Examining Frames
However, uniting is sometimes resorted to, and the method of procedure generally adopted in England is as follows. The hives to be united are brought nearer to each other gradually, not more than a yard or so at a time, and on fine days only, when the bees are flying about. The need for this precautionary care is that the bees soon lose their bearings if their hive is shifted to any great extent and will fly about until death ensues from exhaustion; while to enter a strange hive in mistake for their own is equally fatal for them. The actual process of uniting is accomplished by taking combs alternately from each hive and placing them in their new quarters, meanwhile spraying bees and combs with scented syrup, or dredging them with flour.
I should, however, recommend the novice to "shake" or "drive" (see pp. [74], [79]) each stock before uniting them, for hunger will do more to reconcile the bees to each other than anything else. The driven bees should be passed through a queen-excluder and the oldest queen, or queens, destroyed. This will save a battle royal in the new hive, and do much towards uniting the two sections of bees.
Queen-rearing hives may have frames of young bees added to them without much fear of trouble, for as a rule young bees do not fight.
Stimulating.—Bee-keepers who are working for honey generally stimulate the bees after the semi-hibernation days of winter are passed, for a period of some six or eight weeks before their services are likely to be required for honey gathering. This is to encourage brood-rearing and is accomplished by feeding the bees with syrup or artificial pollen. (See Chapter on Feeding, p. [82].)
It must be remembered that once artificial feeding for this purpose has been resorted to it must be continued until the natural sources of nectar are available to the bees, for nothing checks the population or does more harm to the hive than stopping the food supply when breeding has commenced.
It should be the aim of every bee-keeper to make himself acquainted with the order and approximate times of blossoming of the flowers and trees, and particularly the largest source of nectar in his neighbourhood.
As a rule, from six to eight weeks is required to get the hives into a profitable condition after brood-rearing has commenced in earnest. In some favoured places the queen may begin to deposit eggs as early as January, though of course, in the north and colder districts, this is exceptional. Unless, therefore, a bee-keeper is in an exceptionally good district, and works for early fruit blossoms as a source of nectar, it is to his interest to leave the bees to themselves until the middle or end of March, provided, of course, they are not short of food.
Choked Brood-Nest.—When feeding the bees in spring it is necessary to spread the brood-nest from time to time by adding a frame of comb near the centre of it. This provides the queen with sufficient cells in which to lay her eggs. Should the brood-nest become choked with honey, feeding should be stopped and a frame or two of honey taken from the hive and extracted, or given to hives that are not so fortunately placed, filling up the space with empty combs. Should the stores of honey and pollen be plentiful, it is well to scratch the cappings from some of the cells, though care must be taken not to damage the cappings of the brood cells, which will usually be found in the centre of the frames.