Memhkks in Ai TENiMNrE AT THE Annual Meeting uk the California Statk iiEE-KEEi'EKs' Association Held at Los Ancjeles. Feb. 6 to 8. 



Contributed 



Articles^ 



Amount of Honey Used by a 

 Colony in a Year 



BY ADRIAN GETAZ. 

 Adrian Geiaz says that where the winters 

 are cold a colony needs for its annual con- 

 sumption about 200 pounds of honey It 



would be of interest to know just how much 

 of that estimate is based on reliable data 

 and how much on guessine.— .-Jwf''<i)w Bf^ 

 /ouriial. Vol. LI, No. ii. page 1S7- 



The quantity of honey consumed by 

 a colony must vary considerably ac- 

 cording to the strength of the colony, 

 the climate, the nature of the flows and 

 other conditions. Figures given can 

 be only approximate averages. The 

 amount required must fulfill three ob- 

 jects : 



\. Support the life of the bees. This 

 means not only what is necessary to 

 keep them from starving, but also 

 enough to keep the temperature of the 

 hive up to the proper point and to en- 

 able the bees to exert the necessary 

 muscular efforts to accomplish their 

 work. 



2. The production of wax. The wax 

 is secreted by the organs of the bees 

 at the expense of the honey they eat in 

 about the same way as the milk of a 

 cow is produced at the expense of the 

 food she consumes. 



3. Feed the brood, or, more properly 

 speaking, find the amount of honey 

 necessary to prepare theirfood, whether 

 this is in the form of secretion from 

 the salivary glands of the bees or a 

 partially digested mixture of honey 

 and pollen. We will now consider 

 these three subjects separately. 



Keeping Up Like. 

 How much honey will bees consume 



daily merely to keep alive and also 

 keep up the temperature of the hive 

 and do their work ? 



On that subject I have only one ex- 

 periment to quote : A French apicul- 

 turist. Mr. Harroult (in l'JiJ(j), kept some 

 bees in an observatory hive in order to 

 solve tha* problem.. They had no 

 queen, and, therefore, no brood to feed, 

 and they were not given enough food 

 to induce wax secretion. The tempera- 

 ture of the room was from UO to 64 de- 

 grees Fahr., during the day, and never 

 below 48 during the night. The daily 

 consumption for each bee was an aver- 

 age of one-fifteenth of her weight. This 

 would be one-third of a pound for a 

 colony of 20,000 bees. 



But these bees were inactive. Furth- 

 ermore, not having any brood they did 

 not try to keep the hive at such a high 

 temperature as is required for brood- 

 rearing. The room was quite warm. 

 For these reasons they must have con- 

 sumed much less than they would un- 

 der normal circumstances. The one- 

 third of a pound should be raised at 

 least to one-half. 



Wax-Production. 



Our next inquiry is, how much honey 

 does a colony consume to produce the 

 wax necessary for their use, and inci- 

 dentally how much honey do they con- 

 sume to produce one pound of wax ? 



That last question has been answered 

 in all sorts of ways, varying from 2 

 to 30 pounds of honey for one pound 

 of wax. 



One or two points have to be made 

 clear before going further: Given 2 

 colonies, A and B, A is furnished all 

 the combs needed, and B has to build 



its combs. Suppose a very heavy honey- 

 flow starts suddenly, colony A will be. 

 able to store at once all it can gather, 

 perhaps 5, G, or even 1" pounds a day 

 Colony B can not gather anything at 

 the start because there is no room to 

 put it. It takes at least two days to 

 start wax production, and two or three 

 more to build enough comb to speak 

 of. Under such circumstances A may, 

 at the end of a week or so, have gath- 

 ered 30 pounds of honey foreach pound 

 of comb that B has built. But it would 

 be absurd to say that B has consumed 

 '6\} pounds of honey to produce one of 

 wax. 



Most of our leading writers have 

 quoted Huber, Milne-Edwards and Du- 

 mas in support of the ratio between 

 honey and wax they give. But that is 

 a blunder. All that Huber and Milne- 

 Edwards or Dumas tried to prove, and 

 did prove, is that the wax is the prod- 

 uct of a transformation of the honey 

 eaten by the bees in the same way as 

 milk is a transformation of the food 

 eaten by the cow, and, furthermore, 

 that pollen has nothing to do with wax- 

 production. 



Several attempts have been made to 

 solve the problem by feeding conlmed 

 bees and weighing both the honey fed 

 and the wax obtained. The results 

 vary between 5 and 15 pounds of honey 

 to one of wax ; perhaps more. I have 

 not all the details. As far as I know, 

 most of the experiments were more or 

 less defective — too few bees were used. 

 No attention was paid to the tempera- 

 ture of the room where they were kept, 

 and yet this has an important inlhience 

 on the results obtained. . 



No queen was given. Undoubtedly 

 a queen even caged would have encour- 

 aged the bees and caused them to 

 work more earnestly. No attempt ^"^^ 

 made to discriminate between the par 

 of honey consumed that went to keep 

 the bees alive or to keep iht tempera- 

 ture at the proper point, and to tlia 

 which was really transformed into wav 

 Another point which has so f^f ^"' 



tirely escaped attention, is the age of 

 the bees employed. I may be mistaken, 

 but I think that while the young bees 

 might consume all the honey they 

 could and transform it into wax, the 

 old ones would merely content them- 

 selves with just enough to keep alive. 



Even if the experiments were well 

 conducted, and I think some of them 

 may have been, the results obtained 

 urider such conditions can not be ap- 

 plied to bees working under normal 

 conditions. So we may as well dismiss 

 them entirely, once for all. 



Direct Observations. 



A few years ago a French apicul- 

 turist, Sylviac, thought a swarm just 

 hived could furnish the solution of the 

 problem. It is assumed that the bees 

 composing the swarm fill themselves 

 with honey. As the size of the honey- 

 sac of the bees is known, and the 

 weight of the swarm will give the num- 

 ber of bees, at least near enough for 

 practical purposes, the weight of the 

 honey held by the swarm can be easily 

 ascertained. 



During the first three days after be- 

 ing hived, the bees will devote all their 

 time to building comb, and but few 

 will go to the field. It may be assumed 

 that what they bring in may offset 

 what they consume merely to support 

 their life, and that the amount of honey 

 brought out from the parent hive is 

 entirely used to produce the wax ob- 

 tamed at the end of 3 days. 



The following year the experiments 

 were repeated extensively not only by 

 Sylviac, but also by quite a number of 

 leading apiarists. Leaving out a few 

 exceptional cases, the results are from 

 *^to {) pounds of honey to one of wax. 

 Quite a discussion followed in regard 

 to the reliability of figures thus ob- 

 tained. 



. In 1885 Mr. M. M. Hasty (see Glean- 

 ing in Bee Culture, 1886) experimented 

 on nearly the same line of observation. 

 A swarm was hived, and 4 days after 



the combs built were cut out and taken 

 away. The operation was repeated at 

 the end of 8 and 12 days and an aver- 

 age taken. In order to know the 

 amount of honey consumed, the swarm 

 was weighed every day, morning and 

 night. The difference between the 

 night and the following morning 

 weights will give the consumption dur- 

 ing the night. That between -he morn- 

 ing and night of the same day will give 

 the amount gathered less the consump- 

 tion during the day. Assuming that 

 this is the same as during the night, the 

 sum of the two figures would give the 

 amount gathered. 



Substracting from the total gathered 

 in the 4 days, the weight of the honey 

 and pollen found in the combs, and 2 

 ounces per day supposed necessary to 

 keep the bees alive, the remainder was 

 evidently used to produce the wax ob- 

 tained. This gave very near 8 pounds 

 of honey for one of wax, after some 

 corrections were made on account of 

 the weights obtained being of nectar 

 and other details. 



I think this 3-pound ratio is too 

 small. Like all those who have made 

 similar computations, Mr. Hasty took 

 for granted that the consumption dur- 

 ing the day is the same as that during 

 the night. That is an error. In mid- 

 summer the day is about twice as long 

 as the night, and very likely the bees 

 are more active in the daytime. This 

 correction would raise the 3 pounds to 

 about 4. 



In the Argentine Republic a large 

 amount of dark, inferior honey is har- 

 vested every year, and can not always 

 be sold even at a very low price. Mr. 

 Brunner, Superintendent of the Agri- 

 cultural School of Cordoba, besides his 

 own crop, buys all he can and feeds it 

 to his bees in order to produce wax, as 

 this sells readily and at a good price. 

 The process is very simple. Feed the 

 bees as much as they will take, and cut 

 out the combs built every week, except, 



of course, those having brood, or, 

 rather, those in the brood-nest. He 

 found that it takes 7 pounds of honey 

 to produce one of wax. But these 7 

 pounds coverall that the bees consume 

 for all purposes whatsoever. How 

 much of this is used for the production 

 of wax can not be told. 



His memoir (.\piculteur, 1904) does 

 not give any information on that point. 

 By rights, what his bees may gather 

 when there is a flow should be added. 

 But bees bountifully fed and having 

 their combs to build, do not bring in 

 anything worth speaking of, except the 

 pollen necessary for brood-rearing. 



A few interesting items are brought 

 out. Until mid-summer the bees read- 

 ily build combs in the main body of 

 the hive, on both sides of the brood- 

 nest. Then they quit. But if a super is 

 given with starters, they will resume 

 work there and continue during the 

 balance of the season. No explanation 

 is offered. 



None, or but very little wax, is pro- 

 duced when the temperature is below 

 61 degrees Fahr.. or above 100 degrees. 

 The most favorable temperature seems 

 to be between O.j and 73 degrees. These 

 figures refer to the outside tempera- 

 ture, not to that inside the hive. 



The question may be yet viewed from 

 another point. Chemical analysis 

 shows that the amount of carbon con- 

 tained in a pound of wax is 2>2 times 

 as great as that contained in a pound 

 of honey. It follows then that 2.% 

 pounds of honey.at the very least, must 

 be consumed to furnish one pound of 

 wax. In fact, it takes more. The 

 chemical reactions that take place dur- 

 ing the process require the expendi- 

 ture of a certain amount of what scien- 

 tists call i->ic>\ify. The production of 

 energy in turn calls for the consump- 

 tion of a certain amount of food of the 

 carbo/tydratf class, which, SO far as 

 the bees are concerned, means honey. 



{Comluded in the August issue.) 



