Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained Part 22

If both hives are one color, set the old one two feet in front; but if of different colors, a little more. I prefer this position to setting the old stock on one side, even when there is room; yet it can make but little difference. Should you set it on one side, let the distance be less. When the old stock is taken much farther than this rule, all the bees that have marked the location (and all the old ones will have done so) will go back to the old stand, and none but young bees that have never left home will remain. The same will be the case with the new swarm if moved off. It will not do to depend on the old queen keeping them, as she does when they swarm out naturally. This has been my experience. Try it, reader, and be satisfied, by putting either of the hives fifteen or twenty feet distant.

Before you turn over the old stock, look among the combs as far as possible for queens' cells; if any contain eggs or larvae, you may safely risk their rearing a queen; but otherwise wait till next morning, or at least twenty-four hours, then go to a stock that has cast a swarm, and obtain a finished royal cell, as before directed, and introduce it. You will have a queen here as soon as if it had been left in the original hive, and no risk of an after swarm, because there is but one. But when there are young queens in the cells at the time of driving, after swarms may issue. Should a queen-cell be introduced immediately, it is more liable to be destroyed than after waiting twenty-four hours; and then is not always safe. After it has had time to hatch, (which is about eight days after being sealed), cut it out, and examine it: if the lower end is open, it indicates that a perfect queen has left it, and all is safe; but if it is mutilated or open at the side, it is probable that the queen was destroyed before maturity, in which case, another cell will have to be given them.

ARTIFICIAL SWARMS ONLY SAFE NEAR THE SWARMING SEASON.

By what I have said about artificial swarms, it would appear that it is unsafe at any time but the swarming season; that is my opinion. It may do a little in advance or a little after, providing royal cells can be had. By feeding as directed, (in Chapter IX.) you may induce a stock to send out a swarm some days in advance of the regular season, thereby giving you a chance for these cells somewhat early.

SOMETIMES HAZARDOUS.

To make such swarms at any time when the bees are destroying drones, would be extremely hazardous, not only on account of the young queen being impregnated, but their ma.s.sacre denotes a scarcity of honey.

Therefore I would advise never to make swarms, or drive out bees at such periods, when it can be avoided, without spare honey is on hand to feed them.

SOME OBJECTIONS.

It has been argued by some, and with much reason, that "nature is the best guide, and it is better to let the bees have their own way about swarming--if honey is abundant, and the stock is in condition to spare a swarm, their own instincts will teach them to construct royal cells; if it fails before they are ready, and the royal brood is destroyed, it is because the existence of the swarm would be precarious, and it is best not to issue." I will grant that in many instances it is better.

The chance is better for surplus honey; the stock is quite sure to be in condition to winter; and some judgment is required to tell when a stock can spare a swarm.

But yet, we are sometimes anxious to increase our stocks to the utmost that safety will allow, and often have some that can spare a swarm as well as not, but refuse to leave; perhaps commence preparations, and in a few days abandon them. Now it is evident that as long as many continue such preparation, that honey is sufficiently abundant to put the safety of the swarm beyond hazard; some stocks will swarm while these others just as good, (that had abandoned it before) and have not now begun again, to be in time before a partial failure of honey, and some may not have commenced in season.

NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL SWARMS EQUALLY PROSPEROUS.

I can see no difference in artificial or natural swarms of equal size, at the same time. By taking the matter in time into our own hands, with the rules given, we make a sure thing of it, that is, we are sure to get the swarms, when if left to the bees it would be uncertain, and no greater risk afterwards than with natural issues.

THIS MATTER TOO OFTEN DELAYED.

I am aware that this matter will be apt to be put off too long; "wait and see if they don't swarm," will be the motto of too many, and when the season is over, drive them. Perhaps a good swarm has set outside the hive, all through the best of the honey season, and done nothing, while they could have half filled a hive; but this is all lost now, as well as the best chances for getting cells. Let me impress the necessity of doing it in season, when it will pay. If you intend to have a swarm from every stock that can spare one, begin when nature points out the proper time, which is, when the regular ones begin to issue. It must, indeed, be a poor season when there are none.

IS THE AGE OF THE QUEEN IMPORTANT?

There is another object effected in this way, considered by some apiarians as very important. It is the change of the queens in the old stock. A young queen is thought to be "much more prolific than an old one." They even recommend keeping none "over two or three years old,"

and give directions how they may be renewed. But as I have been unable to discover any difference in relation to the age in this respect, I shall not at present take much time to discuss it. It is well enough, when we can take our choice without trouble, to preserve a young queen.

When we consider that there are but few queens but what will deposit three times as many eggs in a season as are matured, it looks as if it would hardly pay to take much trouble to change them. At what time the queen becomes barren from old age, I presume has never yet been fully determined.

A friend of mine has had a stock in a large room eight years, that has never swarmed, and is still prosperous! I think it very probable that this queen will gradually decay, and possibly become barren, some weeks before she dies; if so, this stock will soon die off. A few such cases will probably occur in swarming hives, perhaps one in fifty, but generally such old and feeble queens are lost when they leave with the swarm, especially in windy weather. As long as they are able to go with the swarm, and sometimes when they are not, I have found them sufficiently prolific for all purposes. I would rather risk their fecundity, and hive the swarm, than to allow the bees to return to the parent stock, and wait eight or nine days for a young queen to mature.

A great many will remain idle, even if there is room to work in the boxes.

CHAPTER XVI.

PRUNING.

Notwithstanding I have given the method of pruning in the chapter on hives, (page 23, Chapter II.) it will be necessary to give the tyro in bee-culture a few more particulars. The season for doing it is of importance.

DIFFERENT OPINIONS AS TO TIME.

The month of March has been recommended by several; others prefer April, August, or September. Here, as usual, I shall have to differ from them all, preferring still another period, for which I offer my reasons, supposing, of course, that the reader is conscious of a freeman's privilege, that is, to adopt whatever method he thinks proper, on this, as on any other point.

ANOTHER TIME PREFERRED.

There is but one period from February till October, when prosperous stocks are free from young brood in the combs. If combs are taken out when occupied, there must be a loss of all the young bees they contain; which may be avoided. The old queen leaves with the first swarm; all the eggs she leaves in the worker-cells will be matured in about twenty-one days, consequently this is the time to clear out the old combs with the least waste. A few drones will be found in the cells, that would require a few days more to hatch, but these are of no account. Also a few very young larvae and some eggs may be sometimes found, the product of the young queen; these few must be wasted, but as the bees have expended no labor upon them as yet, it is better to sacrifice these than the greater number left by her mother, which have consumed their portion of food; the bees have sealed them up, and now only require the necessary time to mature, to make a valuable addition to the stock.

SHOULD NOT BE DELAYED.

Should this operation be put off for a time much longer than three weeks, the young queen will so fill the combs again as to make it a serious loss. Therefore, I wish to urge strongly attention to this point at the proper season. If you think it unimportant to mark the date of your first swarms for the purposes mentioned in another place, it will be found very convenient here, for those that need pruning.

It is also recommended by some, to take only a part, say one-third or half, in a season; thereby taking two or three years to renew the combs. This is advisable only when the family is very small. As this s.p.a.ce made by pruning cannot be filled without wax and labor, our surplus honey will be proportionate to its extent. Now suppose we take out half the old combs, and get half a yield of box honey this year, and the same next, or make a full operation of it and get none this year, and a full one next. What is the difference? There is none in point of honey, but some in trouble, and that is in favor of a full operation at once. We have to go through with about the same trouble to get one-third or half as to take the whole.

OBJECTION TO PRUNING.

The objection to this mode of renewing combs generally, will be the fear of getting stung. But I can a.s.sure you there is but little danger, not as much as to walk among the hives in a warm day. Only begin right, use the smoke, and work carefully, without pinching them, and you will escape unhurt generally.

STOCKS PRUNED NOW ARE BETTER FOR WINTER.

Besides the advantage of saving a large brood by pruning at this season, such stocks will usually refill before fall, and are much better for wintering, which is not the case when it is done later. We must of necessity then waste the brood, and have a large s.p.a.ce unoccupied with combs through the winter. But few combs can then be made, and those few must be at the expense of their winter stores, unless we resort to feeding.

These objections apply with greater force to pruning in March or April.

The loss of brood is of much more consequence now, than in mid-summer, or even later, and a s.p.a.ce to be filled with combs is a serious disadvantage. It is important that the bees should devote their whole attention now to rearing brood, and be ready to cast their swarms as early as possible. One _early_ swarm is worth two late ones. Suppose a stock, instead of collecting food and nursing its young, is compelled to expend its honey and labor in secreting wax and constructing combs before it can proceed with breeding advantageously, it _must of necessity_ be some weeks later.

Further, I have always found it best to have the bees out of the way, during this operation. It will be found much more difficult to drive the bees out of a hive in the cool weather of March or April, than in summer, as they seem unwilling to s.h.i.+ft their warm quarters and go into a cold hive.

It is presumed the reader will bear in mind the disadvantages already given of too frequently renewing combs; the little value of combs for storing honey, _for our use_, after being once used for breeding; the necessity of the bees using them as long as they possibly will answer; and not compel them to be filling the hive, when they might be storing honey of the purest quality in boxes, &c.

Vide remarks on this subject on page 22, Chapter II.

CHAPTER XVII.

DISEASED BROOD.

This, like many other chapters in this work, is probably new, as I, never saw one thus headed. A few newspaper discussions are about all that have yet appeared on this subject.