BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
The reason that no sealed brood and so few bees are left at the old stand is because, when the bees from the new stand take their first flight, many will not realize that their hive has been moved, and will, therefore, return to the old location, so that the two colonies will soon be about evenly divided. Had much unsealed brood been moved to the new stand, there would have been danger that so many old bees would leave that the brood would become chilled; but, having only sealed brood, this danger is avoided, for young bees are constantly emerging to take the place of the old ones,and these young bees will remain with the brood, it being the only home they have ever known.
The two colonies may, under favorable conditions and by careful management, be built up into good strong ones ready for the main honey crop, if in a location where it can be put into operation six or eight weeks before the opening of the honey flow. This can be done in some parts of the South and in the buckwheat region of New York and Pennsylvania, but not in those localities in northeastern United States where most of the honey crop is gathered from white and alsike clover.
Increase When Producing Extracted Honey.
One of the easiest and best ways of making increase when producing extracted honey is to use the plan given on page 75, that is, to leave in the brood-chamber the queen with only frames of drawn comb and one frame with young larvae; above this the queen-exeluder, the supers and then at the top, a hive-body containing the frames of brood removed from the brood-chamber, tearing down all the capped queen-cells, and then at the end of eight days tearing down all but the one best queen-cell in this upper story and moving this upper story to a new location, placing it on a floor and covering with an inner and an outer cover. Now, if one cares more for the production of honey than for increase, he perhaps better not apply this plan until he finds capped queen-cells and the bees bent on swarming; but, if he wants increase, he may apply the plan as soon as queen-cells are started.
Increase When Producing Comb Honey.
When producing comb honey the greater tendency of the bees to swarm, usually results in about as much increase as it is safe for the beginner to make. When swarms, either natural or artificial, are handled as described on pages 87 and 88 there will be an increase of one colony for each colony that swarms naturally, or is swarmed artificially as described on page 88. When swarming occurs in the midst of a short honey flow, increase made in, this way does not interfere with the production of honey, for the increase is made by moving away the hive containing the emerging brood, most of which would develop too late for the young bees to take part in gathering the honey crop.
**ROBBING.**
\(CHAPTER\ XVI.\)
Robbing is the act of the bees in stealing honey or other sweets not gathered by themselves, and is much easier to prevent than to stop after it gets started.
The beginner will do well to understand that robbing may be a serious matter in beekeeping, and while it may occur at any time during the beekeeping season, yet it is just before or just after the time of honey harvest that the beginner is most apt to bring it on by some oversight or carelessness of his own. The bees themselves will often start robbing by attacking a weak colony to secure its too feebly guarded stores--especially early in the season. A strong colony keeps an efficient guard of defenders at the entrance at all times, which guard is particularly alert at times when no honey is coming in.
Bees are creatures of habit; and when once they get a taste of honey or other sweets for which they have not worked they become greatly excited and disregard the rules of their ordinary conduct. The longer the robbing is kept up the wider the robber bees become, until, in some cases, seeming madness results. It is true that robbing often starts from slight causes, but it does not take long for an uproar to develop. Bees tunbling into the home hive. loaded, not with nectar, but with fully-ripened honey or other sweet, excite the other bees of the bive, which then rush out to get some of the stolen sweets. In a short time, some weak colony is likely to be attacked, the bees fighting furiously until they reach such a condition that they will sting everything and everybody in sight, and perhaps keep at it for days. It is this sort of fracas that will eure any beginner of being so careless as to allow robbing to get started.
**When Bees Are Most Likely to Rob.**
When bees are very busily engaged in gathering nectar from the flowers, any quantity of honey might be left scattered all about the apiary,and they would pay little or no attention to it. But it is this fact alone that so often gets the beginner into trouble, for he becomes careless during the honey flow, and then some day, when the honey is not coming in, a repetition of the former carelessness brings on double trouble. During a honey flow, when necessary to remove supers of honey, bees may even be shaken or brushed from the combs without attracting robbers in the least; but during a dearth of honey such work must be done very rapidly, the apiarist moving so quickly from live to live that the robbers can get no chance to pounce on any exposed honey. Robber bees will even attempt to steal honey from a comb being momentarily examined by the bekeeper, or even dodge into an open hive from the top.
During a honey dearth it is much pleasanter, for the beginner at least, to free the combs from bees by means of the bee-escape. But here again caution is necessary; for, if the cover does not fit bee-tight, robbing will be started in the shortest possible time, as the robber bees from other hives very quickly find the unguarded opening and have the honey all to themselves, since the bees of the hive being robbed are shut out from the super by the bee-escape board and so are unable to defend their stores. One should always be careful, therefore, in adjusting the bee-escape below the supers, to see that the cover above is not warped; it would be well not to remove the inner cover when slipping the escape-board under the supers, since the bees will have this cover tightly propolized to the top of the upper super.
It is the height of foolishness to suppose that bees will not find any opening, however small, if there is one. They will not notice it when they are getting plenty of honey in the fields, but will quickly find such an opening at other times.
**Robbing When Extracting.**
When extracting during a honey-dearth it is important to see that all windows are screened. The door of the room where the extracting is done should not be a screened door; otherwise, there will always he a cloud of bees flying about it, and some of them will get in every time it is opened. The window must be screened (better double-screened), but the door should be solid. It always makes trouble to spill honey on the floor, especially if the building stands on piers or stakes so that the bees can get underneath. The honey leaks through the floor, of course, and the bees find it shortly. This is why a room having a tight foundation is better to use when extracting.
Another possible cause of robbing after the extracting has been done is the nearly dryappings. When these have drained so long that no more honey will run out they may be put in a solar wax-extractor (a shallow box having a glass lid, and lined with black sheet iron). The heat of the sun melts theappings, and the liquid wax collects at the lower end in a suitable receptacle. Unless this box is tight the bees can get started on the honey that separates from the wax. Of course, it is necessary to protect all unmeltedappings from the bees. It is hardly safe to assume that no more honey will drain out, for slow dripping keeps up a long time.
The only use which the beekeeper can make of the robbing tendency of bees is in cleaning up his sticky combs after extracting.: (See page 82.)Even this should not be resorted to unless the beekeeper is certain there is no foul brood in any neighboring apiary.
Robbing Weak Colonies.
Weak colonies often invite robbing, especially if they are well provided with honey and if their entrances are large. This is particularly true of the spring season and of the colonies left weak by winter losses. Prevention in that ease is also better than the eure. Weak colonies should have entrances no larger than are absolutely necessary, perhaps 1 or 2 inches long by % inch in depth. Sometimes, however, if bees get to robbing a weak colony, that colony is placed temporarily in a dark eellar, and a hive having a small entrance and containing one comb with a little honey in it is put in its place in the apiary. When the bees have robbed out all of the honey in this one comb, thus making a thorough job of it, they will quietly disperse. On the other hand, if nothing were furnished for them to work on, they might, when thwarted in their desire to get the honey, go to other hives standing near, and the trouble be extended. If robbing has but just started, it can usually be controlled by contracting the entrance, and throwing a buneh of damp hay or grass over the front of the hive that is being robbed. Robber bees do not like to dodge through such an obstruction, for they can not make their "quiek get-away." If the entrance is contracted in this way on a hot day, extra shade should be provided for the hive. If only one colony is doing the robbing, it sometimes pays to change places--putting the robbed colony in place of the one being robbed. The mental confusion that this remedy apparently creates in the robber bees is indeed amusing as well as effective in correcting their temporary lapse from moral conduct.
Where there is a general uproar in the apiary caused by robbing, contract the entrances to all week colonies; see that there is no possible opening to exposed honey anywhere, then clear out, and let the bees alone.
Robbing Distinguished from Playflights.
Beginners often mistake young bees at play for robbers. Sometimes a large number will be seen flying busily around the front of the hive, usually early in the afternoon, so that there is a scene of great activity there, while other colonies are quiet. Closer investigation, however, shows the young bees merely at play. Under such circumstances there is an entire absence of any fighting. There is no sneaking nor darting around of the old, sieek, greasy-looking robber bees, nor is there heard the high, alarming keynote of excited bees peculiar to a robbing foray. There is only a happy eireling about the front of the hive as the young bees first joyfully try their wings and mark the location of the hive.
**AFTER HARVEST WORK**.
There is no certain limit to the period of the honey-harvest season anywhere, and in many places one honey flow succeeds another throughout a very long season. Mueh depends on locality, weather and seasonal changes, and some kinds of honey flows are always uncertain. Yet everywhere in the United States, before the regular cold or cool season of the year, there comes an end to the bees' activities and there follows a winter's rest--shorter or longer. This is when honey from all sources has ceased to yield, and the surplus has been removed from the hive.
It will be a wise beginner, who, from his own observations of the plants of his locality, early learns what honey flows may be regularly expected, and what irregular and late honey flows may occur, and learns, too, the certain signs that tell when these honey flows are probable and about to begin. Laeking personal experience and observations of these matters, he will do well to seek this information from those who do know--if possible, from some neighboring beekeeper. Having this important knowledge, he will be prepared to plan best not only for the honey harvest but also for its close and the after-harvest work.
The beginner should understand that all like honey flows require similar manipulation of the bees and hives, but that all honey is not equally desirable, and so it is often best to take off one honey crop before it can be mixed with another. (See page 78.) Also, some honeys are not fit for winter stores, if bees are confined to their hives without flight for a month or more at a time. (See page 99.) This is often true of late honey flows in the northern part of the country--for instance, aster honey.
**A Time of Light Work**.
The days or weeks between the close of the bees' active work and the time for putting them in their winter quarters may be considered the vacation season of the beekeeper. There is little more to do than to observe the condition of the colonies and be sure that they are normal and all right.
If there are weak colonies that are not likely to build up and be strong enough to winter well, these weak colonies should now be united. (See page 114, "Newspaper Uniting Plan.") A colony that is certainly too weak to winter well is one that has bees covering less than three or four frames and whose brood-rearing is at a standstill. The beginner better not attempt to winter any colony that has less than six combs of bees.
**Introducing Queens in Early Fall**.
While the beginner takes greater risk of losing queens when introducing them after the harvest than when doing so during the honey flow, yetit may be desirable to introduce a new queen in the fall. The value of a young, vigorous queen in a colony to build it \(u_{I}\) strong for winter and to begin brood-rearing promptly the next spring can hardly be overestimated. It is best, however, to introduce the young queen in time for he to have about six weeks to lay eggs for winter bees. This means that the young queen should begin to lay not later than the middle of August in the North and the first of September in the South.
Queens that are not laying well or that are not giving satisfaction for any reason, whose bees may be poor honey-gatherers or show other undesirable traits, should be replaced by queens purehased from some reliable breeder, the old queen not being removed until the arrival of the new one. (See page 59.)
Finding no queen, eggs, nor young larvae, and still enough room for the queen to lay, is not certain proof that the queen is missing. (See page 57.) It may be that the old queen has stopped laying for a time or has been lost, and the young one not yet mated. A frame of eggs and young larvae should, therefore, be given to such a colony. If the colony be queenless, queen-cells will soon be started. (See page 57.) If a young queen that has not begun laying is present, the giving of larvae keeps the bees contented and may perhaps cause the queen to start laying, since the workers begin to feed her a greater quantity of food, just as they ordinarily do a laying queen.
If one finds a colony with mostly drone brood or with the eggs placed irregularly, he may conclude that such colony has either a drone-layer or laying workers. (For directions in such cases, see page 58.)
**Requeening.**
Until the beginner is experienced enough to rear his own queens, he should purchase them from some reliable breeder. The queens he purchases should always be mated and laying, and may be "untested" or "tested." An "untested" queen is one which is known to the breeder to be laying well and sold without any other guarantee. A "tested" queen is one that the breeder has kept long enough to determine from her progeny that she has been purely mated.
**Care of Combs.**
After the honey harvest, the beginner needs to be emphatically caution-ed as to the care of his empty combs. If he does not take the best of care to store these carefully, they are almost sure to be attacked by mice or by wax moths or by both, and so ruined. The best way to take care of these combs during the summer is to leave them on the hives where the bees can care for them. One strong colony can take care of four or five or even more supers of extracting-combs until the arrival of cold weather, after which the moth can do no damage. The empty drawn combs and the frames of full sheets of foundation, that the beginner may have at the close of the season, should be placed in good supers, and these supers stacked up in a dry, rain-proof place so that there is no crack nor creviee through which a wax moth or mouse can enter. Careful piling of all the supers, the bottom one being placed on a perfectly flat surface and the top one carefully covered, will insure safety against the entrance of mice and moths; but, if there are already eggs of the moth' miller in the combs, they will hatch and the combs become infested with wax worms in spite of covering carefully. So there should be an inspection of the combs at least once after they have been piled, for, despite the best of care, some moth larvae may get in. If at any time it is found that moths are ruining the combs, see page 121 of the Appendix for treatment, and apply this treatment at once.
**WINTERING**.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Wintering is one of the most serious problems of the beekeeper. Due to poor wintering methods or lack of any wintering methods, the great winter losses of bees the country over are at least ten times greater than necessary, running into millions of dollars of loss annually.
**Good Wintering Requirements.**
To insure good wintering, no matter how or where the bees are wintered, there should be large colonies with plenty of young bees and a good queen, and there should also be an abundance of good, wholesome stores. In those localities where there is a continuous honey flow until fall there will be plenty of young bees reared for winter; but wherever there is a dearth of nectar just before fall, it is quite important that the colonies be provided with young, prolific queens in order that breeding may be continued in the fall and thus provide a large number of young bees for winter. These young bees may be considered a good insurance against spring dwindling, which takes place when worn-out bees of the previous fall die in the early spring before the young ones emerge to take their places. Besides these general requirements, other special ones will be mentioned in connection with different ways of wintering.
**Time of Fall Feeding.**
Those colonies which do not have enough stores (see the following paragraph) will need a feeding of good sugar syrup. This should not be given until brood-rearing has nearly ceased and most of the brood emerged so there will be plenty of room for storing, and, yet, it is always an advantage to give the stores as early as the condition of brood-rearing will permit in order that the cells may be well sealed. When first placed in the cells the stores (either honey or syrup) are too thin for good wintering; but, if there is time before wintering, the bees evaporate, or "ripen" the stores until of the right consistency, when they are sealed. Stores too thin, or in any way poor, often cause dysentery and death of the colony before spring. (See "Dysentery," page 118 in Appendix.) For, when bees use poor honey, it results in more waste matter accumulating in the intestines, which during very cold weather is retained, since bees normally void their feces only in flight. Therefore, if unable to fly for some time, death may result.
**Needed Amount of Stores.**
The amount of stores needed will, of course, depend upon the size of the colony; but, in general, those colonies wintered in the North will needabout 20 to 30 pounds of stores if wintered in the eellar and 30 to 40 pounds if wintered outdoors, while those in the South, because of their greater aativity during the winter, should have 40 or 50 pounds or even more.
When examined to determine the amount of stores it is probable that quite a little honey will be found in the brood-chamber. Each full stand-ard-sized Hoffman comb contains about five pounds of honey, so that by handling each comb and noting the sealed honey it will be easy to arrive at a general estimate of the amount of honey in each hive, and therefore the amount that will need to be fed. The unsealed honey should not be estimated, since it is generally used before winter. A better way is to weigh the hive; then deduct the weight of an empty hive and combs, allowing five or six pounds in addition for the bees and pollen. Each hive should be marked with the amount to be given. If one intends wintering in a double-walled hive, the 30 to 40 pounds of stores should be contained in seven or eight frames so that, if desired, the brood-chamber may be contracted as described later.
**Poor Stores--What to Do.**
There is considerable difference in the wintering value of honey, some of them having too large a per cent of resins and gums to be a good winter food, and others being unsuitable because insufficiently ripened. As already stated, if bees have frequent flights, such food is safe; but during - the dead of winter it is apt to result disastrously; so that, to be on the safe side, each colony having honey of poor quality should be given as much as ten pounds of sugar syrup to store below their honey. The colonies will probably not use more than ten pounds during the most severe weather, and so the syrup being fed last will be used first, and the bees will not get to the undesirable honey until spring, when they will be able to have frequent cleansing flights, and thus avoid dysentery.
A thick syrup made from either eane sugar or beet sugar makes very good winter stores. It should be made of not less than two parts of sugar to one part of water. In fact, some prefer such syrup to the best honey stores. But the beginner will do well to use the bees' natural food, which is ripe honey of good quality. White clover, alsike clover and alfalfa honey are among the best for winter. Aster, goldenrod and swamp-flower honey are not so safe as clover honey or sugar syrup for winter; but, if thoroughly ripened, they do very well if the winter is not severe. If un-ripe, as fall honey often are, they are likely to cause dysentery before spring. Glucose, if taken by the bees, would be almost certain to kill them before spring, and it is not suitable for feeding the bees at any time. In fact, it is almost impossible to induce bees to take raw glucose. Such poor stores as honeydew, grape sugar, brown sugar and molasses should not be used for winter, but should be saved for spring feeding, for these sweets will be perfectly safe for feeding as soon as the bees are able to have frequent cleansing flights.
**Just Before Feeding**.
While making the estimate on the needed amount of stores, there will probably be no honey coming in, and therefore care should be taken not to start robbing. If any colonies are weak, their entrances should be contacted; and, if the hives are open for any length of time, it may be necessary to use a robber tent, for it would certainly be very bad for the colonies to become unduly stirred up at this time of the year when they should be quiet.
In case one intends to winter in double-walled hives, he should at this time do the work of contracting the brood-chamber by removing two or three frames (see page 102 on "Wintering in Double-Walled Hives"). If weak or queenless colonies are found they should be united with others; or the queenless one, if strong, may be given a good queen by the cage method. (See page 60.) Crooked combs or those having too large a per cent of drone comb or too much beebread should be removed; or, if there chance to be some brood in them, they may be placed at the side of the hive, to be removed later at the time of packing when the brood will have emerged.
Whenever there is a chance for a choice in the matter, old dark combs should be left at the center of the hive for the bees to cluster on, since the cocoons in the cells make such comb much warmer than new light combs. During cold weather the bees are in a compact spherical mass, at the center of the hive, the combs dividing the mass. This part of the combs which they occupy is called the winter nest. When examining the colonies in the fall the winter nest should not be disarranged, since the bees have arranged their winter stores around the winter nest as needed for winter.
Method of Feeding.