BREEDING.
The natural increase of the honey bee is very imperfectly understood by the great majority of bee keepers. Very many suppose that young bees are raised only in the warm summer months, and their ideas of the modus operandi of increase are exceedingly vague. I find that strong stocks have maturing brood nearly every month in the year—I have found brood in stocks in December and January.
The queen lays all the fertile eggs in the swarm, consequently all increase is dependent on her. I say the queen lays all the fertile eggs, because occasionally under certain circumstances we find eggs laid by workers but under my observation, such eggs never mature. Egg-laying workers are known to be such, by eggs being found in stocks that have been deprived of their queen, and the means of rearing another. This is one of the wonders of nature, of which no satisfactory solution has been given. The points established as to the sex of bees are these: The queen is a fully developed female; the drones are fully developed males; the worker,—what is it? The worker is said by some to be neuter. If this last is true, how are the eggs produced? Others say the worker is a female with generative organs not fully developed! A pretty nice point—to credit them with the power to produce eggs without imparting vitality sufficient to germinate.
We will leave this knotty question, as it is of no consequence in the practical management of bees for profit. Suffice it then to say, the queen is the mother of the entire family, and without a queen no swarm of bees can long exist.
The time taken to perfect the three different kinds of bees—queen, worker and drone—varies slightly. The queen will mature in about sixteen days from the time the egg is deposited in the cell. The drone and worker each in about twenty days. This time is subject to some variation, governed by the weather, and number of bees in the hive, which causes the temperature of the hive to be greater or less. A high temperature will forward, while a low temperature will retard, the maturing of the brood.
Swarms with healthy prolific queens increase rapidly through the spring and summer. The queen at this season will deposit from one thousand to fifteen hundred eggs per day. Some writers estimate higher. To secure so large a number of eggs, and consequent increase of bees, we must have healthy prolific queens to start with, and offer every available facility to encourage the desired increase. How to do this successfully, is shown further on.
If we wish to secure a good harvest of honey, we must have the bees to collect it, and we must have them at the proper time, viz: when the harvest is ready. To do .-this, we must encourage breeding to the utmost in early spring.
Early in the spring the queen enlarges the circle containing the brood; perhaps, if the stock was very strong, and everything favorable, she laid a few eggs in one or two combs near the centre of the cluster of bees in January. Perhaps the cells occupied at that time were less than a dozen, all compact together in a circle, occupying less space than the size of a half dollar. As she progresses, this circle is enlarged, and the cells on the opposite side of this comb are used; then the next comb and so on, at the same time enlarging the circle, keeping the brood compactly together, so that the bees, by clustering around it can keep up the required warmth to forward the brood to maturity. As the young bees hatch, the queen proceeds with her duties of laying eggs until every brood cell is occupied, and as fast as a bee matures and leaves its cell, she is on hand with an egg to occupy the vacant place. This is kept up without cessation till swarming time, when the hive becomes crowded with bees, then, as preparation for swarming, the queen deposits eggs, from which the bees, by a special course of treatment, rear queens. When they are sealed over, as shown in the plates, the old queen leaves the hive with the first swarm to seek a new home. In about ten days the young queens hatch and lead out after-swarms—second, third, etc. When swarming is over, the strongest queen destroys the others, and reigns over the old swarm till another swarming season. This is the process in natural swarming; on my plan we improve upon the process, as will be shown in the proper place.
CHAPTER II.
THE CONTROLLABLE HIVE AND NEW SYSTEM OF BEE MANAGEMENT.
IT is now more than ten years since I invented the Controllable Bee Hive, and New System of Bee Management. I commenced bee keeping with the common box hive, with no knowledge whatever of the habits of bees. I was not long in learning that I could not make bee keeping a success with the box hive, and I also found that the thousand and one patent hives were no better than, and the great majority of such hives inferior to, the simple box hive. I found there was no practical method of controlling the swarming propensities of bees. All such hives would swarm or not, as seemed to suit the caprice of the bees, which I found very perplexing. Stocks under the old plan of management sometimes show every indication of swarming, such as clustering out, etc., yet they adhere pertinaciously to the old stock through the entire summer, a peck or more of them clustering idly on the outside of the hive, through the season; and if one put on boxes, it is all the same, they will do nothing. And such swarms often starve early the next winter, after passing the summer in idleness. Other stocks with apparently not so many bees will swarm several times; often swarming so much as to reduce the number of bees so low that the bee moth will effect its destruction during the summer; there not being bees enough to protect the combs from the attacks of this destructive little insect. This swarming problem I found very difficult to solve. There were so many conflicting theories, I found I could gain no positive, reliable information from any source, to aid me, and that I must solve the problem by practical experiment.
Experience is a good teacher, but often a very costly one. Some told me if I wished to prevent swarming, I must cut out the queen cells, which the bees constructed preparatory to swarming. This was simply impossible with the box hive, so I constructed a hive with moveable frames, so the bees could build their combs in the frames, and each comb of the hive could be lifted out separately. But when I attempted to prevent swarming by cutting out the queen cells, I found if I was to thwart nature in that way, I had, to say the least, a big job on my hands. I could cut out the queen cells, but within twenty-four hours after I had done this, the bees would have others constructed, and be ready to swarm, and as I kept cutting, they would keep building. They had the advantage of numbers and position, and when I opened the hive every day and destroyed such, to them, important work, they were not long in declaring and proclaiming me to be an enemy to them, and they would attack me whenever occasion offered. I soon found that if not impossible, it was certainly impracticable to prevent bees swarming by cutting out the queen cells. It was a surprise to me that this plan should be recommended by bee keepers claiming to be well skilled in bee management. After proving this plan of no value, I was told if I would contract the entrances to my hives so the queen could not pass, I could thereby successfully prevent swarming, as the swarms would not leave without the queen. This looked to me like a very nice operation, to say the least, in fact, more nice than wise. However, I determined to test the plan. I accordingly contracted the entrance to my hives, and lo! the drones being larger than the queen, they could not pass! So they clustered about the entrance, and in their efforts to get out, completely blocked up the passage, so the workers could not pass. Yet this plan of contracting the entrance was claimed to be protected by letters patent of the U. S. I found this plan for preventing swarming of no value whatever. Very many other plans were tendered me and tested with like results. I was all this time pushing my experiments, and learning something from experience every day. I was determined to arrange and construct a hive which would render bee keeping successful and profitable, and I can say at the present time, my labors have been rewarded with success.
I ought to go on and write out a description of all the old methods of bee keeping, and all the patent bee hive humbugs, with the thousand and one wow-patent hives and fixtures, gotten up expressly to swindle bee keepers out of their hard earnings, by a class of rascals, many of whom never owned a swarm of bees, and who care not one cent whether bee keeping is a success or otherwise, if they can pocket a round sum by their fraud. Were I to write out minutely these points, this work would become too voluminous and extended; besides it would be of no practical value to the bee keeper who wishes to keep bees for profit. I will not, therefore, give such minute descriptions of all the old systems, hives, etc., but will confine myself more closely to such practical information as will be of value to the bee keeper.