Mav, 1921 



G I. E A N I N G S I N BEE CULTURE 



Quality of Winter Stores. 



Every colony receives its generous sup- 

 ply of good sugar syrup, regardless of how 

 much natural stores it may have. Whether 

 honey or syrup is better for brood-rearing 

 is a question for the physiologist to deter- 

 mine. There can be no doubt which is bet- 

 ter for winter in the north. One only needs 

 to attend conventions in regions where bees 

 are subject to winter confinement to eollect 

 evidence enough to convict and condeiiui 

 the folly of dependence on natural stores. 

 Of course, the matter must be approached 

 cautiously, for the evidence is not forth- 

 coming in a discussion on wintering as such. 

 Just last December at a largely attended 

 convention in Ontario, various sources of 

 fall honey were being discussed. Some ex- 

 pressed grave concern as to how their bees 

 would winter on certain varieties of honey 

 they had gathered. Others related heavy 

 losses they had endured every time 

 their bees wintered on certain kinds of 

 honey. These were prominent beekeepers 

 depending largely on their bees for a living. 

 Their bees represent capital investment and 

 source of income. They were discussing in 

 a commonplace sort of manner experiences 

 and prospects of losing hundreds if not 

 thousands of dollars worth of property, of 

 capital investment and source of income, 

 without considering that there might be 

 any alternative but to take such losses as 

 a part of the season 's experiences to be re- 

 lated at the next annual convention. Upon 

 the whole they had such a delightful talk- 

 fest over the whole matter that those of us 

 who knew a simple remedy could not find it 

 in our hearts to interrupt. Anyway the dis- 

 cussion was on honey plants and not on win- 

 tering, so such an interruption would have 

 been out of order. 



Now do not let any more southern breth- 

 ren smile in self-complacency over this little 

 scene. Heavy winter losses attributed by 

 the beekeepers themselves to faulty natural 

 stores are often reported a long way south 

 of the Canadian line in the United States 

 of America. Do these unfortunate beekeep- 

 ers learn their lesson? Not that I have no- 

 ticed. "It is not their custom to feed sugar 

 for winter." That is the onlj'- answer T 

 have been able to get and once again, "It 

 isn't done!" precludes all further discus 

 sion. It is some years now since T learned 

 in that best of schools with the highest tui- 

 tion fees that a good feed of sugar syrup 

 after most of the brood has emerged, will 

 prevent all such losses. It is a simple princi- 

 ple in ' ' forehanded beekeeping. ' ' not at all 

 original but often worth hundreds of dol- 

 lars per annum. 



Winter Packing Left on Late. 



Our method of preparing colonies for 

 winter was fully discussed in Gleanings last 

 September. This method is calculated to 

 carry them thru without any attention what- 

 ever until queen-clipping time in May. In 

 brief, it consists in providing good queens 



and good colonies of young bees, an abund- 

 ance of stores of the best quality, ample 

 protection, and room enough for the early 

 brood-rearing. On the principle that "noth- 

 ing succeeds like success," such colonies 

 prepared this way have warmth and energy 

 enough within themselves to move right 

 along to the maximum strength whicli their 

 queen is able to produce. The winter pack- 

 ing is left on till just before they require 

 second supers, usually the latter part of 

 May. First supers are given early in May 

 within the. boxes. The packing maintains 

 a more uniform temperature by preventing 

 rapid radiation of heat and actual escape 

 of heated air when the outside temperature 

 drops suddenly, as it frequently does dur- 

 ing the northern spring. The heat produced 

 by the large cluster of workers and by tlie 

 developing brood raises the whole hive tem- 

 perature, and the prolific queen spreads out 

 great sheets of eggs which would simply 

 perish on a cold night in an unpacked hive. 

 Early in May we find that the heat of 

 brood and bees in most colonies is such 

 that even on a day too cool for flying the 

 workers are crowded to the outer corners 

 of the hive, and even outside the entrance. 

 As soon as this condition is found another 

 story is added. If the brood-chamber is 

 single, it is a second brood-chamber with 

 dark number-one combs and no excluder. 

 If a shallow "food-chamber" is present it 

 may be an extra brood-chamber between 

 the two or an extracting super with ex- 

 cluder on top, depending on the comb-space 

 requirements of the queen. The extra space 

 given so early serves a triple purpose, that 

 of ample brooding space to rear harvesters, 

 that of storage space for surplus honey, and 

 that of clustering or resting space for the 

 ever-increasing population desirous of es- 

 caping the brood-chamber heat. In all three 

 it allows the colony to increase rapidly 

 without becoming discontented and build 

 ing cells for swarming. The vitally im- 

 portant job for the beekeeper now is to 

 keep his growing families happy and con- 

 tented each in its own home. As the super- 

 sedure of failing queens is one of the most 

 fruitful causes of May swarms, we have 

 with our young queens and roomy hives a 

 combination which relieves us of practic- 

 ally all trouble in this line until clover opens 

 in late June. This being a paper on spring 

 and not summer management, we shall not 

 pursue the swarm-control matter further 

 now. 



Clipping Queens. 

 We try to find and clip all queens on tlie 

 first round in May. flipping serves a dou- 

 ble purpose, each of which is worth the 

 trouble, and I can see no valid objections. 

 Since "accidents will happen" it saves the 

 loss of a whole colony of workers to have 

 the queen clipped wlien a swarm occurs. 

 With the queen clipped the swarm returns. 

 barring the accident of a flying virgin, and 

 we discover the condition on our next 



