THE APIARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3886, 4 September 1928, Page 11

THE APIARY.

By

J. A.

BIG COLONIES AT CLOVER TIME. . In recent articles I have sought to impress on beekeepers the need of building up colonies during the spring months and of supplying what is needful in the way of a good queen and plenty of stores in order to have full hives at clover time.

In an article I read recently by Mr tr. L. Vvmtle another method is propounded to attain this end. It is called by him the Dual Queen Method.” He states that it is not new, and that not a great deal of success has been reported from its use. Mr Wintie, however, reports an outstanding success as the result °'Z° experiments. He says: i - e “Otal amount of honey collected bj the colony in 10 weeks was 4cwt—quite an outstanding figure. I calculated this weight by the 370 sections taken out (representing as many pounds) and about IJewt left for the winter use. If full irames had been used for extracting purposes, instead of sections, a greater weight of honey could be anticipated because of the reluctance of bees starting on .sections Working this out on g basis of 4|d per lb (about what is given for bulk honey), the reckoning a for P £ d h“e." Br “ S ri ' l<l ° f r °' ,ehl ’

„ T certainly is a very fine yield, and 50 such colonies would mean a fine income for the labour entailed. Now tor the method.

The principle,” he says, “is to have two or more laying queens within the one hive That is mass production of bees resulting in mass production of honey per colony. This is contrary to general rules, and will probably bring about a storm of criticism. But I am quite conhdent in the system myself, which gave great prospects this year, and I will go turtner into developments next season, in the second, week in December last year two colonies swarmed. One day elapsed between the occurrences. The nrst was placed in an ordinary framed hive in the usual manner. The bees covered about five frames. On top of this box I placed another frame hive with a queen excluder between, and the .second swarm was placed within that, and covered about six frames, which gave a total of about 11 frames of bees or about one .full box. This with an entrance CU X In rhe top box completes the method, yt course, this position can be attained. m many ways—in artificial s . w '“rrning and in dividing. The one doubtful thing about it is the excluder, and I know no reason why the excluder should not make a perfectly satisfactory bottom board for the top colony, for to all intents and purposes there remain just two colonies working in one hive, lhat the bees, will work together was proven long years ago by an English beekeeper named Wells. He gave his own name to a system by which he had the bees from two brood nests working in one set of supers and storing as one CO -A. ny ' j- ® ? lm P!y divided the brood box , a division board, which was perforated sufficiently to bring the bees in contact, but not to let them through, and then allowed the bees to work up into supers through an excluder placed to cover the divided brood chamber. His argument for his system was. practically the same as Mr Wintie’s: to .get mass production of bees by using two queens, tor a while the British Bee Journal had a. good deal to say about this method, but in a few years it was dead. I hope if Mr Wintie happens to see my remarks he will not feel that I am critical or be in any way discouraged. Possibly those who worked the Wells system did not realise that, instead of dividing a brood chamber between two queens, they should have provided ample accommodation for each, or at least a full brood chamber for each queen in order to get mass production. This Mr Wintie supplied, and so there was unfettered room for each queen. I should like to speak of other experiments along this line, but must defer them meanwhile.

lhere are a few warnings, however, to which, on behalf of beginners, I must give expression. Two queens in one hive will not give the results that Mr Wintie got unless they have plenty of stores or are breeding up in a flow. It will be noticed that the two swarms that were put together were swarmed in the second week of December, which would just be the. beginning of the clover season, and would render them independent. This method, then, could be adopted throughout the swarming season, as the swarms would b e as well provided in pairs as in singles. For the production of surplus honey, however, it will lose its value as the swarming season advances, until towards the latter half of the season it will have little or no value. What the beginner requires to get firmly in his mind is that this massed production of bees must fit in with the clover bloom period. Surplus bees after the flow period is oyer are only consumers. On account of this there are many prominent beekeepers who at the time when the bees would be of no value as gatherers limit the room of even one queen so as to get a fuller service from the adult bees. I hope to continue this subject next week.