206 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



April, 1918 



SPRING MANAGEMENT 



cA Few Important Things One Ought 



to Do and Some Things One Ought 



Not to T)o in the Spring 



By E. R. Root 



TO winter bees 

 successfully 

 is one thing. 

 To carry them 

 thru the spring 

 is quite another. 

 This is only an- 

 other way of say- 

 ing that to 

 ' ' sjaring " bees 

 is often more difficult than to winter them. 

 The latter part of March and the month of 

 April are often very treacherous, so far as 

 weather conditions are concerned. We may 

 have in the North anything from zero cold 

 to warm, balmy, summer weather. A sudden 

 change from cold to warm, or, rather, a week 

 of warm weather followed by severely cold 

 weather, is very hard on the bees and brood. 

 It sometimes happens that the mortality dur- 

 ing the month of April is greater than at any 

 other time in the year. During the spring 

 of 1881, for, example, in northern states, the 

 April losses were anywhere from 30 to 60 

 pei'cent, while the actual winter losses during 

 the previous winter months were not over 10 

 or 15 percent. 



As a general rule, however, one feels that 

 if he can bring his bees thru in fairly good 

 condition up to the first of April, his problem 

 of carrying the bees thru to May or the mid- 

 dle of May is not a serious one. 



At this point it should be made very clear, 

 especially to the beginner, that more harm 

 than good is often done by tinkering with 

 bees in the sjtring. This does not mean that 

 bees should be left alone during this period, 

 for some springs they certainly do need spe- 

 cial care. 



April is usually the month for setting bees 

 out in the spring. The rule is to wait tiU after 

 the first natural pollen is abundant. More 



tLEANING ENTRANCES. 



Tn early spring after a long hard winter it is often 

 necessary to rake the entrances clear of dead bees 

 with a "hent wire. Should the entrance entirely 

 choke, it would kill the bees. 



harm is done from setting out too early than 

 too late, unless dysentery has started- Wait 

 till a warm, sunshiny day, then set all the 

 bees out. After they are out close the en- 



trances of the 

 dead colonies and 

 contract the en- 

 trances of the 

 weak ones. 



The entrances 

 of all the live 

 colonies should 

 be cleared out by 

 means of a hook- 

 ed wire. This wire should be long enough to 

 reach clear under the frames, and all dead 

 bees should be raked out. Later on, when the 

 weather warms up, enough so that bees can 

 fly, and so that the colony can be opened 

 without any damage, all the frames can be 

 taken out, when the hives can be cleaned. 

 Usually this practice is unnecessary, for a 

 good colony will carry out all the dead bees 

 themselves. 



If any colony shows dysentery (dark 

 brown or black spots around the entrance) 

 there is not much if anything that the begin- 



COXTRACTING THE BROOD-NEST. 



When a colony is weak in the early spring, about 

 ill! that can be done is to contract the room in the 

 liive down to the space it can occupy by a chaf¥ 

 division-board as shown. Care should be taken to 

 see that it has one or more combs of stores. 



ner can do except to contract the brood-nest 

 to as many frames as the cluster can occupy. 

 Where two colonies stand side by side it is 

 sometimes advisable to unite the two such 

 clusters in one hive; but in that case one of 

 the hives should be taken away entirely and 

 the other put half way between where the oth- 

 er two stood. There is not much use of uniting 

 bees in the spring unless the colonies are side 

 by side or in pairs. One can, however, bring 

 weak colonies from outyards and unite each 

 with a weak one at the home yard, but it does 

 not do much good to take two weak colonies 

 from remote points of the same apiary and 

 put them together. 



The beginner may ask, ' ' What is dysen- 

 tery?" Proi)erly speaking, this is a form of 

 diarrliea. It is caused by insufficient jjrotec- 

 tion, too small a cluster, ]ioor stores or a com- 

 bination of all three. The bees in their ef- 

 fort to keep warm have consumed too much 

 stores and clogged their intestines, with the 



