THE APIARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3590, 2 January 1923, Page 9

THE APIARY.

By

J. A.

Owing to the holidays it is necessary to prepare these notes before the end of the week, so that this week’s report will be two days short. The weather continues moist, but we are not troubled about that. It probably means a better flow later. The rise in the temperature has been a great help. Warm, showery weather during December is ideal. Our scale hive put on 121 b for the five days, so thaj; there is an abundance of nectar. There were two swarms, making four swarms for the season. As - two of these were superceding their queen it is quite evident that the doubling of the brood nest had the desired effect in delaying the swarming We fully anticipate that when the warm, sunny days come we are going to have a rather lively time with swarms. No effort beyond room and ventilation is being made to check them. Only first swarms are allowed, and these go back on to tho old stand and every possible bee is thrown into them. • The principal work then becomes an effort to handle the old colonies to the best advantage, for them the best queens and uniting sufficiently to keep every colony right up to- full strength. Far too often the average yield of an apiary is cut dow-n by giving place to a- number of weakling colonies.

*‘A Beginner,” from Livingstone, writes: I have three hives of bees carried over from last year. They are doing well and strong. I have -had three swarms, but did not-see which box they came from. I went through them twice and took all the queen cells out. I opened them again the other day. They are, making honey, but I found no brood, all the bees lisrtched out, and no more eggs laid. Can you tell me what is the matter? Do you think they are queenless, or does a young queen take a while to lay? It is 12 clays since I had the last swarm- out of one box, and longer from the others. How do the bees act if they have no queen? Do they still go on Working? If they are queenless, and if I gave them- some brood out of another box, would they rear a queen or must it have a queen cell on it as well, or how would it do if I emptied the last swarm back into one of the boxes ? When would be the best time —through the day or evening? When there is no brood in the comb is that a sure proof there is no queen? And what is the best thing to do under the circumstances? Hoping you will be able to explain my difficulty. M hen a colony of bees intends to swarm it raises quite a number of queen cells, and the time that it usually does swarm is justafter the first of these cells has been sealed over. It may be hindered from doing so by weather conditions, and in some cases, where these conditions take a decided turp for the worse, they may destroy the cells and give up the idea of swarming. If, when the colony has swarmed, you go through it and take away all the cells, and repeat this when the brood of the old queen is too old to develop into a queen, then you make the colony absolutely queenless. One queen cell should always be loft. After, the young queen hatches it may be any time from, say, six or seven days to 21 days before she begins to lay The young queen always flies out to meet the drove for fertilisation, , and in unsuitable weather this may be delayed If it is delayed beyond three weeks she will not then be fertilised at all, and becomes a drone layer. Usually in fine weather a queen begins to lay in, say, 10 or 12 clays from the time it hatched out; but that again may not be for seven or eight days after the swarm issued. If you give them a frame of brood they can rear a queen from any worker or very young larvae, and if they do so it will at once show that they are queenless. But we would not advise you, unless there is a lot of bees, to do this. It would be better to unite them to the swarms. A simple way to do this would be just to put an excluder on top of the swarm and put the old colony as a super on top of that. Before this reply reaches you, you will know how the position is and can act accordingly. It does not matter what time of day you unite the colonies, nor does it matter which of the swarms you unite with. If the colonies are six or seven feet apart or more you run a risk of losing quite a. number of bees in uniting, as in going out for honey they will come back to the old stand and be lost. The usual plan in this case is to move the colonies three or four feet towards each other each day until they are together, then -to unite. If you find that one of the old colonies has a queen Laying, then it would be better to unite by putting the other two old colonies on top of that, making thus one colony of the three old colonies. Or, if you like put the three old colonies together and give them a frame of young brood and eggs, so they can rear their own queen.

A magpie was noticed emerging from a letter-box in Killawarra road, a few miles out of Wingham, one recent Sunday afternoon (says a Sydney paper). Two residents coming down from Kimbriki witnessed the occurrence. The magpie had a letter in its beak. No sooner had it got clear of the box than two other magpies attacked it, and appeared to be strenuously endeavouring to take the letter from the ’“postal-box thief.” The eye-witnesses of the occurrence, however, declare that the bird stuck tenaciously to the letter. When they last saw the magpie it was flying in the direction of sunset. Some postal official will perhaps be blamed for the disappearance of this letter.