GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



June, 1917 





'^^^3«l5>y 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 





OF EXPERIENGE'^ 



Conversations with Doolittle 



" How can I get the bees started at work 

 in the sections"? Sometimes it is well into 

 the main flow of nectar before a part of my 

 colonies store in the sections, while other 

 colonies go to work at the beginning- of 

 the flow and keep steadily storing till the 

 end of the season." 



This is a question which every beginner, 

 sooner or later, is likely to ask. Having 

 each colony start work in the sections at the 

 very beginning of the m.ain honey harvest 

 is an idea well worth looking after. Some 

 most excellent beekeepers treat this phase 

 of beekeeping very lightly, and incline to 

 make light of the one who does not succeed. 

 " If the bees get plenty of honey they will 

 go to work in the sections; if they don't, 

 they won't." This I once heard from the 

 lips of an excellent apiarist in i-eply to such 

 a question at a beekeepers' convention. 



I know that locality may have a bearing, 

 and the same may be said in regard to the 

 variety of bees employed. And the way the 

 season opens has much to do with this 

 matter. If there is a steady but not pro- 

 fuse flow of nectar from early spring up 

 to the beginning of the clover harvest, 

 just enough to keep the bees breeding 

 nicely, and then in due time the clover comes 

 on with a rush, just as the hives are full of 

 bees and brood, there will be little difficulty 

 in getting the bees to go into the sections 

 provided the supers were on the hives a 

 week or so before this rush comes. But 

 suppose the season begins with a light flow 

 which gradually increases — no sudden 

 jump, as there often is at the opening of 

 clover — the probabilities are that some of 

 the colonies, very likely very many of them, 

 if they are black bees or dark hybrids, will 

 begin preparations for swarming. If the 

 energies and aspirations of the bees could 

 have been turned sectionward as soon as 

 there was sufficient honey brought in, more 

 than to supply the brood, it might have 

 made all the dit¥erence between a good crop 

 and a very small one. 



Then some colonies seem very loath to 

 store honey except close to the brood. The 

 bees will crowd the very last cell in the 

 brood-nest before they will build comb in 

 the supers, and in some instances before 

 they will draw out foundation when full 

 sheets are used in the sections. I have 

 had good success with such colon-es by 



taking a wide frame of sections from any 

 colony working in supers and carrying it, 

 bees and all, to the one not so working, and 

 exchanging this well-under-way wide frame 

 for one not commenced upon at all. Twen- 

 ty-four hours later the whole super is apt 

 to be quite well filled with bees, and each 

 two rows of sections on either side of the 

 one given having comb-building going on, 

 or the foundation in the section drawn out 

 and quite a little honey deposited therein. 



Now, while this plan will work success- 

 fully without materially injuring the pros- 

 pects of any colony which has already com- 

 menced work in the sections, and is the best 

 of anything I know of where sections full 

 of comb are not on hand, yet it entails quite 

 a lot of extra labor right at a time when 

 such labor can hardly be spared from more 

 necessary work in the apiary. For this 

 reason, in August and September of the 

 year before I begin preparing for starting 

 the bees at work in the sections. In my 

 experience of over forty-five years I have 

 found that nothing so quickly and surely 

 lures the bees into the sections as do nice 

 empty combs; and in most sections of our 

 country these nice combs can be secured to 

 the best advantage during the forty days 

 between August 20 and September 30, at 

 which time buckwheat and fall flowers are 

 giving a moderate yield of nectar. By us- 

 ing very thin section foundation, and filling 

 each section with it, leaving only about one- 

 fourth of an inch at the bottom, and setting 

 supers of such sections on the hives at the 

 time named, the bees will enter them and 

 draw out the foundation. Then, before 

 any gTeat amount of honey has been stored 

 in the cells thus drawn, these supers are 

 taken oif and other supers put on. In this 

 way the bees can be worked profitably for 

 empty combs in the sections while plenty 

 of stores are secured below for the winter. 



Of course, where one has a market at 

 good prices for this dark honey these sec- 

 tions may be left on for completion ; but 

 with me the price of dark honey is so low, 

 in accordance with fancy white, that se- 

 curing these nice white combs for use in 

 the clover harvest gives a greater profit in 

 the end ; for a super of such combs, kept 

 over from the previous season, is much more 

 valuable than a super of finished sections 

 containing dark or fall honey — simply be- 

 cause it will so quickly and surely start 

 the bees to working in the sections in the 



