BROOD AND BROOD-REARING 
145 
lar estimates made by others. The data 
which are available on this subject are 
meager, but they all indicate that surpris¬ 
ingly large quantities of honey are used by 
the bees during the active season. 
Beekeepers have no means of knowing 
exactly how much it costs in honey for the 
bees to rear a given amount of brood, and 
one can only guess as to the amount of 
honey used by adult bees when they are 
active as during a honey flow. Some work 
done by R. L. Taylor in the Michigan Ex¬ 
perimental Apiary in 1896 yielded figures 
indicating that four pounds of honey are 
used to produce a frame of brood, Langs- 
troth size. These figures were obtained by 
carefully conducted experiments. M. T. 
Pritchard reports that, in his queen-rearing 
operations, he feeds his cell-building colo¬ 
nies, after the honey flow, one quart of 
sugar syrup made of two parts of water 
to one part of sugar, which is about the 
equivalent, in sugar content, of a pound of 
honey. This causes the bees to rear brood 
at the rate of five frames of brood every 
20 days, these five frames being removed 
from the brood-chamber every 20 days and 
placed above a queen-excluder. Five combs 
every 20 days is at the rate of one comb 
every four days, to produce which he feeds 
the equivalent of four pounds of honey. If 
no nectar is coming in from the fields, these 
colonies use a small amount of their re¬ 
serve stores in addition to the quart of thin 
syrup per day. These figures agree closely 
with Taylor’s figures of four, pounds of 
honey to produce a frame of brood. 
Tn 1901 Adrian Getaz collected all of the 
data which had been published up to that, 
time in American beekeeping literature on 
the subject of “feeding back” extracted 
honey for the completion of unfinished sec¬ 
tions. These figures indicate quite con¬ 
sistently that a colony of bees, when act¬ 
ively engaged in storing comb honey in 
sections, uses one and a half pounds of 
'honey daily. In practically every recorded 
case brood-rearing was restricted, while 
the colonies were being fed, by reducing 
the brood-chamber to five combs. From 
this great mass of figures on feeding back 
Getaz concluded that 170 pounds of honey 
is the lowest amount consumed by a nor¬ 
mal colony during the year. 
Disregarding the brood reared previous 
to about April 1 and assuming that a col¬ 
ony real's two frames of brood during the 
first period of 21 days, five frames of brood 
during the second period of 21 days, and 
10 frames of brood during the third period 
of 21 days, we have a total of 17 frames 
of brood, which, according to the above fig¬ 
ures, cost 68 pounds of honey. Some colo¬ 
nies will probably produce 20 combs of 
brood in this time costing 80 pounds of 
honey. This takes the colony up to about 
the first of June. Assuming an average of 
live frames of brood thru July and August, 
we have 15 frames of brooding costing 60 
pounds of honey. Assuming three frames of 
brood thru August and September, we 
have nine frames of brood, ora total of 
164 to 176 pounds for brood-rearing alone. 
To this must be added 15 to 20 pounds for 
winter and the amount of honey used by 
the adult bees when they are active dining 
a honey flow. On this point we have but 
little information; but, if the above figures 
ai - e nearly correct, normal colonies of bees 
must consume more than 200 pounds of 
honey annually, even in the North. 
The large amount of stores needed for 
brood-rearing during the spring, in some 
cases apparently as much as 80 pounds, em¬ 
phasizes the need of close attention as to 
stores during this time when the bees may 
not be able to gather much from the fields. 
Under the head of Bee Behavior and 
Development of Bees, the scientific side 
of the growth of the bee from the egg to 
the fully developed worker has been dis¬ 
cussed ; but, as there may be some who 
do not care to go into the science of this, 
something here is presented that will en¬ 
able one to follow out for himself the 
egg up to the time that the bee emerges, and 
even after it begins to perform some of 
the duties of the hive. 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF BROOD.* 
During warm weather, while bees are 
gathering honey, open the hive about noon, 
and put in the center a frame containing 
a sheet of foundation. Examine it every 
morning, noon, and evening, until eggs 
can be seen in the cells. By inserting it 
between two combs already containing 
* See also DEVELOrJiEXT of Bees. 
