul-brood and its treatment see Chapter XIX, page 79.
Any colony found diseased and with not sufficient bees left to form a medium swarm should be at once destroyed by burning the box, bees, combs, and all. The bees should be shut in when they have stopped flying for the day, and the whole hive burned on a fire in a hole dug for the purpose, which is to be filled up with earth when everything is consumed.
If a diseased hive still contains sufficient bees to form a swarm, they may be drummed off into an empty box, in which they should be left for three or four days to cleanse themselves. The bees are then transferred to a frame hive like an ordinary swarm. The old box and contents should be burned as soon as the bees are driven out, and the intermediate hive cleaned by immersion in boiling water.
Robbing box hives for the purpose of transferring the bees to frames should not be done too late in the season, so as to give them a better chance to establish themselves before winter.
On no account should honey or comb, wax, or refuse from the box hives be given to the bees, nor should they be allowed to have access to it. The cutting out of combs, the straining of honey, and the rendering of wax should all be done indoors, secure from bees, or when that is not possible, it should be done at times when bees are not flying and all honey, wax scraps, or daubed utensils should be removed, or carefully and securely covered up, when the work is finished.
It may here be pointed out that the practice of many box hive beekeepers of leaving comb too dark for the straining bag lying about straining honey out of doors, or even purposely putting scraps of comb and sticky refuse out for the bees to clean up, has, since foul-brood has been introduced to Australia, caused the loss of thousands of colonies of bees and the wholesale dissemination of that disease. Even the bees' nests in trees first became infected in this way. The subsequent felling and robbing of bee trees by bee hunters, who left the refuse exposed to other wild bees, box hive, and frame hive bees, caused a still wider distribution of foul-brood.
It is not natural for bees to find honey. They gather nectar from the blossoms; this they transform into honey inside the hive. When they find honey outside they become excited; when the supply is exhausted they forage around for more; they find weak, usually diseased colonies, or bee trees, somewhere within their range of flight; they attack these and carry home their stores of honey, and with them the germs of foul-brood.
If feeding bees is neecessary, as it may be in the case of late transfers, sugar syrup (2 sugar to 1 boiling water by weight) should be given in a feeder inside the hive, not honey outside. Sugar syrup does not excite bees so much as does honey, and can be relied upon as being free from disease.
## Transferring Bees and Combs.
Any one who understands bees well, and has sufficient experience in disease to enable him to detect the very first trace of it, can transfer box hive bees to frames at any time during the active season by cutting out any of the combs of brood in the box hive which are straight enough and fitting them into frames. The pieces of comb are held in position either by means of string tied over the frame and comb. or thin splints of wood tacked to the frame. These temporary supports may be removed as soon as the bees have fastened the combs to the frame. It is seldom that more than two or three frames can be filled with brood from a box hive; the rest of the frames are supplied with starters or full sheets of foundation. As the bees become established on newly-built combs the frames of transferred combs are gradually worked to the outside of the cluster of bees, or put into the upper story over a queen-excluding honey board, and when all the brood is hatched out of them they are best withdrawn from the hive and melted for wax.
While this method saves most of the brood and transfers everything in one operation, it is a very messy one. There is always a risk of transferring disease to the new hive along with the brood or comb, and the transference of brood and comb should, therefore, not be undertaken by any one not possessed of the requisite knowledge and skill.
Nors.--Price list of hives, frames, appliances, &c., may be obtained from W. J. and F. Barnes, 550 Swan-street, Burnley, or The Beekeepers Supply Company, 459 Swanston-street, Melbourne.
## VII.--Spring Management of Bees.
During the first or second week of September, all hives should be examined for the purpose of seeing whether each one has sufficient food, a laying queen, and enough bees to enable it to work up into a profitable colony.
This examination should be made only on fine mild days, otherwise harm will be done to weak stocks, by letting the warmth escape when opening the hive and by causing the bees to fly and become chilled. Having lighted the smoker, blow one or two whiffs of smoke in at the entrance, lift the cover at one end, and blow a few puffs of smoke over the top of the frames. When quilts are used between covers and frames, hives can be opened with less disturbance, less smoke is needed, and it is consequently easier to find the queens.
The amount of stores is the first consideration of this time of year, but no hard and fast rule can be laid down as to the actual weight of honey required to maintain and develop the colony. The quantity depends upon the number of bees in the hive, the length of time which may elapse before they can find sufficient new nectar in the blossoms of the immediately surrounding country, and the weather conditions prevailing during the following four or five weeks. In no case, however, even under the most favorable circumstances, should there be less than 5 lbs. of honey (equal to one well filled Langstruth comb) in the hive. Bees build up in spring on their winter stores, excepting in specially favoured localities with a mild climate and an early flowering flora.
From 15 lhs, to 25 lhs, of honey is more like the quantity required in an average locality to obtain the best results in brood-rearing till sufficient new nectar is available from outside sources. As the consumption greatly increases as soon as brood-rearing commences, any shortage should be made good by feeding sugar syrup. (See Chapter XVII., page 72.)
If no feeders are on hand, a clean empty comb may be filled with syrup by placing it flat in a milk or other suitable dish and pouring the syrup inio the cells from a height of about 15 inches. When one side is filled, the comb is turned over and the other side filled. To get a fine stream of syrup, a jug with a rather pointed lip is the most suitable vessel. When the comb is filled, it should be held or suspended over the dish for a short time, to allow the surplus syrup to run off. The latter would otherwise fall on to the floor of the hive, and in all probability attract robbers.
Every hive should have a fertile queen ; and, as a minimum, bees on at least two or three combs. It is not absolutely necessary to see the queen, the presence of eggs and of brood in the several stages being sufficient evidence that the queen is all right. When the eggs, however, are at the side of the cell bottom, and not in the centre, laying workers instead of a queen may be present.
A further indication of laying workers, an unfertile young queen, or an exhausted old one, is that the exppings of the sealed brood, instead of being only slightly oval, are hemispherical and project much beyond the general surface of the comb. This is due to the fact that the eggs of laying workers and unfertile or exhausted queens produce drones only. The larvae of the latter are larger than those of the workers, and being in worker instead of in drone cells there is not sufficient depth and the cell is therefore lengthened in capping it. If a hive in this condition still contains sufficient bees, and is to be retained as a separate stock, the laying workers or the drone-laying queen must be replaced with a fertile queen. With Italian bees, which are quieter than blacks, and the queen differently marked from the workers, she is usually easily found. Black queens are often very hard to find on account of their sombre colour and the habit of black bees of clumping or running off the combs when disturbed.
#### Correct Way of Handling Combs
In hunting for queens, or examining brood for disease, it is necessary to see both sides of each comb. To do so, many bee-keepers turn the comb in the wrong way, resulting in a fracture of the cells near the top bar when the comb is not built right down to the bottom bar and it is at all heavy with honey. It also causes spilling when the comb contains new thin honey. A comb should never be turned on a horizontal, but always on a vertical axis. Combs fractured or strained through handling them the wrong way often mash up in the extractor. When the combs are returned to the hive the bees repair them ; but, as the damaged cells, become elongated through the weight of the comb, they are large enough for drone-brood, several rows of which will be found across the comb where it was fractured when the comb is used in the broad-chamber. Combs so damaged are also very liable to come down in hot weather or in moving bees by road or rail.
If combs are handled the right way, no harm will be done to them, even when built from starters and not fastened to the bottom bar of the frame. As bees generally, and quecns in particular, run to the bottom of the frame when it is lifted out of the hive, it often becomes necessary to turn the frame upside down when looking for the queen. In Fig. 1 is shown the first position; to turn the frame upside down without damaging the comb the top bar of the frame is brought into a vertical position as shown in Fig. 2; and by swinging the frame half-way round (like a door on its hinges), and then bringing the top bar into a horizontal line, the frame is completely reversed as shown in Fig. 3. As the bees again travel downwards, the queen, if she is on the particular comb, will be noticed. To turn the comb to the hive, the same movements are again gone through, but in the reverse order of 3, 2, 1.