THE APIARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3513, 12 July 1921, Page 7

THE APIARY.

By

J. A

QUEEN-REARING. The following letter makes us return to this subject:—"Dear Sir, —As a young beekeeper I am deeply interested in all that pertains to beekeeping. Recently 1 have been reading several articles oil queen-rear-ing, the last one being an articio by Mr Benton at the recent conference. Is it essential in commercial beekeeping to make a study of the various methods of queen rearing? Would not the old way of leaving the bees to follow their natural instincts give equally good results?” Unless the .commercial beekeeper is in a very large way be believe that there is. a middle course that is best. Wo do not think that the artificial methods, including the transfer of larval used by professional queen breeders, are necessary —not in some hands, at least—always expedient. Careless handling does, in our opinion, produce short-lived queens. At the same time, in the hands of a careful man who thoroughly understands his work, and who requires queens in large numbers, we do not doubt that the best of queens can be produced. On the other hand, to leave the matter entirely in the hands of the bees themselves would be a great mistake, for instance, if the apiary, though Italian, had black bees in it, and if there were black drones flying in the neighbourhood the black bees would increase and the yellow decrease until in a very short time there would be ho pure Italians left. Then there is this other difficulty: Bees left to themselves will allow the same queen to remain at work long after she has passed her best. Modern methods, including stimulating, and the elimination of drone comb and laying up comb after comb of worker cells, makes such a drain on the vitality of the queen that it is probably a wise thing to requeen most of the apiary every year. The practice we prefer is to do this during January, from, say, the middle of the month onwards. The resultant bees from eggs laid after that date are too late to be of use in the honey harvest, and we believe with our Taranaki friend that it is rather an advantage to have a break in brood-reaving at that time so_ that, when the colonies are prepared for winter, they will be somewhat reduced in population. \Ve can then in January, with good effect kill off the old queens and replace with a line queen cell. To get the cells required we prefer the Alley method; a good clean comb, as new as possible, is inserted in our breeding colony for a few days until the first-laid eggs are beginning to hatch into larvae. The comb is then removed and strips cut out of it immediately below the youngest- of the larvae, and the comb is then placed in the queen-rearing colony. Very fine cells will result with the minimum of manipulation. These can be cut out at 10 days old and used where wanted. We do not advocate by any means that our correspondent should not road up and get all the knowledge he can get. The work is so engrossing and the revelation of the wonders contained in the beehive so great- that, no beekeeper can afford to neglect every avenue of knowledge both in reading and in practice; but in ordinary practice in a commercial apiary, where queen-reaving forms only a small part of the work, the Alley plan is quick enough and safer than any transferring method. The plea for good queens in any commercial apiary is a strong one : we give it in the words of Bill Melvin, in May Gleanings;— “I have some old flea-bitten queens who work the laying graft so strong that, day j and night, behind the scenes, they keep i a- plugging right along. They’re shelling out the eggs so fast that brood extends j from roof to floor; and when they’ve filled all cells at last they fuss around and hunt j for move. But if in vain for room they j strive, mv noble queens create a storm, j They so read dissension through the hive, and finally decide to swarm. T fool these old bird nowadays; I fool them iq a fare-you-well. I steer them from their erring ways before they get this swarming spell. I never lot such tommyrot into their littie noodles bob; I help their sanity a lot by giving them another job. Before they’re crowded from their homes and spill the everlasting beans, I give another set ot combs to satisfy ambitious queens. My queens, thus freed from narrow bounds, upstairs on eager legs will go, where buoynntlv they make their rouncis and lay a pint of eggs or so. ’I lie workers, too, hit up their gait if any were inclined to shirk. They feel the urge like anv skate who takes an interest in his work. Tie is indeed a foolish gink who puis off duties ouch as these These extra eggs per hive, 1 think, will add an extra peck of bees. An extra neck of bees in June in each and every seething hive, in my location’s Quite a boon and makes me glad to be alive. The increase in the lmnc-li of dope these extra pecks put in the mow. when sold, will make a roll I hope, that’s big enough to choke a cow.”