BEE-KEEPING.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 August 1917, Page 6

BEE-KEEPING.

■WHY XOT KEEP BEES't

(By "Clematis.")

Now that honey is eoming into tho front rank as a "pure and wholesome food the country's resouces may 1)0 developed by the honey which can be produced every summer by the millions of flowers on the farms and waste places. Honey not only satisfies tho human craving for sweets, but has a real food value. Large areas rich in honey-pro-ducing plants are practically unoccupied, and you cannot increase food production more rapidly or profitably than by keeping and caring for bees, thereby assisting a healthy, interesting, and profitable industry.

Locate your apiary, if possible, in a dairying district, where there is an absence of native bush. Avoid sheep country as pastures are grazed tuo closely. If'good flat or rolling dairying country is selected, and where e:;ien-ive top dressing of pastures is carried out, clover and good nectar-supplying plants arc to be found in abundance, and honey produced from such sources, properly manipulated, will always fliul a ready sale. Bets require necessary shelter from cold winds and weather, and a site where they can get plenty of sunshine. Do not keep the hives too close to hedges or under large trees, for under such conditions bees become irritable and savage when disturbed.

BREEDING AND DEVELOPMENT OF BEES.

In my last notes I stated that colonies in normal conditions would have started breeding towards the end of July; consequently the first young bees of this season will bo soon emerging from the brood cells, and ac-t as muses of the developing, brood, thereby relieving the older bees to work in the fields. The food supply being kept up to requirements, and with a good young vigorous queen, a daily increase of young bees should continue, as they are much needed to take the place of the old bees bred last season, and which will now commence to die off very quickly. As breeding goes oil, an increased amount of fresh pollen -and mater must be gathered to make up food for the larvae, and throws heavy work on the bees at this period of the year, combating rain and cold winds, and old bees (with frayed wings, one of the signs of old age) heavily laden, very often get beaten down through exhaustion before they reach their hives.

It is therefore very important for the welfare of the colonies that breeding should go 011 without hindrance at this of the year, otherwise what is known as "spring dwindling"'will result. Thus, instead of a colony growing stronger daily, it 'becomes weaker and will probably die out. Therefore it is important that the food supply should be kept up. I examined mine yesterday and the frames to the side of the hive had plenty of scaled honey, and a large amount of brood lor August 10, and the hive with n good force of bees. The bees of a hive consist of the worker, drone, and queen —from the eggs to the mature insects the, ages may be given: Worker-21 days, drone 21 days, queen 1G days. The periods may vary according to weather. For instance,

in exceptionally favorable weather the queen, whose normal time is I<> days, may emerge from her cell on the lath day, while if the weather be stormy or cold she may not emerge before the 17th day. The same applies to the other bees. Their development may be expedited or delayed some hours owing to the state of the weather. The worker bee acts as nurse to the brood during the first 14 days or its existence 'before it takes its place in the Held as nectar gatherer. The queen takes her. wedding flight to meet the drone when, live days old, and, after impregnation she is.believed not to leave the hive again except to accompany a swarin. The queen commences to lay eggs about the third day after impregnation, and in the height of the breeding season will lay from 2000 to i'OOt) eggs in 24 hours. Towards the end of the month the

bottom boards of the hive should be cleaned and scraped of all dirt, capping*, pollen and dead bees. While doing so, place the hive on spare bottom boards

alongside. Dig the ground around the hives, and springle a few pounds of salt over the surface, and the weeds are more easily kept down.