THE APIARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3714, 19 May 1925, Page 11

THE APIARY.

By

J. A.

The winter months are the time in which beekeepers can very profitably spend some iittio time thinking out bee problems. The rush of the summer season does not lend itself to that kind of work. We are too busy, and when rest time comes we are too tired. But in the off season we cun well afford to study out these problems, and in their solution find new ways of developing our apiary work. I would draw attention to one of these problems that ha 3 probably occurred io many beekeepers this season, owing to the method of valuation of honey adopted by the Honey Producers’ Association. Honey m grading is classed according to colour, as white special and prime, light amber special, light amber prime, medium amber and dark. The advance given this year wa* s£d for white special, 5d for light amber special, and for light amber prime. But the price in each class dropped l-12d for each point lost in the grading. Thus only white amber special, that gained 99 or 100 points, got the full s£d per lb. 98 points was l-12thd less and so on. Light amber special beginning at sd, dropped in the same way in accordance with the points gained. To me this seems eminently fair, and if it can be established that there is this difference in the value of honey, then the problem of location gains a new interest. The colour of honey can not he altered by any art of the beekeepers. We know that when the bees are working on clover, they are storing white special. We also know that the product of quite a number of our best N yielding native plants is light amber, some of it special and some of it only prime. From white special to light amber prime, there is a drop of £9 6s 8d per ton, or in, say, five-ton crop. £46 13s 4d. The beekeeper may well ask himself how to get the largest possible percentage of white special in his crop. To begin with, I would not advise the selecting of or moving to a location that depended entirely on white clover. There must be something to yield nectar earlier than clover, or it will be found very difficult to build up colonies in <he spring. For this one has to depend on the early flowering trees in the native bush, or on flax, or manuka scrub. These for the : most part, if not altogether, yield honey that can only be classed as light amber, but they must be had or else it would take a very much greater quantity of the previous year’s stores to keep the bees on tho up grade. Then, if everything failed, as clover ceased to yield, it would be found more difficult to get the bees into the best condition in autumn for wintering. A beekeeper has only to think to realise that, tiiough this early and late honey is darker, still it is essentiai. What then is to be done? In so far as location is concerned, the thing is to have a good supply of clover in its season, so that the main flow will be a clover flow, and to have also as good a supply of the early and late bloom as possible. When the clover flow is on it will be found that the bees will not neglect it for anything else, but will depend nearly altogether on it. I have often noticed that that beekeepers’ plague—ragwort—blooms before clover has ceased, but the bees do not work on it until the clover is nearly done. Then, quite suddenly, the combs turn yellow, and show that ragwort is coming in with a rush. There is, however, another side to the question that demands more ’ careful attention than has been given to it in the past, and that is to so arrange extracting so as to take nway the surplus that may be in the hives, ad soon as the clover flow is on. In this way the light amber of spring gathering would be cleared just as the white special of clover was beginning. And then still moro important is it to extract early enough in the autumu, so as to keep out the yellow autumn honies. Some will say. “Would not the large intake of white bring the darker colours within the range of white?” I do not think so, and in any ease the mixing of flavours would tell in the points gained in the grading, and every point lost reduces the value l-12d. It is cerfain that under this system of valuation, which I hope has come to stay, the beekeeper is going to be brought more into touch with the varying qualities of honey which his apairy produces, and will find it all to his profit a* far as possible, to keep them separate.