THE APIARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3115, 26 November 1913, Page 12

THE APIARY.

(By J.A.)

The question of winter stores is to many a very uncertain one. 1 quote from the editor of the Beekeepers’ Review to show one system of how this may be attended to. It is out of season to talk of winter stores, but the method used must be arranged during the honey flow, and can bo used to some extent to intercept a flow of spring or autumn honey that the beekeeper does not particularly want. The following is what he says: “Are your bees well supplied with winter stores': Have they 251 bor 301 b of nicely sealed, rich, ripe, ropey stores, preferably that gathered early in the season, to winter on? Ours have, and I will toll you how wo manage to secure this condition, then each one during the leisure of winter prepare for another season. Very simple! Just provide a shallow set of extracting supers for each swarm and give them to the bees at the opening of the clover flow, and there you are! To start the bees to work nicely above and discourage swarming as much as possible, the first super given is one of those containing our regular extracting conibs. As the bees need .more room, one of those shallow sets containing frames filled with full sets of foundation is placed under the full one. Do you suppose we ‘ lay awake nights’ during winter, wondering if some swarm that has worked for us so faithfully during summer were getting short of stores? Guess not. We know they have enough to last them when each swarm has one of these 251 b supers of honey above their regular amount in the hive below. How do you feel about your bees? Are they well supplied with winter stores? If not. why not? Get ‘busy.’ The time is now short when you can feed liquid feed.” SWARMING. The weather in the south has continued favourable during the week, and preparation for swarming is going on in most forward-conditioned colonies. The following is our method of dealing with the colonies at this stage; In the first place the aim is as far as possible to prevent swarming. Swarms are not wanted, and very strong colonies are, and as we have no time to go through cutting out cells we have to resort to other means. Before commencing work our combs are looked through and divided into two lots, those suited for broodnest work and those suited for super work; the main difference between them being that only worker comb is wanted for the brood nest, ■while the drone comb goes to store in in the super. A start is made by going over the colonies, lifting the cover and mat and at a glance deciding which are forward enough to be dealt with. If the bees cover the whole 10 frames they are marked to bo done at once. For the benefit more particularly of lieginners I will describe the operation. An empty super is placed at the rear of the colony and the beekeeper seats himself on a seat to the side of it with a smoker in his hand. He removes the cover and mat and drives the bees down, being careful not to use too much smoke—just sufficient to prevent attack from the boos is right; that quantity which will make the bees rush out at the hive entrance or bubble up at the sides is too much. Begin by taking the centre frame out of the brood nest; give it a shako to displace nearly all the bees. The queen goes off easily, and must be loft. Look for queen cells, and nip them if there. Place the comb in the centre of the waiting super behind. Repeat this with each comb in rotation, placing them in the same order in the super that they were in in the brood nest. Usually six combs can be so taken and four left, two of which will contain some brood. Close up the four remaining combs into the centre, and fill up with worker combs; now put on An excluder, and then over that the super, and as this only contains the six combs of brood, put. in four of the super combs, two on each side. Now give the colony plenty of room at the entrance, put on the mat, and cover up. When the operation is complete there should he no queen cells top or bottom. The queen should be below in her place with either one or two frames of brood, anil the two outside combs, which are always well supplied with honey and pollen, and six empty worker combs. Above the excluder should be six frames of brood in the centre, and two super combs on each side of them Seven days later those* six combs placed on top must he looked over and all queen cells removed, so that no young queens may hatch above the excluder. I will give an extension of this plan in next week’s notes, as it is only a temporary expedient unless carried further.

HOW FAR BEES WILL FLY AND STORE HONEY AT A PROFIT. (By Wksi.ev Foster, Boulder, Colorado.) There are three principal elements entering into this question; first, the topography of the territory in question, or the lay of the land in relation to the position of the apiary; second, the kind and distribution of the honey flora; and third, the way the wind blows during the honey flow. First, 1 think the topographical features of the territory the greatest influence of any single element. Bees located with a dry field on all sides of them for a quarter to a half of a mile will not get. out as quickie ;•« a yard located where the odour of bloom is all about them, and the flora leads them on and on. Several years ago we had an apiary located on a dry piece, where scarcely anything but buffalo grass grew, and. more than that, it was almost surrounded by mesas that were just as dry. But three-quarters of a mile away we had another apiary located right among the fields of alfalfa and beside irrigation ditches lined with sweet clover. The lastnamed yard gathered from a third to a half more honey each year until finally the yard surrounded by dry hills was moved to a better district, when it immediately came up to the average, and I believe went ahead a little the first year. Second, the kind of flora. Alfalfa is our source of nectar, and the acreage lias to be very largo within the bee range to export the bees, more acres being required. I believe. to support a hive of bees than any other important, honey plant such a« white clover, basswood, buckwheat, etc. Now this being the case, it is easy to see that hers can go much farther (profitably) in gathering nectar from a profuse yielder than they can to gather nectar from a more scanty yield of nectar. A mile and a-half. I would say. would he about the limit for alfalfa. Alfalfa is a slow yielder, and its redeeming feature is that it lasts from 60 to 90 days. The third element entering info the question is one of the direction the wind blow®.

and how hard it blows during the honey harvest. Our winds here in the west practically all come from the west, both summer and winter. But we have few winds during the summer strong enough to hinder the flight to and from the fields. The boos are no doubt enticed to new pastures by the perfume borne to them on the breeze and also when there is a brisk breeze blowing they may bo prevented going in a direction they have formerly travelled and forced to explore newer fields in a direction more easily reached. It would be interesting to know whether the bees know that it will be more difficult coming home loaded against the wind than to fly out empty against the wind and let the wind help them home with the loach We cannot credit the bee with very high reasoning powers, and the bee most probably moves generally in the line of least resistance. There seems to he some evidence thatothe bee is possessed of telescopic vision, but I will not dwell on that. I think topography and the kind of flower furnishing the nectar arc the two principal elements determining the distance bees will go profitably in search of nectar. A mile and a-half would be about the limit for alfalfa, and it might (I’m guessing here) run up to throe miles in a favourablylocated section .where buckwheat abounds.