BUYING BEES
Even the people with bees to sell advise beginners to buy from some one in their neighbourhood. It is not safe, though, to move bees less than a mile and a half as they are likely to return to their old location. Buy from an up-to-date apiary if you can, and get standard hives; the old box hives are not worth anything; neither are fancy hives of complicated structure. The entrance to the hive should be closed with wire cloth after the bees all get home in the early evening. If closed in the middle of the day you are cheated. In warm weather the cover should be taken off; in its place should be put the super over which wire-cloth has been tacked. Strips of wood can be nailed on top of this to which the cover can be fastened. By this arrangement ventilation is secured. We once lost a colony shipped by express without any provision for the circulation of air. Night is the best time to move the bees, though it can be done in the daytime; a cold day is best. Remove the wire cloth the first night after placing in permanent location.
Spring is the best season to buy your first colony. The price may be higher but the risk is less. Get a strong colony that has wintered well, which contains, on the average, twenty-five thousand to thirty-five thousand worker bees.
It would be well just here for the beginner to get acquainted with the opinions of the best bee-keepers about the kinds of bees. There are varieties among bees as well as among hens, pigeons, dogs, and horses. Americans like to be "hail, fellow, well met" with all their live stock, and although even the best tempered bee might resent a cordial slap on the flank, there are bee-lovers who tell of stroking their little winged friends with a grass stem. It requires real sympathy to succeed with bees just as it does with chickens or cows. No one can work long with them without becoming intensely interested. Most people learn to love them and find absorbing occupation in studying their ways.
Two races of hive bees are common here, though none are native: German, or black, and Italian. All the books and magazines as well as bee-lovers unhesitatingly recommend the latter as the more good-tempered, being at the same time hardy, prolific, and industrious. Good hybrids, that is, a mixture of black and Italian blood, may do almost as well as pure stock, but pure-bred queens are a necessity to keep the grade up. When you hear of people who gather bees by handfuls into aprons or baskets you may be sure that those concerned are all thoroughbreds.
If there are no bees for sale near by, the best plan is to order from a dealer in the spring what is known as a nucleus. This is a very small colony, about a quart of bees (three thousand two hundred), should be accompanied by a tested queen, and housed in a modern hive with three frames of comb. The queen sets to work laying eggs in the cells, new frames should be added as needed, and if pollen and nectar are plentiful the hive will soon be full of busy young workers. By fall the frames should be stored with the honey needed for the winter.
Your first expense after securing a colony will not be for "mixed grain" or "middlings," but for a smoker, a bee veil and gloves, extra hives for your swarms, honey sections, and other supplies. Don't buy everything that looks useful or is highly recommended by the salesman. Maybe he never saw a bee. Sometimes an old spoon or other cheap utensil can be made into a more useful tool than the one he wants fifty cents for.
The following list includes the supplies you are pretty sure to need the first year:
- One colony of bees, in an up-to-date though simply constructed hive. On the whole, the ten-frame hive seems to me to have advantages over a smaller one. A deep telescope cover gives room for two supers on top at once. The only advantage in the chaff hives seems to be that winter protection is not needed for bees housed in them. The obvious disadvantage is their greater cost, size, and weight. Single walled hives are so easily made weatherproof, (see Wintering) that the expense of the chaff hive is not necessary.
- Three extra hives.
- Two supers; four super covers.
- Two to five hundred section boxes for comb honey. You will not need very many of these the first year, but they come cheaper in larger lots.
- One smoker. Of the several kinds offered, you may safely choose the one that you have seen used successfully.
- One pair bee gloves; one bee veil.
- One pound brood foundation, for the new swarms to begin on.
- Two pounds thin super-foundation for starters in the honey sections.
- One foundation fastener. One experienced bee-keeper tells me that he likes the "Dewey" best. Others prefer the "Daisy."
- One Porter bee escape.
- One bee brush.
- One queen and drone trap. The new Alley trap is made with bars instead of perforated zinc, and works better.
- A bee-keeper's guide. (See list of books in the appendix.)
- Complete directions for putting together the hives, etc., should accompany the filled order, and the novice should work with one eye on the printed page. A good book on bee-keeping should be included in the beginner's order. Those recommended in the book list in the appendix are all good books for beginners.