Bee-keeping for profit

The question of profit depends almost entirely upon the knowledge, energy, and perseverance of the bee-keeper, for, given suitable hive-accommodation and proper attention, the bees can generally be depended upon to do their share of the work.

Regularity and Foresight.—All who are engaged in productive work in conjunction with Nature know that "there is a time for everything," in connection with that work, and every advantage must be taken of that particular tide if full benefits are to be secured at the harvest season. Work must be done in regular rotation. A farmer must plough his land before he can sow his seed; the seed must be sown at a certain time—sown in hope many months before the harvest can be expected. The same regularity and hopeful anticipation are necessary in bee-keeping if full advantage is to be secured of the honey-harvest. In the same manner, just as farmers must make use of modern methods and appliances to obtain the best return for the outlay of capital and labour, so the bee-keeper must bring into his work the practice of up-to-date principles and labour-saving appliances connected with bee-keeping.

The old "skep," and the happy-go-lucky methods connected with it have given place to the frame hive with well-defined principles to govern and stimulate the production of its community of workers.

To work a bar-framed hive for profit it is first necessary that the bee-keeper should exercise forethought and be prepared for any emergency that may arise. He should always have by him plenty of spare frames, foundations, supers, and other necessities, for nothing is more annoying than a shortage of such during an unexpected honey-flow. It is always at such times that his orders take longest in fulfilment, for it is then the appliance-maker is overwhelmed with commissions from unprepared clients, and the delay in the delivery of the goods means a corresponding reduction of the bee-keeper's profits.

Watchfulness and Intelligence.—These two qualities are essential assets to any would-be successful bee-keeper. There is no "golden rule," for his guidance through the year, nothing that must be done invariably at stated times and seasons. It is here that the novice is puzzled and perplexed, for apparently what is right at one time becomes wrong at another, but it is only by experience that the guiding knowledge is acquired. For instance, it is useless to feed a hive with the view to increase the brood, if the hive be queenless, or possesses a drone-breeding queen, or a fertile worker. And again, it is useless to put a super on a queenless stock or a weak hive, for instead of helping to conserve the heat of the hive one but adds to the area for the bees to heat with their own little bodies, with the additional risk of chilling the brood and starving the bees. For it should be remembered that the colder the hive, the greater the consumption of food by the bees.

It is well to bear in mind that the best of all heat-producers in a hive are the bees themselves, but to enable them satisfactorily to become so suitable accommodation and food are absolutely necessary.

The Queen.—One of the greatest mysteries connected with the hive is the life history of the queen bee, and her position in the bee community. Each hive is, as it were, a republic of female workers, who serve with slavish devotion one of their number set apart from birth for the position of supreme head of the community. Like their sex generally throughout Nature, they give of their best where it is most needed. They know by their instinct that if the queen is fed with rich food her egg-laying capacity is stimulated, and, on the contrary, when the honey-flow is finished, that the supply of such food must be checked, with a consequent reduction in the number of eggs laid. They know that the greater the population of the hive the greater the drain on their honey store.

Generally speaking the life of a queen bee extends from two to five years, at which age she is generally exhausted, or is deposed by the community in favour of a younger queen.

The egg from which a queen bee develops is at the first precisely similar to that which produces a worker, and both are fertile. It all depends upon the kind of cell in which the egg is deposited by the queen whether a mere worker or a royal offspring ensues. The queen cells are acorn shaped, and larger in size than the others and are generally placed on the edge of the comb. It is when the eggs are hatched—three days after they have been placed in the cells—that the special treatment of the queen grub commences. It is taken charge of by the nurses and fed with the rich food—known as "chyle" food (see page 50), and it is this food alone that produces the difference between a queen and a worker bee.

When the young queen is about a week old she will leave the hive to find a mate. As mating can only take place when the queen and drone are on the wing, she soars into the air followed by the rival and eager drones. When the mating is accomplished the queen returns to the hive and is then capable of laying eggs, both fertile and unfertile, at will. The drone also returns home, but only to die: he has laid down his life for the perpetuation of his race. A queen that has been recently mated can be identified by a white speck on the back near the end of the abdomen—the organ torn away from the drone.

Should a queen fail to be mated within six weeks of her leaving the cell she is only capable of laying unfertile eggs. The egg-laying capacity of the queen, under the "chyle-food" treatment is enormous, ranging up to 3,000 eggs per day.

When a ruling queen realises that a queen grub is being reared in the hive, the sex-hatred of a possible rival soon manifests itself, and were it not for the watchful care of the workers the young queen's career would soon be ended. But the old queen is put virtually under arrest, and not allowed to venture near the queen cells. Her agitation increases until she summons together all who are willing to follow her and leaves the hive. This exodus of a queen and her adherents is known as "a swarm." (See page 44.)

The queen bee can always be distinguished by her greater size, while the increased length of her legs makes her still more prominent among the workers. If it is wished to prevent the rearing of queens in the hive, all that is necessary is for the bee-keeper to cut out the queen cells from the combs, and give the bees additional room to store the food they gather.

The Worker Bee.—The normal worker bee is an undeveloped female and a true amazon. She is utterly indifferent to the drone, and is, of course, unable to propagate her species. In some cases, however, the ovaries of a worker are so far developed that she is able to produce eggs which are necessarily unfertile. Such a worker is a nuisance in a modern hive worked for profit.

As we have already seen, the egg from which the worker develops is precisely similar to that from which a queen springs; the rôle of worker or queen is determined by the cell in which the egg is deposited. A grub in a worker cell gets but little "chyle" food—it is stopped altogether on the third day—and a mixed diet of honey and pollen. The drone is brought up entirely on the latter food.

As soon as a worker grub leaves the cell it enters upon its life of labour. It is immature at this point, and as the air-organs, or tracheæ, are not fully developed, it cannot fly. Its first work, therefore, is that of "nurse" to the grubs still in the cells, and to supply the queen with "chyle" food. About a fortnight after leaving the cell, the young bee, if the weather be fine and warm, will venture out of the hive to try its wings, and on early spring days such numbers of them may be seen sporting near the entrance of the hive as to lead a novice to suppose that swarming was about to take place. The bee-keeper of experience, however, while rejoicing at the sight, will know that the exodus is partly due to the fact that some natural or artificial food has entered the hive and that more must be supplied for the needs of the inmates.

After the worker's trial flight, she proceeds upon her duties as a food supplier to the community. She has had some experience as a "nurse" in handling pollen, so that at first it seems but natural she should give most attention to that food, and, in cleaning her body from its clinging particles, she finds out the uses of her several organs. In the beginning her loads of pollen are often small, but with experience her carrying capacity soon finds its limit. In time she discovers nectar in the flowers, and as she becomes less able to gather pollen she increases her honey-collecting power. When nectar is abundant bees will often commence their work at sunrise and continue throughout the day until sunset. In such a "honey-flow" the average life of the worker from the time she leaves the cell is seldom more than six or eight weeks, every minute of which is given up to the communal labour. The whole of the work inside the hive depends upon the worker—she is architect, builder, caretaker, nurse, sanitary officer and the rest; there is method in everything she does, so it is inadvisable to interfere unnecessarily with any part of it. She objects strongly to undue interference, to mere curiosity of inquisitive humans. The worker bees are, indeed, wondrous creatures: they are known to have their feelings of friendship and dislike almost human in their intensity; their expressions of sorrow on the loss of their queen or when their stores are failing are as unmistakable as their hum of contentment when the hive is thriving, or the buzz of anger when rudely-disturbed.

The Drone.—The drone is the male bee. He is the progeny of an unfertilised egg laid by the queen, or by a fertile worker. His life is usually a short and merry one. He lives entirely on the labour of others, and, unless there is something radically wrong with the hive, he is seen only during the spring and summer months, when his services are in requisition. When on the wing the drone is by far the noisiest of bees, although the sound he makes is somewhat similar to that made by the worker when on the warpath, the note of warning to the disturbing human, and the trumpet call to her fellow-workers.

Owing to the peculiar structure of the drone, mating can only take place in the air, and when it has been accomplished the drone returns to the hive but to die. When the honey-flow fails the death warrant of the drones still in the hive is issued. They are seized by the workers and killed or ejected from the hive. To the onlooker there is a certain amount of amusement to watch this slaughter of the non-producers of the community: to see a couple of workers wrestling with the unwieldy drone, perhaps biting off one of his wings in the effort to disable him, before the finishing stroke is given. When, however, a bee-keeper sees the array of dead drones he will probably think it would have been better for him had they been workers—producers rather than consumers of honey. It is, of course, greatly to the advantage of a bee-keeper that the number of the drones should be kept down as low as possible. This can be done by giving the bees full sheets of bees-wax impressed completely with the basal forms of the natural worker cells, thus inducing them to confine their building to those cells only.

We have already referred to the fact that a worker bee and a virgin queen are capable of producing eggs. The progeny of these eggs, however, although they may be produced in worker cells, are drones, fully developed, though smaller than those hatched in drone-cells. When this state of affairs is discovered in the hive the bee-keeper must ascertain by observation whether it is the queen's doings, and, if so, depose her and, if that of a fertile worker, destroy her. As a rule a fertile worker deposits her eggs in a scattered sort of way, but as the cells containing them are always capped as drone-cells—that is the cappings are raised in a dome-like way—they are easily distinguishable to the experienced eye.

(Magnified two diameters. Photographs by John J. Ward, F.E.S. )

Metamorphosis.—The metamorphosis, or change of form, which occurs in the early life history of the bee is among the most interesting in the insect world. When the egg is deposited by the queen, it rests on end on the bottom of the cell and almost parallel with the sides. At the close of the first day it inclines to an angle of about 45°, and after two days it falls to the floor of the cell. As a rule, the period of incubation is three days, and the grub is immediately taken charge of by the nurse bees, and fed according to the kind of cell in which it has been placed. At the end of five or six days the grub is sealed up in its cell to undergo the next, or pupa, stage of its existence. Generally speaking, the queen is ready to leave her cell on the fifteenth day, the worker on the twenty-first, and the drone on the twenty-fourth day from the time the egg is laid. If the weather is cold these periods may be extended: it is a curious fact that the egg of an insect can often bear a greater intensity of cold without injury than can the developed insect.

Anatomy of the Bee.—It is advisable that all bee-keepers should know something of the structure of the bee, of its principal organs and their functions. The subject is too technical to be dealt with at length in a volume such as this, but the following notes may be of sufficient service to rouse interest to further inquiry.

Tracheæ.—Bees have no lungs, but in place of them have air-sacs, connected up by air-tubes or tracheæ which run throughout the body, varying in size much as do the "veins" of a leaf, until they are minute enough to serve the extremities of the insect, the antennae and sting. This arrangement of the air-supplying organs, general throughout the insect world, may have something to do with the hibernation, to which most are subject in a greater or less degree, in cold weather.

The worker-bee is extremely sensitive to cold, but the queen seems far less susceptible, and often causes perceptible anxiety in a hive by wandering out of the cluster in cold weather. I know of one instance which came under my notice where the queen was very much alive in a hive in which all the workers were dead, or dying from starvation in cold weather, and although it is a recognised fact that queens which have been injured by frost become drone-breeders it was not so in this case.

The Antennæ.—The antennae of the bee must be accounted among the most marvellous of its organs. They are made up of a number of joints and chambers, and, though they are conjectured to be the organs of the senses of hearing, feeling, and smelling they are not definitely so known to be. As in the case of many other insects the antennæ of the male bee are much longer than those of the female.

The Tongue.—From the bee-keeper's point of view the tongue of the bee is one of its most important organs, for by means of it the bee secures the nectar from the flowers. When the nectar is in abundance the tongue serves as a trunk or proboscis through which it can be drawn, and when the supply is scanty the spoon-like end of the proboscis serves to lap it up. From the tongue the nectar passes into the "honey stomach" from which it is regurgitated and stored in the hive.

The Legs.—The six legs of the bee serve for manifold purposes other than walking, and are so wonderfully adapted to them as to be worthy of close study. They serve as hands, as combs and brushes for cleansing purposes, they are provided with claws which are available for climbing rough surfaces, or for clinging in the swarm: between the claws is a pad which secretes a substance which enables the bee to walk comfortably on smooth surfaces whether upside down or normally. On the thighs of the hind legs are the pollen baskets in which are carried the burden of pollen gathered from the flowers and taken to the hive for storage.

The Eyes.—Three eyes, one simple and two compound, form the complement for each bee. The single eye, the smallest, is placed in the centre of the crown of the head, and the two compound on either side of the head. Each compound eye consists of hundreds of facets each of which has a perfect vision. Much argument has been made as to the reason for all this sight-power, but without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion. It is certain, however, that although the bee can move about freely and work in the darkness of the hive, yet it cannot see in the dark, for who among those who have worked bees has not heard the plaintive wail of a bee that has been overtaken by the night before gaining its hive—and this with the hives within easy range?

The Jaws.—The jaws are used in much of the work of the hive—kneading wax, cutting and reducing the combs, capping the cells, for clearing away refuse, and particularly for carrying dead bees from the hive. They serve as weapons, too, for fighting, and in ejecting the useless drones when their season is ended. Then the jaws are used as nippers to cut the wings of the bulky drone and so render him helpless.

The Wings.—Each wing consists of two parts, an arrangement which allows the bee to close, or fold them up when she alights. On the adjoining edge of each part is a row of minute hooks, and when the wings are expanded these hooks become attached and thus provide a strong and reliable flying surface. In addition to providing the means of flight, the wings of the bee serve as fans for the ventilation of the hive, a certain number of the community, who also act as sentries, often being engaged in such duty. Should a bee-keeper see any of the "fanners" at work on the alighting board at the entrance of the hive he may know at once that the hive is too warm, and if he be wise will open the entrance a little wider. Should the bees continue their ventilating work after that, then he may surely know that something is wrong and open the hive to investigate. The bees do not so work without urgent need. It may be that the stores of food are fermenting, or that wet has penetrated to the combs: mice may have entered the hive, or, worst of all, foul brood may be rampant. All these would cause bad odours, and the bees should be helped as speedily as possible to remove the evil.

The Sting.—This weapon of offence and defence is usually the last in the equipment of the bee to be used, for its discharge generally means loss of life to its owner. To the enemy against whom it is launched, it becomes a source of irritation and annoyance and sometimes of danger. The sting is a fine lance, with incisions down one side which act as barbs when the flesh is pierced by it, sinking the lance deeper at each convulsion of the stinger or the stung. So soon as a barb is fixed it is impossible for the bee to withdraw the sting, and in its struggle to be free the whole of the stinging organs—including the poison sac—are dragged from it, and the poison enters the wound. For this reason it is necessary that the sting should be extracted as soon as possible, for the longer it remains in the flesh the greater will be the irritation. Should the sting be inflicted near a hive it will be wise to remove oneself from the neighbourhood without loss of time, for it is a well-known fact that the scent of the sting attracts other bees and arouses their anger against the presumed enemy of their kind.

The best remedy for a sting from a bee is methylated spirit, applied immediately the sting has been extracted—though it is well to remember that bees have an abhorrence of spirit, so that all trace of it should be removed before venturing near a hive, or further stings may be induced. There are many popular remedies for stings, such as the application of ammonia, washing soda, the blue bag, an onion—all of which have the same object—to nullify the effects of the irritant poison, of which formic acid is one of the principal constituents.

Occasionally bees will attack fowls, although it is more than likely in most such cases that the fowls are the aggressors and mistake the bees for flies, of which they are very fond.

Stingless Bees.—There has been much talk of breeding stingless bees, but personally I do not think such bees are ever likely to oust our native breeds, for what chance could they have in fights with the armed variety?