An essential in honey production is to have the hive overflowing with bees at the beginning of the honey flow, so that the field force will be large enough to gather more honey than the bees need for their own use. To accomplish this, the bee keeper must see to it that brood rearing is heavy some time before the harvest, and he must know accurately when the honey flows come, so that he may time his manipulations properly. Brood rearing during the honey flow usually produces bees which consume stores, while brood reared before the flow furnishes the surplus gatherers. The best methods of procedure may be illustrated by giving as an example the conditions in the white clover region.
In the spring the bees gather pollen and nectar from various early flowers, and often a considerable quantity from fruit bloom and dandelions. During this time brood rearing is stimulated by the new honey, but afterwards there is usually a period of drought when brood rearing is normally diminished or not still more increased as it should be. This condition continues until the white clover flow comes on, usually with a rush, when brood rearing is again augmented. If such a condition exists, the bee keeper should keep brood rearing at a maximum by stimulative feeding during the drought. When white clover comes in bloom he may even find it desirable to prevent brood rearing to turn the attention of his bees to gathering.
A worker bee emerges from its cell 21 days after the egg is laid, and it usually begins field work in from 14 to 17 days later. It is evident, therefore, that an egg must be laid five weeks before the honey flow to produce a gatherer. Since the flow continues for some time and since bees often go to the field earlier than 14 days, egg laying should be pushed up to within two or three weeks of the opening of the honey flow. In addition to stimulative feeding, the care of the colony described under the heading of "Spring management" (p. 26) will increase brood production.
The obtaining of honey from bees is generally the primary object of their culture. Bees gather nectar to make into honey for their own use as food, but generally store more than they need, and this surplus the bee keeper takes away. By managing colonies early in the spring as previously described the surplus may be considerably increased. The secret of maximum crops is to "Keep all colonies strong."
Honey is gathered in the form of nectar secreted by various flowers, is transformed by the bees, and stored in the comb. Bees also often gather a sweet liquid called "honeydew," produced by various scale insects and plant-lice, but the honeydew honey made from it is quite unlike floral honey in flavor and composition and should not be sold for honey. It is usually unpalatable and should never be used as winter food for bees, since it usually causes dysentery (p. 40). When nectar or honeydew has been thickened by evaporation and otherwise changed, the honey is sealed in the cells with cappings of beeswax.
It is not profitable to cultivate any plant solely for the nectar which it will produce, but various" plants, such as clovers, alfalfa, and buckwheat, are valuable for other purposes and are at the same time excellent honey plants; their cultivation is therefore a benefit to the bee keeper. It is often profitable to sow some plant on waste land; sweet clovers are often used in this way. The majority of honey-producing plants are wild, and the bee keeper must largely accept the locality as he finds it and manage his apiary so as to get the largest possible amount of the available nectar. Since bees often fly as far as 2 or 3 miles to obtain nectar, it is obvious that the bee keeper can rarely influence the nectar supply appreciably. Before deciding what kind of honey to produce the bee keeper should have a clear knowledge of the honey resources of his locality and of the demands of the market in which he will sell his crop. If the bulk of the honey is dark, or if the main honey flows are slow and protracted, it will not pay to produce comb honey, since the production of fancy comb honey depends on a rapid flow. The best localities for comb honey production are in the northern part of the United States east of the Mississippi River, where white clover is a rapid and abundant yielder. Other parts of the United States where similar conditions of rapidity of flow exist are also good. Unless these favorable conditions are present it is better to produce extracted Honey.
Fig. 21.—Knives for uncapping honey.