APIARY NOTES FOR NOVEMBER

Shannon News, 2 December 1927, Page 3

APIARY NOTES FOR NOVEMBER

(By D. S. Robinson, Apiary Instructor, Department of Agriculture, Palnicrston North).

Beekeepers in late districts must still keep an eye oh the stores of each hive, and where the stores are at all low must continue with artificial feeding. All diseased colonies should have been treated before this period, but where this has not been done, the work should be put in hand at once, to allow the bees to build up and obtain a surplus of honey. SUPERING.

Most colonies should now be ready for the extra supers; two supers should be allowed for the brood nests, and where a queen excluder is use, it should be placed over the second super. To place it over the first restricts the room for the queen to lay in, with the result that swarming is much more apt to take place; also as there is a limited amount of brood the field force of bees is smaller and the resultant crrm ( if surplus honey will be likewise. SWARMING. Every', hug should be in readiness for the swarms, but the beekeeper can control the swarming to a certain extent, although no methods of! swarm control are infallible. First remember that a colony headed by a young queen —that is a queen hatched last autumn —given plenty of super room, seldom swarms the first vear. SWARM CONTROL. When the brood chamber is getting filled, get a supply of empty combs, or frames fitted with full sheets of foundation, remove the two outside frames, and replace these with the fresh combs or foundation, putting the new combs in second from the outside in each case. Next place on a second super, putting the two frames taken from the lower super in the centre of the super added. Another method is by taking from the strongest hives frames of brood and giving to the weaker colonies, replacing the space from where the brood is taken Avith empty combs or foundation. Or the position of hives may be changed; shifting the weak hives to the stands of the strong ones and vice versa. Forming nuclei from the strongest hives will prevent swarming. This method can only be used where increase in the number of hives is wished for, and is as follows:—Take from the strongest hives one or two frames of bees and brood, and one or two of honey and pollen. These frames arc placed in the new hive with the frames containing the brood in the centre. The vacant space should be filled with drawn-out comb'if available, if not with frames of foundation comb, also a few extra bees should be shaken into the nuclei hive, of course not forgetting to replace in the parent hive frames of foundation, to replace the frames of brood that have been removed. If the nuclei are formed at swarming time, a good queen cell should be cut -out from a hive preparing to swarm and given the nuclei, failing this the beekeeper should obtain young queens to introduce to the newly formed nuclei. When the nuclei are first formed they should have the entrances blocked u with grass for a few days to preven the bees from returning to the hive; from which they have been taken. In all operations where frames an taken from one hive and given to othei hives the beekeeper should be absolute ly certain that all the hives are fie from disease; otherwise if foul bioon is present it will be spread wholesale through the apiary. RAISING SECTION HONEY.

Apiarists who intend to raise section; for the market, or for home eonsump Hon, before putting on the section should first ascertain that the hives a:< very strong in bees, and- that a gobc honey flow'is on. The wax in the section should be very carefully put ir. place, and no doubt the best results art obtained, by putting wax starters ir in two pieces, that is, one at the toy and one at the bottom with a spaei of about three-quarters of an inch between each. Sections should be remov ed as soon as 'completely capped; i allowed to reman in the hives they become travel strained by the bee; passing over them. The best section: should be put aside by the beekeeper, to show in the winter shows. Unfortunately this class, is usually but poorly represented at the various shows but nevertheless it is a class in which the keeper of only a few hives can compete with the beekeeper of many hives. Honey in the sections, on the ihow bench, if the class is well filled makes a verv attractive exhibition. USE OF HONEY'. Beekeepers will do well to bring the following facts before their friends: — Salad dressing in which honey is used in place of sugar, produces a far more palatable dressing, also honey as a sweeten'ng agent for rhubarb, or stewed fruits, certainly brings out the various flavours of the fruit, better than sugar. Not only with cooked fruit does it supersede sugar, but with fruit salads, and eaten with strawberries, with or without cream.