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CHICAaO, ILL., MAY 2, 1895. 



No. 18. 



Coj;)tributed /V^iclcs^ 



On Important ^\j>inrian Su1)j&cts, 



The Bees for the Harvest. 



BY FRANK BENTON. 



In the colder portions of our country each colony of bees 

 as ordinarily brought through the winter will be found during 

 its early spring flights to contain only a small part of the 

 adult workers necessary to take fair advantage of any honey- 

 yield that is to follow. If an important honey-flow occurs 

 early in the season it is impossible to secure the full advantage 

 of it. The bees to gather the honey are lacking. 



The young workers do not normally, even though honey 

 be plentiful in the flowers, enter the field as gatherers before 

 they are about two weeks old ; adding to this the three weeks 

 required for the development from the laying of the egg to the 

 appearance of the imago or perfect insect, we see that all eggs 

 to produce workers for a given harvest must be laid five weeks 

 or more before that harvest begins. But as the amount of 

 brood which may be developed at one time in a hive is to a 

 great extent limited not alone by the fecundity of the queen, 

 but also by the supply of food, the number of bees to cover the 

 brood, and the temperature about the brood-nest, it is evident 

 that the five weeks required to get one generation of bees 

 ready for the field will not suflice to render the hive suitably 

 populous for a given harvest. It is not at all difficult to have 

 queens whose fecundity is even greater than the ability, early 

 in the spring, of any colony to care for their eggs and devel- 

 oping larvfe and pupa;. Nor will the careful bee-keeper neg- 

 lect the second point mentioned 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 bouse our bees 

 or pack warmth-retaining material about the brood-nests so 

 as to keep the temperature 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-rear- 

 ing 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 produce workers in 

 sufficient numbers to care for the main brood which is to de- 

 velop into the field-bees for the given harvest. Thus our hives, 

 all of which contain at the opening of the spring compara- 

 tively few bees besides those which went into winter quarters 

 and which therefore are too old to avail much as gatherers, 

 must, in proportion to the bees they contain, be well stocked 

 with brood eight to ten weeks before the opening of the honey- 

 flow. Moreover, this brood-rearing should be kept lip 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 follows from the 

 above that our hives must bo well stocked with brood toward 

 the end of March. It has been argued by many whose experi- 

 ence it has always seemed to me should have taught them 

 better, that early brood-rearing was disadvantageous; some 

 perhaps merely for the sake of the notoriety to be gained by 

 being quoted 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 contemplate the 

 securing of a crop of honey in July or later, and would lead 

 to great disappointment in localities whose main honey-flow 

 comes earlier and where no midsummer or fall yield occurs. 

 But in most localities in these States there are, aside from 

 these later yields, usually two good honey-flows before mid- 

 summer — 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 {Lirlodendron lulipifera) 

 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 venture that not 



Dr. J. P. H. Brown, A%igushi, On. — Sec pages 284 and 285. 



one bee-keeper in 'twenty realizes how far he is from fully 

 utilizing these earlier honey-flows — especially that from fruit- 

 bloom. When we are obliged to take time after the middle or 

 latter part of April to develop strength in a colony in order to 

 have it ready for a harvest, the early lioney-flow passes with 

 no return beyond what it furnishes toward building up. 



Successful wintering is t)ien the first essential toward secur- 

 ing the full advantage from an early honey-yield. And by 

 successful wintering I mean that the colonies ought to reach 

 the earlier honey-yield in condition to take full advantage of it, 

 i. e., in such condition as regards numbers and health as they 

 are ordinarily found after this early yield has passed. 



Let us see what course Nature pursues in preparing her 

 willing subjects — the honey-bees — to pass successfully the or- 

 deal of winter and enter upon a season of prosperity. Per- 

 haps we can profit by imitating the plans of the ancient dame 

 who is supposed to have been wise even in the long-ago ages 

 when our remotest ancestors were but inert molecules. 



As a matter of fact strong colonies of bees located in hol- 

 low trees or in log gums or box-hives, and whose combs are. 

 therefore undisturbed in their natural arrangement, if well 



