THE APIARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3542, 31 January 1922, Page 7

THE APIARY.

By

J. A.

THE BEGINNERS’ CORNER. The queens in Nos. 1,2, 3,4, and 5 were pinched during the week. Cells from a pure queen were given to each of these colonies, and they have since been looked over to see that they did not rear cells from their own stock. The cells given to them are hatching to-day (January 23), and probably in another 10 days will bo laying. This will mean a break in the brood-rearing of those colonies of about 15 days. As we pointed out last week we do not at this late period of the season regard that as doing any harm; rather we think a break of full 21 days would be in the beekeeper’s interest. Colony No. 4, which was doing duty as hospital colony for the apiary, i 3 one of those dequeened. It has become very strong, and no disease is perceptible, but just when the young queen begins to lay we will M'Evov it and extract and melt up the combs. No. 6 has its young queen laying, and No. 7 the old Italian queen is doing good work. No. 8 stand has never boon filled up. Had I realised that (he queens in No. 1,2, 3, and 5 were so poor as they have turned out to be they .would have been superseded much earlier in the season. There has been no swarming, and gradually the colonies have gathered strength, and are now in force to put in a good harvest. The broken weather that, we have been getting is resulting only in very slow work. Nothing comparable to a steady honey flow has come yet. Last week our scale hive put on 171 b for the wliolo week, honey coming in on three days out of the seven. One of the lessons that the beginner in beekeeping has got to learn is patience, and especially on rainy and easterly days during clover bloom. FIELD DAY OF SOUTHLAND BEEKEEPERS. On Wednesday this function took place at the apiary of Mr Leslie Irwin, near Woodlands. The gathering was a very largo one, and notable for the number of new faces, and especially for its young people and the number of young ladies present. We made no count, but we should say that quite 100 visitors were on the ground. The visitors were made heartily welcome by Mr and Mrs Irwin, and immediately invited to partake of refreshments, joining in the social cup with sandwiches and sweets in abundance. We have not the particulars, but it must be getting near to 20 years since those beekeepers’ field days were started; but they are still marked oy the same feature, that of sociability, with which they began. We missed quite a number of the old faces, but were quite pleased to meet a more than equal number of new ones, and especially of younger people who, by their eagerness, showed quite an evident desire to learn all they could. When demonstrations were going on the difficulty was not to get the attention, but rather to get the circle wide enough, so that all might have the opportunity of seeing and hearing. In the future we should suggest to the president -and his executive that they should appoint a marshal with a baton in his hand and a red ribbon in his coat, vested for the day with a special authority, with a kindly disposition towards the ladies and young folk and a general desire to see everybody pleased. In the demonstrations Mr Larsen, the genial president, first, after extending a general welcome, introduced again our old friend Mr Earp, the head from a departmental point of view, of beekeeping in the South Island. Mr Earp in a very wise speech pointed to the fact that our produce still held a payable value, and urged beekeepers to support the co-opera-tive organisation that had done so much towards this end. He then gave a demonstration on the way to handle bees, going through a beautiful colony of Italians. Later in the afternoon Mr Earp gave a further demonstration of shaking a colony for foul-brood, showing the simplicity of ' the operation, and urging the absolute need of doing it whenever disease showed itself. The writer of these notes was next called upon to speak, and touched principally on the system of requeening advocated latelv in this column —that is. by killing off old queens after the 20th of January, and seven davs later cutting out all cells built by die colony so as to make it hnprlessly queenless, then introducing a cell from a good queen, working with the twofold end m view of getting the colony requeened from good stock and also of having a break in the brood-rearing of the colony of three weeks. The third demonstration was given hv Mr Robert Gibb on the natural history of the honey—a most interesting subject, and, needless to say, in Mr Gibb’s hand it lost none of its interest. This was followed by a demonstration by Mr Root Stewart, of Crookston. on forming nuclei and introducing queens, 'this proved the most interesting of all the demonstrations, being watched closely bv old and young beekeepers alike. We doubt if there is any beekeeper amongst us who understands quite so well as Mr Stewart the humours of the honey bee. The next speaker was Mr Irwin, who is Southland's representative on the executive of the National. We have only this to say, that (hose who don’t join the “National” ‘after hearing Mr Irwin stand a very poor chance of ever succeeding as beekeepers; they must be built in far too narrow a mould for that. A very useful demonstration was that of Mr Hemingsen, who, dealing with the subject of hive and frame making, gave some very useful hints. A very successful and useful afternoon was closed by a demonstration in extracting. Mr Joseph Allan moved at the close a vote of appreciation to Mr and Mrs Irwin, which was very heartily accorded.