THE APIARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3755, 2 March 1926, Page 11

THE APIARY.

By

J. A.

THE WEEK. We have had the two extremes in weather this week, the first few days being ideal, and the latter portion almost wintry. The readings for the week have been 2, 10, 0, 10, 0,0, o—ino—in all 221 b. Readers will remember that in the previous week it was blanks all through. During that week the bees became very nippy, and anything but pleasant to handle. This condition changed quickly with the fine days, and we were again able to leave the honey house door open, and to examine hives with a minimum of smoke. In all probability the storm conditions at the end of the week will again produce irritation, and make protection advisable. I am afraid that it is getting very near to the end of the season now. The clover is beginning to fail, and a long experience seems to indicate that after the end of February there is poor chance of further surplus for the season. EXTRACTING. We have been afraid to do much extracting, and so have held hack. This week, however, we begin to clean up everything, and to put the brood nests in order for winter. A more settled spell of fine weather could still add considerably to the crop, but with us the apples are calling, and we are tired waiting. So if it does come it will put the bees in better trim for next season. THE SEASON. Looking back over the season we can only regard it as extremely disappointing, and we are afraid that the Southland yield will be much below the average. I note that last year’s output from the Dominion for export was 785 tons, and that this year the Control Board is not expecting to to exceed GOO tons, so that a lighter crop seems to be anticipated in some other districts. In Canterbury it is expected that the crop will be above the average. I do not, however, like to hear that the Dominion’s crop is less. It is still far below what it should and could easily be, and in these days when there is so much need for exports to do something more than keep pace with imports, it is up to beekeepers to do better. Someone will probably say in this connection that beekeepers cannot control the weather, and that, after all, it is the elements that control the honey crop. Very likely in some part of Southland there is a beekeeper whose average will prove that this also is a fallacy, and that there is a system of management which even in a year so bad as this has been can get good returns. Nearly every beekeeper proves this for himself by the fact that one, two, or more colonies have gone far ahead of the others, and put up an average that, had it been general, would have given him a fair crop. In Roslyn Bush apiary our scale hive is the witness against us. Had all the other hives done as well we should have had a five-ton crop. As it is, we are not at all sure of one ton. Naturally, we ask ourselves, What constitutes the difference? Has anything been done for that colony which could not have been done for every other colony in the apiary? If we were to bolster it up iu any umiatural way it would spoil its use for us as a record. So that, while we give it what we regard as ideal attention, nothing is done for it that we do not aim at doing for every colony in the apiary. Wherein, then, is the failure? This last season it lay in the failure to give an ample supply of honey for winter and spring use. There was an abnormal demand on the winter stores last autumn. Spring came round with the stores well used up, and with such weather that the bees could not get out to replenish them. When we came to our apiary in November there were very few hives that had a working supply of stores left. Instead of finding our colonies boiling over with bees, and within easy distance of swarming, their brood nests were small, and they were hedging in their brood rearing for want of supplies. In this, the most noticeable exception was our hive on the scales. It, too, was nothing to boast about; still it was the best; and because we have to be careful to prevent it formiug a swarming habit, although it was hardly as strong as wc would wish, we divided it, putting the queen down, and making the top division rear a young queen. This young queen was laying for a month before we removed the old one, and consequently the colony was very much strengthened. It was the only colony that got the full benefit of this treatment, but that was because we had failed to bring the other forward to the point where it could be done. Quite a number of them were divided about Christmas time, but that is too late for the results we want.