THE HONEY INDUSTRY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 28 July 1928, Page 16

THE HONEY INDUSTRY.

MANAGEMENT OP OUT-YARDS

ADDRESS BY H. R. PENNY. .

An exhaustive and instructive paper on tlie subject-of the managing of outyandisi was read by Mr H. It. Penny, of Okaiawa-. <at the recent annual conference. He gave many practical suggestions and much valuable advice, 'especially to beginners. ' \ He stressed the value of the central depot system, and of carting all supers home to extract, because' then “you have the honey where you can best deal with it.” Thoroughness, he said, was the keynote tosuccess. Hushing the work to save time ;, in the " early stages may very likely necessitate a return earlier than would otherwise be the case and a consequent 'increase in running expenses. He stressed till© need to avoid leaving nuclei at outyards because it often necessitated unnecessary travelling on that account. I t is essential to leave the bees in such a condition that they will not need attention for the longest possible time, and the apiarist’s ability to correctly judge that period would be a potent factor in reducing running expenses and would enable the apiarist to run as many yards as passible with the labour available. Notes on each visit should be made, so as to. avoid anything like guess work, and to. give information as to. whether l th© bees can be left a few days extra in ease of bad weather. Judging from his own experience, if a, visit is paid in late July, the notes taken will assure the hazard, that some colonies will be queenless and a. lew nuclei will be taken in the next trap when inspection for stares, qiteenlessness and foul brood will be made. Any appearance of foul brood must be dealtwith in drastic fashion. .Feeding should not be. necessary on the. first visit, but evening up of stores will! probably be neeesisaiiy. Queenless colonies must be given a nuclei colony and the queen introduced for th© candy system. He urged the desirability of shutting down as near as possible on to six frames with ai division board, and if stores permit, a further evening of these at the second visit which fie preferable to feeding because this will stimulate the bees and commence them rearing a lot of brood- not desirable .so early in the season. But, if Feeding is

necessary, ttfie Millar feeder is hard to beat for districts like Taranaki. Feeding can be done during the day except when feeding honey when it would be desirable tqi do it in. the', ©veiling.

«" The object of shutting down on six frame® is to keep bees at medium strength, >so as to reserve the queen’s laying -powers and not to have a large force of bees to feed during the worst spring -period'—piid-Ootober to- end of November. During thi-s period it may be necessary to break down strong colonies by talcing _ frames of sealed brood and giving to the weaker ones. Tliis will solve kite swarming problem and keep bade the -bees as desired. This would be tli© control practised' until about .six weeks -before the- main How is expected. Then will be the time to set the bees at it, the object being to make them reach the- top of their form early in the honey season. li> will be advisable to add three extra combs, carefully stored when removed fiom the brood nests in the previous autumn. Supers must be added to the stronger colonies about the end of November and the question of feeding and avoiding having stores in the supers when the How starts is a question to be left the judgment of the bee-keeper and his knowledge of the district. When swavmin;" iloeis begin, ajclcls, y tlicn get busy.'’ Tlli-Es is the- critical time of the year, and it will pay to put in long days and get -round yards quickly, swarm control amounts to a plan of deception of the lliees aisi to the, prosperous condition. Yard's must be visited every two weeks so a® to keep' the bees in .hand.. With ample ventilation and voting queens, the plan of spreading brood will! reduce swarming to a minimum.

When putting iii the first super, some scraps of honev should be lifted to give the bees a start. In good weather two frames of brood may be lifted. Honey flow will act us an excluder and shut clown the queen and by the time the honey is ripe, there will be very little trouble with the supers. On first “supering,” it is best to put e.lei en frames in’a twelve frame super so that, the bees will come- up more readily. The '.second -super should be put-, in as soon as the bees are- well established in the finish, and it is a- good plan to move up all the honey possible, but no brood. Then brood spreading can be carried on in the first super a® in "the brood nest and If the bees show signs of deserting the brood' nest, a few frames of young brood may be introduced. Tf a colony should get too. '.strong early m the season, an extra super may be given or the colony broken down. Extracting will begin when the season is well going and the honey mostly sealed and the extractor must be kept going to overcome swarming and lighten the queen rearing job by getting some of the honey out of the way. Those colonies not well oft for stores must be fed.

The next visit will be on similar lines except that two of the hew combs will be spaced between the brood and liberal feed -given, for in that will depend the number of bees available when the How commences. Ten or twelve supers may be taken off during routine work and continued right though, the queenrearing sea-son. This system will ensure that when the main extracting time comes round, it is half completed, under warm and favourable conditions.

Re-queening, in the opinion of Mr Penny, is best- done by killing the old queen and giving a ripe cell and despite seme drawbacks, is the most successful he knows. The process- starts when the danger of swarming is over, about the end of January, to the end of February. The idea, is to weaken the bees for winter and -re-queen all stockseach season and this is made more valuable if a market can be found for the best yearling queens. _ The ideal colony to -winter in this district is about six frames of bees with three solidcombi,si of honey and three of brood. These will winter without loss and carry on nearly to December under this spring management and with far less attention of stores and will need less syrup in the spring. But it must be done thoroughly because if stores are not crammed in or a good queqn given, they will be missing at the‘“spring roll call. ”

“My aim,”, said Mr Penny, .“is to winter with six combs, but if this is impossible on account of brood, I use eight or nine and -shut them down'on six at the first spring visit.” The System, he considers, is the best for Taranaki except in the bush districts.