BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
This is a good time to salt the ground at and about the entrances of the hives, to kill the grass, although too often I leave it till it has to be cut with a sickle. Grass growing in front of the hive annoys the bees, and that growing at the side annoys the operator, especially if the operator is of the female persuasion, and the grass is wet with dew or rain.
## Harbingers of Harvest.
There are certain things always noticed by a bekeeper, with much interest, as heralding the beginning of spring or of the honey-harvest. Among these are the singing of frogs, the advent of bluebirds, and the opening of various blossoms. With me the highest interest centers in white clover. As I go back and forth to the out-apiaries, I am always watching the patches of white clover along the roadside. If your attention has never been called to it, you will be surprised to find how long it is from the time the first blossom may be seen, till clover opens out so bees will work upon it. I usually see a stray blossom days before it seems to have any company. In my location I do not count upon anything usually besides white clover for surplus, so no wonder I am interested in it.
## various honey-plants.
Yet there are a good many other plants whose help, all taken together, is not to be despised. If I kept only a few colonies, it is quite possible that I might secure some surplus from more than one of them.
Dandelions help no little in brood-rearing.
Raspberries are eagerly visited by the bees, but there are not enough of them to give a noticeable amount of raspberry honey. It is a very pleasant sight to see the bees thickly covering a field of raspberries in full bloom (Fig. 45).
Red clover may yet be of importance. Whether it be the change in the bees or the change in the season I do not know, but formerly I never saw a bee on red clover except at rare intervals, and now it is quite common. I think it may be that the bees are different.
Alsike clover is becoming common.
## sweet clover.
It is hard to tell just how much, but I think the bees gather quite a little from sweet clover (Fig. 46). The earlier part of the sweet clover bloom is probably of no great value, because it comes at the same time as white clover, but it continues after white clover is gone, thus making it of greater value. It has a habit of throwing out fresh shoots of blossoms on the lower part of the stalk after the whole stalk has gone to seed and appears dead, and thus it continues the blooming season till freezing weather comes on. A branch of this kind will be seen at the right in Fig. 46.
I value sweet clover for hay. Yellow sweet clover blooms from 2 to 4 weeks earlier than white sweet clover, and on that account is of less value in a year when common white clover yields well. But in the years when common white clover is a failure yellow sweet clover may be of very great value, for so far as I know there are no years of failure with either kind of sweet clover. There may be no small advantage in having the annual variety of yellow sweet clover.
Alfalfa (Fig. 47) is not plenty here. It is a rare thing to see a bee at work upon it, and I think it is generally understood that it does not yield nectar east of the Mississippi. But the experiment station says that if the land in Illinois be inoculated with some of the soil from the proper alfalfa regions of the West, it will grow as well here. If they can make changes in its growth, is it not just possible that it may yet become a honey-plant here?
## 12.2. Giant white clover.
A new honey-plant was mentioned a good deal in foreign bee-journals, a giant white clover, called Colossal Ladino (Fig. 48). I succeeded in getting some seed from Switzerland, sowed a few of them in the window in the winter, and had the plants blooming in the summer of 1903. For the purpose of comparison you will see in Fig. 48, at the right, a branch of red clover, and at the left a plant of common white or Dutch clover, both grown on the same ground. As you will see by looking at the picture, the new plant has leaves as large as those of red clover and in appearance I think they are identical. The blossom, however, which you will see toward the left, looks precisely like a large white clover blossom. The habit of growth, too, is that of the common white clover, running along the ground and taking root as it goes. A look at the picture will show this, the roots being seen coming from the stalk at the left.
Just how much value there is in this new clover I do not know. As will be seen, it grows much larger than the common white, but only as its leaves and leaf stems are larger, for it does not grow up and throw out branches like red clover. It died out the second winter.
Linden or basswood (Fig. 49) is a scarce article, the flavor of linden honey being seldom perceptible in any honey stored by my bees. I take great pleasure, however, in the sight of a row of lindens running from the public road up to the house (Fig. 50).
Catnip (Fig. 51) is scattered about, in some places quite plentiful where it has the protection of hedges, for
seemed too difficult to raise to make me care to experiment with it on a larger scale. Possibly if I knew better how to manage it, the difficulty might disappear. Or, on other soil it might be less difficult to manage. The same might be said of the other things I have tried. My soil is clay loam, and hilly, although I live in a prairie State. I am at least a mile distant from prairie soil. I had an acre of as fine figwort as one would care to see. It died root and branch the second winter ; even the young plants that had come from seed the previous summer.
It was on the lowest ground I had, very rich, and much like prairie.
When the boom for Chapman's honey-plant (echin-ops spherocephalus) was on, I was among the first to get it, and I succeeded in having a large patch. Bees were on it in large numbers, but close observation showed that a great proportion of them were loafing as if something about the plant had made them drunk. I concluded I did not get nectar enough from it to pay for the use of the land, to say nothing of cultivation.
One year I raised half an acre of sunflowers, and I have tried other things, but have given them up.
Apple-bloom.
Quite likely if a second crop of apple-bloom came a month or two later than the usual time, I might get some surplus from that; but coming so early I think there are hardly bees enough to store it. Still, the bees are at this time using large quantities of honey for brood, and so the apple-bloom is of very great value. Another advantage is that the great quantity of bloom has somewhat the effect of prolonging its time, for the latest blossoms, that with a few trees would amount to little or nothing, are enough to keep the bees busy. So it happens that often I can scarcely recognize any interim between fruit-bloom and clover. A few items from a memorandum for 1882 may be interesting:
memoranda of 1882.
Apr. 4.--Last bees taken out of cellar.
May 8.--Plum-bloom out. Bees still work on meal and sugar syrup.
May 10.--Wild plum, dandelion, cherry, pear, Siberian, Duchess of Oldenberg.
May 31.--Saw first clover blossom.
June 5.--Apple about done.
June 13.--Commenced giving supers.
June 13.--Clover full bloom--plemitful.
June 30.--Locus out.
Aug. 1.--Clover failing.
Aug. 5.--Robber bees trouble.
You will notice that the earliest apple-bloom (Duchess of Oldenberg) commenced May 10, while the Janets and other late bloomers were still in blossom on June 5, several days after the first clover was seen, making about four weeks of apple-bloom. Possibly this was unusual--certainly the clover lasted unusually long, be ing about \(\,
icefrac{{1}}{{2}}\) weeks from the time the bees commenced working on it, for they do not seem to commence work till after the blossoms have been out some time.
Time for giving supers.
You see that I did not commence putting on supers till 13 days after I saw the first clover-blossom, and if I had had only a dozen colonies, I might have waited later, but with a large number I must commence in time so that all shall be on as soon as needed. Usually I put on supers as nearly as convenient to ten days after seeing the very first white clover blossom. A little time before bees commence work in supers, little bits of pure, white wax will be seen stuck on the old comb about the upper part, yet I hardly wait for this, but go rather by the clover.
Another year (1884), I saw the first clover-blossom on May 31, apple being still in full bloom ; and I commenced putting on supers June 2. One year, I remember, clover failed on July 4, the earliest I ever remember.
That year, 1901, had perhaps the finest show of white clover bloom ever known, but it was a dead failure, perhaps on account of the terrible drouth, although sometimes white clover blossoms bountifully and fails to yield honey when nothing that can be seen in the way of weather is at all at fault. About the middle of August the bees began storing, perhaps from cucumbers and sweet clover, and gave a surplus of 16 pounds a colony. It would have been better to have had it all stored in brood-frames, I think.
The following year, 1902, was still more exceptional. As already told, the bees would have starved in June but for feeding, yet later on they did some good work, some colonies yielding as much as 72 sections. The bulk of this was stored toward the last of August or later.
Fig. 70 is from a photo taken Oct. 1. In the picture the bee appears to be perfectly still, but these are not moving pictures, and I assure you that that bee was in very lively motion when taken.
## overstocking
To a bee-keeper who has more bees than he thinks advisable to keep in the home a stocking are subjects of intense interest. The two subjects are intimately connected. They are subjects so elusive, so difficult to learn anything about very positively, that if I could well help myself, I think I should dismiss them altogether from contemplation. But like Banquo's ghost, they will not down. I must decide, whether I will or not, how many colonies will overstock the home field, unless I make the idiotic determination to keep all at home with the almost certain result of obtaining no surplus. I do not expect ever to have any positive knowledge upon the subject, because if I could find out with certainty just what number of colonies a given area would support in one year, I have no kind of assurance that the same kind of a year will ever occur again. So I act upon the _guess_ that in my locality it is never wise to have more than 100 colonies in one apiary, and possibly \(75\) would be better.
## surplus arrangements.
The first surplus honey I obtained worth mentioning was secured in boxes holding somewhere from 6 to 10 pounds. The boxes had glass on one or more sides, and were placed on the top of box-hives. Then for a year or more my surplus was extracted honey obtained with the old Peabody extractor (Fig. 2), in which the whole affair, can and all, revolves.
## sections.
Then I started on sections of the four-piece kind, and later used one-piece. I have used the 4%x4%x1% size much more than any other. I have used a few hundreds of the tall sections, but my market does not seem to like them any better, if as well, as the square sections. I have tried 4% square sections of several widths, 1 15-16 inches wide, % to the foot, also 8, 9, and 10 to the foot. I have made some trial of plain sections, but for my market I am not sure that there is advantage enough in them to make me change from the two-bee-way sections.
## 7.1. \(\mathbb{T}\) supers.
The \(\mathbb{T}\) supers I use are \(13\%\) wide inside, just right for \(8\)-frame hives. Just why I adopted this size I do not know, for at that time I was using \(10\)-frame hives, and it was a little awkward to use a super so much narrower than the hive. But at least part of the time I used only eight frames in the \(10\)-frame hives.
## 8. how to make a t super.
So many have asked how to make a \(\mathbb{T}\) super that it may be well to give directions here. It is a plain box without top or bottom, the inside width being the same as that of the hive, and the depth \(
icefrac{{1}}{{4}}\) inch more than the depth of the sections to be used. Mine being for the \(8\)-frame dovetailed hive, and for \(4
icefrac{{1}}{{4}} imes 4
icefrac{{1}}{{4}}\) sections, are \(17\%\) inches long, inside measure, \(12\%\) inches wide, and \(4
icefrac{{1}}{{2}}\) inches deep. If they were all to be made over again, I think I might prefer to have them \(
icefrac{{1}}{{8}}\) inch shorter. Unless the lumber is very thoroughly seasoned, the depth should be a little more than \(
icefrac{{1}}{{4}}\) inch more than the depth of the sections. To support the sections, three \(\mathbb{T}\) tins are needed, and there must be something to support these \(\mathbb{T}\) tins, \(3\) supports on each side. With your super lying before you upside down, make a mark on the edge of each side at the middle. Now, half way between this mark and each inside end of the super, make another mark. Those \(3\) marks on each side will tell you where the middle of each support is to be. Most of my supers have for these \(6\) supports pieces of sheet iron \(1\%\) x \(1\) inch. Lay the piece flat on the edge of the side of the super, and fasten it by \(2\) nails about \(
icefrac{{1}}{{4}}\) inch from the inside edge of the side of the super. As the wall of the super is \(\%\) thick, that will allow the support to project inside about \(
icefrac{{1}}{{4}}\) inch, and the support is of course \(1\) inch wide. Some of the latest of my supers, instead of these squares of sheet iron, have staples as supports. A staple is driven in about \(
icefrac{{1}}{{4}}\) inch from the inside edge,then bent over and hammered down flat. The staples are an inch wide. To support the sections at each end of the super a strip of tin is nailed on. It is 13% x 5%, and is nailed on so as to project inward 1% inch. The 12-inch T tins are bought ready made. The super is hardly long enough to close the top of the live. I like this. When the harvest is booming I let the super be shoved forward enough so there will be at the back end a space of 1% inch for ventilation, which is an important factor to prevent swarming. But the sections near this ventilation will not be finished so rapidly, and at the beginning and toward the close of the season a cleat is nailed on the super to close fully the opening. Yet I remember at least one year when it worked the other way, and the sections were sealed sooner at the open end than at the closed end. Perhaps it was because the weather was very hot.
The separators used are plain wood, and are generally bought new every year, for it is about as cheap to buy new as to clean the old, and more satisfactory. The usual follower fills out the super, wedged in with a super spring.
super springs.
Until the introduction of super springs, my supers of sections were wedged together by crowding in behind the follower a straight stick about as long as the inside length of the super, and 1% x 1% inch. I find the super springs a very great improvement. When the sections are filled into the super, the corners, which have been wet, are not yet entirely dry, and no matter how tightly wedged, as they dry out there will be a shrinkage of the contents of the super, so that in some cases the wedge-stick will drop down. The metal springs will adjust themselves to this, and continue to press the sections together, although with less force, after all have entirely dried out. It is easier to put the springs in, and very much easier to take them out. In a word, the sticks are not always a fit, and the springs are.
Another thing of perhaps still more importance is that the stick, being crowded in diagonally, forms a pocket in which the bees are apt to congregate when one is trying to get them out of the super, and it is very hard to dislodge them from this pocket. The springs form no such pocket.
I am not sure whether it is better to use one spring or two to a super.
The T tins are not fastened to the super, but loose (Fig. 5.)
sections ready in advance.
The work of getting sections and supers ready for use has been all done long before the time for putting on, and something will be said about how that work is done.
At the time the supers are needed for putting on the hives, they are all nicely piled up in the store-room of the shop, ready to carry out.
Years ago I though I was doing pretty well if I had ready in advance as much as 4 supers filled with sections for each colony. Certainly, if I could average, one year with another, 96 finished sections per colony, it would not be such a bad thing. But if preparation is to be made in advance, it must be not for an average crop, but for the largest crop possible. Allowance must be made, too, for unfinished sections that will be taken off at the close of the season, and also for a good many that the bees have not begun on at all. Being caught short of sections and having to get them ready right in the rush of harvest made me change my mind as to the number that should be ready in advance. Several times I had to chance my mind, each time setting the mark a little higher, for as the years went by the yields of big years became bigger. One reason for this was no doubt the improvement in pasturage. Another was the improvement in bees by continuous breeding from the best storers.
## an emphatic season.
The year 1903 was one of the years that emphasized the need of having a big stock of sections ready in ad vance. It emphasized also the variableness of the seasons. Another item of no small importance was the harvests of the present and future as compared with the past. Some have said that with the advance of civilization, the plow and the ax have cut off our resources for nectar, and we are no more to expect such crops as we have had in the past. We shall see where the year 1903 put the emphasis in that matter.
A furnace put in the cellar somewhat late the previous winter had made bad work with the wintering, so that by the 13th of May, 1903, I could muster only 184 colonies all told, and some of them were very weak indeed. The dense carpet of white clover promised well, provided the weather was good (as it turned out there was too much cold and wet for best expectations), but enough supers were piled ready-filled to satisfy any reasonable demands. The cool, wet weather hindered storing no little, but was no doubt an advantage in the long run, for it kept the clover growing and blowing, and I don't know really when it did cease to yield.
The season was remarkably early, so that second stories were given some colonies by May 13, and May 25 we began giving supers. Three days later there were evidences of abundant storing. July 1 we began taking off supers, and from that on had a busy time both taking off and putting on. No trouble with robber-bees ; supers could be set on hives and left till the bees all ran out of their own accord, standing all day if necessary. This up to July 18, after which time the bees would have spells of letting up, only to go at it afresh after the pause.
Finally it began to dawn on us that our stock of filled supers was running dangerously low. More sections were ordered. Getting them ready as needed was added to our already heavy task. We were kept on the jump till near the middle of August. Then came the National convention at Los Angeles. Some 18,000 finished sections were piled up in the house, but a lot more were on the hives, and I hesitated about going. But my assistant insisted I should go ; the bees had let up on storing, and I thought it would do no great harm to leave all sections on till I got back, so I left August 18, getting back the 28th.
Scarcely had I got out of sight when the bees made a fresh start as fierce as ever, and gave Miss Wilson the busy time of her life. Up at 4 o'clock in the morning to get sections ready, then to one of the apiaries to take off and put on supers, with no let-up in the work of going through colonies to keep down swarming. Yes, indeed, there was swarming galore, and had been all through the season. It is generally understood that when bees are busily engaged at storing they give up all thoughts of swarming. Not in 1903. I'm not sure I ever knew so bad a season for swarming. We fought our best to prevent it, but every now and then the bees would get the start of us.
Some 6,000 finished sections were taken off during my 16 days' absence, and on my return I found everything about the work kept up in as good shape as if I had been at home. And Miss Wilson was still alive.
We didn't get the last sections off the hives till well along in September, and the final footing up was not conducive to despondency. From 124 colonies, spring count, we had 18,150 pounds of comb honey (about 30,000 finished sections), increasing to 284 colonies ; or, an average of more than 146 pounds per colony, with 129 per cent increase. As the storing was mainly by one set of colonies and the increase by another, it would perhaps be fairer to say that 100 colonies averaged 1812 pounds per colony with no increase, and that each of the remaining colonies was increased to 7 2-3 colonies with no surplus. The best colony gave 300 sections, and several colonies were close on its heels.
That average of 146 pounds per colony was equivalent to about 160 sections per colony. With 24 sections to the super, those 160 sections would lack 8 sections of filling 7 supers. There were probably more than 8 unfinished and empty sections per colony, so it will be readily seen that for another year like 1903 it will be a conservative estimate to count on having 7 supers of sections ready in advance for each colony. Such a year may never come again, but then again it may. So remembering the old saw, "It is better to be ready and not go than to go and not be ready," it will be the wise thing to have 7 supers filled in advance each year. If they are not needed they will keep over all right, even if kept so long as + or 5 years.
Perhaps it will be well as a general rule, to have ready as many as will be needed in your best year, and then an extra super besides for each colony. That, of course, might make it more, or it might make it less, than 7 supers to the colony.
## 10.3 shop for bee-work.
The shop (Fig. 10.3) in which the filled supers are stored is a plain wooden building 18 x 34, two-story, with a bee-cellar under it. The bee-cellar, however, has not been used for some years. The upper story is used for storing empty supers, hives and other articles not very heavy, or such as are not often needed. The outside door opens into the middle of the east side of the house into a store-room; immediately in front of you as you enter are the stairs leading to the upper story, and at your right a door opens into the work-room. In this work-room is a coal-stove, and the room, being ceiled up, is comfortable in the severest weather.
Up to the time of putting on supers the queen has had unlimited room with the design of encouraging the rearing of as much brood as possible. When the harvest begins, she may have as much as 6, 9, 11, even up to 14 frames well occupied with brood and eggs. A good deal depends on the season, as well as the queen. At one time I thought I ought to be able to make a success of continuing the two stories of brood-frames throughout the harvest. It seems that when a colony is so strong as to have 12 or 14 frames of brood, there ought to be no difficulty in having good super-work done by putting the supers above the two stories; and one season of failure the only super I had filled was on a two-story colony. But I was never able to have that thing repeated, and whatever the reason may be, I have not been able to make a success of putting comb-honey supers on two-story colonies. Even if the two-story plan would work all right it involves much extra lifting.