THE APIARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3571, 22 August 1922, Page 9

THE APIARY.

By

J. A.

TALKS FOR BEGINNERS.—No. 12. Hitherto our themes have been mostly such as have a more or less outside relation to apiary work. With this talk we will begin to get into the more technical detail of apiary work. In the early season nothing is so important as the natural “building up” of the colonies. The idea is not to have the greatest number of colonies, but rather to have the greatest possible number of bees in each colony. In the last number of Gleamings in Bee Culture the editor tells of a wonderful record in a Michigan beekeeper’s apiary. This story is all the more wonderful that the record is made in comb honey. The colony began the season as a 21b package of bees received on April 18 (that in our season would correspond to October 18). Every attention possible was given to them without the addition of either brood or bees—that is to say, they were fed syrup and well protected from cold. Mr Hamilton, the beekeeper, early became aware of the remarkable progress the colony was making, and watched it carefully. The queen kept two stories full of bropd during the breeding season, having at times as many as twenty combs full of brood. The flow from white clover was a failure on account of drought. This very drought made red clover just right for the bees — that is, it stunted the blossoms so that the bees could get the nectar. At all events they immediately went to work on the red clover, which, in connection with sweet clover and alfalfa, yielded an enormous amount of honey. When this red clover began to open up, says Mr Root, Mr Hamilton put on six supers of sections, each section containing a comb twothirds drawn out the previous season. In a few days these were filled up with honey. Then he piled on more supers. These were again filled in an incredibly short time, and still more supers, until he had twenty-four supers, each containing twenty-four sections of drawn comb, or a pile of supers, including the hive, 12ft, high; and at the end of the season he took away twenty-three 241 b shipping cases of honey. The i-esult of the season was 5771 b of comb honey from this one queen and 21b of bee®. A truly remarkable record, but one which seems to be well attested. “Aim high” was the father’s advice to his son, and 12ft high in beekeeping is good enough for most of us. Now, let us look at some of the contributory causes. In the first place the queen must have been a remarkably good one, as she occupied fully a very large brood nest, and kept it going all season, producing bushels of bees. Then she was aided byfeeding with warm sugar syrup, and in addition to this was well happed up. Michigan in April is much colder than this country in October. Further, the season was late, white clover failed, but red clover, sweet clover, and Alfalfa afforded an unusually heavy flow of nectar. Thus the queen had time, and that is a big element, in success. I can well remember a season which gave the writer a very important lesson along these lines. The spring was late, being wet and cold, and always looking- for fine weather to come, the feeding was very much neglected. The last feed was given at Christmas time, and then with the New Year came the only short spell of good weather of the whole season. But the neglected bees were down ip number. They were merely existing, and as a result it was the old story of the cow’s tail, we were behind. To go back to our first lesson, that of the important part played by the queen in building up, we tliink it is well worth while to have queens of the previous season's breeding, and we should say that they should be reared so late as not to have expended too much energy: just enough to form a good preparation for next season’s work. In modern beekeeping there is the possibility of spurring up the queen to more than normal effort, and it is quite possible by this means to exhaust even the best of queens very quickly. On this account the beekeeper who is going to make the best out of his bees must give particular attention to the age and condition of his queens. A little experience ‘non enables an apiarist to detect a. failing queen; there is an irregularity about the brood that tells the tale.' It is. however, in our opinion, a foolish thing to wait, for signs of failure unless they come in the first season's work. Better to requeen and begin the season’s work knowing that all the queens are young and strong. W e can then ask them to respond to our feeding and management with a far better assurance of success. The subject of “building up” is all important, and in its different aspects will require more than one short talk. We will take the feeding aspect of it next week.