163. If a package is not building up fast enough the first assistance it needs, if it has a prolific queen, will likely be food. It is expensive to feed any kind of food to bees, either sugar syrup or combs filled with honey, and oftentimes in a poor season when feeding may be required, it will be better to unite two or three when the weather continues unfavorable for much honey production, as this is more likely to give a combined force strong enough to get the required amount of honey to winter on.

164. Examine each package in ten days at the latest to be sure the queen is laying. In the case of a nucleus made up from your own yard and not purchased from outside sources and not accompanied by a queen, note the following things: The nucleus will be made up from brood from other colonies nine days after the queen cells are started on the brood. It requires 16 days from the egg to the time the full grown queen emerges. However, these cells may be started from brood which may be at least three days of age and this would allow your queen to emerge in about four days from the time the division was made. If the honey flow is on the young queen will usually have mated and started laying in five to eight days after she has emerged. At times when there is a dearth of honey it may often require two weeks or longer before the stimulus of the season causes her to begin laying. If nuclei are not found to have a laying queen in three weeks after they have been made from the brood of colonies with queen cells started, they should be united with queenright nuclei. See paragraph 6 on uniting.

165. In the making of increase when comb honey is produced it is almost necessary in obtaining a maximum crop to wait until colonies swarm naturally. When this occurs proceed as in paragraph 121. The parent colony from which the swarm emerged may then be split up. You may take two to five combs of brood, adhering bees, and one good queen cell (see illustration No. 36) and place in another hive in which the additional space is filled with frames of combs or full sheets of foundation. The other section of the parent hive, if it has one good queen cell, may also be placed on a new stand and may be built up into a full colony.

166. A simple way for the novice to increase the number of colonies he owns or even to get started in beekeeping, will be to purchase swarms by buying them from neighbors who own bees. It is advisable to first procure a complete hive and assemble it and fit it with full sheets of foundation. This hive may then be taken to the neighbor and left there, after a bargain has been made, for a good swarm to be hived into your hive. When the swarm has so been secured have your neighbor notify you, so that you may take the hive and swarm home, and by so doing, you may have an opportunity to get a good crop of honey from it the first year if the swarm is not secured too late in the season. It will be advisable to close the entrance of this hive with wire screen or in some other way that allows the bees to get ventilation. Fasten the cover down bee tight and then take the hive home, preferably just after sundown the first evening after the bees have been put into this hive. It is not advisable to allow the swarm to remain at the neighbor's for any length of time.

The bees may become used to returning to that location and removal of the hive may lose a large proportion of the flying force for you if you live within a mile or two of your neighbor. For the same reason it is advisable to move the bees after sundown when few or none are out of the hive, so that all of them are taken home in their hive. Bees will usually remain in any location where they may be put when they have been hived as swarms, since the bees drop the old location and relocate in the new. In buying colonies of bees outright that have been in the hives long enough to get thoroughly located, you may lose a considerable proportion of the flying force, unless you move the bees beyond the three mile radius of their normal field flight. In most cases it would be advisable only to move them at a season and time when they will be disturbed the least and loss of as few bees as possible may result.

Questions You Should Be Able To Answer

1. Can one produce a maxixmum crop and make maximum increase the same season on the same bees?

2. What is the best time of the year to buy bees and to have them reach your location ?

3. What effect does maximum increase have on the honey crop?

4. What are four convenient forms of purchasing bees?

5. Which one is perhaps best for the beginner, and why?

6. Why is it necessary to order and assemble all equipment in advance of the arrival of bees?

7. Is it advisable to put the bees in the warm sun before they are released from their shipping cages?

8. How may you avoid disappointment as to arrival of bees on date you wish them, when placing your order?

9. Why is it advisable to feed bees upon their arrival after shipment?

10. How would you go about it to feed package bees?

11. Where should the bees be kept until they may be released?