Part 14 (1/2)
The honey-cover, for convenience, is generally in two pieces: these cannot be laid down on the hive, without danger of killing many bees; they are therefore very carefully _slid_ on, so that any bees which may be in the way, are pushed before them, instead of being crushed. If any bees are upon such parts of the hive as to be imprisoned if the outside cover is closed, it should be left a little open, until they have flown to the entrance of the hive. It cannot be too deeply impressed upon the bee-keeper, that all his motions must be slow and gentle, and that the bees must not be injured or breathed upon. If he will carefully follow the directions I have given, he may soon open a hundred hives and perform any necessary operation upon them, without any bee-dress, and yet with very little risk of being stung, but I almost despair of being able to convince even the most experienced Apiarians, of the ease and safety with which bees may be managed on my plan, until they have actually been eye-witnesses of its successful operation.
I can make an artificial colony in the way above described in ten minutes from the time that I open the hive, and if I see the queen as quickly as I often do, in not more than five minutes. Fifteen minutes will be a very liberal allowance of time to complete the whole work. If I had an Apiary of a hundred colonies, in less than a week, if the weather was pleasant, I could without any a.s.sistance easily finish the business of swarming for the whole season.
But how can the Apiarian, if he delays the formation of artificial swarms until nearly the season for natural swarming, be sure that his bees will not swarm in the usual way? Must he not still be constantly on hand, or run the risk of losing many of his best swarms? I come now to the entirely novel plan by which such objections are completely obviated. If the Apiarian decides that he can most advantageously multiply his colonies by artificial swarming, he must see that all his fertile queens are deprived of their wings, so as to be unable to lead off new swarms. As an old queen never leaves the hive except to accompany a new swarm, the loss of her wings does not, in the least interfere with her usefulness, or with the attachment of the bees.
Occasionally, a wingless queen is so bent on emigrating, that in spite of her inability to fly, she tries to go off with a swarm; she has ”a will,” but contrary to the old maxim she can find ”no way,” but helplessly falls upon the ground instead of gaily mounting into the air.
If the bees succeed in finding her, they will never desert her, but cl.u.s.ter directly around her, and may thus be easily secured by the Apiarian. If she is not found, the bees will return to the parent stock to await the maturity of the young queens. The Apiarian will ordinarily be prepared to form his artificial colonies before any of these young queens are hatched.
The following is the best plan for removing the wings from the queens.
Every hive which contains a young queen, ought to be examined about a week after she has hatched, (see Chapter on Loss of the Queen,) in order to ascertain that she has been impregnated, and has begun to lay eggs.
Some of the central combs or those on which the bees are most thickly cl.u.s.tered, should be first lifted out, for she will almost always be found on one of them; the Apiarian when he has caught her, should remove the wings on one side with a pair of scissors taking care not to hurt her. On examining his hives next season, let him remove one of the two remaining wings from the queen. The third season, he may deprive her of her last wing. Bees always have four wings, a pair on each side. This plan saves him the trouble of marking his hives so as to know the age of the queens they contain.
As the fertility of the queen generally decreases after the second year, I prefer, just before the drones are destroyed, to kill all the old queens that have entered their third year. In this way, I guard against some of my stocks becoming queenless, in consequence of the queen dying of old age, when there is no worker-brood in the hive, from which they can rear another: or of having a worthless, drone-laying queen whose impregnation has been r.e.t.a.r.ded. These old queens are removed at that period of the year when their colony is strong in numbers; and as the honey-harvest is by this time, nearly over, their removal is often a positive benefit, instead of a loss. The population is prevented from being over crowded at a time when the bees are consumers and not producers, and when the young queen, reared in the place of the old one matures, she will rapidly fill the cells with eggs, and raise a large number of bees to take advantage of the late honey-harvest, and to prepare the hive to winter most advantageously.
The certainty, rapidity and ease of making artificial swarms with my hives, will be such as to amaze those most who have had the greatest experience and success in the management of bees. Instead of weeks wasted in watching the Apiary, in addition to all the other vexations and embarra.s.sments which are so often found to attend reliance on natural swarming, the Apiarian will find not only that he can create all his new colonies in a very short time, but that he can, if he chooses, entirely prevent the issue of all after-swarms. In order to do this, he ought to examine the stocks which are raising young queens, in season to cut out all the queen cells but one, before the larvae come to maturity.
If he gave them a sealed queen nearly mature, they will raise no others, and no swarming, for that season, will take place. If the Apiarian wishes to do more than to double his stocks in one season, and is favorably situated for practicing natural swarming, he can allow the stocks that raise young queens to swarm if they will, and he can strengthen the small swarms by giving to them comb with honey and maturing brood from other hives. Or he can, after an interval of about three weeks, make one swarm from every two good ones in his Apiary, in a way that will soon be described.
I do not know that I can find a better place in which to impress certain highly important principles upon the attention of the bee-keeper. I am afraid, that in spite of all that I can say, many persons as soon as they find themselves able to multiply colonies at pleasure, will so overdo the matter, as to run the risk of losing all their bees. If the Apiarian aims at obtaining a large quant.i.ty of honey in any one season, he cannot at the furthest, more than double the number of his stocks: nor can he do this, unless they are all strong, and the season favorable. The moment that he aims, in any one season, at a more rapid increase, he must not only renounce the idea of having any surplus honey, but must expect to purchase food for the support of his colonies, unless he is willing to see them all perish by starvation. The time, food, care and skill required to multiply stocks with very great rapidity, in our short and uncertain climate, are so great that not one Apiarian in a hundred can expect to make it profitable; while the great ma.s.s of those who attempt it, will be almost sure, at the close of the season, to find themselves in possession of stocks which have been so managed as to be of very little value.
Before explaining some other methods of artificial swarming, which I have employed to great advantage, I shall endeavor to impress upon the mind of the bee-keeper, the great importance of thoroughly understanding each season, the precise object at which he is aiming, before he enters on the work of increasing his colonies. If his object is, in any one season, to get the largest yield of surplus honey, he must at once make up his mind to be content with a very moderate increase of stocks. If, on the contrary, he desires to multiply his colonies, say, three or four fold, he must be prepared, not only to relinquish the expectation of obtaining any surplus honey, if the season should prove unfavorable, but to purchase food for the support of his bees. Rapid multiplication of colonies, and large harvests of surplus honey cannot, in the very nature of things, be secure in our climate, in any one season.
If the number of colonies is to be increased to a large extent, then the bees in the Apiary will be tasked to the utmost in building new comb, as well as in rearing brood. For these purposes, they must consume the supply of honey which, under other circ.u.mstances, they would have stored up, a part for their own use in the main hive, and the balance for their owner, in the spare honey-boxes.
To make this matter perfectly plain, let us suppose a colony to swarm.
If the new hive, into which the swarm is put, holds, as it ought, about a bushel, it will require about two pounds of wax to fill it with comb, and at least forty pounds of honey will be used in its manufacture! If the season is favorable, and the swarm was large and early, they may gather, not only enough to build this comb and to store it with honey sufficient for their own use, but a number of pounds in addition, for the benefit of their owner. If the old stock does not swarm again, it will rapidly replenish its numbers, and as it has no new comb to build in the main hive which already contains much honey, it will be able to store up a generous allowance in the upper boxes. These favorable results are all on the supposition that the season was ordinarily productive in honey, and that the hive was so powerful in numbers as to be able to swarm early. If the season should prove to be very unfavorable, the first swarm cannot be expected to gather more than enough for its own use, while the parent stock will yield only a small return. The profits of the bee-keeper, in such an unfortunate season, will be mainly in the increase of his stocks. If the swarm was late, in consequence of the stock being weak in Spring, the early part of the honey-harvest will pa.s.s away, and the bees will be able to obtain from it, but a small share of honey. During all this time of comparative inactivity, the orchards may present
”One boundless blush, one white empurpled shower Of mingled blossoms,”
and tens of thousands of bees from stronger stocks, may be engaged all day, in sipping the fragrant sweets, so that every gale which ”fans its odoriferous wings” about their dwellings, dispenses
”Native perfumes, and whispers whence they stole[18]
Those balmy spoils.”
By the time that the feeble stock is prepared to swarm, if it swarm at all that season, the honey-harvest is almost over, and the new colony will seldom be able to gather enough for its own use, so that unless fed, it must perish the succeeding Winter. Bee-keeping with colonies feeble in the Spring, is most emphatically nothing but ”folly and vexation of spirit.”
I have shown how the bee-keeper, with a strong stock-hive which has swarmed early and but once, may in a favorable season realize handsome profits from his bees. If the parent stock throws a second swarm, then, as a general rule, unless this swarm was very early, and the honey season good, if managed on the ordinary plan, it will seldom prove of any value. It will almost always perish in the Winter, if it does not desert its hive in the Fall, and the family from which it issued, will not only gather no surplus honey, (unless it was secured before the first swarm issued,) but will very often perish likewise. Thus the inexperienced owner who was so delighted with the rapid increase of his colonies, begins the next season with no more colonies than he had the year before, and has very often lost all the time he has bestowed upon his bees. I can, to be sure, on my plan, prevent the death of the bees, and can build up all the feeble colonies, so as to make them strong and powerful: but only by giving up all idea of obtaining a single pound of honey. From the first swarm, I must take combs containing maturing brood, to strengthen my weak swarms, and this first swarm however powerful or early, instead of being able to store its combs with honey, will be constantly tasked in building new combs to replace those taken away, so that when the honey harvest closes, it will have scarcely any honey, and must be fed to prevent it from starving. Any man who has sense enough to be entrusted with bees, can, from these remarks, understand exactly why it is impossible to multiply colonies rapidly in any one season, and yet obtain from them large supplies of honey. Even the doubling of stocks in one season, will very often be too rapid an increase, if the greatest quant.i.ty of spare honey is to be obtained from them; and when the largest yield of honey is desired, I much prefer to form, in a way soon to be described, only one new stock from two old ones; this will give even more from the three, than could have been obtained from the two, on the ordinary non-swarming plan.
I would very strongly dissuade any but experienced Apiarians, from attempting at the furthest, to do more than to triple their stocks in one year. In order to furnish directions for very rapid multiplication, sufficiently full and explicit to be of any value to the inexperienced, I should have to write a book on this one topic; and even then, the most of those who should undertake it, would be sure at first to fail.
I have no doubt that with ten strong stocks of bees in a good location, in one favorable season, I could so increase them as to have, on the approach of Winter, one hundred good colonies: but I should expect to feed hundreds of pounds of honey, to devote nearly all my time to their management, and to bring to the work, the experience of many years, and the wisdom acquired by numerous failures. After all, what we most need, in order to be successful in the cultivation of bees, is a _certain_, rather than a _rapid_ multiplication of stocks. It would require but a very few years to stock our whole country with bees, if colonies could only be doubled annually; and an increase of even one third, would before long, give us bees enough. This rate of increase I should always encourage in the swarming season, even if, in the Fall, I reduced my stocks (see Union of Stocks) to the Spring number. In the long run, it will keep the colonies in a much more prosperous condition, and secure from them the largest yield of honey.
I have never myself hesitated to sacrifice one or more colonies, in order to ascertain a single fact, and it would require a separate volume quite as large as this, to detail the various experiments which I have made on the subject of Artificial Swarming. The practical bee-keeper, however, should never, for a moment, lose sight of the important distinction between an Apiary managed princ.i.p.ally for the purposes of experiment and discovery, and one conducted almost exclusively with reference to pecuniary profit. Any bee-keeper can easily experiment with my hives: but I would recommend him to do so, at first, on a small scale, and if profit is his object, to follow the directions furnished in this treatise, until he is _sure_ that he has discovered others which are preferable. These cautions are given to prevent persons from incurring serious losses and disappointments, if they use hives which, if they are not on their guard, may tempt them into rash and unprofitable courses, by allowing so easily of all manner of experiments. Let the practical Apiarian remember that the less he disturbs the stocks on which he relies for surplus honey, the better.
After they are properly lodged in their new hive, they ought by all means to be allowed to carry on their labors without any interruption.
The object of giving the control over every comb in the hive, is not to enable him to be incessantly taking them in and out, and subjecting the bees to all sorts of annoyances. Unless he is conducting a course of experiments, such interference will be almost as silly as the conduct of children who pull up the seeds which they have planted, to see whether they have sprouted, or how much they have grown. If after these cautions, any still choose to disregard them, the blame of their losses will fall, not upon the hive, but upon their own mismanagement.
Let me not, for a moment, be understood as wis.h.i.+ng to discourage investigation, or to intimate that perfection has been so nearly attained that no more important discoveries remain to be made. On the contrary, I should be glad to learn that many who have the time and means, are disposed to use the facilities furnished by hives which give the control of each comb, to experiment on a large scale; and I hope that every intelligent bee-keeper who follows my plans, will experiment at least on a small scale. In this way, we may soon expect to see, more satisfactorily elucidated, some points in the Natural History of the bee, which are still involved in doubt.
Having described the way in which forced swarms are made, both in common hives and in my own, when the Apiarian wishes in one season merely to double his colonies, I shall now show in what way he can secure the largest yield of honey, by forming only one new colony from two old ones.
Early in the season, before the bees fly out, or better still, after they ceased to fly in the previous Fall, the two hives from which the new colony is to be formed, should be placed near each other, unless they are already, not more than a foot apart. When the time for forming the artificial colony has arrived, these hives should be removed from their stand, and the bees driven from them, precisely in the manner already described. If all the bees are at home, I sometimes shut up the hives on their stand, and drum long enough to cause the bees to fill themselves before the hive is removed. Timid Apiarians may find some advantage in this course, as the bees will all be quiet after they are well drummed, and the hive may then be removed with greater safety. In five minutes I can in this way reduce any swarm to a peaceable condition. After the forced swarms are secured, the removed hives are replaced, in order to catch up all the returning bees, and the forced swarms must be shut up, until towards sunset; unless it is judged best to keep the entrances temporarily open, so as to secure the return of a sufficient number of bees to the parent stocks. The old stocks are now moved to a new place, and managed according to the previous directions.