THE APIARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3860, 6 March 1928, Page 11

THE APIARY.

By

J. A.

FALSE ECONOMY IN BEEKEEPING.

Under this heading J. E. Crane in Gleanings quotes that very-mueh-to-the-point proverb: “ There is that scattereth and yet increaseth, and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty.”

Beekeepers would do well to keep this proverb in mind when fixing up their colonies for "'inter. To leave on the hives so many combs of beautifully sealed honey may seem a waste; it may seem like scattering, but it tendeth to increase, whereas the extracting too close will as certainly tend to poverty. It is a lesson that beekeepers are slow to learn, and it needs no excuse on my part that I so often urge it on the beekeepers. To young beekeepers especially let me say that iu wintering it is not enough merely to keep the colonies alive during the winter. More than that is required if we are going to make the best of the next season's harvest. There must be enough in stores so that there may be plenty of young bees in autumn, enough so that they may winter well, and a reserve that will allow them to breed up again in the spring without fear of shortage.

A good condition for the bees to be in at the end of the breeding season is to have the 10 frames which form the broodnest all solid with stores. These stores will not consist of honey only, but it will be found that the sealed honey covers up a large store of pollen. The position is that the bees load up these combs with the food required when breeding begins in the spring. The spring development should begin on the two centre frames, and spread to each side as the season advances until it takes up the full width of the hive.

The point is that, except under a honey flow, which in early spring cannot be depended upon, the queen can spread from comb to comb only if the combs already contain the food required to nourish the young larvae. If the beekeeper places empty combs at each side of the broodnest there will be no expansion except under the influence of a flow from outside —a flow which in most of our southern districts cannot be depended upon. To state the position shortly, the queen cannot expand her brood-nest beyond the food line that contains the food that is to feed the young larvae. If the quantity of food is small and scattered, the bees will draw it into position round the nest, but the whole of the brood will be within the area thus covered. If we take one comb as the unit of the colony, then we can have three, four, five, six, se- en, or eight-frame colonies, and for practical purposes that win be the proportionate value of the colonies. No feeding that the beekeeper can do in the springtime will provide this expansion room for the queen quite so well as the provision made by the bees themselves in the autumn. Therefore my plea is do not take it away. Remember the proverb: “There is that withholdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty.” In Southland, and probably also in some other districts, there are locations where there is almost no nectar available before clover begins to bloom. In these districts Solomon's advice seems to need an even more careful study than it does in districts where there is nectar available from bush flowers, and we have found that in addition to a heavy winter provision it is a good thing to store away in the honey house, say, 251 b of sealed stores for each colony— to be put on in August, when breeding up will have begun. This to some beekeepers may seem like waste, but remember,

“There is that scattereth and yet increaseth.” A weak colony, one that is starved in the spring, may not gather 251 b in the whole season, but a good strong one may repay in two or three days and give a good harvest as well. In my apiary at Roslyn Bush there were several colonies that gave practically no harvest. There were others that gave five or six supers of sealed honey, besides amply providing for themselves. I am finding it a wise thing to apply Solomon’s advice to all my colonies, and I think other beekeepers will lose nothing by doing the same thing. Air Crane applies his proverb to a lot of other things about the apiary, notably in the use of foundation. He very severely condemns the hedging which so often occurs in the use of foun-dation,-showing that the building of drone comb,. > which results when foundation comb is'stinted, leads surely to poverty in the hive. He also applies it to the wastefulness of having poor hives and poor -shelter for the apiary. It all amounts to this, that the beekeeper is or ought to be a generous soul, ready to treat his apiary liberally in the wav of the furnishings of Iris hives, in their stores, and in the comfort he provides for the storms of winter.

After a smooth journey, I am once more amongst the apples. One glance at my Tasman apiary showed that it had not done much. Quite evidently the season has been too dry. and the manuka made a very poor blooming.