A Costly Method

The old time way of simply dividing the colony and setting one part aside to rear its own queen is inefficient and expensive. The queenless division loses so much time before a new queen can be reared, mated and begins laying that the season is far advanced before conditions become normal. At best there is little hope of doing more than building up to a point where there is hope of surviving the winter and another season must pass before profit can be secured.

Through The Year In The Apiary

With The Bees In The Spring

Spring is a critical time with the honeybees. After the long confinement of winter the colony is likely to be greatly reduced in numbers. The small cluster often finds it difficult to maintain the temperature necessary for brood rearing and to supply the food and water from the field. A little care at this season will bring large returns to the beekeeper.

Windbreak

The hives should be so placed as to be protected from the chilling winds of March. The uncertain weather at this season with warm days followed by cold ones taxes a weak colony to the utmost and hundreds of colonies perish needlessly. Hives which are placed in the shelter of evergreen groves or hedges or behind some barrier to the wind provide much greater security for the bees. Not only do the bees build up much faster under such protected conditions, but they consume less stores. Since less fuel is necessary to heat a well sheltered house than an exposed one, we can readily see why the bees must consume more honey in order to live in an exposed position.

Stores

The best insurance which the beekeeper can provide against failure of the honey crop is to see that every colony is supplied with an abundance of stores in spring. As soon as the first warm days come the bees are likely to start brood rearing. When brood rearing begins, stores are consumed with surprising rapidity. It is generally estimated that it requires five pounds of honey to rear a pound of bees. While the field force will gather some of this nectar and pollen from the field when weather will permit, it seldom happens that sufficient supplies can be gathered as used in spring. To rear a field force of ten pounds of working bees such as is desirable to produce a good crop, will thus consume fifty pounds of honey. If the bees are able to gather half of this amount from spring flowers, a reserve of twenty-five pounds will still be needed in the hive.

The prosperous beemen who live in good homes, drive fine cars, send their children to college and spend their winters in Florida, are the ones who invest liberally in provisions for their bees at this time. The provident beekeeper left a big reserve of honey with the bees when they were prepared for winter last fall, or laid it aside to give to them early this spring.

There is no substitute as good as natural honey for food for bees, but if that is not available, sugar syrup will enable them to live until they can secure honey from the field again. Colonies which are short of stores should be fed liberally with sugar syrup on the first warm days.

Water

Water is a pressing need of the bees when brood rearing is in progress. Untold thousands of field bees are lost in early spring because they must go in search of water when the weather is unkind. Bees seeking water gather about cisterns, bird baths, watering troughs or other places where open water is available. Once they become accustomed to watering in such places, it is hard to prevent their coming and they often thus become a nuisance to the owner of the water supply.

When All Is Well

A strong colony of bees in a well sheltered position, with an ample supply of food needs little attention from the beekeeper. The bees will pass through prolonged spells of bad weather and although confined to the hive for long periods by cold or rain will continue prosperous. They must have stores and they need protection from wind. There are a few essentials which must be supplied and then the bees are best left undisturbed until settled warm weather.