THE APIARY.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 41, Issue 5, 20 November 1930, Page 367

THE APIARY.

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 apiary -management, ’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 on 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 casesespecially 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 queencells produced naturallythat is, under the swarming impulse. It hasbeen proved that in New Zealand 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, thisbeing 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 swarminginfluence, 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 through 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 and Practice.

Preparations for extracting the honey must now 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 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 honeyflow 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 until the end of the season— building colonies three and four stories high —the result is rather heavy work, and this method is anyhow 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 hot call for the daily cleansing required by other foods, but it behoves the beekeeper to see that his honey-house is as trim as handscan 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. Thesecovers are easily made and washed, are inexpensive, a,nd 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 handsfor 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 settlingtanks. 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. Tn any case he should not be persuaded to purchase a machine that will not reverse. Fixed machines are labourmakers, 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.

Second in importance is a good tank. No apiary equipment is complete without one or two good tanks. . Too little attention is paid tomaturing 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.

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.

Treatment of 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 foul-brood are given in Bulletin No. 119, “ American Foulbrood and its Treatment,” which can be obtained free from the Department of Agriculture, Wellington, or from the Apiary. Instructors in each centre.

-E. A. Earp,

Senior Apiary Instructor, Wellington