PRACTICAL BEEKEEPING 



killing her in the excitement. If there are any light colonies, they 

 may be given combs from the heavier ones or fed. Many beekeep- 

 ers favor the plan of spring feeding whether the bees actually need 

 the food for stores or not, for the sole purpose of stimulating them 

 to rear brood. Feeding done for this reason is only done once or 

 twice a week during the spring, until the bees begin to gather honey 

 from the early flowers and only a little is given them each time. 



It is important at this time of the year that the bees have plenty 

 of pollen. If there are any pollen combs stored among the surplus 

 combs by accident they may be given for brood rearing purposes. 

 For this reason the taking away from bees of pollen combs in the 

 fr* 11, advocated by some beekeepers, is discouraged. It is an un- 

 natural procedure and the bees themselves, if they have plenty of 

 honey, will not use the pollen any more than just enough to repair 

 the nitrogenous wastes of the body. It is absolutely necessary that 

 the bees should have plenty of pollen in the early months of the 

 spring when active brood rearing is carried on. We have observ- 

 ed bees gathering pollen here in the Gallatin Valley the last o? 

 February, when brood rearing operations had begun. 



Manipulation to increase the brood production, as described in 

 the section on the tehnique of handling bees, may be followed as 

 soon as the spring really opens up and there is no danger of chilling 

 the cluster or brood by enlarging the brood area with empty combs. 

 Much of the skill of the beekeeper is brought into play at this time 

 of the year, when the bees are to be brought through this, per- 

 haps the most critical season of the year. Building bees up is al- 

 most a science itself, and will receive more attention under the 

 Production of Honey. 



QUEEN REARING 



This is in itself one of the important branches of Apicul- 

 ture. There are those who make this their chief work and, instead 

 of shipping honey to the market by the ton, as some of the larger 

 beekeepers do, send out queens which number hundreds and even 

 thousands. Even the honey producer finds it desirable to rear young 

 queens, sometimes in large numbers, to replace old and failing 

 queens in his honey colonies. 



The normal condition of the colony for the production of queen 



