The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, March 1, 1920, Page 4

i o Bee Culture in the Northern States. Minnesota Expert _Sa3és Increz}sinl_gi Clovci,)r F(ields. Give Good Chance for uccess in Honey Production : BY CHARLES OLIVE z==] ANY farmers in the northern states i|- believe that they can not profitably keep bees because of climatic condi- tions. This idea is wrong, for nu- merous experiments prove that bees can be profitably Kkept. in ' colder climates. Certain it is that bees thrive on the western prairies. Besides the many wild flowers that yield honey, white clover is coming into gen- eral use for pasture. Many tons of nectar go to waste yearly on our northern farms, and tons of other sweets, not half so good, ~re eaten instead. Indeed, honey is the most healthful of all sweets and more of it should be eaten. Sugar and syrups are now very high, and in the future it will pay to keep some bees on every farm. It has not been found profitable to raise any crop just for bee forage, but most farmers need some white clover for pasture anyway, and the bees can get a part of their nectar from the same fields. However, they will get honey from other places too, for bees fly as far as seven miles and cover thousands of acres. - Buckwheat yields honey, but of poor quality. Bees are classified as drones, queens and work- -ers. The drones are the males, and the queens are the females. The workeérs are dwarfed, or imper- fect females, and are not capable of fertilization by a drone. Under certain conditions, however, they may be able to lay eggs, and these hatch so as to produce nothing but drones. = These do not work, and only the imperfect females gather honey. The best breed, especially for the northern states, are the leather-colored Italian bees. and stronger than the common black bees. Start with two colonies of purebred Italian bees. The best time to buy them is in May. Carefully fol- low the instructions that you get from the dealer or breeder. Any book on bees or any good bee journal will give you further information that you may re- quire. Caring for bees can be learned in a short while, and women and children can do the work. It is easy, healthful, delightful and even romantic, when we consider how famous the bee is in song and story. See that the hives are in good condi- tion, and about the middle of June put in the supers containing the little frames into which the honey is gathered, and add another super as soon as the first frames are well staited. After your bees are all established in the yard do not move them, for they will instinctively return to the old location. When introducing a new queen into a colony, fol- low the printed instructions that you get from the breeder. Assure yourself that the colony is queen- less, then place the caged queen on top of the . frames, put the rim under the cover, and leave the cage so for five days. The bees will eat away the candy and release the queen. TRANSFERRING COLONIES AND WINTER PROTECTION = ° A hive, or colony, contains one queen or mother, from 600 to 800 males, and around 15,000 or 20,000 workers. ‘When a hive is overstocked a new colony is sent out under the direction of a queen. action is called swarming. When it takes place put the new hive into which the swarm has been gather- ed on the old stand. Take the supers from the old hive and place thém in the new, and locate the old hive 15 or 20 feet from the new one. Sometimes four swarms leaye a hive in a season. When transferring bees from one colony to another simply lift out the frames in the old hive and place them in the new. This, however, can only be” done when the colony is a hive with frames. If * the colony is a box place it bottom side up and cut out the combs. - Shake out the bees in front of a hive or box till you are ready to run them in again. Save the best combs, fit them in new frames, and place these in the hive to which you wish the bees transferred. Fill up the empty space in the hive with new frames. Place the new hive on the old stand. If the bees are difficglt to handle you can smoke them a little without injury. A little puff in sthe entrance to drive away the guards is usually all that is necessary. You can likewise smoke a lit- ; tle when it is necessary to take off the cover. About /the middle of October each hive should weigh at least 60 pounds. If the hives weigh less, feed the bees sugar syrup composed of one part A ~ They are quieter _ This . water and one part granulated sugar, well dissolved * by heating or stirring. It requires from 20 to 30 pounds of honey to winter a colony of bees, accord- ing to their number. As to the production of honey per colony it may be said that there have been' a good many apiaries where the average production in some cases ran well over 200 pounds of extract- ed honey, or considerably over 100 pounds of comb honey. But taking one year with another, good and bad, and taking one colony with another, strong and weak, the average production per colony is not far from 50 pounds of comb honey, or 75 to 80 pounds of extracted honey. . i Winter your bees in the cellar or in quadruple cases. -The northern states are too cold in winter for the hives. to remain outside without good pro- tection. If frost gathers on the walls of a hive it dampens them as it thaws, and thus spoils them. Any dark, clean, dry place will do for wintering Overhaul Incubators and Brooders Now BY F. A. HARDING =] OW is the time for the poultryman to | overhaul his incubators and brooders preparatory to the hatching. season. No chances should be taken with de- fective lamps or leaky tubing if hot = water heat is employed. The risk of spoiling a hatching of eggs or killing a brooderful of young chicks is too great. The overhauling done, the poultryman should give serious consideration to the location of his in- cubators. Experience is the best teacher, of course, but personal experience is apt to be costly. The ideal location for an incubator, in the opin- ion of poultrymen, is a dry, cool place, free from draughts. There is always a possibility of fire in the operation of an incubator heated by a lamp, but this danger is reduced to the minimum’if the incu- . bator is isolated. The incubator should also be lo- cated in a place apart so that its operation will not be interfered with by young members of the family or household pets. The floor should be level and substantial. ' 2 The writer has always kept his incaibators in a cool, dry, well-ventilated cellar, having a level cement floor. The passage of persons fails to jar |‘ A HUSKY INCUBATOR HATCH - | ' PAGE FOUR .of a few degrees in temperature will not spoil a - are overestimated. By opening the doors of the _ constantly has to guard against. The hot air advo- \ bees, but the quadruple cases are now rapidly com= ing into use. These can be constructed right at home out of cheap material, and as they require no expensive packing the plan has much to recom- mend it. In a cellar it is often difficult to secure the right ventilation, and this is exceedingly important. Put your bees in their winter quarters about November 15 and do not disturb them till a warm day about the middle of April. Then you can put them out again on their summer stands. But first clean out the bottoms in the hives, and see that the bees are not short on honey. If they are feed them sugar syrup. When raising a brood the bees in a hive use up something like two pounds of honey per day. After May 15 it is well to feed them a lit- tle daily. This will induce brood rearing, and the honey crop depends more on the number of bees in a colony than on the number of colonies. Therefore try to get®as many bees as possible early in spring. eggs and the location is sufficiently isolated to be “fool proof.” In the selection of an incubator poultrymen can choose between hot air and hot water heat. Elec- trically heated incubators are out of the question for most farmers. . The essential is an even temper- ature of 103 degrees for a period of 21 days. Ease in regulation is vitally important, for as the period of incubation nears its close the animal heat’ in the eggs raises the temperature in the egg cham- ber and makes it necessary for the operator to re- duce the heat of the lamp. Poultrymen who have hatched chicks with incu- bators are well aware that a temporary rise or fall hatching, though obviously these variations, if fre- quent enough, will result in a poor hatching or no chicks at ail. There should be little variation with incubators now on the market, providing the opera- tor gives his machine the requisite attention. BEGINNER SHOULD TRY OUT INCUBATOR WITHOUT EGGS A good plan is to run the incubator for two days without any eggs in it.. This procedure will give the beginner confidence and assure him that the machine is in'good working order. § Advocates of hot air incubators point out the ease in régulating. They will tell you that the temperature of the egg chamber can be raised or lowered in a few minutes. X Poultrymen who champion the incubator heated by hot water think the advantages of hot air heat machine heated by hot water, the operator is able quickly to cool an overheated egg chamber. The advocate of hot water heat will then point out that his incubator will retain its heat long after the lamp has gone out. He also will urgesthat there is no danger of the fumes of the lamp penetrating the egg chamber, a danger which does exist in incu- bators heated by hot air. The possibility of the lamp going out or of fumes from the lamp getting into the egg chamber are - dangers which the operator of a hot air incubator cate, however, insists that these dangers are more fancied than real, given intelligent care. — g . The arguments as to hot air and het water heat apply, of course, with equal force to brooders. HOG LICE COSTLY _In recent United States department of agricul- ture experiments it cost from $1 to $2.94 a hundred pounds of pork more to feed hogs with lice than to feed clean animals. The experimenters concluded that the main reason why hogs,with lice censume more protein feed is due to the fact that. the lice suck the blood from the animals, and the latter must use more feed to replace their losses: Even then the lice-ridden hogs can not make up for the blood lost. ' At the beginning of one experi- ment, 15 hogs with lice weighed 1,167 pounds, and 15 hogs ‘without lice weighed 1,025 pounds. At the end of the experiment the lousy hogs weighed 2,872 pounds. and the clean hogs 3.150 pounds.