Jan. 1, 1912 



and prosperous, therefore, is not capable of 

 storing any great amount of surplus; and 

 what they do store they prefer to place as 

 near as possible to the brood in combs that 

 the queen does not occupy, owing to the 

 small number of nurse bees in the colony. 



A colony with a failing queen rarely does 

 much in the super; for if the queen lays less 

 and less, the bees keep putting more honey 

 in the cells left vacant by the hatching 

 brood, and, finally, the queen has very lit- 

 tle room to lay. Bees are creatures of habit; 

 and when once they get started to storing 

 honey in the brood-combs it is more difficult 

 to get them to go to work above. 



It is often the fault of the season that bees 

 do not work in the supers; for unless the 

 honey comes in with a rush so that the bees 

 are able to store much more than they can 

 possibly use they can not be induced to go 

 into the sections. A beginner is often de- 

 ceived in thinking that his bees are work- 

 ing hard, when, in reality, they are working 

 only a little, or perhaps merely playing or 

 loafing. During a good honey-liow, when 

 a colony is working well, the heavily loaded 

 bees have no time for play, and they drop 

 down on to the alighting-board and imme- 

 diately crawl into the hive in such numbers 

 that it is impossible to count them. At 

 such times the field bees forget every thing 

 except work; and they are so busily engaged 

 that they have no thought, except the one 

 mad desire to bring in more and more. Un- 

 der these conditions, unless they get side- 

 tracked on to swarming there is generally 

 very little difficulty in getting them into 

 the super provided the brood-combs are 

 pretty well filled with brood, so that there 

 is not much room for the storage of surplus 

 honey there. 



THE SWARMING PROBLEM. 



Some beginners are perplexed because 

 their bees won't swarm, and others because 

 they swarm too much. It is a qviestion 

 whether the beginner, the first year at least, 

 should attempt any form of artificial in- 

 crease; for the natural-swarming method is 

 the best for one who lacks experience; and 

 one swarm in a season is all that should be 

 allowed. The books describe fully a num- 

 ber of good plans for preventing after-swarms 

 — that is, all swarms after the first one, 

 which is called the "prime" swarm. 



GETTING HONEY AT THE EXPENSE OF COL- 

 ONY LIFE. 



After the honey-flow the most costly mis- 

 take that the beginner can make is to leave 

 his colony or colonies, as the case may be, 

 in poor condition for winter. A rather weak 

 colony, composed mainly of worn-out bees, 

 is not likely to live through the wihter, no 

 matter how securely the hive is protected, 

 nor how well supplied with stores the combs 

 are. If there is no fall honey-flow, of if the 

 queen does not keep up brood-rearing long 

 enough to insure a good force of young bees 

 to go into winter quarters, some feeding is 

 necessary; and here it is that the beginner 

 often blunders. He is not well enough post- 



ed on methods of feeding as given in the 

 books, and perhaps his first difficulty occurs 

 soon after beginning to feed. He is aston- 

 ished to find that the bees become very ir- 

 ritable, and commence fighting, apparent- 

 ly, among themselves. The real situation 

 is that the feed, instead of being supplied in 

 the evening, is given in the morning; and 

 (luring the excitement other bees from .some 

 other hive or from some bee-tree in the lo- 

 cality are attracted, and robbing is the re- 

 sult. Wholesale fighting begins, and many 

 bees are killed. At this time they are so 

 cross it is almost impossible to do any thing 

 with them; and even dogs or horses that get 

 in their way are apt to be stung. During a 

 dearth of honey great care is necessary to 

 prevent spilling any syrup or leaving any 

 exposed sweets around to invite robbers. 



DO NOT WINTER IN A CLOSED ROOM ABOVE 

 GROUND. 



If a colony is wintered in a place where 

 the temperature changes very much, the 

 bees must have an opening to the outside 

 air. In other words, the inside of a barn or 

 granary is not a fit place for a colony of 

 bees in the winter unless the hive is placed 

 closi to the outer wall and an opening made 

 for the alighting-board so that the bees may 

 fly when tlae weather is suitable. In a cel- 

 lar where the temperature does not change 

 very much, seldom going below 40 degrees 

 nor above 50 F., it is not necessary to have 

 the outside entrance; but for best results the 

 room should be darkened. 



Colonies that are wintered on their sum- 

 mer stands out of doors need some protec- 

 tion where the temperature in winter goes 

 down to zero; but the outer packing materi- 

 al must be protected from the rain, so that 

 it may not soak through and then freeze. 

 Old carpets, sacks, etc., thrown over a hive 

 are worse than useless unless covered with 

 a water-proof box which will keep the pack- 

 .ing dry. 



Summing up the whole question, we may 

 say that all mistakes commonly made by 

 beginners may be classed under two heads: 

 First, failure to bring the colony into the 

 right condition by the time the main honey- 

 flow begins; second, failure to have the col- 

 ony in the right condition for winter. Mis- 

 takes under the first head mean a loss of 

 the crop; and those under the second mean 

 the loss of the bees themselves. Both are 

 costly, and both are i)reventable; and it is 

 profitable for any bee-keeper to "go slow" 

 in order to learn how to i)revent such trou- 

 ble before making a large increase in the 

 attempt to produce larger and larger crops 

 of honey. 



A very common mistake of some prospec- 

 tive beginners is to imagine that the flowers 

 in their back yard, consisting of a few roses, 

 dahlias, sweet peas, etc., are going to yield 

 enough honey to fill their hives. Such 

 l)eople should know that a single colony of 

 bees re(iuires acres of good bee forage in or- 

 der to store any surplus. The ornamental 

 flowers of Ihe'garden yield practically no 

 necta'-. 



