THE APIARY.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume XXVII, Issue 5, 20 November 1923, Page 334

THE APIARY.

FORMING NUCLEI.

With , the approach of the main honey-flow and the prospect of more settled weather the beekeeper can turn his attention to the question of forming nuclei, either with an eye to artificial increase or for queen-raising purposes. Whatever the object for which they are produced the simplest method of forming nuclei is as follows': —

From the strongest colonies in the apiary take combs of sealed brood with adhering bees. Place two of these combs in each nucleus hive, together, with one comb of honey and an empty comb. It is as well, if the size of the hive will permit, to add a feeder. Close the entrance of the nucleus hive by tacking over it a piece of perforated zinc or wire cloth, and place the newly formed colony in a cool place for twenty-four hours. At the end of this time the hive may be placed on its. permanent. stand and the entrance opened. Some of the field-bees will return to the parent hives, but in the meantime much of the sealed brood will have hatched, and thus the absconders will hardly be missed. The small colony can

at any time be given a ripe queen-cell, and under favourable weather conditions will soon possess a laying-queen. . •

Nuclei can be built from one or two strong colonies, each of which should produce four or five small colonies ; or several hives in the apiary may each, be robbed of a frame of brood, thus providing increase while leaving the full colonies practically undiminished. When the young queen commences laying in a nucleus hive she should be left in possession until she has filled two frames with eggs, when she may be removed and given to a colony which requires requeening. The nucleus should at the same, time be supplied with a ripe queen-cell, and the process repeated as long as young queens are required.

REQUEENING.

The most important bee within the hive is the queen, and it is useless to expect a colony to be productive unless she is a good one. It is therefore highly essential that all colonies should be headed with prolific queens of a good strain if vigorous workers are to be raised. Queen - rearing is an important adjunct in apiarymanagement, and unless provision is made to requeen systematically the beekeeper will find dwindling colonies and diminished crops. , Where practicable, it is advisable to requeen the colonies every year. Exception, however, must be made in the case of hives containing breeding-queens, and others retained op account of desirable drones. Where the operations of the beekeeper are such as to prevent annual requeening, provision should be made to replace half the queens in the apiary each year. If this plan is followed no colony will have queens more than two years old. With the aid of a few nuclei young queens can easily be hatched and mated, but in many —especially where a swarm has emerged from a hivevirgin queens can be secured and form an easy solution of the requeening problem.

No better plan can be followed by the beginner than to utilize queen-cells produced naturally — that is, under the swarming-impulse. In New Zealand it has been proved that the best months for raising queens are from November to January. During this period everything is favourable to the operation, as the hives are at their highest state, of prosperity. Under normal conditions the workers and drones are at their best, this being the swarming-period. There is practically no risk of robbing ;’ the young queens are readily accepted, and will tend to reduce swarming. Moreover, a queen introduced during the months of prosperity will produce numbers of young bees for the winter, and still be fairly young in the following spring. In the case of after-swarms, these may be sifted through an excluder placed between two empty supers, when the queen or queens can be removed. The bees will then return to the parent hive.

These young queens can be utilized for starting nuclei. It always seems a pity to destroy the young vigorous queens bred under the swarming-influence, and wherever there is an opportunity they should be saved and failing queens destroyed. A handy method of introducing virgin queens is by the smoke method. The old queen must first be removed from the hive that is to be requeened. The entrance then is contracted, and a few vigorous puffs of smoke are forced in at it. Then, before the bees have recovered, from this treatment, the virgin queen is released at the entrance, piloted into the now queenless hive, and hastened therein by several more puffs of thick smoke. The hive is then closed altogether for about ten minutes, after which the entrance is once more opened slightly and left like this till the next day, when the full entrance can once more be allowed.

EXTRACTING.

Preparations for extracting the honey must be well in hand. By the time these notes are published the main flow should have started in the North, but it will depend entirely upon weather conditions. In the South the flow is fully three weeks later, and extracting rarely commences before the New Year.

It is well to get all the arrangements for handling the crop completed before the honey is sealed and ready for the extractor. It does not take a great deal of time to prepare extra supers and frames, but these are of inestimable value to the beekeeper when the main honey-flow commences. Every year immense quantities of honey are lost through lack of proper gear for handling the crop, or through the unreadiness of the beekeeper when the hives are full of honey. It is poor economy to keep one’s supply so low that the bees hang about outside the hive and loaf for want of combs in which to store the honey.

Room should be provided for the workers as soon as the first honey is capped, either by extracting the combs or by supplying them with another super. Keeping the extractor running from the beginning of the honey-flow till the end is good beekeeping, provided the honey is not extracted while in an unripe condition. Although some authorities advocate leaving all the honey in the hives until the end of the seasonthereby building colonies three and four stories high the result is rather heavy work, and this method is not advisable in southern localities. Where the summer is short and variable the risk of getting the honey chilled by leaving it in the hives until the end of the season is too great.. Honey, except in a few instances, is best extracted when warm from the hives. In fact, where there is any tendency to “ thick ” honey, extracting while the honey is warm is the only way to obviate breaking the combs in the extractor.

Comb-honey should be treated in the same way. All sections should be removed from the hives as soon as they are filled. This makes them less liable to be daubed with the propolis and to become “ travel-stained ” by the constant passage of the bees.

The extractor, tank, and all the rest of the gear connected with the handling of honey should be scalded and thoroughly dried before commencing the season's work. Honey, by reason of its peculiar method of production, does not call for the daily cleansing required by other foods, but it behoves the beekeeper to see that his honey-house is as trim as hands can make it. After the extractor has been scalded it should be kept covered with a clean washing cover when not in actual use, and every receptacle containing honey should receive the same treatment. These covers are easily made and washed, are inexpensive, and add much to the condition of honey as an article of food. No bees, flies, or any extraneous matter should be allowed to touch the honey once it leaves the extractor, and from the time the bees gather it till it leaves the beekeeper’s hands for market his aim should be to produce a dainty and attractive article of food.

EXTRACTING APPLIANCES.

It is useless trying to work bees profitably without proper appliances. These consist of an extractor, uncapping - knives, uncapping - can, and settling - tanks. Many beekeepers make the mistake of trying to get along with any makeshifts, but experience will teach that it is a poor policy to endeavour to operate without an up-to-date equipment. However small the number of hives kept, if extracting is the objective it will be found to be most profitable to install a four-frame machine. Costing a little more at the initial outlay, it will soon pay for itself in labour-saving, and enable the beekeeper to meet the biggest flow. In any case he should not be persuaded to purchase a machine that will not reverse. Fixed machines are labour-makers, besides being messy in working. When fifty or more colonies are worked it will be found that a power plant pays for itself over and over again. Prior to the war the cost of installing a power plant was only a moderate figure, and yet relatively few of such plants are to be found in use.

Second in importance is a good tank. No apiary equipment is complete without one or two good tanks. Too little attention is paid to maturing the honey when out. of the hive, and freeing it from the minute particles of wax which float on its surface. It must be left to the beekeeper to decide the size of tank he requires, this depending on his needs and. conveniences. Particulars of the construction of a suitable tank to meet the requirements of an apiary of 100 to 150 colonies are given in the Department’s Bulletin No. 55, “ Bee-culture.”

For rapid working two ordinary uncapping-knives are very convenient, but as yet no better invention has been given to the beekeeping world than the steam-heated knife. This knife obviates the necessity of constantly dipping the cold knives into hot water, and the work of uncapping can proceed uninterruptedly. There are several uncapping-cans and melters on the market, most of which are more or less satisfactory, but the perfect capping-melter has yet to be invented.

DISEASE.

If the weather conditions have not been favourable for the treatment of foul-brood this should be undertaken when the first opportunity occurs. Do not delay until the main flow arrives. Remember that if colonies are treated early enough a surplus of honey will be secured and the expense of treatment

recovered. Handling clean bees is a constant source of delight, but diseased bees are a never-ending cause of trouble. Full particulars of the treatment of disease were given last month, but if fuller information is required this is given in Bulletin No. i, “ Foul-brood in Bees,” which can be obtained free from Wellington or from the Apiary Instructors in. each centre.

— -E. A. Earp,

Senior Apiary Instructor.