44 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Conversations with Doolittle 



At Borodino, New York. 



FEEDING BACK FOR COMB HONEY PRODUCTION. 

 As the price of comb honey is much more per 

 pound than that of extracted, I have been wonder- 

 ing whether I could not extract my honey next sum- 

 mer as I have usually done, and then, instead of 

 selling it, feed it back to the bees and have them 

 put it in sections. What do you think of this ? 



Feeding back extracted honey for the 

 purpose of ijrodiieing comb honey is some- 

 tloing which has been often tried and fre- 

 quently wi'itten about ; but so many con- 

 ditions enter into the problem that many 

 of our most skillful apiarists have veiy 

 nearly if not quite failed of success. From 

 my own experience, and from what I have 

 been able to learn from others, the charac- 

 ter of the bees that are used is among the 

 first in importance. If my experience 

 proves any tiling it is this: No financial 

 success can be obtained with bees which are 

 prone to store their honey close up to the 

 brood in the brood-nest. Any variety of 

 bees whose disposition is to cling to the 

 brood-chamber, to crowd it with honey, 

 and, when that affords no more room, to 

 cease labor rather than to overcome the 

 disinclination to pass beyond the limits of 

 the brood-nest into a surplus aj^artment 

 above, can not be successfully tised in this 

 plan of feeding back. In fact, such bees 

 are hardly profitable for section honey, 

 even though they may prove the very best 

 to the one whose apiary is run for extracted 

 honey. In selecting bees to be used for 

 feeding back, no point is more important 

 than that those should be chosen which are 

 willing to enter and work in supers or 

 sections quite distantly removed from the 

 brood. The dark or leather-colored Italians, 

 which jirove to be the very best for ex- 

 tracted honey, are very defective in tliis 

 respect, and they also give their cappings 

 a dark greasy appearance by their plaster- 

 ing the scanty amount of wax used right 

 down vtpon the honey. These bees can not 

 be profitably used for section honey, to say 

 nothing about comb honey produced from 

 honey fed back. Carniolans, golden Ital- 

 ians, the German race, or crosses, in which 

 black brood predominates, are superior for 

 your purjiose; though even among these, 

 judicious selections may be made to a great 

 advantage. 



Then nearly if not of equal value with 

 the character of the bees comes the charac- 

 ter of the queen. The jDoint to be looked 

 after here is that the queen should be of 

 such a make-up that she will have her hive 

 well supplied Avith brood at the end of the 

 honev-flow, when we wish to beein feeding 



back the honey we have extracted during 

 the flow. It is not so necessary that she 

 continue her prolificness after the feeding 

 has begun, more than enough to keep the 

 colony in good condition for winter; but 

 unless she has a hive pretty well filled with 

 brood in all stages, when the feeding should 

 commence, the colony will not have the nu- 

 merical streng'th desirable, and there will 

 not be enough brood in the combs to fur- 

 nish the required reinforcements, as the 

 work progresses and the old bees perish, in 

 which case the finishing-up of the matter 

 will result in failure, no matter how "rosy" 

 the outlook at the start. 



Xext in importance comes the time for 

 the white-honey flow in your locality. If 

 the flow continues till late in the season, it 

 is little use to try feeding back at all. If 

 We can commence feeding comparatively 

 early in the season we shall avoid, as far 

 as possible, the disposition of the bees to 

 store lioney in the brood-chamber — a dispo- 

 sition which, with all varieties of bees, in- 

 creases as the season wanes. Then we se- 

 cure the great advantage of having the 

 work done during the hottest weather, at 

 which time bees produce wax and build 

 comb with more economy tlian is iDossible 

 after the nights become longer and colder. 

 If we attempt feeding back before the har- 

 vest of wliite honey closes we shall lose all 

 the bees would store without making a pro- 

 portionate gain. In this locality the oppor- 

 tune time is immediately at the close of the 

 basswood flow, about July 12 to 16, in the 

 interim between this and the j-ield from 

 buclnvheat, which commences about August 

 15 to 20. 



Lastly, we have the size of the brood- 

 chamber. This, of necessity, should be small, 

 otherwise room is given for the storage of 

 a large amount of the honey fed, in which 

 case this honey is of less value than was the 

 case before we commenced operations. Then 

 with a large amount of comb an opportu- 

 nity is furnished for the production of an 

 iimnense amount of brood whose value be- 

 yond a certain limit can not be great, and 

 such brood means the consumption of a 

 very large amount of the honey fed. I 

 have had better success with a brood-cham- 

 ber of about the cai:)acity of five Lang-stroth 

 frames than with one either larger or small- 

 er; and by selecting such well filled with 

 brood, the larger part of which is in the 

 egg and larval form, a seeming advantage 

 is gained. 



Continiied on page 59. 



