a 1. K A X I N (i s I X I! E K ('II. 'I' r i; k 



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Beekeeping as a Side Line 



LJ 



WITH a 1 1 

 the wealth 

 of practi- 

 cal beekeeping 

 literature avail- 

 able, it is iinff)i- 

 givable for any- 

 one to s t a r t 

 keeping bees 

 without provid- 

 ing himself vvitli either books or govern- 

 ment bulletins or bee journals, or, better 

 still, all three. Take the one matter of 

 disease, for instance, to which unfortunate- 

 ly bees are subject; only the beekeeper who 

 reads .carefully (and watches his bees close- 

 ly) can detect its early presence and know 

 how to treat it. 



One thing, however, that the new reader 

 must try to avoid is the state of mind that 

 cannot see the woods for the trees; where 

 he becomes so lost in details that he fails 

 to get a compreheiisive view of the whole 

 sequence. Before trying to master the many 

 different systems piacticed by the many dif- 

 ferent beekeepers in the many different lo- 

 calities, he should have in mind the general 

 outline of the season 's work. And it must 

 be remembered that it is merely the march 

 of the season itself and the natural activi- 

 ties of the bees themselves that determine 

 this. 



Beekeeping is far from being an exact 

 science. There are some very definite (and 

 some, alas! very indefinite) principles to 

 guide the new sideline beekeeper. But 

 there are no set, exact rules. Tlie wise and 

 beloved Dr. Miller made famous the axiom 

 that bees do nothing invariably. And nec- 

 essarily the success or failure of any method 

 depends on the way the bees react to it. 

 And the beekeeper, too; for one man suc- 

 ceeds better with one system and one with 

 another. But anyone who has made himself 

 familiar with the succession of main nectar- 

 bearing flora in his locality, and who under- 

 stands the seasonal development of a colony 

 and its natural activities, has already much 

 of the fundamental knowledge on which all 

 beekeeping science and svstein has been 

 built. 



In this department last ironth, four out- 

 standing phases of bee activity were men- 

 t i o n e d, brood-reaiing, nectar-gathering, 

 swarming, anti winter-clustering. The work 

 of the beekeeper is to encourage brood 

 rearing and nectar-gathering, to discourage 

 swarming, and to make wintering as favor- 

 able as possible. 



North of the Ohio River practically every 

 beekeeper either puts his bees in a cellar or 

 puts winter cases around his hives and ])acks 

 them with several inches of chaff, shavings, 

 dry leaves, or simi'ar material (leaving, of 

 course, enti'ances for air and an occasional 

 flight of the bees). South of about the 

 Ohio River latitude, cellaring is not prac- 

 ticed at all and i)acking by only a small 

 nnmber. B\it whether bees are wintered in 



1 



Grace Allen 



LJ 



cellars in win- 

 ter cases, or left 

 unprotected on 

 their summer 

 stands, winter is 

 a severe time 

 for them. So 

 the first thing to 

 do in the spring 

 is to see how they have come thru. 



Their great business now is brood-rearing. 

 Thousands of young bees must be reared to 

 take the place of the old ones that have 

 lived thru the winter and are now dying off 

 so fast, and to have the colony at its maxi- 

 mum when the main honey flow comes on. 

 Every hive, therefore, must have a good 

 qneen, enough bees to care for the young, 

 and ample stores to feed them. 



If there is <Ianger of their running short 

 of stores, a rough estimate of this can be 

 made, even before a general examination is 

 advisable, by raising the back of each hive 

 to get an idea of the weight. One of the 

 lighter ones can be opened and quickly 

 looked into, and its condition can serve as 

 a guide in estimating the others. Those 

 tliat are too light must be fed a syrup made 

 of equal parts granulated sugar and boiling 

 water. But it in pans with tiny chips as 

 floats; or in friction-top pails with tops per- 

 forated with tiny holes. In the evening just 

 before dark, take the cover off the hive to 

 be fed, set an empty super on, gently smoke 

 the bees out of the way, and set the pan 

 containing the warm syrup, or the inverted 

 bucket, direetl_y on the frames. Cover the 

 hive carefully. Brobably by the next night 

 the pans or buckets will be empty, when 

 they and the extia super should be re- 

 moved. 



The time generally accepted for the first 

 regular examination is a warm spell during 

 fruit bloom. It is a truism of the apiary 

 that hives must not be looked thru, if avoid- 

 able, when there is no nectar-flow'. For with 

 no natural supply open, bees will quickly 

 start pillaging any sweets exposed. In a 

 remarkably short time such robbing may 

 throw a whole yard into an uproar, an ex- 

 perience greatly to be dreaded. The wise and 

 experienced beekeeper will wait, then, till 

 there is enough nectar-bearing flora to claim 

 their whole attention. Then he may make 

 his examination in that gentle humming 

 peace that seems both the inner heart and 

 the outer garment of a beeyard. 



One after another the hives should be 

 examined at this time, to learn the general 

 condition and especially to make sure each 

 one has a queen; for sometimes queens die 

 duiing the winter, and where there is a 

 queenless colony there will soon be no col- 

 ony at all. If any are found queenless, 'the 

 easiest and jtrobably the best thing to do 

 is to uHit(> such a one with a queenright col- 

 ony. Do it this way: In the evening gently 

 remove the cover fi'oni the queeniight c(d- 



