THE APIARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3987, 12 August 1930, Page 11

THE APIARY.

By

J. A.

“ Dear Sir, —I have not long left school. I passed my proficiency test, and was required at home on the farm, so could go no further. Ours in a dairy farm, and we milk for a cheese factory I like outside work but do not care very much about milking. We receive the Otago Witness, and I read the apiary column, and was much interested in some letters to a young lady who wished to keep bees in order to make pocket money. I would like to keep bees—not just a few colonies, but enough to build up to a good apiary. Our district has plenty of clover, and there is some bush not very far away. I know that you are an elderly gentleman, but if you were me and had a great deal of work to do, and not much money to spend, how would you manage ? I would be glad of any hints you could give me. —J. M‘L.”

There is an old adage which says, “ The more haste. the less speed,” and I think that that often applies in the building up of an apiary. One of the best inducements to keep going in beekeeping is to get thorough control in the handling of the bees and a liking for the work. These are often best got by spending a season or two as helper to a good beekeeper who is making a success of his apiary. That, however, I can easily understand is not attainable by my young friend. The cow business is a very exacting one in the suntmer time However, if there is an apiary near at hand and you could go to it for an hour or two daily through the day, it would always help. Where you have to depend on text books and experience as your teachers it is well to start small and to go slow. In doing that the best time to buy a colony is in August or September. You are then close to spring, and a good deal of the danger of wintering is over. You can put a feeder into your colony, and begin at once to feed the bees so as to secure a very strong colony, and thus get sufficient material to make an increase to, say, three colonies. Not more colonies, however, must be formed than can be made good and strong for wintering.

In purchasing a colony see that there is no foul-brood. Have it thoroughly examined by one who knows foul-brood. It is even dangerous to take it no matter how clean it shows if it comes from an apiary in which there is disease. Also see that it is contained in a good sound hive. Begin building up a good plant with your first colony and have nothing to do with makeshift hives. Whu you bring this hive home put it in a place that is well away from the traffic of the farm, so that you can start your apiary where it will not be an annoyance to anyone. You will want to carry the sympathy of your home folk with you in your apiary venture, and a good way to do this is to have your bees produce some good sections of clover honey. There are very few who can resist the appeal of really fine honey when it comes on to the table

In increasing your apiary to three colonies the first year you will require to purchase two new hives. Do not waste your time trying to make your own hives, but go to a supply dealer and obtain the best you can, and then make a thorough job of putting them together. If, as you say, you read the apiary column, you will know that a good deal has been said lately about tidiness and thoroughess in the apiary and about keeping the hives off the damp ground. You have only three hives for your first season, but try to have them perfect. Have a good smoker, and learn the lesson of controlling. Spend a little while of every day amongst them, but do not open up the brood nest too much. Just keep yourself posted in what is going on, and see that you learn to care for the bees.

In the second season you will come round to September -with three colonies—that is, if you are careful to see that they have’ plenty of stores. A colony of bees should never die if it is properly eared for. All of the bees die out every six weeks in summer time, the queen alone living for three or four years; but, in a normal way, as she, too. dies off, the bees are able from a worker egg to raise another to supersede her, and that is what is done. In the second season you will do with each .of the three colonies just what was done with one the first year, only now there will be more experience to guide you, and as. well as supplying the home with honey you should be able to sell enough to pay for the six new hives that will be required. It is- a good thing to use only Hoffman frames, and to nail all the corners with cement coated nails. Also the hives should be carefully wired and furnished with full sheets of foundation. This guides the bees in the size of the cells, and in large measure prevents the building of drone comb, which the bees almost invariably do when the hive is built for honey storing. When you have the first two seasons over, your own knowledge will guide you in developing a good apiary. I hope you will have every success.

“ We in New Zealand who think this a law-ridden country find it consoling to go to the United States, which is much mere so. There you have Congress legislating for the whole country and each of the 40 States legislating for themselves, so that the conflict of the different sets of laws often produces some curious contradictions,” said Mr E. W. White, giving random reminiscences of a tour abroad to the reunion of Otago High School old boys in Christchurch on Saturday night. “There was an esprit de corps in the old volunteers such as you do not hear of among the territorials.” said Major A. Joues at the "x-volunteers* reunion in Christchurch. “You do not hear of a territorial spending half a day cleaning his rifle and bayonet as many of us did. It has been said that we had no hold on the men in the volunteers. That iirmot true, for if a man did not play the game he was ‘fired out.’ and it was hard to get into the units under the volunteer system.*