268 



that each and every one of the multi- 

 tude of things which we attempt to 

 do during the year's work among the 

 bees falls under one or the other of 

 two great groups of activities. First 

 we have one group of manipulations 

 scattered throughout the greater por- 

 tion of the year, each of which bears 

 directly or indirectly upon a single 

 purpose— to have, at the beginning of 

 the main honey-flow, all colonies 

 strong in energetic workers of a 

 good strain. 



Strong colonies at just the right 

 time, however, do not alone insure 

 the best results in honey that the lo- 

 cation and season may afford, since 

 strong colonies may divide them- 

 selves by swarming into two or more 

 medium or weak colonies, thu,s de- 

 feating to a great extent the purpose 

 toward which the beekeeper has di- 

 rected his efforts during almost a 

 year of preparation. Even if a di- 

 vision of the working force is pre- 

 vented during this critical period — 

 the honey-flow — other conditions, 

 such as lack of suitable storage space 

 for incoming nectar, crowded brood- 

 chamber or insufficient ventilation, 

 may cause the workers to loaf during 

 the height of the honey-flow and in 

 this way defeat the purpose of the 

 beekeeper. The second great group 

 of manipulations of the apiary, there- 

 fore, includes all those having for 

 their purpose the providing of condi- 

 tions tending to hold the gathering 

 and storing instinct of the bees dom- 

 inant and the prevention of a divis- 

 ion of the working force of the colo- 

 nies during the main honey-flow. 



With a given equipment in a given 

 locality during a given season, the 

 resulting honey crop is determined 

 by the degree of thoroughness and 

 promptness with which these two 

 things are done. Any manipulation 

 which does not bear directly or re- 

 motely upon one or the other _ of 

 these two purposes is something 

 aside from honey-production, while 

 those manipulations affecting to the 

 greatest degree these two purposes 

 are obviously of greatest importance. 

 Briefly stated, then, honey-produc- 

 tion consists of doing two things — 

 1st, providing workers of a good 

 strain for the harvest, and, 2nd. using 

 these workers to advantage during 

 the harvest. The dividing line be- 

 tween these two phases is most 

 clearly defined in localities having a 

 single short honey-flow from which 

 all, or practically all. the surplus 

 honey is secured. 



The Preparation Period — Tt is my 

 purpose to confine my remarks to the 

 first of these two grand divisions of 

 the work of honey-production — pro- 

 viding conditions which result in 

 strong colonics at the beginning of 

 tin honey-flow. In doing so, I am 

 not unmindful of the more tempting 

 array of material in the other group 

 which has to do with the greatest ac- 

 tivity of the season, around which is 

 centered the greater portion of our 

 enthusiasm in beekeeping. Neither 

 would I have you infer that these 

 more interesting things are of sec- 

 ondary importance in honey-produc- 

 tion. They form, in fact, the super- 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



structure, and to most of us are the 

 very essence of beekeeping. But the 

 first group is the foundation, without 

 which the superstructure cannot ex- 

 ist. 



The tendency to neglect details^ of 

 the lowly foundation while enjoying 

 the structure above is a sufficient 

 reason for a careful consideration of 

 those factors which constitute the 

 foundation of the honey crop. 



Interest — You are well aware of the 

 fact that our interest in the activities 

 of the honeybee, especially during 

 this one happy and busy month — the 

 honey-flow — is the chief stimulus that 

 impels us to do our part of the work 

 and that the promptness and thor- 

 oughness with which we do it is 

 largely determined by the intensity 

 of this interest. The beekeeper, dur- 

 ing a good honey-flow, when the bees 

 are crowding him mercilessly, works 

 from early morning until far into the 

 night and knows no fatigue until he 

 relaxes for his night's rest. Even 

 then the night, instead of appealing 

 to him as a time for rest, seems only 

 to be another obstacle thrown in the 

 way to prevent the doing of the 

 many things in which he is so tre- 

 mendously interested. At such times 

 the beekeeper needs no other stimu- 

 lation to better effort, for his intoxi- 

 cation is then complete. It is fortu- 

 nate for the industry that beekeeping 

 furnishes, at least at long intervals, 

 such a tremendous stimulus, but as is 

 the case with other powerful stimu- 

 lants, the relapse between times is 

 the dangerous corollary. At the close 

 of the honey-flow, bees and bee- 

 keeper slow down at the same time 

 and the intensity of interest at other 

 seasons seems to be inversely as the 

 square of the distance (in time units) 

 from the honey-flow or peak of the 

 season. This slump of interest in the 

 bees that comes with the cessation of 

 the honey-flow and the radical trans- 

 fer of activities from the apiary to 

 the honey-house and to the market, 

 often works greatly to the disadvan- 

 tage of the beekeeper. It sometimes 

 even results in many colonies being 

 permitted to approach the verge of 

 starvation after the honey crop has 

 been removed from the hives. In 

 such colonies brood-rearing is sus- 

 pended during the time when eggs 

 should be laid to produce bees that 

 make up the winter colony. 



Tn addition to the seasonal fluctu- 

 ation of the intensity of interest, 

 there is the sagging of interest dur- 

 ing poor seasons. After a series of 

 poor and indifferent seasons, the bee- 

 keeper's interest may sag so low that 

 when a good season occurs he is not 

 prepared to take advantage of the 

 opportunity. This is the basis for the 

 saying among beekeepers (hat the 

 usually "catch" them 

 with the potest preparation in num- 

 ber and strength of colonies. 



Beekeeping is a peculiar industry 

 in that the real business of the api- 

 ary, actual honey production, is con- 

 fined to but a few weeks of the en- 

 tire year, while the preparation for 

 this supreme effort is scattered 

 throughout the remaining ten or 

 u months. In much of this prep- 



August 



aration there is considerable latitude 

 as to the time for any particular ma- 

 nipulation and the limit of time be- 

 yond which the manipulation is no 

 longer effective is not always clearly 

 defined. In addition to this, thereis 

 an annual shifting of these limits 

 and some seasons, are so favorable 

 that the colonies need but little if 

 any help from the beekeeper from 

 the close of the main honey-flow of 

 one season to the beginning of the 

 next. In other words, the bees are so 

 nearly able to take care of them- 

 selves during the entire non-produc- 

 ing portion of the year that there is 

 danger that the beekeeper will de- 

 pend too much upon their ability to 

 do so. 



The difference between the highly 

 successful and the less successful 

 beekeeper is probably not so much in 

 the greater skill of the one as inthe 

 greater degree of interest sustained 

 during the ten or eleven months of 

 non-production for. if the interest is 

 sustained, skill will be developed. The 

 intense interest and enthusiasm of 

 the beekeeper during the honey-flow 

 cannot retrieve a situation lost dur- 

 ing the period of preparation. If 

 bees to gather and store the crop are 

 not present in great numbers and 

 ready for business when the honey- 

 flow comes, no highly refined meth- 

 ods or complex apparatus can take 

 their place. One of the great needs 

 of the industry is, therefore, some 

 stimulus to sustain the beekeeper's 

 interest and thus induce him to sys- 

 tematize and simplify his manipula- 

 tions during the eleven months of 

 preparation. 



Three Periods in the Preparation 

 It is my purpose to call attention 

 to the few essential things to be done 

 during the ten or eleven months of 

 preparation for the honey-flow and 

 to suggest the advisability of work- 

 ing out some system by which 

 none of them shall be omitted. 

 An analysis of the requirements 

 of a colony of bees from the 

 close of the honey-flow of one year 

 until the beginning of the honey- 

 flow of the next, on the basis of pur- 

 pose on the part of the beekeeper, 

 reveals three well defined periods. 



1st. Production of Bees for the 

 Winter Colony.— There is a date 

 time during the latter partof 

 summer which marks the dividing 

 line in brood-rearing between that 

 brood, the resulting bees of which die 

 i or early in winter, and that 

 which results in bees that make up 

 the winter colony. This date, of 

 course, varies in various localities 

 and with different seasons in the 

 same locality, and is greatly influ- 

 enced by conditions governing the 

 amount of energy that the bees cx- 

 pend before winter begins. In order 

 to have a colony for winter, there- 



there must lie some br 1- 



rearing after this date. Thousands of 

 colonies are lost annually because 

 bi 1 rearing was not sufficient to 



replace the wastage of bee-life dur- 

 ing late summer and early fall. Since 

 innol lose in winter colonies 

 which we did not have the previous 

 fall, it is an error to charge such 

 losses to wintering. The workers 



