Sometimes a half dozen young bees, nearly mature, will be removed alive, all webbed together, fastened by legs, wings, &c. All their efforts for breaking loose prove unavailing. Al...
Under some circumstances, clover will continue to bloom through this part of the season; also, a few other flowers; but I find by weighing, a loss from one to six pounds, between t...
To test whether this extra quantity of bee-bread was so _very_ detrimental, I have introduced into such hive in the fall a family with a queen and wintered them in it, and watched...
It is said "to the bee itself this mutilation proves fatal." This last is another assertion for fact, so often repeated, that perhaps we might as well admit it; seeing the difficul...
But some of these are probably clear of any actual mischief. I strongly suspect that the spirit of destructiveness with many people is altogether too active. There are some farmers...
The swarming hive, we suppose, will throw off one swarm annually, and make us one dollar's worth of surplus honey, (we will not reckon that yielded by the first swarm, which is oft...
On the Monday evening previous, or on Tuesday morning, by putting your ear close to the hive, and listening attentively five minutes, you will hear a distinct piping noise, like th...
It is possible that feeding a stock of bees in spring, may cause them to starve! whereas, if let alone, they might escape. Notwithstanding this looks like a contradiction, I think...
The first material gathered from flowers is pollen. Candle-alder (_Alnus Rubra_)[9] yields the first supply. The time of flowering varies from the 10th of March to the 20th of Apri...
It should then be taken out, and boxes immediately put on, which should be changed for empty ones, as fast as they are filled. Yet, this extra honey is not quite as much advantage...
Between the two extremes, like most other cases, is found the correct place. A hive twelve inches square, each way, inside, has been recommended as the correct size. Here are 1,728...
_Directions for making._--Select half-inch boards of pine or other soft light wood, cut the length twelve and three-quarters inches, width six and three-eighths inches, dress down...
I know Weeks, Colton, Miner and others, tell us the hive _must be full_ before we need expect a swarm; but experience is against them. Bees do sometimes cast a swarm before filling...
The time that bees commence raising their young brood is but imperfectly understood by most people. Many persons that have kept them for years, have bestowed so little attention on...
Here I will endeavor to be brief; I feel anxious to get through with this disagreeable part, where every word I say will clash with somebody's interest or prejudice. The merits of...
Had I no experience further than this, I should, perhaps, rest satisfied as to the cause, and should endeavor to apply the remedy. Several other writers have appeared in different...
If there are no large trees in the vicinity of your apiary, all the better, as there will then be no danger of your swarms lighting on them; but all bee-keepers are not so fortunat...
Boxes taken off at the end of warm weather, and exposed in a freezing situation through the winter, appear to have all the worms as well as eggs for them destroyed by the cold; con...
Industry belongs to their nature. When the flowers yield honey, and the weather is fine, they need no impulse from man to perform their part. When their tenement is supplied with a...
Suppose a quart of bees were put in a box or hive where all the cells were filled and lengthened out with honey; the spaces between the combs would be about one-fourth of an inch--...
As for pollen being converted into wax or comb, a simple question will show its fallacy. Do not the bees belonging to a hive that is full of combs, and no more wax for that purpose...
There are many things pertaining to bees that cannot be properly examined and understood, without a glass hive of some sort. Yet a perfect observatory hive containing but one comb,...
This has been done until the very prefix of patent, or premium, attached to a hive, renders it almost certain that there must be something deleterious to the apiarian; either in ex...
The first indications of such an accident will be, the bees outside in clusters, when the hive is perhaps only half or two-thirds full, and the honey running out from the bottom, (...
But it is altogether a different thing with our hives in which bees are wintered; they are seldom or never entirely exempt! Perhaps it is impossible to winter bees without preservi...
First, look into the lower hive for a dead queen, and, if none is found there, look thoroughly, as far as possible, for a little compact cluster of bees, the size of a hen's egg, t...
We will now notice the appearance about a weak hive that makes no resistance, and show the result to be a total loss of the stock, without timely interference. Each robber, when le...
I have known it recommended, and practised by some apiarians, to feed bees all at once in the open air, in a large trough; but whoever realizes much profit by this method, will be...
As for remedies, I have tried several. The least trouble is to remove the weak hive in the morning to the cellar, or some dark, cool place, for a few days, until at least two or th...
There is but one period from February till October, when prosperous stocks are free from young brood in the combs. If combs are taken out when occupied, there must be a loss of all...