40 MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION 



the queen is pressed for room, and the bees are not inclined to 

 swarm, good worker combs may be built on starters even where 

 an old queen is in the colony. By an old queen we mean any 

 queen not of the current year's raising. 



STARTING AN APIARY 



In bee keeping, as in other enterprises, a good beginning con- 

 tributes much to the ultimate success of the enterprise. For those 

 who are inexperienced, this is doubly true. For the beginner, the 

 spring of the year may be the best time to make the venture with 

 bees. In our rigorous climate the matter of wintering bees is one 

 which requires some little knowledge of bees, preferably at first 

 hand. Thus, by starting in the spring, the beginner has the whole 

 season before him and by fall has gained confidence and knows his 

 little fellow laborers better and can better plan and provide for 

 bringing them through the long and severe winter months. It is 

 strongly to be recommended that for the beginner, the bees, if 

 available, be of a gentle variety, Carniolans or Italians, or possibly 

 Caucasians, though the latter, being a newly imported variety, are 

 not generally available. A good colony in the early spring should 

 have a cluster covering at least six combs, and should have three or 

 four frames of brood in various stages. There should be a supply of 

 several pounds of honey, as, at this critical time, when there is much 

 brood to be fed, and many hungry young bees emerging every day, 

 honey is consumed rapidly and until the flow from early flowers 

 equals the demand, the colony must depend upon its stores from the 

 preceding year. The queen should be not older than from the pre- 

 ceding year's raising, though in the case of choice queens, a queen 

 two and even three years of age may be retained. When thus kept 

 ir would be chiefly for breeding purposes. For reasons given pre- 

 viously, it is advisable to begin with a definite sized frame, and the 

 Langstroth frame is now the generally accepted standard, except 

 in certain restricted localities. Colonies having reasonably straight 

 and even combs are to be preferred, as they are much easier of ma- 

 nipulation. 



Having selected our stock, the next point is a suitable location 

 for the apiary. Before starting an extensive apiary it would be well 

 to look into the surrounding honey conditions, if honey production 



