18 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



January, 1921 



THE VALUE OF PACKAGE BEES 



'^ays for Equipment First Tear 

 Best Time for Recei'ving Packages 



By H. F. Wikon 



IF you want to 

 increase rapid- 

 ly and cannot 

 buy full colonies 

 at a fair price, 

 buy package 

 bees — it pays. 

 This is the rec- 

 ommend a t i n 

 which we shall 



in the future make to the many Wisconsin 

 beekeepers who ask that question. Our ex- 

 perience is limited to two years, and only 

 115 packages have been used in the tests, but 

 we count the results of as much value as if 

 1000 packages had been used. If any bee- 

 keeper has not had excellent success with 

 package bees, blame everybody and every- 

 thing but the bees; they were not at fault. 

 In the March (1920) number of Glean- 

 ings the reader will find a first report on 

 25 two-pound packages, half of them shipped 

 by parcel post and the remainder by ex- 

 press. A final report on that experiment is 

 here given to complete the story. 



Starting with 25 two-pound packages in 

 1919, this number was increased to 31 at 

 the end of the season. At that time these 

 colonies all appeared to have for winter 

 sufficient stores which were supposed to be 

 of good quality. However, dysentery devel- 

 oped during the winter and the losses were 

 quite severe — in fact, so bad that the re- 

 maining bees were set out on the 21st of 

 March to get a flight and left out. 



Three colonies died out in the cellar, and 



the others were 

 quite weak or 

 only fair, so 

 that the bees 

 were united on 

 May 1 to form 

 20 fair-to-g o o d 

 colonies. The ac- 

 tual loss be- 

 tween fall and 

 spring was then 11 colonies, or 30 per cent. 

 The honey flow for 1920 was very good 

 and provided the finest honey that I have 

 ever seen from clover. The total amount of 

 honey secured in this test can only be esti- 

 mated, as more than 500 pounds was re- 

 served and given back to the bees in place 

 of dark fall honey. Approximately 1400 

 pounds of surplus was extracted from 17 

 colonies. Three colonies for some reason 

 failed to work at all until near the end of 

 the honey flow when they were requeened. 

 Considering the 20 colonies as the unit from 

 which the crop was taken, we have an aver- 

 age of 70 pounds per colony. 



It should also be stated that the crop 

 would have been larger except for some ex- 

 periments in trying to requeen from the 

 top, following the Demaree plan of super- 

 ing. Eaising young queens in the top was 

 found to be very succe-ssful, in fact, too 

 successful, except where one is working for 

 increase. The writer was obliged to be away 

 for periods of several days at a time during 

 the summer, and after one of these trips 

 young queens and four to five frames of 



Mrs O W Hildreth, assistant secretary Wisconsin State Be,ekeepers' Association, and lier 10 three- 

 pound packages. Mrs. Hildreth paid $165 for her total equipment, and produced more than $160 wortU 



of honey the last season. j 



