Comb Honey

by Geo. S. Demuth

(1) The workers that take part in storing a crop of honey from any given honey flow are usually those reared within the period of six or eight weeks just preceding the honey flow. The workers reared previous to this period are too old to be of much value as gatherers while those reared after this period mature after the flow has ceased.

(2) It is necessary that the beekeeper know what plants are likely to furnish the surplus honey and their approximate period of bloom so that he can determine the limits of the heavy brood-rearing period in order to secure the largest possible working force for the honey flow.

(3) Colonies should be in a normal condition at the beginning of this period. (a) If the surplus is from an early flow, this normal condition can be obtained only by proper management the previous late summer and autumn, together with good wintering. Good queens, preferably young, together with sufficient room for brood rearing and winter stores, are important conditions during late summer and autumn. (b) Stores and protection are important factors in early brood rearing. (c) The character of the brood combs and the race of bees each have some influence upon brood rearing.

(4) During the time that workers for the harvest should be reared brood rearing should be constantly accelerated.

(5) Brood rearing is often restricted during this period (a) because of limited stores and (b) because of limited room in the brood chamber.

Using Available Workers to Best Advantage During the Honey Flow.

Brood rearing, which is of primary importance during the preceding period, becomes of secondary consideration at about the beginning of the honey flow, because this is nearing the limit beyond which time the resulting bees develop too late to take part in gathering and storing the crop of honey. At this time, therefore, there is a radical change in purpose of the manipulations. Instead of continuing the expansion of the brood chamber, the policy of the beekeeper should now be rather a concentration of the workers and brood. There is perhaps a limit to the number of workers that can be profitably kept in a single hive and set of supers, but this limit is seldom reached, the usual mistake being in having too few. Each colony should have its brood chamber well filled with brood in a compact form and be so crowded with young and vigorous workers that they will immediately occupy the supers when the honey flow actually begins. The brood chamber of colonies occupying more than one hive body should at this time be reduced to one, any extra brood being used in colonies having less than one brood chamber full of brood. After this operation, should there still be some colonies left with the brood chamber but partly filled with brood, they should be filled with combs of brood and adhering bees (without the queen) drawn from some colony or colonies too weak to work well in comb-honey supers.

It may be advisable to unite the weaker colonies in order to secure the proper strength for the best work. This massing of the workers in strong colonies, so essential to the production of a fancy grade of comb honey, renders necessary extremely careful and skillful management, since the efforts of the beekeeper may still be nullified in either of two ways: (1) The bees may divide their forces by swarming into two or more parts, neither of which would be ready to work in the supers until the season is much advanced or perhaps closed entirely, or (2) being balked in their desire to swarm or from lack of convenient storage space, etc., they may do very poor work even during a good honey flow simply because the conditions of the colony are such that the storing instinct is not dominant. To bring about the best results in comb honey, the entire working force of each colony must be kept undivided and the means employed in doing so must be such that the storing instinct remains dominant throughout any given honey flow. Any increase made before or during the flow[3] is made at the expense of the surplus honey unless it be made with brood that would emerge too late for the young bees to be of use during the honey flow ([p. 31]). In general, however, increase may be made at much less expense by setting aside some of the colonies for that purpose. To keep the forces together and satisfied, with the storing instinct dominant during a good flow, is the most difficult problem with which the producer of comb honey must deal.

[3] In localities where the main honey flow is so late that colonies may be divided long enough before the flow so that both colonies may be built up to proper strength in time to take advantage of it, of course increase previous to the flow would be advisable. This condition is rare in comb-honey localities.