PERTAINING TO THE FINEST AND BEST COLONIES.
It is a principle in beekeeping if one desires to derive a benefit from his bees, to see that one keeps very populous colonies. The mere number of colonies has nothing to do with amount of value; but their strength, the number of inhabitants in a hive, is the measure of its worth. One single populous colony is worth more and will store more honey than four weak ones. In fourteen days the one will bring in more honey than the four will in four weeks.
I place a strong colony at 40,000 working bees; of these 13,000 to 16,000 can daily fly out and bring in stores; the remainder stay at home to care for the brood, to build comb, and to perform such other duties as may be required of them.[5]
Of four weak colonies, however, each calculated at 12,000 workers, only 4,000 can fly out leaving 8,000 at home. These four colonies together not only cannot send to the fields as many workers as the one strong one, but they also labor under many disadvantages.
It may be good weather for eight days and the flow of honey abundant and the strong colony may in that time gather all its winter stores, but the weak ones can take only sufficient advantage to gather at most one-fourth of the required stores. If unfavorable weather should follow, and the flow of honey cease, the strong colony is supplied and the four weak ones are lost in the winter if they be not fed, which latter is associated with much expense, trouble and inconvenience and even then often fails, not to mention the facts that the weaker ones cannot depend upon themselves as well against robbers, moths, ants, etc.; and in winter they cannot maintain the proper warmth as well, are more liable to be frozen, and are less able to stand the changes in temperature.
They cannot rear brood as early as the strong one and there are many advantages the strong one has over the weaker, one of the most prominent of which is that the strong one displays more energy and is more industrious than the weaker.
IN THE ORDINARY STRAW SKEPS ONE CANNOT CARRY OUT ONE’S DESIRES COMPLETELY IN MANAGING BEES.
As important and well known as the fact now is of having the colonies strong, one cannot make them so if they are kept in the common, simple straw basket where one does nothing but destroy in a slovenly way, especially farmers. In the fall they take the heaviest and lightest colonies and in a sinful and thoughtless manner kill and smother its inhabitants thus doing themselves a deliberate injury, as if they permitted these useful creatures, these patterns of industry, to live, they would gain far more.
I once saw a beekeeper take a very heavy colony consisting of two colonies which in swarming clustered together, and smother them, because he thought that owing to the large number of bees the colony might not have enough winter stores. Yes! a clown of a fellow actually burned with straw his young swarms, because they came rather late. But I do not intend to occupy my time describing the wrong mode of keeping bees, as through the length and breadth of the land this has been so passionately spoken of and they will learn, only as matters progress, to adopt a better mode of beekeeping.