Spring Work in the Apiary

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 101, Issue 3, 15 September 1960, Page 269

Spring Work in the Apiary

Seasonal Notes for the

Domestic Beekeeper

By

R. H. HOBBS,

Apiary Instructor, Department of Agriculture, Greymouth

WITH the advent of longer days, warmer temperatures, and increased hive activity, the beekeeper should plan his programme for the coming season. ALL hives should be examined as early as possible during spring for food supplies, laying queens, and disease. For this early inspection, hives should be opened on a warm, sunny day, preferably about midday, when the temperature is warmest.

Hives should not be opened during cold windy weather, early in the morning, or late in the evening if it can be avoided, as bees that fly from the hive may become chilled and, being unable to return to the hive, die of exposure. Bees also resent being handled if the weather is adverse and the beekeeper is apt to get a severe stinging unless he is wearing proper protective clothing. Once bees become roused and start stinging they often follow the beekeeper from hive to hive. These bees cause others within opened hives to become infuriated and this can make handling of bees very unpleasant. Beekeepers who have colonies in cities, towns, or urban localities should take special care to avoid unduly arousing their bees, as they are likely to cause trouble by stinging neighbours or their animals. Good Equipment Essential Good equipment for working with bees as illustrated on this page is essential. Main items are a bee smoker, a bee veil, a hive tool, lightcoloured combination overalls, preferably with a zip fastener down the front, and a pair of leather gloves. The smoker should be capable of giving off a large volume of cool, white smoke. A good smoker used judiciously will control the bees at all times. The main types of fuel used in the smoker are sacking, pine needles, and wood shavings. When a hive is opened the lid should be placed upside down in front of the hive and the supers placed on it as the hive is pulled down to avoid honey being spilt on the ground or the queen getting lost. For the first inspection the hive should be checked over for

a laying queen, disease, and the amount of stores. It should then be reassembled. Hives should not be left open longer than necessary, as the brood may become chilled or bees from another hive may start robbing. Defective Queens and Queenless Hives Colonies at this time of the year should have two or three well filled combs of brood in the centre of the brood nest. If there is very little or no brood, the queen should be checked for age or deformities which may prevent her from laying to the capacity of the hive. All queens that are past their prime or are defective should be replaced as soon as possible by young, vigorous, well bred queens either raised by the beekeeper or obtained from some reliable commercial breeder. Hives may be found to be queenless or with drone-laying queens and occasionally laying workers. Drone laying may be caused by an old queen failing; or by a young queen failing to mate because of bad weather, being raised too late in autumn for mating; or being unsuccessfully mated. The eggs laid by a drone layer are irregularly placed in the brood nest and the brood is sealed with high, bullet-shaped cappings (see illustration above). In a hive where a drone-laying queen is present the queen should be killed and all the brood removed an'’ replaced with other combs of work brood with adhering nurse bees from queen-right colonies. The day a queen cell or a caged queen may be introduced, or, after the queen has been killed, the hive can be united with a queen-right colony. Laying workers are usually found in a colony that has been unable to

raise a queen and has been queenless for a long time. Ordinary worker bees are females, but are physically unable to mate and any eggs they lay must be unfertile and hatch out into drones which are smaller than those produced by a drone-laying queen. Laying workers lay their eggs on the sides of the cells, usually several in each cell. Colonies in which there are laying workers are usually very weak and consist mainly of old bees. It is almost impossible to do anything with such colonies and they are better destroyed. Queenless colonies that have become weak are best united with queen-right colonies. Others can be given combs of brood with adhering bees from stronger hives and next day given a ripe queen cell. Colonies that have been queenless for a long time will accept only queen cells or a virgin queen and will almost invariably destroy laying queens unless they are given brood and nurse bees before a laying queen is introduced. During early-spring inspection all colonies should be checked for the presence of American foul brood disease (Bacillus larvae). Any colony that has been robbed or has died out during winter or early spring should be thoroughly examined and if this disease is found, the hives should be destroyed immediately by burning and the local Apiary Instructor of the Department of Agriculture notified within seven days. Failure to detect the presence of this disease in hives in autumn, when the hives are closed down for winter, usually results in affected hives being robbed out in early spring by other colonies. In this manner the disease is spread to other hives and apiaries, and for this reason the importance of an early-spring inspection cannot be over-emphasised. Supplementary Feeding In most districts the food reserves in each colony should be not less than 25 to 30 lb of honey and at least the equivalent of one full comb of pollen. Where stores are short supplementary feeding should be carried out. The amount of supplementary feeding will vary in each district according to the nectar sources available and also the effect of local climate on their yields. Where combs of honey are saved from the previous season adjustments to colony stores can be easily made, but if the supply of these combs is limited, it is advisable to feed the combs of honey to the weaker colonies and to feed stronger colonies with sugar syrup or dry sugar. Sugar syrup can be made by mixing equal quantities of Al grade white sugar and warm water and by stirring until all the sugar is completely dissolved. Syrup may be fed in division board feeders or in tins with perforated lids. The tins are inverted and

placed within the hive as close to the bee cluster as possible. Feeding should be done toward evening, as this reduces the tendency of the bees to rob. Use of Dry Sugar Dry sugar is being used by a large number of beekeepers because it is the easiest, quickest, and simplest method of feeding sugar. It does not excite the bees and start them robbing, so that it can be fed at any time during the day; nor does it stimulate the hive and cause excessive brood rearing as feeding of syrup may. It should not be fed to hives during excessively cold weather, as the bees may not leave the cluster and work on the dry sugar or be able to leave the hive to obtain the moisture needed to convert the sugar into syrup for storage in the combs. The easiest and simplest method of feeding dry sugar is to place the sugar on top of the combs toward the back of the hive. It will fall down between

the combs on to the bottom board, from where the bees will take it up and convert it into syrup as required. Other methods are to place the sugar on top of an inner cover with a hole in the middle directly above the brood nest, which allows the bees access to the sugar, or to remove a comb from the outside of the brood nest and partly close the entrance on that side of the hive; the sugar is then poured with a fire shovel or large scoop into the cavity thus made. After dry sugar has been fed, worker bees will be observed carrying grains of sugar out of the hive and dropping them a foot or two away from the entrance. This is more noticeable in hives that have been fed the dry sugar on top of the combs and is caused by the bees cleaning the sugar grains out of the cells of the combs. However, when these hives are opened and inspected they will be found in as good condition and as well supplied with stores as hives fed by different methods.

Efficient Mole Drainage

THE amount of water in the soil at time of moling has an important influence on the efficiency and life of mole drains and should be the major consideration in determining when this work is done. Examination of moles pulled when the soil is wet will generally show that channels have become completely or partially blocked with slurry and though they may carry some water, their region of influence is very narrow. Strips of green 18 in. wide in an otherwise unthrifty pasture indicated in one case the limited benefit derived from moles pulled when the soil was too wet. The absence of shattering in the clay subsoil when

moles are pulled in wet soils has been suggested as being responsible for this strip effect. A discharge from outlets immediately moles are pulled indicates that conditions are too wet and the system is unlikely to be effective. Heavy rains after moling, particularly on a soil already wet, have sometimes proved detrimental to the system. Moling should be done when the clay is reasonably dry, just wet enough to be plastic, and when there are reasonable prospects of dry weather. —J. F. SCOTT, Farm Advisory Officer, Department of Agriculture, Christchurch