Bees and Equipment, Etc.

Two or three colonies make a nice start. If you lose one you will have some left from which to try your hand at increasing. The spring of the year is the best time to buy bees. A minimum start may be made by buying a two or three frame nucleus with a queen and a hive which if purchased in the spring, may be built up to a full sized colony by fall. Whatever you do, be careful to get healthy stock. It requires experience to handle bee diseases.

There are several distinct races or varieties of bees but the Italian and Caucasian bees predominate in preference among American beekeepers, far outnumbering all other races combined. They are especially noted for their industry. They are more hardy and less inclined to swarm than most other races both of which are very desirable traits indeed. Many commercial producers prefer Caucasian bees to Italians while still others prefer a hybrid cross between the two races. The queens of all three types may be purchased from professional breeders. Pure Caucasians are the gentlest, the hybrid cross comes next. Gentle bees are especially desirable if you intend to locate them on a back lot. As a rule a fence, shrubbery or other obstruction which tends to oblige the bees to rise immediately after leaving the hive will act as a safeguard to yourself and your neighbors. I know of many small apiaries which are located right in town on the rear of city lots. They do not annoy anyone.

In addition to bees and bee hives already mentioned you should buy a good bee smoker, a pair of bee gloves, a hive tool and a bee brush. Do not be discouraged if you do not make a crop of honey the first year. If you fail to do so be satisfied if you have learned just why you have failed.

The Colony and Its Activities

I am going to define at the outset the meaning of some of the names and expressions of apiculture which are often misused. A swarm of bees in a hive, a box, a tree, or even hanging on a bush is a colony. A colony of bees in a movable frame hive may also be spoken of as a hive of bees or a stand of bees. "Colony" is the designation most commonly used in bee literature. A "swarm" usually means a colony in the act of swarming. The term "yard" or "bee yard" is often substituted for Apiary.

Colony, hive of bees, swarm, and stand are so frequently used to denote the same thing that one must be governed at times by the context to get the intended meaning. For instance, "a hive stand" is only the bench upon which a stand of bees is placed; a 100 stand apiary would be an apiary containing 100 colonies of bees. etc.

Now in speaking of what we find within the colony we again encounter the need of meaning what we say and saying what we mean. First of all the frames are the framework which contain the honey combs. A brood comb and an extracting or super comb are the same and interchangeable. The difference in name deals with the use to which they are put and the part of the hive which they occupy. The brood combs occupy the brood chamber or lower story of the hive. They are used exclusively by the bees for brood rearing also for storing their winter supply of honey and beebread. The super combs occupy the super or upper story of the hive. It is there the bees store their surplus honey after the brood chamber is snugly filled. It is from the super that the beekeeper harvests his honey crop by removing the filled combs from time to time and after extracting the honey, returning them to the super to be refilled by the bees. A comb honey super is radically different from an extracting super. In producing extracting honey the combs are simply emptied of their honey and used over and over while in comb honey production the honey comb is built in the section in which it is marketed. The section holders and separators are part of the equipment of a comb honey super. The filled sections of course, must be replaced with empty ones each time the honey is removed while the harvest lasts.

Now let us return for a moment to the brood chamber. The activities of the brood chamber is the focal point upon which the study of beekeeping centers. It is here we find the marvelous division of labor, industry and economy which places the honey bee in a class by itself, unexampled in natural history. What we find will, of course, depend upon the time of the year.

The first thing that we are apt to notice is that the workers do not hesitate to defend their colony with their lives. It may here be observed that while the act of stinging is not necessarily always fatal to the bee it usually is. The sting with poison sack attached is left in the flesh of the victim. It will even work itself deeper into the flesh by a pulsating motion which may easily be observed. Nature does not restore the sting to the bee which barring certain exceptions soon sickens and dies. The principal activity of the brood chamber as its name indicates, is brood rearing. Let us closely examine a comb of brood. It will be found to contain eggs, larvae and sealed brood. The eggs appear as tiny white specks attached by one end to the bottom of the cell. In adjacent cells are the larvae the smallest of which are just hatched from the egg and might easily curl up on the small point of a tooth pick and have plenty of room at that. On closer examination it will be observed that the larvae is surrounded with a semi-transparent fluid. This fluid or lymph by which it is nourished is secreted by the nurse bees. Close by are others much larger and still others which almost fill the cell. They are white and wormlike in shape. It is while in this stage that the larvae is spoken of as unsealed brood. After it has been nourished for about six days it is capped over and becomes capped or sealed brood. The development still continues. By removing some of the cappings we can see this development step by step. First the head begins to form, sciousness of individuality. They are actuated almost entirely by motives of collective rather than individual welfare. They have no part to play in the reproductive function and cannot exist at all except as members of a populous community.