For February, 1920 



55 



Making a Start With Bees 



HENRY W. SANDERS 



THREE things are necessary for the establishment 

 of an apiary, whether large or small. The first 

 is a suitable place to keep the bees, the second is 

 the initial stock of bees and equipment, and the third, 

 and by far the most important, is a knowledge of the 

 natural habits of the bees, and the methods which ex- 

 perience has shown to be the best ones for the purpose 

 of turning these instincts to our use. 



The equipment used by modern beekeepers is of such 

 importance in successful bee-culture that we are making 

 a special article on the subject that will appear next 

 month. In this issue we shall consider only the t|ues- 

 tions of locality and the buying of bees, with some re- 

 marks on the inhabitants of the bee colony. 



Bees are kept in all manner of places — on the top of 

 tall buildings in cities, in pleasant suburbs, on farms, or 

 away in the wilderness. There are very few parts of the 

 United States where bees cannot be kept with profit, 

 and often beekeepers crowd one another in exceptionally 

 favored localities, thereby cutting down one another's 

 crops, while other places have no bees at all in spite 

 of very fair quantities of natural flowers of the nectar- 

 iferous kinds. The only test of a locality is to place 

 a hive of bees there, and sometimes in the most appar- 

 ently unpromising places bees will thrive. They will 

 fly a couple of miles from home, and it is surprising 

 how few of us really know the country thoniughly well 

 within that area. 



Many of the flowers of importance are common 

 enough to be well known — the clovers, buckwheat, gol- 

 (lenrod, aster, fruit bloom, dandelion, basswood — we all 

 know these — but there are hundreds of lesser ones, and 

 these collectively sometimes furnish enough nectar to 

 make a small apiary highly profitable. 



If in your locality there are al)undant flowers of the 

 kinds named above, there are probably also bees — and 

 a \isit to a beekeeper will put you in touch with local 

 conditions. If. on the other hand, there are no bees 

 around there may still be plenty of change for you to pio- 

 neer, and the first beekeeper in a district often is able to 

 skim the cream of the business before others begin. He 

 can sell bees to others who wish to start, his bees have for 

 a time the unrestricted range of the countryside, and he 

 will be clear of the danger of infectious diseases. 



The actual ])lacc to put the hives when a start has 

 been made should be somewhere where there is shelter 

 from the cold northwest winds of spring. A certain 

 amount of shade in summer is desirable, but it is not 

 well to locate the hives in very thick bush, .\side from 

 these two considerations it does not matter very much 

 where they are placed. The bees make a line of flii;lit 

 from their entrance straight forward, and if a road or 

 path is in this line peojjle are liable to get stung. In 

 this case it is necessary to intcrj)ose a six-foot fence or 

 similar obstacle. This directs the flight upwards out of 

 the way. 



If there are bees to be had locally the best way to 

 start is to buy a swarm in May or June. .\ hive should 

 be jnirchased and pre])ared and sent to the beekeeper 

 who is selling the swarm. He will be on the watch, 

 and when the swarm emerges he will hive it in the pre- 

 pared hive. Then the same night it is carried to the 

 place where it is to remain. 



I'ees can often be bought to good advantage in old- 

 fashioned hives, like the one shown in the picture. They 



will, however, have to be transferred to a modern hive if 

 much success is expected. If bees are bought in this 

 way, either in box-hives, or in modern hives, care should 

 be taken that they are moved at least a mile away, for 

 if a less distance the older bees are all liable to return to 

 the old location and are lost. Along with a swarm or 

 hive a lot of valuable advice can be often be had from 

 the seller of the bees. 



Where there are no bees to be had locally, it is neces- 

 sary to get them in by express. In April or ^lay is the 

 best time to do this, and the seller should be niade to 

 guarantee safe arrival or money refunded. A good 

 way to make a start is to get two or three frame nucleii, 

 or bees in two or three-pound packages ; but in this case 

 they will not do very much the first year other than to 

 strengthen up for winter. The pound ])ackages are 

 hardh' to be recommended for the beginner, and if bees 



Bfi's dm Soinctiinrs Be Purchased Chcapiv in Old Fashioned 



Hives. 



can be jnirchased locally, it is better to pay more and to 

 be sure of what one is getting, besides the fact that local 

 bees will not expose one to the risk of importing disease 

 if the district is clean. 



We cannot give a full account in so few lines, but 

 there are one or two facts about the hive that the pros- 

 pective purchaser must know. We strongly recommend 

 him to purchase a good text-book and go into the matter 

 more fully. 



The swarm of bees consists of about 40.000 bees, these 

 being "workers." or undeveloped females. They are 

 incapable of mating, and so do not. under normal con- 

 ditions, lay any eggs. 



The drone bees are males, who do no work, and 

 whose sole function is to mate with the queen. Only 

 one drone ever meets the queen, and he dies as the result. 

 The eff^ects of this impregnation lasts during the queen's 

 life, and she does not again leave the hive after her nuptial 

 flight, except only when she accompanies a swarm to a 

 new home. She lives from three to five vears. whereas 



