THE APIARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2241, 11 February 1897, Page 15

THE APIARY.

By Novice

SEASONABLE KOTES. How much honey ought I \o leave,iu the hive for the bees to wiuter safely on ? E*ery beekeeper will have to decide this question in the courße of the next two or three weeks, and no general answer, such as "Do not touch any that they have stored in the Jower storey," will be always satisfactory, because the conditions under which the bees have been working are co various. As a rule there will be sufficient in the lower storey if the bees have filled a super. There will sure to be if they have filled a super of sections, but sometimes when there are drawn combs given them in the super and foundation in the brood nest, they will store most of their surplus honey in the drawn combs, leaving much too little in the lower story to winter successfully. By that I mean not merely existing and coming out in thespriog weak nnd few in numbers, but strong, having the hive crowded with bees in the middle or end of August. The experience of every successful beekeeper I know is that the more abundant their winter stores the better their been winter and the more rapidly do they build up in the spring. The moral of this is : — Do not extr*ct too closely ; leave an ample supply so that you will not have to feed in the spring. Many people J think that feeding in the spring is profitable, because of the stimulating effect of the feed on the. bees. So it may be in some climates, but in O'ago and Southland, where a bright, fine spsll oi a week or so is off.en followed by a bitterly cold week, stimulating does more harm than good, and my advice, based on experience, is : Do your feeding in the autumn, and leave enough boaey, so that you will not require to disturb the bees until i honey comes next year. A difficulty sonvtimes met with when taking off the honey at ibe close of the honey season is what to do with the combs having small patches of brood in them. Putting a queenexcluder on them will prevent the queen going there again, and in three weeks the brooo will be hatched out, but that means a delay of three weeks. To take away the combs, leaving the brood in them, is not nice, because it fouls the combs for next season's work. We get over this by giviDg these combs all to one colony. A strong «;ne >s prepared, an excluaer put ou, and the com'o3 piled up on it. This colony is the l»st oce fixed up for winter. DAMPNESS IN HIVES. We often find hives which in the winter get very damp. The roof is tight, and no water gets in there ; the hive is set up off the ground, and therefore the damp does not come from there ; and yet the inside of the hive is so wet that the water runs down its sides, and the outside combs become so monldy that the pollen they contain becomes rofcteu and ooze* out of the cells, while the honey in them soars and becomes unfit food for the bees. The cause ia this : The hive has a fall to the back, aud the debris &c. from the combs of the bees is carried to the back of the hive, and there accumulates. Every wet day this accumulation is saturated with water, and then vaporises in the atmosphere of the hive in the vicinity of the chwter. This warm, moist air, ptssing to the outside, condenses again when it etrikeß the colder outer walls of the hive and runs down igain as water, to be vaporised and condensed again, and so on continuously — a very unhealthy condition of things for the bees. Another cause of dampness, not so serious, is when the bees are not covered down sufficiently, and the warm air is condeused by thecolder air above. This makes the mat wet and cold, and It acts as a condenser, making the matter worse and worse the more wet the mat is. The remedies are to gWe the hive at least Jin fall to the front ; the debris, which consists mainly of the cappings of the cells, which fall off when the young bees hatch out, is then carried to the front and out at the entrance, and all water which may get in also ea«ly runs out ; aud cover the bees down with a sufficient thickness of mats to prevent any escape of air upwards.