BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
A newly emerged queen while she is still downy, say within half an hour of the time of her emergence, can be run into any queenless colony or nucleus with safety. The bees are apparently conscious that any bee of such a tender age is incapable of harm, and she is accepted as a child of the community. For such, it is not necessary to provide any artificial stimulus of any kind; smoke, flour, or water are all unnecessary.
Virgins that are four or five days old are more difficult to introduce, than are fertile queens. Alley recommended dipping the virgin in honey, thinned with a little water as above described, and then dropping her into the queenless hive. He wrote that virgins could only be introduced successfully to colonies that had been queenless for at least three days. It has often been advised to leave colonies queenless for this period before introducing fertile queens, but the author prefers to give a fertile queen immediately on removing the old queen. With virgins there is a larger element of danger.
## Chapter 35 Spreading Disease from the Queen Yard.
It is an unfortunate fact that much of the responsibility for the present wide-spread prevalence of foulbrood must be laid at the door of the careless queen breeder. Foulbrood has been introduced into many localities by the purchase of queens from diseased apiaries. The queen breeder cannot use too much care in keeping his apiary and his locality free from disease. In any event, queens should not be mailed to purchasers from an apiary where disease is present. In our present state of knowledge of European foulbrood, it is uncertain in just what manner the disease is spread, but it is very probable that a queen bee, taken from a diseased colony, might be the means of introducing it into a healthy colony, even though no honey or bees accompany her.
It is reasonably certain that there is little danger of the spread of American foulbrood, except in the honey from diseased colonies. The postal regulation which requires that honey used to make candy, to stock queen cages to be sent through the mails, be boiled for thirty minutes, is supposed to meet all requirements. While this may be true, as far as American foulbrood is concerned, it is not sufficient protection for the purchaser, from European foulbrood or paralysis.
The late O. O. Poppleton related something of his experience with paralysis, to the writer. For a time he had serious losses among his bees from this disease. He was finally able to trace the trouble to the introduction of queens from the yards of a well known breeder. By requeening all his yards with a different strain of bees, he was able to eliminate the disease. Later he introduced the same disorder to his apiaries again with queens from another source. On investigating the matter, he was surprised to learn that the man from whom he boughtthe new lot of queens, had previously purchased a breeding queen from the breeder from whom he had first contracted the disease. It accordingly became necessary to requeen his apiaries with new stock, a second time, to get rid of paralysis.
Diseases of adult bees are, as yet, but little understood; but it is quite probable that there are several different diseases, all of which are known under the general name of paralysis. It is very evident that this trouble, whatever its nature, is widely disseminated by the sale of queens and bees in packages. The trouble has long been prevalent in the south, especially in Florida, but, of late, it is becoming common in many northern localities. It has attracted special notice in Wisconsin and Washington. In dry and warm seasons it is not serious, but in cold and damp summers becomes a serious problem.
Cases have been called to the writer's attention, where all the bees introduced from a certain locality have died with
Figure 40: A Minnesota queen yard.
this disorder, while the stock which had previously been present in the apiary remained in healthy condition.
If the business of queen breeding is to remain permanent and profitable, it is highly desirable that concerted action be taken, looking to the control of shipment of queens or bees from diseased apiaries. The buyer should be assured that he will not endanger his future prospects by buying queens anywhere that they are offered. About the only solution that seems readily apparent is federal supervision of queen yards. An increasing number of expert beekeepers are being employed in the extension service of the United States department, and these could be used to inspect all queen-breeding apiaries at least once each year, in connection with their other work.
Several of the states have provision for the inspection of queen-breeding apiaries, and withhold certificates of health from apiaries where disease is found. However, not all the states have inspection and those that have do not have uniform regulations. The shipment of both bees and queens is becoming so general that uniform interstate regulations are very desirable.
In the opinion of the author, the future of the business depends very much on the attitude which the queen breeders, as a class, assume toward this question.
Books On Beekeeping For Sale by the American Bee Journal
TUHS book originally written
by Rev. L. L. Langstroh,
keeper can afford to be without. It contains careful
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1,000 Questions about bees
relating to every phase of beekeeping. These questions have been sifted and
No matter what your problem is, you will find the answer in this book, for beekeeps of all ages and all stages of experience have brought their queries to Doetor
Miller. This book is intended to supplement the regular text books on beekeeping, and will be an invaluable aid to every beekeeper, whether he be a novice or an expert.
The texts tell a connected story of bee life and the principles of honey production, while this takes up singly the many questions that confront the beekeeper in his
everyday practice in the apiary. Dozens of subjects not mentioned in the ordinary
As a premium with The American Bee Journal. Price with one year's
subscription, $1.75. Canadian postage 15 cents extra.
**Cernell University Library**
**SF 523.G292 1916**
**Protitable bee-keeping for small-holders**The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library.
[http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003187238](http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003187238)
**THE "SMALLHOLER" LIBRARY No. I**The "Smailholder "1 Library
_In Stiff Paper Boards._ _Price 1/6 net._ _Post free 1/9 each._
A Series of Handbooks specially prepared for the use of Smallholders.
No. 1.**PRACTICAL HINTS FOR THE HOLDING.** With 240 Illustrations.** A Series of Prize Paragraphs from "The Smallholder," giving practical advice on the working of a Small Holding.
No. 3.**PROFITABLE POULTRY KEEPING.** For Small Holders and others. By E. T. Brown, formerly Lecturer on Poultry Keeping to the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, etc. etc. With Photo graphs and many Diagrams.
No. 4.**THE MARKET GARDEN : How to Startand Run It Profitably.** With numerous Illustrations. By the Garding Experts of "The Smallholder."
No. 5.**FRENCH GARDENING.** A Marual of Intensive Culture.** By Thomas Smith, F.R.H.S. With 22 Full-page Illustrations and a Plan. Thus volume may also be had in Cloth Boards. Price 2s. net ; post free 2s. 4d.
No. 6.**PIGS :** How to make them Pay. Breeding, Feeding, and Housing With numerous Illustrations and Photographs.
No. 8.**MANURES AND MANURING.** By "Farmer Giles." This volume explains in plain language the right methods of treating all kinds of crops.
No. 9.**UTILITY RABBIT KEEPING.** With chapters on Fano Rabbits, Rabbits for Exhibition, etc.
No. 10.**THE ALLOTMENT BOOK.** How to make the most of your Land. ( By Walter Brett. Author of "War Time Gardening."
No. 11.**THE POTATO BOOK.** All about the Potato. By J. C. Kwasham, F.L.S. With 8 pages of Photographs and other Diagram.
No. 12.**PROFITABLE GOAT KEEPING.** By the Experts of "The Smallholder." With numerous Illustrations.
No. 13.**DUCKS, GESE, AND TURKEYS.** By E. T. Brown, Instructor at the College Poultry Farm, Theale, Berks, etc.
_Any look in this Het may be ordered through your Bookseller, or will be sent just paid on receipt of the price mentioned by_
**A. F. SOWTER, Publisher, "Smallholder and Small Owner "Offices, 16-18 Henrietta Street, London, W.C. 2.**
## Appendix B E-KEPING
SMALL-HOLDERS AND OTHERS
HENRY GEARY, F. E. S.
_Expert to the Leicestershire Bee-Keeger' Association_, _etc._, _etc._, _autthor of_
"BENS FOR PROFIT AND PLESUR" RTC.
WITH 12 PHOTOZAARIC AND OTHER (LIUSTRATIONS
C. Arthur Pearson Ltd.
**Ferr 4-Riffard**
Steaud Edifan
Taird Edifan
### Introduction
No small-holder, should be without a few stocks of bees. If he neglects to provide these adjuncts to his other forms of enterprise, he is not utilizing to their fullest extent the means which lie to his hand. This may seem a very, bold statement, but, notwithstanding, it is a true one, and one which is not lively to be contradicted by anyone acquainted with the science of bee-culture.
As is well known, the very foundations of success on small-holdings rest on the tenant deriving his income from more than one source. In fact, and within reason, the more irons he has in the fire the better, providing he thoroughly, understands his various ventures. The small-holder must not be dependent on any single crop, but must ever have a reserve of force to counteract any possible failure. By these means he guards against the vicissitudes of this most uncertain climate, the loss of stock by, disease, and the falling of markets
and the upkeep about 3/- yearly, further comments on the profitable nature of the pursuit are superfluous.
Again, as regards selling the produce the bekeeper is in a most enviable position. The supply of first-class British honey is not nearly sufficient to meet the demand, and good prices are readily realized. The imports of foreign honey into this country are of the value of about $35,000 annually. This honey finds a market, apart from its use in manufacture, mainly owing to the paucity in the home supply, for which there is an ever increasing demand.
There is no foreign honey which can compare in quality with the native article. A further point is that good honey will keep for an indefinite period without deteriorating in any way, and, should low prices rule, the bee-keeper can hold his produce for a better market without suffering loss. This necessity does not often arise, except in the case of a honey glut, as in the record year of r906. Many poor colonies secured fifty pounds of surplus honey in that year, and some of my own yielded over a hundredweight each in a medium district.
It will thus be seen what an aid to success a well-ordered apiary can be, and it is within the power of nearly every man to become a successful bee-keeper. The attention required is really. very little. No special location is necessary, as any. rough corner which is not suitable for cultiva
## 14 Profile Bee-Keeping
tion will generally answer admirably for the beehives.
The main thing is to understand thoroughly the habits of the bees and the working of the hive. It is with the intention of teaching this that this little book has been written. As regards the text, abstruse wording has been carefully avoided, and the idea has been to produce a plain, straightforward work for the use of the great body of small-holders. The number of necessary appliances has been kept within strict limits. Many beehseeing appliances which figure in catalogues can readily be dispensed with, and thus a certain amount of capital is retained.
As in every other pursuit much money may be uselessly spent, and my object has been to eliminate all articles which may be dispensed with without injuring in any way the efficiency. of the practical work.
By the same rule the anatomy of the bee and the economy of the hive have only been touched upon sufficiently to serve the everyday needs of the apiarist.
## Chapter I The economy of the hive
Before commencing an explanation of the practical operations connected with bee culture, it will be well to devote a few lines to a brief description of the bee with which we have to deal, and which is indigenous to these islands.
The honey-bee is classed by entomologists as follows: Class, _Insecta;_ Order, _Hymenoptera_; Family, _Apidae;_ Genera, _Apis;_ Species, _Metlifica_ ; and finally the various varieties--English, Carnioan, Italian, etc., as the case may be.
The honey-bee is possessed of six legs--anterior, intermediate, and posterior. The posterior legs in the case of workers are fringed with stiff bristles, forming the well-known pollen baskets, in which the pollen is conveyed to the hive. They have two pairs of membranous wings, while the framework of the body. consists of an external skeleton composed of a horny. substance known as chitine, arranged in the form of segments in the abdomen, each segment being formed by, a dorsal and ventral plate. The whole body is more or less thickly covered with hair. There are three distinct kinds of bee in a hive, all of which have much incommon, but differ in many important particulars. The drone or male bee is stingless, and is also destitute of pollen baskets; while the queen, the only fully developed female in the hive, possesses a sting, and is also endowed with a series of productive organs. She alone of all the inmates of the hive can perpetuate the race. The worker bee is an undeveloped female, and it is this bee which alone performs the whole of the work in the bee kingdom. She it is who gathers the honey, pollen, propolisis and water, feeds the young larvae, builds the combs and protects the colony from attack, finally dying in harness.
A good queen will lay from two to three thousand eggs per day during the height of the breeding season, and she is usually at her best in her second year. After this time she gradually fails, and should be supplanted by a younger mother bee. If left alone the bees will often do this for themselves, but the careful apiarist leaves nothing to chance, andlects to do it for them as a rule. The queen is the centre round which the whole prosperity of the colony revolves, and without good young queens the best results cannot be obtained. She is the mother of the whole of the other inmates of the hive, and has the marvellous ability of laying eggs which will produce at will either drones or worker bees. The queen is absolutely the same as a worker bee at birth, but is reared in a special cell and is fed with special food, and it is this food alone which is sup
The economy of the hive 17 posed to bring about the evolution. The worker bees being debarred from the stimulating food which conduces to the perfection of the queen are rendered physically incapable of mating with the drone, and therefore can never head a colony. The worker bee can lay eggs, and does so at times, but these eggs produce drones only.
This curious feature of reproduction without fecundation is known as parthenogenesis.
The eggs laid by the queen hatch on the third day, and after passing through the larval and chrysalis stages peculiar to insects, the fully-developed bee hatches on the fifteenth or sixteenth day if it be a queen, on the twenty-first day, if a worker, and on the twenty-fourth day if it be a drone. These dates are taken from the time the egg is laid.
A short survey has now been given of the life-history of the bee and of its anatomy. This account is sufficiently full for inclusion in a practical manual, and now we will take the course of events which have place in a normal colony during a season's working: By this means the following chapters will be readily, understood and easily, put into practice.
Towards the end of February bees begin to move about more freely, and to shake off the lethargy of their winter semi-hibernation. The queen will begin to lay eggs, a tiny circle at first in the centre of the cluster, which rapidly enlarges as the days grow longer and pollen becomes more abundant. The food supply, which has been reduced but little during the winter months, now dwindles rapidly with so many young mouths to feed, and the population of the hive begins to show a marked increase. This increase goes steadily on, and with the first fruits of the new season's honey, gathered from the willows and fruit bloom, breeding quickly rises towards its height. The hive now becomes very congested, and drone eggs will be laid. Towards the end of April drones will be hatching out in forward colonies, showing that the season is commencing in earnest. With May, in, good colonies will be packed to the verge of suffocation, and queen-cells will be built in which the queen will lay eggs, and when these are seen it is a sign that the bees are thinking of swarming.
If adverse weather comes on these cells may, be pulled down, but otherwise if they are completed a swarm may be expected at the capping of the first cell, providing the weather is suitable.
This swarm will be headed by, the old queen. On the ninth day after the first swarm leaves the hive a second swarm or cast will probably be thrown off, headed by. the young queen first hatched, and if no restraint has been put upon the bees other small after-swarms may issue. These after-swarms are headed by unfertile queens, which, after hiving, fly forth to meet the drone. And it should be thoroughly, understood that a queen only leaves the hive for two purposes, either to lead a swarm or to meet the drone for the act of fertilization.
After the honey season breeding gradually slows down in the colonies, so that by the end of August very little brood is to be found in the hives, unless there is a late flow of nectar. The bees now begin to think of winter, all stores are sealed up, and the hive is made practically air-tight, as regards the top and sides, by the use of a resin-ous substance called propolis, gathered from the limbs and branches of trees. The drones are usually killed off by the end of July, there being no further need of their services, and incidentally it may be noted that the presence of drones in a hive during the autumn or winter months is almost a sure sign of queenlessness. Towards the autumn the bees become gradually more and more inactive with the advent of the first frosts, until at the approach of winter they fall into the semi-dormant condition in which they exist until the spring sunshine rouses them to renewed activity.
This, then, is a brief resume of a season's happenings in a colony of bees which are left to their own devices. Such devices, however, while well enough, no doubt, from the bees' point of view, would be very detrimental, many of them, to profitable bee-keeping, so I will later endeavour to show how these wonderful little insects may be led into such paths as will benefit their owner without loss to themselves.
Old-fashioned bee-keeping consisted almost
## 20. Profile Bee-Keepering
entirely of the let-alone system just described, terminating with the concomitant horrors of the brimstone pit and the garnering of a mess of in-describable components, by courtesy called honey. This honey was extracted from the brood combs by means of a press or the aid of fire.
The honey of to-day bears no resemblance, I am thankful to say, to the honey of our grandsires, while our modern systems are alike beneficial to bee-keeper and to bee.
## Chapter 2 Stooking an apiary
There are several ways in which an apiary may be effectively stocked, and the advisability of adopting any one method is much a question based upon the time of year in which the work is to be carried out. Bees may be acquired in the form of (\(a\)) established colonies in frame hives, (\(b\)) as colonies in skeps, (\(c\)) as swarms, (\(d\)) as driven bees. In the case of established colonies, whether in frame hives or skeps, they may be bought at any time except during the winter months, say from October to March, when, as no proper examination of the bees can be made, it is not advisable to buy. The best time for purchasing these colonies is at the end of March or during April, when a warm day may be chosen and a satisfactory examination made. A novice is strictly cautioned against purchasing any stock on their own combs unless he has expert advice as to their freedom from disease, or a written guarantee from the vendor stating that the bees are perfectly healthy.
Good theoretical knowledge is of no use in
## 22 Profitable Bee-Keeping
diagnosing disease. Foul-brood, for instance, that arch-pest of bee-keepers, could not be detected by one novice in a hundred in an incipient stage. I cannot lay too much stress on this point, for as one who has been through the fire more than once, I speak feelingly, when I say that the acquisition of diseased bees by a beginner will in all probability effectually quell all his aspirations in the direction of apiculture, and many a good man has thus been lost to the craft.
Colonies secured in April, if in fair condition, give ample time for getting the bees up to a point when they can take full advantage of the honey flow. Cases are quite common where the first season's honey. has paid for the bees. A fair price for a colony. of bees in a good hive is from 25/- to 30/- at this time of the year. For this money the buyer should receive a colony which covers from six to ten frames thickly, with brood on at least four frames, denoting the presence of a fertile queen. They should be absolutely healthy and the combs should be good. When speaking of good combs, I mean that they should be quite flat and free from drone comb. Healthiness should be a _sine qua non_, and they should not be pollen-clogged nor should they be too old. Colour indicates age, and in a light brown state, as distinct from dark brown or black, they will do. There should be a fair amount of brood in all stages and some stores, but if the other essentials are there the question of foodsupply. may, be waived and the bees fed with sugar syrup.
Skeps of bees should certainly not be bought by. beginners on their own responsibility, and in fact it would be best if they ignored them altogether. Disease cannot be detected at all in a skep, as the combs are fixed and cannot be examined without cutting them out. An expert, if he wanted bees, would take the risk, cut out the combs and examine them, afterwards transferring them to a frame hive if healthy; if otherwise, destroying the combs and treating the bees as an artificial swarm or driven lot. This work, however, is quite beyond the beginner. If he buy. skeps at all he must be prepared to take the risk, and this is not advised. If by. any means he comes into possession of any, the safest way. of dealing with them is to place them on a stand and allow them to swarm, living the swarms into frame hives. As skeps are only, acquired nowadays as adjuncts to frame hives, this method is to be preferred even in the case of healthy. skeps to the usual method of dealing with them, which consists in transferring the bees and combs as mentioned before. The state of the combs matters little in this description of hive. They, should not be too black, but that is the only, thing that need be insisted on. The usual price for skeps is from i2/- to i5/- each, but the latter is a top price.
Swarms are usually recommended for beginners,
## 24 Profile Bee-Keeping