154 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



June 



cult to have queens whose fecundity 

 is even greater than the ability , early 

 in the spring, of any colony to care 

 for their eggs and developing larvre 

 and pupte. Nor will the careful .bee- 

 keeper neglect the second point men- 

 tioned and let the colony lack for 

 food. But the other conditions which 

 limit the increase of population are 

 not so easy to meet. We may house 

 our bees or pack warmth-retaining 

 material about the brood-nests so as 

 to keep the temperatute moderately 

 warm and as even as possible, and may 

 thus favor brood-rearing. But we 

 find practically that the only way to 

 secure the desired number of bees in 

 each hive for a given harvest is to see 

 that brood-rearing is going on at a 

 rapid rate some time previous to the 

 five weeks' limit noted. In other 

 words : three weeks or more must be 

 added to this period in order to pro- 

 duce workers in sufficient numbers to 

 care for the main brood which is to 

 develop into the field-bees for the 

 given harvest. Thus our hives, all 

 of which contain at the opening of 

 the spring comparatively few bees be- 

 sides those which went into winter 

 quarters and which therefore are too 

 old to avail much as gatherers, must, 

 in propotion to the bees they contain, 

 be well stocked with brood eight or 

 ten weeks before the opening of the 

 honey-flow. Moreover the brood- 

 rearing should be kept up without 

 interruption as long as it is expected 

 that the workers can be utilized in 

 the given flow. 



White clover being, in our middle 

 latitudes, an important yield which 

 usually begins early in June, it fol- 

 lows from the above that our hives 

 must be well stocked with brood to- 



ward the end of March, It has been 

 argued by many whose experience it 

 has always seemed to me should have 

 taught them better, that earl)' brood- 

 rearing was disadvantageous ; some 

 perhaps merely for the sake of the 

 notoriety to be gained by being quot- 

 ed as differing from the majority — 

 have even gone so far as to say that 

 brood-rearing should not be begun 

 before May 1 in our northern States. 

 It is plain from the facts stated above, 

 that such a plan could only contem- 

 plate the securing of a crop of honey 

 in July or later, and would lead a 

 great disapointment in localities whose 

 main honey flow comes earlier and 

 where no midsummer or fall yield oc- 

 curs. But in most localities in these 

 States there are, aside from these lat- 

 er yields, usually two good honey-flows 

 before midsummer — namely : that 

 from fruit-blossoms and that from 

 white clover just mentioned; while 

 in some places a third yield is added — 

 that from tulip trees {Liriodendron 

 hdipifera) called in some localities 

 poplar and in others whitewood trees. 

 Where these occur there is no reason 

 why the full advantage from all of 

 them should not be taken, yet I ven- 

 ture that not one bee-keeper in twenty 

 realizes how far he is from fully utiliz- 

 ing these early honey-flows — especial- 

 ly that from fruit-broom . When we 

 are obliged to take time after the 

 middle or latter part of April to de- 

 velop strength in a colony in order to 

 have it ready for a harvest, the early 

 honey-flow passes with no return be- 

 yond what it furnishes toward build- 

 ing up. 



Successful lointering is then the first 

 essential toward securing the full ad- 

 vantage from an early honey-yield. 



