Bee-keeping for profit

Swarming.—One of the oldest practices associated with bee-keeping is that of "ringing the swarm." Immediately the swarm was seen to issue from the hive the bee-keeper began to create as loud a din as he could by beating a tin or tray, and, so doing, followed the bees in their flight. This entitled him to claim the swarm wherever they settled, even though it might be in a neighbour's hive. "Ringing" is still continued, for it is the most effectual means at command for causing the bees to settle. The explosion of firearms, a clap of thunder, or the roar of a blast, will secure their doing so, and probably the most effectual "settler" for a swarm is a shower of rain—but none of these is at the immediate command of the bee-keeper.

When, therefore, the swarm is seen issuing from the hive preparations should be made for "ringing" and following it. The noise should not be commenced until it is certain that the queen has come out, or she may show no inclination to do so. Sometimes the swarm will fly for some distance, or it may happen to "cluster" comparatively near its former home. In some cases trouble arises from the fact, already stated on p. 44, that the swarm has chosen a home in a neighbour's empty hive. Any question of ownership can always be settled by an examination of the combs in this hive, for if there are no eggs or brood more than a few hours' old the bees undoubtedly belong to the claimant of the swarm, and he is entitled to their possession or their value. Should there be eggs or brood obviously deposited in the combs earlier than the day on which the swarm entered, then no claim can stand, for it is certain that it is impossible for the members of the swarm to be picked out from those already in the hive when they entered.

Handling the Swarm.—Should the swarm settle in a convenient position on a branch of a tree, it can be transferred directly to a bar-frame hive in the following manner: The hive, placed as nearly under the swarm as possible, should have the entrance to the body raised, and wedged, about an inch, and a board placed from the ground to the alighting board; a sheet should be spread over this board and the ground under the swarm. The swarm should be shaken from the branch on to the sheet.

Should the cluster be in too awkward a position for this to be done, a skep will have to be brought into requisition for transferring the swarm to their new quarters. The cluster may be shaken into the skep by gently raising the branch from which it is suspended and then giving it a sharp downward movement. The skep should be held firmly and gently turned right side up over the sheet on to which the bees should be shaken in front of the bar-frame hive.

Should the bees be slow to run into the hive, those at the rear should be given a few gentle puffs from the smoker.

Sometimes the swarm will contain more than one queen and consequently will split up into several clusters. In such a case each cluster has to be "shaken" separately. Occasionally it becomes necessary to "shake" a swarm two or three times if the queen is not hived. It sometimes happens, too, that the queen will come out again if the hive is objectionable to her, and almost certainly so if she be a virgin.

As a rule, though, the old queen comes out with the first swarm, but I have known cases in which swarming has been delayed, when as many as five queens, including the old one, have come out with the first swarm. In a very strong hive a virgin queen will sometimes come out with a first swarm, but in such cases the swarm, as a rule, is a very small one.

The hive used for a swarm should be scrupulously clean and contain sufficient frames and combs for the requirements of the swarm. It is usual to place only one thin quilt over the frames for the first few days after a swarm has been given possession.

Hives containing newly placed swarms are usually allowed to stay until the evening of the day before they are removed, but, of course, if the situation is an inconvenient one, or if the hive is liable to be a nuisance to the public, it should be taken away at once.

If allowed to remain it must be sheltered from the rays of the sun or the heat will cause the bees again to issue forth.

Should a swarm not be required by the bee-keeper he must return it to the hive whence it issued very early on the morning following the day of swarming.

Each bee in a swarm usually carries sufficient food to meet its requirements for one day, so that should a bee-keeper receive a swarm from a distance he should feed it as soon as it arrives. All swarms should be fed if the natural supply of nectar be scanty.

Excessive Swarming.—Where bees are given to excessive swarming some bee-keepers trim one of the wings of the queen to hinder her flight,—a method also adopted to distinguish the ages of queens: the right wing of one year's queens being cut, and the left of those of the following year. Of course, the wings of a virgin queen should never be trimmed, for mating is thereby prevented.

Swarm Preventing.—The bee-keeper who works for surplus honey does all he can to prevent his bees from swarming, and thus increases both his stock of bees and supplies of honey.

Anyone who has even but slightly studied the ways of bees will have noticed that they store their honey above the brood in response to one of the wonderful instincts bestowed upon them by nature, and it is by taking advantage of this fact that the bee-keeper who is working for profit assures himself of one point of success. It is the method of working standard frames from the brood-chamber as a super by which each hive is practically made into two—a queenless colony above and a brood stock below. I have tried pretty well all the systems used in England and have proved this to be the most successful in securing the purpose aimed at. For thereby the queen is given plenty of room in which to lay her eggs, and the bees plenty of accommodation in which to store their honey.

The method of working this plan is as follows. The bees should be stimulated in the spring and as soon as the weather is favourable to swarming the strongest hive should be examined. It the frames are seen to be covered by the bees, and almost full of brood or stores, everything is in order for the scheme. The essential point in it is the removal of the combs from the brood-chamber minus the queen.

A super of the same size as the brood-chamber should be prepared and a similar number of frames to those already in the brood-chamber duly fitted with empty combs or a sheet of foundation. The first frame is then removed from the brood-chamber, the bees shaken from it and placed in a super. The "shaking" should be done by holding the frame about a foot above the hive and giving it a sharp downward and upward jerk to displace the bees. Needless to say, great care is necessary in the operation, as to drop the frame, or crush the bees, would lead to disaster. When the second frame is removed, an opportunity is afforded to look for the queen, which may be identified by her larger bulk and longer legs. Close attention must be given to see that there are no queen cells in the combs as they are removed, for the presence of a queen in the super is fatal to the scheme. All queen cells—easily identified by their acorn shape—therefore, should be removed from the combs.

After the third frame has been removed the empty ones should be inserted as each full one is transferred to the super, until the whole interchange has been effected.

The next proceeding is to place a sheet of queen-excluding zinc over the brood frames, so that no possible way is open for the queen to gain access to the super. The super is then placed in position and covered up. Should the combs contain any drone brood opportunity will have to be given them to escape after hatching, as they cannot pass through the queen excluder. This may be done by rolling the quilt back for about an inch along the whole length of one side, on a bright, sunny day. The drones will soon find the opening and take flight.

If, after supering, the weather should be unfavourable for the bees to gather food, artificial feeding will have to be resorted to. Should the scheme be carried out early in the year and the queen be prolific, it may be found necessary to repeat it to prevent swarming.

It is necessary to remember that inasmuch as the rearing of young queens and the consequent swarming is not carried on under this method, it is a necessity that the hives should be re-queened every two years.

Queen Rearing.—It is better to retain one hive for queen-rearing purposes and this should contain the very best queen available so as to secure a good strain of workers.

The drones, too, should be selected by allowing no drone cells in any but the best hives.

For the small bee-keeper who cannot spare much time among his bees, and who only requires half a dozen queens in a year, I would recommend that queen-rearing should be worked in with the standard-frame super method described in the earlier part of this chapter. If this course be adopted the procedure is as follows.

The hive should be allowed to come to swarming-point in order that queen cells maybe formed by the bees. These should contain eggs or larvæ before the frames are transferred to the super, and all eggs or larvæ should be of the same age. This is an important point, for should one be hatched earlier than the others it will promptly destroy all the other queen eggs or larvae in the frame. The wisest plan is to destroy all queen cells that are capped and the ages of eggs or larvæ noted in accordance with the information given on this point on page 13.

In working this method of queen-rearing, the frames must not be shaken, but the bees brushed off into the hive, otherwise the contents of the queen cells will be displaced.

The zinc excluder, of course, must be thoroughly applied to prevent the queen obtaining access to the super.

The super can be left until the day previous to that on which the first young queen is due to leave the cell. It must then be removed, with all the bees in it, and it should either be split up or each queen caged in its cell.

After the super is split up, the bee-keeper should try to procure a swarm to divide amongst each part of the super—first running it through a queen excluder to catch the queen. These divisions should be given a separate hive if possible, but if it is necessary that they should occupy one large hive care must be taken thoroughly to separate each section and to have the entrances as far apart as possible. It is advisable, too, that the entrances should be of a different colour to ensure the young queens entering their own section, for should they by chance enter another a battle is sure to ensue with fatal results.

Re-queening the Hive.—As already stated, the method of working the hive with standard frames as a super necessitates re-queening every two years. There are several ways of doing this. One is to find the old queen and kill her, and allow the bees to install one of the young queens. This method, however, has many disadvantages. First of all, there is the disturbance to the hive in the search for the queen; secondly, if the queen be found and killed, there is a loss of nearly three weeks in the height of summer when no eggs are laid in the hive.

Another method is to allow the hive to swarm and to return the swarm to its hive after destroying the queen. But this plan, too, has the disadvantage of checking the supply of eggs.

The best method for all practical purposes is to re-queen after the honey-flow, either with a home-reared queen or one purchased from a reliable breeder. The old queen, together with any queen cells in the combs, must be removed three or four days before the new queen is introduced.

The easiest way to accomplish the introduction is by means of a queen-cage. These are usually made of wood with three compartments, in the inner two of which the queen is imprisoned. The other is filled with soft candy. This cage is placed over the frames in the hive and the queen is liberated by the bees eating a way through the candy. By the time this is accomplished the queen will have acquired the scent of the hive and will be accepted as ruler by the community.

The hive should not be disturbed for at least four days after the introduction of the new queen.

Driving Bees.—After the honey-flow is ended, it becomes necessary to clear some of the hives and unite the bees with others. The old method of dealing with this matter was the drastic and wasteful one of putting the hive over the sulphur pit and wiping out the bees. The more economical, as well as humane, method of driving is now generally practised by the commercial bee-keeper. Driving is often accomplished immediately after the clover has finished flowering, and the bees sold to the bee-keepers in the heather districts, who are often glad to increase their stocks in readiness for the heather honey harvest. In other cases the driven bees are used to strengthen weak hives. In any case driving must be done before the autumn unless the bee-keeper is prepared to give the bees drawn-out combs and food to fill them with in preparation for the winter.

When driving is to be put into operation it is always advisable to remove the hive that is to be driven well away from the other hives, for the operator is far more liable to be stung by the bees from them than by those to be driven. An empty hive should be placed in the position occupied by the removed one: this will serve to attract any stragglers and prevent their flying away.

Another empty hive will also be required for the process, which is commenced by turning the hive which contains the bees upside down. Over this is placed the empty one—which should be of the same size—and the edge nearest the end of the longest comb is fixed on the lower hive by means of a knitting needle thrust through both edges. The opposite edges of the hives should be left about six inches apart, being secured in that position by means of driving irons or strong pieces of hazel sharpened and stuck into the edge of both hives at a different angle from that of the knitting needle at the back.

It is advisable, too, to fix a tea-cloth or a piece of similar material, so as to prevent the bees from running up the outside of the top hive. The actual process of driving consists in tapping the sides of the lower hive to which the combs are fixed, simultaneously with the hands. If the bees are slow to run the taps may be given at shorter intervals, while if they run freely the tapping may be lighter and slower. As a rule the bees will fill themselves with food before leaving the combs and it may be necessary to use the smoker to dislodge the stragglers; in this case only very slight blasts should be administered.

Transporting Bees.—When hives are sent any distance care must be taken that ventilation is afforded above as well as below the bees. The reason for this is obvious; there must be a way for the escape of hot air which rises to the top of the hive. This can be secured by placing coarse linen cheese cloth or a sheet of perforated zinc under a thin porous quilt.

All loose parts of a bar-frame hive should be made thoroughly secure before the hive is dispatched. Skep hives should be packed bottom upwards in a crate.

Swarms and driven bees should be sent away as soon as possible after swarming and driving are completed, for, as we already have pointed out, bees can only carry sufficient food to meet one day's requirements.

It should be an accepted rule, therefore, that when a hive is received from a distance the bees should be fed immediately.

When bees are moved about regularly from one district to another it is advisable that the hive should be fitted with a short alighting board and thus take up less space in the conveyance.