Fr. TADEUSZ CIBOROWSKI
PARISH IN ADAMOWICZE
WORK IN THE APIARY
POSTED BY THE AUTHOR
1927
MAIN STORE IN KAZIMIERZ RUTSKI'S BOOKSTORE
IN VILNIUS.
Fr. TADEUSZ CIBOROWSKI
PARISH IN ADAMOWICZE
WORK IN THE APIARY.
POSTED BY THE AUTHOR
1927
MAIN STORE IN KAZIMIERZ RUTSKI'S BOOKSTORE
IN VILNIUS.
All rights reserved.
"ZNICZ" printing house in Vilnius.
PREFACE.
In the old days, beekeeping was very famous in our country. Hundreds of thousands of cents of wax and honey were exported abroad. And we know that the local needs were significant. There were no sweets other than honey, and apart from torch, in peasants' cottages, manor houses, manor houses, palaces, and, above all, in churches, only wax was used as a material for illumination. The beeswax next to the amber was used for incense. Among the drinks, the most favorite was mead, made at home. Therefore, beekeeping in Poland was very developed. The beekeepers' guild had separate privileges and rights, it had its altars in churches, banners and signs, and each individual beekeeper had his own marks that marked his bees in the forests. Each district had its own honey hunting court, which resolved disputes, protected property, and accepted wills, bequests and legacies.
1 2 7 10 18 31 44
Dig. 1.
Ancient beekeeping marks in Poland. The numbers are the consecutive numbers of the moles from the article by Prof. Lesiejewski from "Pasiecznik Wzorowy" 1919, no. No. 7 and 10. Further characters on pages XI and XVI.
As forests were cut down, beekeeping with "logs - beehives" moved to gardens and orchards, but guild organizations did not disappear, in fact they survived even beyond the political collapse of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Currently, beekeeping is not very high in our country, because the natural living conditions of bees have changed for the worse and require a higher beekeeping culture, and it is painful to admit that Polish beekeeping education is generally at a low level. Moreover, the world war, the greatest burden of which fell on our lands, did not contribute to the development of beekeeping. However, people of good will do not stop working, people are very interested in beekeeping, as evidenced by the purchase of books about beekeeping, numerous publications and periodicals, and crowds of visitors to beekeeping exhibitions, as was the case at the First All-Polish Beekeeping Congress combined with the last beekeeping exhibition in Lviv in 1925.
Unfortunately, today all beekeepers in Poland are not organized, even though many run exemplary apiaries and have great knowledge and experience. Only a few work persistently in organizations, are pioneers in the progress of domestic beekeeping and strive to put it on the track of continuous development.
The head of all beekeeping societies and associations in Poland is the Supreme Union of Beekeeping Societies of the Republic of Poland, founded at the beginning of 1922, headquartered in Warsaw at 14 Miodowa Street. Its task is to support the development of beekeeping in the territory of the Polish State, and in particular to support and unite the Societies. District and other beekeeping associations belonging to the Association. It unites the following district unions: Lviv Union (48 societies - 2,600 members). The Poznań Association (64 societies - 2,320 members), the Pomeranian Association based in Grudziądz (27 societies - 500 members), and finally the Silesian Association (7 societies). There are also District Beekeeping Societies: Warsaw, Lublin, Vilnius, Płock, Piotrków, Częstochowa, Przasnyskie, Miechów and Krzemienieckie. There are also beekeeping groups and groups, but not equally prosperous. Some barely show signs of life, while others develop extensive activities, have their own instructors, organize readings, lectures, talks and courses, organize the planting of melliferous trees and sow medicinal herbs.
In addition to the above purely beekeeping organizations, there are beekeeping, horticultural and agricultural societies *), and public and state agricultural schools treat this subject quite extensively.
*) For example: T-wo Apiculture and Horticulture Warszawa Wiejska 12, Centralne Towarzystwo Rolnicze Warszawa Kopernika 30, Centralny Związek Kołek Rolnicze Warszawa Tamka 1, T-wo Gospodarskie we Lviv Kopernika 20 and Agricultural Chambers of Poznań and Pomerania.
There is hope that the organization of beekeeping in Poland will spread more and more and will be revived, although in different forms than before.
The bee industry has been starting to revive in recent years. We have several workshops producing beekeeping tools and utensils, there is a factory producing rollers for artificial wax, there are factories producing beehives of various systems and several dozen shops selling beekeeping tools. There are also honey and wax processing plants, and their products arouse interest in society. Exhibitions and shows are doing their job and awakening the traditional domestic industry from sleep.
Going to meet the national effort to rebuild and expand beekeeping in the Republic of Poland, I am publishing this work. It is worth recalling that it is a practical part - organizational and technical - of my work, which is already in circulation, entitled "Bees", which discusses the subject from a theoretical point of view, constituting the basis for all activities in the apiary.
The main idea of our "Work in the apiary" will be to assess the value of individual bee families as clearly as possible according to their internal advantages and use them in accordance with nature, and not to multiply the trunks endlessly and to expand the apiary in an unproductive way in terms of quantity. Not quantity but quality is the glory of a cultured beekeeper.
As for general remarks, I would first like to draw the reader's attention to the need to quickly become familiar with apiary work, which is closely related to the ability to calculate the dates for certain bee activities. Next, it is important to know the condition of the trunks by external signs, and therefore, to take all preventive and management actions in a timely manner.
Every trunk is a separate world. So many different factors contribute to the development of each bee family that it is an individual, living organism. The mother, workers, brood, drones are the living cells of this organism, earwax and putty are the skeleton, the hive is the outer shell, honey is the blood that pulsates and gives the team energy. A beekeeper would be wrong if he wanted to apply one standard of treatment to all trunks. Knowledge, constantly multiplied and sensitive intelligent observation - these are the only ways to penetrate the peculiar secrets of each trunk.
Working in the apiary, despite the toil and sweat that floods the eyes on a hot day, has incomparable charm and charm. The swarm still plays its anthem of creation, and with its adoration of diligence and iron organizational and family discipline, it conquers the heart and mind of the beekeeper. This explains the love of beekeepers for the apiary, which is passed down from father to son, from generation to generation. The trunk still pours streams of honey into the world and cheers sad hearts with the joy of sweetness, binding the bee makers into one tight circle of friendship.
I feel obliged to express my sincere gratitude to all those friendly hearts who provided their valuable advice, strength and help in writing and publishing this work. At the same time, I would like to thank the critics for their favorable interest in my "Bees" and the society for recognizing my efforts so far. I would also like to mention that a certain number of film plates were loaned to me by Warszawskie T-wo Pszcz. - Gardening and such I mean (TPO), others again acquired from the works of St. Brzóski and bear the mark (B).
I am asking the reader interested in the development of beekeeping in the Republic of Poland to provide professional criticism so that I can make substantive corrections in the next edition, if possible.
God bless the beekeeper in spirit in his heartfelt honey-making work.
The kind reader who has read "Bees" and will delve deeper into "Work in the apiary" will gain some idea about bees in general and about their intelligent, profitable breeding. However, since managing bees means giving life to vibrant cells, which, according to nature, always overflow in their full, creative development, it is impossible to give a picture of all the manifestations of life and their complications in a relatively small work. After all, a good beekeeper can be considered a good beekeeper who can cope perfectly in the apiary during all seasons of the year.
As always, in practical beekeeping work there are first, guiding principles, there are second and third principles, they are necessary for the whole, but less important, subordinate.
Since not everyone who starts practical classes is able to pick out the first principles from the multitude of general principles presented, I am giving you twelve beekeeping laws to which you should pay close attention when reading this book, and the observance of which in practical life will undoubtedly contribute to success and efficiency. apiaries.
1. You should only grow trunks with good mothers and you must always be absolutely sure that the trunk is not orphaned. If in doubt, give uncovered brood. Establishing rescue nurseries is a sure sign of orphanhood.
2. Keep only strong trunks, i.e. with a large plant, because only a strong trunk can cope with the tasks, so it will grow on its own, protect itself from pests and provide a surplus of yield as a return on investment and remuneration for work. Don't let the bees sweat too much.
3. Each trunk should have a sufficient supply of food, and if it is lacking, it should be supplemented; feed basically only with honey. Moreover, the food should be healthy, not infected or burnt. Use sugar syrup only when necessary to save yourself from hunger, and never to save money on honey.
4. Take all actions in time. In the apiary there is no saying "it will be okay". Neglect of the apiary should be equated with ignorance and bad will. Observe the bees often, but do not stand in the way of their flight.
5. Have a well-smoking chicken at hand in all activities, especially when gathering bees for the sake of the bees and collecting honey for the sake of yourself. Do not irritate the bees, but keep them obedient. Do not abuse smoke. Avoid activities in hot, muggy weather or before a storm. When combining bees, use too much smoke rather than too little to prevent the bees from crowding each other.
6. Because a bee attack - robbery can destroy an apiary, be on guard against the reasons for its occurrence, and at the slightest sign of an attack, suppress the robbers ruthlessly. Narrow the outlets after finishing the take.
7. Do not fall for two beekeeping drawbacks: do not multiply the apiary too quickly and do not take honey away from combs intended for wintering.
8. Protect tree trunks from moisture and mold. Therefore, use well-built, tightly and warmly constructed hives.
9. Leave the bees completely alone in winter; except perhaps saving the bees from starvation and preventing suffocation. Winterize the trunks with heat, arrange cold nests and do not place the outlets too low from the ceiling.
10. Please bees by growing and planting honey trees and bushes.
11. Protect bees from plague, treat immediately if found. Always approach hives with clean hands and wash them well after handling.
12. Always remember the dates of birth of various individuals of the swarm.
Whoever respects the life constitution of bees will have enough honey and wax, i.e. sweetness, scents and light.
AUTHOR.
Adamowicze near Grodno, January 1, 1927
54 58 72 73 86 111 121
LIST OF ITEMS.
Side
Preface V-X
ORGANIZATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
Chapter I. Apiary. 1— 16
1. Choosing a place for the apiary. 2. Arranging the apiary. Ostrzeszek. 3. Acquiring bees. 4. Features of a good trunk. 5. How many trunks should you buy to start with? 6. Transporting trunks. 7. Setting up the hives. 8. how many trunks can be placed in the apiary. 9. What breed of bees to breed.
Chapter II. Work in the apiary. 17— 27
1. Learning about bees. 2. The way of behaving in the apiary. 3. Robot in the hive. 4. How often to check the hives. 5. What to watch out for when inspecting a tree trunk. 6 Sting. 7. Comments on external signs indicating the condition of the trunks and the need for action. 8. Working in bottomless pits. 9. After finishing work in the apiary.
Chapter III. Beekeeper's calendar. 28— 69
1. Keeping bees in spring. Flight. Feeding. The bees are down. Stump classification. 2. First spring inspection. Sweeping the tree trunks. Flour feeding. Watering. Displaying from lockstitches. 3. Second spring inspection. Warmth in the nest. Repairing combs damaged during winter. 4. Moving bees with a ready nest. Transferring bees from non-demountable hives to frame hives. 5. Balancing the strength of the trunks. Connection. Strengthening trunks by repositioning. Strengthening the trunks by applying brood combs. Along with a stuck fly. Strengthening the trunks by adding fly. 6. Feeding out of poverty. Fueling. 7. Adapting and enlarging sockets. Artificial snake. Wire rods. Praska. Putting in an artificial knot. Jagger. Nowiński's flask. 8. Spring swarm. Crusher. 9. Further spring care. Purpose of spring activities. The transition period between spring and summer. Dish of supers. Beginnings. Lattice.
Chapter IV. Summer treatments. 70— 129
Swarm. Inducing and limiting swarming. Preparation of hives. Preparations closer. Swarm. Guarding and collecting the swarm. Deposition. Cultivation of swarms. Ways to attract swarms. Stopping escaping swarms. Deaths. Swarm time. Preventing swarming. How to stop further swarming in a non-removable stump. 1. Creating artificial swarms. 2. Raising young mothers. Inserting queen cells. Industrial production of mothers. Wedding street. Adding mothers. 3. Main point (101). When should you dismantle the sockets during the main inspection? How to avoid frame work. Ventilation of hives. 4. Honey production in sectional frames (106). 5. Economy in straw baskets and bottomless tanks. 6. Renewal of wax in frame hives and bottomless nests (117). 7. Benefiting the bees. Honey plants. Removal of stumps for use. 8. Should the mother be limited to brood during mating season (121). Limiting the mother. Taking away. Renewing the mother. Searching for the mother. 9. Final remarks of the summer period (124). Purity of honey. Honey storage. Crow honey. Securing trunks at the end of summer.
Chapter V. Autumn works. 130—147
1. Autumn treat. Rushing: drones. 2 First autumn review (131). Winter supplies. How much honey and frames are needed for the winter? 3. Strengthening trunks in autumn (135). Deleting stumps. Drugging bees. Robbery. 4. Storing spare honey frames (139). Storing empty patches. Drainage. 5. The second autumn inspection and supply of tree trunks for winter (142). Moving bees from logs and non-removable baskets. 6. Treating a tree trunk with a drone queen and a drone bee.
Chapter VI. Winter worries. 148—156
1. Feeding bees in winter. 2. Bees wintering in lockstitches. 3. Warm wintering of bees. Wintering of weak trunks and roes with spare queens. End,
TECHNICAL DEPARTMENT.
Chapter I. Street. 157—216
1. Conditions for a good hive. 2. Ul Warszawski. Nest frame. Trabeculae. Street Bottom. Walls. Extension. Bearing for the extension. Extension frame. Beehive boarding. Outlets, latches. Destination of outlets. Bridge. Peak. 3. Hive supplies. Frames. Valves. Sheet metal or partition grate. Canvas. Straw mats. How to sew mats. Feeder. 4. How to convert Lewicki Street into a Warsaw extension street. 5. Changes in the Warsaw top hive. 6. Material for beehives. 7. Painting beehives. 8. Cheap, adjustable Warsaw street. 9. Dadant Blatt's Hive (186). Essential features of the Dad hive. Bl. Hull of the hive. Frames. Spacing. Sections. 10. Slavic hive by D. Ciesielski. 11. Straw bottom. Kószka Greater Poland. 12. History of hives improvement.
Chapter II. Beekeeping utensils and tools. 217—230
1. Honey extractor. 2. Protective net. 3. Gloves. 4. Kurzysko. 5. Other equipment. 6. Solar melter.
Chapter III. Observations and notes. 231—239
Chapter IV. Beekeeping trade and industry. 240—248
1. Purchase and transport of bees. 2. How to recognize the adulteration of honey and wax? 3 Wax adulteration. 4. Wax melting. 5. Wax bleaching.
Chapter V. Honey and preserves. 249—261
Chapter VI. Honey beekeeping experiences. 262—270
Rollers. Relief. Thick plaster.
Dig. 2.
Beekeeping practice in Adamowicze in 1925 (photo: own).
ORGANIZATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CHAPTER I
Apiary.
1. Choosing a place for an apiary. Apiary is a stand of tree trunks. In a broader sense, it is a square used for bee breeding, along with tools and auxiliary buildings. Typically, an apiary is an area in a garden or orchard where beehives are placed. When choosing a place for an apiary, you should be aware of the needs of bees and your guiding organizational idea.
Dig. 3.
The author's apiary in Adamowicze in 1925 (photo: own).
Of course, it would be most convenient if the apiary was located right next to the beekeeper's house for easier supervision and so that beekeeping work could be performed quickly and without too much effort. The activities in the apiary are sometimes so frequent and small, and yet so fundamentally important, that it is absolutely necessary to be able to constantly observe and guard it. The flight of bees from the beginning of spring until late autumn, the danger of attack and robbery by evil people, the summer swarm - these are the reasons why constant vigilance is necessary. Therefore, if it becomes impossible to place bees right next to the house, an appropriate building is needed in the apiary, where the beekeeper could have a shelter, a workshop, and a storage room for tools and utensils needed to operate the apiary. Even in an apiary that is at least 30 steps away from the house, you should have at least an empty hive where you can put the most necessary beekeeping supplies: a beekeeper, a scraper, a knife, feathers, a scoop, some humus, etc.
“When we talk about the needs of bees, we mean their natural requirements and instinctive drives.
The bees should be comfortable and warm, but not too hot. Therefore, we protect the site from unpleasant and cold western and northern winds, most often prevailing here. In this way, we prevent workers returning from the field from getting lost right next to the hives. We do not place the tree trunks on a stove, because such a position causes early spring migration, exposing the bees to destruction and is the reason for summer lodging and therefore idleness. If possible, we provide partial shade so that the sun illuminates the trunks until the morning, and from midday, so that in summer, during the hottest days, the trunks are nicely cool, which will make the bees' work more efficient. In the apiary of a good beekeeper, the bees will not lie on the hives or get too hot, which is either due to the faulty construction of the hive or, to an even greater extent, due to the poor "hot" setting of the apiary.
If the orchard site is not fenced with a high fence reaching at least to the tree crowns, we plant it with shrubs (gooseberries, currants, elderberry, jasmine, hazel) to fill the gap below the tree crowns and prevent cold, chilly drafts.
We arrange the apiary in a secluded place: so that angry bees cannot attack passers-by and animals on the road and in the yard; we fence the hives from animals to protect against accidents; We do not allow poultry to feed in the apiary, because chickens, and especially turkeys, catch bees, while geese, on the contrary, are attacked by them.
If it is necessary to place the trunks near the road, at a distance of less than 10 meters, and especially if the outlets are directed there, we must fence the apiary with a 3-meter high fence. In general, outlets should not be directed towards nearby roads. The apiary will be most dangerous for the road running next to it from the north or north-west, because despite caution and security, it may happen that an emerging swarm, usually heading in this direction, may fall on sweaty horses and cause harm. ¹) In general, the tree trunks should be placed not too close to the road so that driving in December does not disturb the bees' rest in winter.
¹) Swarming bees usually alight and move in the direction away from the sun, as they do not like to follow their mother under the sun. In the hive, in most cases, the swarm develops and grows towards the sun, probably due to the heat and positive influence of solar radiation.
We then avoid places where cold, piercing air currents can be felt on warm, quiet spring evenings. They are harmful to bees, but warm currents indicate a suitable place.
"In our Poland, whatever you want," says the proverb, so everyone builds hives the way they see fit. However, you need to know what the nature of bees is and what requirements they have in order to comply with them, even if it seems not very beneficial for us. Sometimes a dozen or so steps difference in this or that direction in the arrangement of the apiary is crucial to its success. This is the solution to the mystery of why sometimes the same bees do well in two neighbors, or almost next door, in one and not in the other.
If someone intended to organize an apiary on a larger scale, or would build in a new housing estate, which can often happen today during land consolidation or colonization, they should also remember about a suitable place for an apiary. For bee breeding to be profitable, the area around the apiary must be honey-producing. So let's take a good look around the vegetation of a given area, and especially whether there are trees, plants and shrubs that are particularly melliferous, and whether bees are "prolific" among local farmers. If we notice apiaries that are too small and sparse, we should be careful, even if it seems to us that the area is honey-producing. By the way, let's carefully investigate whether rot was not the reason for the loss of apiaries. If so, or probably so, let's be extremely careful. If we decide to live there permanently, we should refrain from large expenditures and start with a few stumps on a trial basis until we can see for ourselves how healthy the area is.
Regarding the selection of a place for a new apiary, I quote the relevant opinion of T. Ciesielski: "The apiary should not be placed on an open hill, because the bees will suffer from strong winds here, and it is difficult for them to carry their load up the hill during the harvesting period. The most suitable are the southern and western slopes of hills, or an open lowland, provided that it is not wet; in humid places, bees suffer greatly from the cold that prevails in spring, i.e. at the time when they need the most heat for rapid development. It is very beneficial to arrange apiaries in small forests, groves, and clear-cut areas, but in large forests with old trees, bees suffer a lot from birds that eat in spring, in the absence of other insects, exterminate them in masses, and among tall trees, many bees are also destroyed during the honeybee period, if they can collect it outside the forest. The proximity of a spring, a small stream or a river is beneficial for the apiary, but on the contrary, the proximity of a pond, lake or a wide river is very harmful, especially if the bees have to look for something outside the water, because then, when they return loaded, they fall in masses into the water with every sharp gust of wind and they melt; in such a position, the trunks will never be strong, and only a strong trunk can bring real benefit.
“The apiary should be - says Ciesielski finally - arranged so that there is nectar in the immediate vicinity, i.e. as many honey-producing plants as possible grow right next to it; In particular, you should keep an eye on the proximity of the spring harvest, as bees can be transported to the summer harvest. The proximity of large cities, sugar and gingerbread factories, mead factories, breweries and distilleries is very harmful for apiaries, because bees die here in thousands, and sometimes they can even bring the infectious disease of foulbrood from robbery to the apiary.
When choosing, we must know that there are mediocre, favorable and best places. The ones we enjoy more are mediocre. than for bees, for example to have hives at hand; it is beneficial if, in addition to good environmental conditions for the apiary, it is also handy for us; the best ones will be those that best meet the natural requirements of bees and are selected in accordance with beekeeping science.
Lubieniecki says: 'Choose a place for your apiary that is as warm as possible, in a quiet place and in such a location that the bees can benefit as much as possible and be as close as possible. It's best for them to have a forest in the spring, then good meadows, then hreczki, bodiaki, heather and other berries" (vol. II, p. 4).
2. Arranging the apiary. Ostrzeszek. First of all, we level and clean the area chosen for the apiary to make it easier to operate. We occupy an appropriate area of land for the intended number of trunks, and we make sure that they can be placed at a certain distance from each other to avoid the loss of young mothers returning from a wedding. We dig the apiary with a ridge and plant a yellow acacia hedge on the discarded soil. The western side is planted with taller honey trees (linden, chestnut, brittle willow, iwa and others). On the northern side, we put a brick fence or plant pin trees (alternating fir and pine) to protect against frosty winds in winter. On the south side, next to a slightly higher fence, we arrange an old Polish roof - it is a roof up to 2.5 meters high, any length and 1.5 meters wide, covered with shingles, or worse with straw due to the risk of fire. This building is very useful because it allows you to place a certain number of straw trunks without roofs, and allows you to work in the shade during the hottest time of the day or during rainy weather; therefore, it saves a lot of precious time during the period of intense beekeeping work.
We plant the embanked square of the apiary with fruit trees, preferably low-stem trees, we plant white currant bushes, most useful for making wine, quite densely in rows, and finally we sow melliferous plants. Let's add a house for the beekeeper with a workshop and a lockstitch to the whole.
3. Acquiring bees. Sometimes chance can make someone a beekeeper. Bees, sometimes coming in a swarm from quite a distance. they sit down, tired, nearby in a field or near a house and "are up for grabs." For an early hive, it is always worth the effort to collect it and try to get a frame hive, which is often easy. If you don't have a spare hive, you can rent a few frames from your neighbor, with bees on them, in a box, assembled on the spot, even from unplaned squares. The box should have dimensions such as to accommodate eight frames, it should be equipped with an outlet, and it should be covered from the rain, at least with a piece of bark or sheet metal. Placed in the shade, it will temporarily completely replace the hive that we will build at a slower time, before the colder nights arrive.
During these preparations, we keep the bees collected in the shunt in the basement and protected from suffocation.
However, it is difficult to wait for cases, usually you have to buy bees, either in swarms from natural swarms or old stumps. When we buy in Barciach stores, we pay cheaper and we collect them earlier in the spring. Built in well-arranged boxes, they are much more expensive, and we take them a little later to check the proper condition of the trunks after the first spring inspection. In both cases, we choose strong trunks without any defects. Wyborowe doesn't hurt even to overpay, because you can only get a good start with good stock. You should not trust your knowledge of bees and it is best to ask an experienced beekeeper to help you choose, and even if you have sufficient knowledge of beekeeping, it is good to have someone to advise you.
Dig. 4.
A strong swarm in a frame hive after the second spring inspection, view from above (photo: own).
The price of winterized trunks together with the construction on frames may be worth 15 kg. honey. The construction of bees purchased in beehives is out of the question, because after transporting them to the place, you have to drive the bees to the boxes, transferring only the combs with the brood, and using the rest of the wax for a crowbar. A natural swarm may cost about 7 kg of honey.
We can buy natural swarms even from a neighbor right next door, and wintered ones no closer than three kilometers in a straight line, so that when transported they do not return to the place of their former flight.
Purchased trunks often need to be transported quite far away; If the path is uneven and rocky, you should take the trunks with older work so that the slices do not break off.
It is good to buy bees with young queens, so we recommend the stumps that were born last year, or those that were already young.
4. Features of a good trunk. Since it is not always possible to have at hand a helpful person who is thoroughly familiar with beekeeping, it will be useful to provide some information on recognizing the value of a stump by internal and external signs. The former are more reliable and less unreliable, but require more time, while in the latter, more risky case, a few moments are enough to form a probable belief in the value of the trunk. There is no need to look through the entire trunk, just see a few frames, pay attention to the wax, brood and honey supply. Not very old earwax, not rotten or moldy, lots of bees, lively mother with a bulbous abdomen, or instead brood in various stages of development, compactly standing, not hunchbacked, 2 kg of honey supply. for each spring month, counting until the beginning of the holiday, i.e. until St. John the Baptist, and also the combs covered by bees in black, i.e. so that no wax can be seen from under the layer of bees - these are features that indicate that the trunk is completely good. If the trunk was still swarming last year, so it has a young mother, it is certainly first-class.
However, we usually buy bees in beehives. In such a case, they must be judged by external signs.
The goodness and fertility of the mother are indicated by the bees' strong, dense and sharp flight, beginning with the sunrise, and their return with a thick collar - by a broken line at the eye. The same weaker signs indicate less strength of the trunk. When the bees are bees, they swarm in the hive, they are malicious when deducted, they are unsteady and reluctant, and finally they return to the hive without a beetle, at best the trunk has weak strength and an old mother, and may even be orphaned, moist, or damp or damp. moldy nest.
A strong and healthy trunk is best placed in the field between 10 a.m. and midnight, because these are the hours when the bees only work. Then there are moments of flight - the midday flight of young bees, whose flight, buzzing and movement are significantly different, but unknown to a beekeeper with little knowledge. Therefore, the assessment of the value of the trunks after the working flight is best done in the morning on a quiet, warm and sunny day. However, it does not hurt to learn about the bees' flight (knowing that it is the bee), because the loss of the bee indicates the goodness of the mother. A trunk in which we notice several drones at a time when there should not be any in the apiary is not suitable for purchase; because in the spring we conclude that it has an old or drone mother (or a drone bee), and in the autumn that it is orphaned.
Dig. 5.
Strong bees in a log (photo: own).
On warm evenings, the trunk, strong and healthy, rumbles constantly with a steady, semi-bass voice: boo-ooo. Pleasantly fragrant, warm air comes out of the pond, and right at the outlet there are watchful guards and bees airing the hive. To a faint tap or even a rustle, the trunk responds with a firm, short, lively buzz! If the disturbance is repeated, the noise will intensify, the bees will pour out thickly onto the bridge, and finally they will get up to fight the intruder.
If we hear a voice that is wavering, uneven, higher than the previous one, we have orphanhood, silence in the hive when it is warm outside - weakness, after knocking, a long and weak rustle means hunger, bees swarming around the hive in spring - pests in the nest. Don't buy these hives. If you notice a disgusting smell coming from a trunk, even if it seems to be strong, run away from the apiary where pepper grows, because rot is rampant there and no trunk is suitable for purchase!
In a trunk with a non-removable nest, i.e. in a log, in a beehive, after opening, we will immediately notice significant strength when all the work is done. (Fig.5). If fresh slices are already cut later in spring, in the first days of May, the trunk has a good mother and plenty of brood. We check honey supplies by piercing the honeycombs with a thin stick where we might expect it. They are already exhausted when a stick pulled just under the ceiling does not become covered with honey.
Very weak bees, but as bad as hags, have sucked out their brood several times and are chasing away the remains. A trunk in which, in addition to an uncertain voice, we can notice slow, disorganized movements, lack of a strong covering on the combs, indicates the absence of a mother, and in a stinking trunk - rot. A trunk in which small half-drones can be seen when all the bees are working in the nest has a poor queen or a poison bee. Such a trunk with poison will be weaker. A robbed trunk should be considered insecure - motherless. A roasted trunk is never suitable for purchase.
For the beekeeper-observer, one or two features are enough to gain an idea of the value of the trunk. Of course, external influences such as the season, time of day, abundance of crops in the field, weather and heat, etc. have a strong influence on the intensity or decrease of the signs of trunk value.
5. How many trunks should you buy to start with? An experienced beekeeper can only count on the penny he spends on the apiary, while a beginner, even if his funds allow him and he is willing, should not start apiary work on a larger number of trunks. It's best to start with two trunks, or four at most. Anyone who wants to become a good and experienced beekeeper, who treats his profession with passion, should not create opportunities for himself to experience extremely unpleasant disappointments and discouragement that comes after the profession. You should not start with one hive, because failure or poor and erroneous management of one can be corrected by more successful practice in the other. It is not worth taking more than four, because an unsuccessful practice may expose you to too great a loss. You need to be able to walk around bees, this skill is easily acquired over time and the apiary is multiplied at a low cost. We need a lot of willing and practical beekeepers. In our opinion, only small-successful attempts can encourage further work in the apiary. It will be best if the growth of the apiary follows its own productive strength and profitability. Only the initial outlay should be made, and the rest should be obtained through the beekeeper's personal idea and the skillful and organized work of the beekeeper.
There are those who, having heard many times about the great profitability of apiaries in good hands, only calculate profits and make large expenditures for profit. So they immediately organize huge apiaries, hire a paid beekeeper, etc. After all, this is not the way to achieve the right goal! You have to love the bees, you have to give them your own wise and understanding care, you have to put more personal effort than a penny, and then the apiary will grow rapidly every year without any risk or fear of bankruptcy.
6. Transporting trunks. It is easiest to transport hives in spring after they have been flown. Then we have a not very large supply of honey, a relatively small amount of brood and the strength of the bees, and finally quite cool evenings guarantee the successful transport of the bees without any damage, especially without suffocation. It is more difficult to transport in the autumn, when the combs are loaded with honey, and it is worst in the winter, because the bees may become anxious about molting and coagulating larger amounts of them in frosty weather. Transport in the summer is not a good idea, as the risk of the patches breaking off increases. There should be no question of transporting bees commercially in the summer, the exception being transport for commercial purposes while maintaining due care, which will be discussed later. In winter, you can transport the trunks during a smooth, good winter on warm days with a thaw.
As we can see, it is best to transport the trunks in the spring and let's stick to that.
We collect the selected and paid trunks on the same day for fear of damage to them by a dishonest seller. God guards the guarded.
When preparing bees for transport, we should keep three things in mind: 1) protect the nest from falling apart, 2) prevent the bee from thinning out and 3) prevent it from escaping. Place the bees on the cart so that the edges of the slices are vertical. Likewise, the combs cannot lie flat in the hive, as they would break off when shaken for the first time. Straw baskets and bottoms can be placed "on their heads", i.e. with the headrests down, but when turning the baskets over to this position, we gradually tilt them with the edge of the slices, not the plane. The lower openings of these straw hats are tied with bags, each individually, so tightly that the bees cannot get out.
In frame hives, the frames should be placed closely, one next to the other, and the spacing pins should be checked on the frames and valves so that they do not wobble when the cart moves. We attach the valves and the pillow without any restrictions with nails, driven not very deep into the walls of the hive, right in the corner formed by the valve and the wall, so that the nest and the valves do not give way.
To prevent suffocation, it is best to leave half of the nest uncovered and attach a wire mesh over it with slats. This can also be done during the day. In the evening, we raise the roofs of the hives, cool the nests, force the bees to move back from the outlets, and strain the holes. We attach the latches with nails on all four sides, seal the hive with clay, and seal the hive with seams if it has gaps - the stump is ready to be transported.
We arrange the hives on a long, ladder-shaped wagon, thickly strewn with torn straw, so that the edges of the combs look sideways towards the ends of the axes. They can be placed at an angle, it doesn't make any difference, as long as they don't lean towards the plane of the slices. When transporting by rail, we turn the sides of the slices along the track, protecting them from breaking during buffer impacts.
We pay close attention to tightly closing the hives to prevent the bees from leaving, because if we transport them by horse during the day, we would expose the surroundings to great danger, and if we transport them at night or by rail, we would lose the bees along the way.
During transport on the road, the beekeeper must be present to prevent accidents if necessary. You should always have dust and mixed clay at hand to plug the gaps, and a lantern at night.
If the bees spill out during the day's transport, the driver must immediately disengage and lead the horses away, and the beekeeper must let the bees out for a flight and wait until the evening so that, after repairing the deficiencies and after the bees have gathered in the evening, he can move on. It is best to transport hives in the evening, securing them from swinging by tying them with ropes or chains. We start slowly, go at a walk, braking in advance and avoiding potholes.
After arriving at the site, when the bees are quite calm, we can leave the hives on the cart and only in the morning, after the final preparation of the places, take them down, arrange them and strain them. If some or all of the trunks are very anxious, we put them together without waiting in the morning and open the latches after a while.
7. Setting up the hives. It is best to place the trunks in the apiary with their outlets towards the summer east or north. It should not be directed towards the south, because the trunks placed in this way will never be too strong in numbers, because the southern heat will always be inappropriate. During the winter, for example, the bees will be attracted by sunlight on frosty days, and in spring on stormy and cold days, so they cannot be strong. In summer, such bees will be prone to swarming and lodging due to the heat. Let us also note that a trunk with its outlet facing south will always be less honey-like than one that is induced to work by the heat of the air. Directing the outlets towards the west is also harmful, because such trunks heat up strongly during the summer heat, which causes swarming and lodging. However, the western direction is not harmful in spring and winter, because then the sun does not reach there. Therefore, you can direct the outlets towards the west only when this side is shaded.
Let's remember: trunks and branches are the ones that produce the most honey and are the strongest. from the south and west, with outlets facing north or east.
It is advisable not to place the trunks in a row arrangement, especially in larger apiaries. This is not done out of superstition, supposedly to avoid being cast by a magician who can easily count the stumps, but only to protect the bees from wandering into other hives, not to give them the opportunity to be easily robbed, and, above all, to secure the return of the young mothers after wedding overheating. If such arrangement is necessary, which happens most often under the blade, some deviations in directions should be made, the hives should be painted in different colors, and finally, various types of natural signs should be created, such as: separating trees, bushes, etc. For these reasons, trunks should not be placed too close to each other. Scattering the hives randomly in the apiary is best to help the bees find their way around and get to know their hives. You should always make sure that the bees have sufficient access to the outlets.
There are countries where they build so-called pavilions. These are neat buildings, sometimes beautifully and tastefully built, whose walls consist of beehives, in three or more rows, with outlets to the outside and valves to the inside. It is clear from what we have said above that this is not good for the bees. Moreover, in such pavilions, the lower trunks will be stronger than the higher ones, because the bees returning from honeying are heavy and settle more easily on the lower outlets. Moreover, in the event of a fire or contagious disease, rescue becomes impossible.
The ground on which we place the hives can be overgrown with low-cut grass, and in front of the outlets it can be raked to be able to observe the trunk after the garbage thrown out by it, provided, however, that the place is covered with abundantly washed, coarse-grained river sand.
The hives should stand firmly on stools made of four stakes driven a foot into the ground and protruding the same amount above the ground surface, connected crosswise by patches. The stool made in this way must be checked with a spirit level so that the hive is even and straight. Each hive, whether standing on a pole or under a blade, should be placed on a separate stool so that there is no need to disturb the neighbor while working.
In the apiary, a toque is an open place where we place tree trunks.
Bees like partial shade best and we should create that for them. The lack of bushes in the apiary is irritating in hot weather and does not provide support for swarms to form, but on the other hand, too much shade makes the bees unable to work, and dense tree branches do not allow them to move freely in flight.
Each hive should have its own number, which should also be used to mark all its moving parts.
8. How many trunks can be placed in the apiary? The number of trunks depends primarily on the area occupied by the apiary, then on the suitability of the place in terms of abundance of bees and on the method of keeping the bees. There can be many more trunks in one cluster when the area is rich in melliferous plants than when it is empty, dry and with little vegetation. In a good area, you can build up to two hundred frame trunks for honey. In swarming farms, i.e. those where the beekeeper waits for natural swarms, it would be difficult to prevent swarms from gathering during the swarm. Besides, when establishing an apiary, we usually start with a small number of tree trunks and have time to look around and examine the local conditions. Experienced beekeepers who would like to set up large apiaries should pay attention to whether their neighbors, who are not familiar with beekeeping, are doing well with bees.
Usually, when establishing larger apiaries, when they have several dozen trunks, beekeepers try to establish a second apiary nearby so that one can support and replace the other. Having two apiaries at a distance of three kilometers is extremely beneficial, either due to the creation of artificial swarms, i.e. clearings, or to strengthen the trunks with a flying fly, or in the event of a robbery, or in any other event that may hit a given area, such as fire, hail, rot, etc.
For the sake of benefits, you do not have to be afraid of a neighborhood with a larger apiary if the neighbor is an honest person and a good beekeeper, but you should always be wary of a neighbor who is poor and unenlightened. The neighborhood should be considered unlucky if bees fly over the apiaries, because once the hive has stopped it is difficult to prevent them from being robbed.
9. What breed of bees should I breed? "You praise other people's, you don't know your own" can also be applied to beekeeping.
As we know, there are two species of bees in our country: the common bee and the blueberry bee. The first one is quite large, brown, hard-working, gentle, and durable; the blueberry, slightly smaller, darker, striped, is much more malicious than the first one, but more diligent and hard-working. So there is no need to look for foreign ones, because their own ones, those most adapted to climatic conditions, can best meet the tasks. There are certain differences between them, just as there are differences between members of the same society - yes, they are hardworking and more hardworking, malicious and more malicious, sweeter and sweeter, gentler and gentler. However, we can select bees with the most appropriate characteristics and breed only those.
Our bees are bigger and smaller. Let's pay attention to this detail. We should breed as much as possible. The choice when breeding queens should be made in this direction. The larger bee will bring a slightly larger amount of honey with each turn due to the greater strength in the wings and volume of the crop, which with hundreds of thousands of bees makes a big difference in the harvest. This becomes most noticeable in wet years, when the few sunny moments force the bees to catch things almost stealthily. Also, the larger plane of the wax glands allows the larger bee to produce more wax. Larger tree stock helps to collect larger supplies, but larger bees are able to bring in more supplies at the same time and thus become more efficient.
When purchasing bees, you also need to take this into account.
Some beekeepers, mainly for commercial purposes, keep, among others, Italian bees. They are beautiful, but "the groats are not beautiful". In general, non-native bees are more resistant to heat, but less resistant to cold, and they are less resistant in spring, because they fly out at the slightest thaw. The Italian bee is not very resistant in our country, it is more susceptible to blackheads in winter and nosebleeds in summer. Bees of this breed were very useful because, thanks to their different color, they made it easier to study the natural history of bees, but scientific experiments are different from honey beekeeping practice. For science as such, we can devote seemingly irreversible significant funds, but in beekeeping the losses are truly always irreparable.
The Caucasian bee and its Abhaska variety are praised. They say that it can reach the bottom of the red clover's calyx with its tongue, which greatly increases the attraction; For now, due to political difficulties, we must postpone its importation and examination indefinitely.
There are also Carniolan bees that are more beautiful than Italian bees, they make combs nicely, so they would be good for those producing honey in sections, but they have a disadvantage when it comes to honey management, as they are more prone to swarming than others.
Finally, I will add that the most important advantage of domestic bees is that, apart from their numbers, they are less prone to robbery than overseas guests.
CHAPTER II
Work in the apiary.
1. Learning about bees. There are bee and honey lovers who tremble at the thought of being stung. Meanwhile, bees, as workers in the field, are completely harmless creatures. Not only do they not sting or attack anyone, but even when they are concerned about an unpleasant odor or are harassed at work, they gently move away from the attacker. By the way, at the beehive, so in defense of the family home, they are sometimes really annoying and you need to "know the bees" well to be sure that you are not at risk of a lump under the eye or a swollen lip and a funny look.
A beginner beekeeper must learn bee language like a child. Although he himself will not be able to talk to the bees in their language (which is not impossible with the progress of science), he must learn each bee's every vibration, murmur, sound, voice, syllable, and almost guess their every wish.
Bees have the ability to communicate with each other using appropriate "voices" to a much greater extent than other animals. The bee sings happily, flying from flower to flower; she moans desperately, returning with an expensive cargo as the wind tosses her to the ground; it tinkles merrily during the midday rain, and sings most joyfully when the swarm leaves. She cries when the detainee cannot return to the hive, and even howls after losing her mother. It buzzes with anger, wanting to find the best place to stab the enemy. The bee's malice is so eloquent that a person closely follows its movements with dilated pupils, and a horse, hearing its piercing sound, would like to sink into the ground.
To the attentive eye and ear of the beekeeper, the behavior of the bees says a lot. The bee is worried and struggling on the sternum - it is obviously an alien coming to rob; it gets angry when, sitting calmly and moving its head from side to side, it turns its abdomen, or when, looking for the victim, will jump and sit down again. She defends the hive when, disturbed by a knock, either as a test at the pond or accidentally while dismantling the tree trunk, she falls out in a flat flight and hits the attacker. She is certainly enraged when, in the evening, she runs after the attacker and honks from time to time. there is little time for fear, and, unable to take in its size, it looks for a place to sting painfully. Interesting is the behavior of bees when, orphaned for a long time, they get a fertile queen among them: with music and a parade, they lead her into the nest.
2. The way of behaving in the apiary. A beekeeper who is familiar with the sounds and behavior of bees will be much easier to cope with than a beginner. The movements of the worker in the apiary must be moderate, because this is the only way to gain respect from the bees. A beginner employee should not be discouraged by the fact that he or she does not know small practical details. With good will, caution and observation, he will soon achieve the desired proficiency and will increasingly admire bees, wonderful creations of Providence.
For your comfort, you should try to tame the bees, so do not irritate them with sudden movement, shock or unpleasant smell. Bees have a great aversion to the smell of horse sweat; they also don't like the smell of a drunk, sweaty person; They also do not like Jewish delicacies - garlic and onion. They also do not like the smell of wormwood and stinking chamomile. The scent of honey, lemon balm and ripe fruit has a soothing effect on bees.
It is characteristic that bees attack people more in black clothes, so you should go to the apiary in light clothes and always use the same clothes; when it passes over time with the scent of the apiary, it not only makes the bees more gentle, but even attracts them in the field to the point of alighting on the beekeeper to rest.
Some people even falsely say that bees will be less aggressive if they feel an unpleasant smell. In this way, not only will they not kill the bees, but they will also fill the tools and honey with an unpleasant smell, which greedily absorbs the fumes.
3. Robot in the hive. A beekeeper who intends to work in an apiary should first prepare everything he will need during the activity, namely: a smoking hen, a Root chisel, a folding knife in his pocket, a beetle, feathers, a beekeeper, a beekeeping knife and an appropriate supply of humus. Nearby, even in an empty hive, it wouldn't hurt to have a hammer, nails and other small tools, and you also need chalk for notes during the first spring inspection. The rojnica is an indispensable piece of equipment: in the spring when feeding the frames, and in the autumn when taking them away.
Rye. 6.
Correct view of the frame (photo: own).
The face should be protected with a net and the hands, if necessary, with gloves. It won't hurt to tie your sleeves tightly, especially in cold weather,
When starting to work on the hive, we blow some smoke into the pond, avoiding the slightest shocks so as not to irritate the bees. The first activity after opening the hive is sweeping; We do this so as not to crush the bees or sweep them away with the waste. If we dirty the floor while doing this, we will close the hive for now, move on to work in another one, and only after a few minutes we will sweep it up again, allowing the bees scattered at the bottom to gather in a cluster. You will have to wait a little longer when some honey drips to the bottom of the hive. We will let the bees take it calmly. By inserting the needle up to the valve, we touch the posterior surface of the valve obliquely. In order not to crush the bees that we accidentally pick up, we pick up the garbage without lifting the beetle so as not to cut the bees.
Then we close the door and, after removing the cushion, we carefully tear off the glued cloth, as if from a wound, blowing some smoke to drive the bees from the upper beams down a bit and allow us to work without any obstacles. We do not tear off the cloth suddenly, as this would disturb the bees, and we would be at risk of losing not only the bees but also the queen, as the queen, disturbed by the smoke from the pond, may move onto the cloth between the bars and could be thrown out of the hive.
Dig. 7.
Removing the frame (photo: own).
Then we move the valve not too far to make it easier to remove the frames, we move the frame attached to the arms with a chisel, we move it a little, take it by the arms and carefully lift it up in a slightly inclined position. If there is not enough space for a half-turn, we pull out the frame in its usual position (Fig. 6), guiding the protruding end of the lower bar along the hive wall and taking care that the side of the frame does not touch the hive wall even for a moment (Fig. 7). We look at the removed frame from both sides, holding it vertically; We never tilt the frames onto their plane to avoid the risk of the structure breaking. We do not take the frame with bees outside the hive, so as not to accidentally knock the workers, and especially the queen, to the ground. To make viewing easier, we still hold the arm with our right hand and rest the nail on the lower opposite side of the frame on the index finger of our left hand (Fig. 8). The frame framed in this way can be easily rotated using the middle finger of the left hand. The method of removing and viewing the frame should be carefully studied in an empty hive with an empty frame. We place the examined one back into the hive, right next to the removed valve in its previous position. If we forget about the correct side of the frame, let's look at the irregularities of the adjacent surface - they must correspond to it. If, while moving the frame or doing something else with the open nest, we accidentally knock it, we should, without waiting for the bees to start squirting, blow smoke to control their anger. The work goes on. We place the next frame right next to the first one. We place them all next to each other so that there is no need to move them again.
In order not to cool the nest too much, do not remove the entire canvas at once, but only uncover three frames, and cover several already looked-through frames with another spare canvas.
Dig. 8.
Viewing the frame (photo: own).
Working movements should be regular, not sudden, as any suddenness or angularity irritates the bees. Even if we are in the greatest hurry, the bees should not notice it. While encouraging moderate movements, I do not recommend being too slow, as prolonged activities irritate the bees, cause robbery, cool down the nest, which happens most in spring, and always interferes with the bees' work at home and in the field.
4. How often should you check the hives? When examining the trunk, the beekeeper should remember that, in addition to the benefits resulting from the disassembly of the trunk, he also incurs certain losses, namely: he sacrifices his and the bees' time, he always takes a lot of heat, and he makes a lot of damage in the combs and in sealing the cracks. Therefore, you should start work with a specific goal in mind, perform as many necessary and purposeful activities as possible during your work, notice what is necessary, and look at the bees less often, observing the normal course of life of the trunk at the exit.
By warning against taking apart the trunks too often, I do not mean to say that the beekeeper should refrain from looking into the hives, but he should visit the apiary as often as possible, collect cobwebs, scare away pests, sweep and protect against ants. However, all this cannot be called dismantling tree trunks! For smaller activities, having smoke at hand. we do not pay much attention to the complete peace of the bees (in spring and summer), yes, some anxiety will even help the bees, because it will stimulate them to be more vigilant and work. However, as far as possible, let's try not to disorganize the bee's life, let's avoid taking away heat in spring and disturbing the supply of supplies in summer.
New question: what time of day is best to dismantle tree trunks? Here, as in many cases, it is difficult to say yes or no. In spring, due to the need to keep the trunks warm, it is best to open the hives in the afternoon; In summer, in order not to disturb the bees while collecting, it is better to do this in the evening. It should be remembered that a trunk disturbed by us during the day will not bear even half the honey that it would produce if left alone. Some authors recommend dismantling hives during the peak flight of bees, because they rightly claim that bees in a smaller cluster are not as stingy. However, this consideration only takes into account the person of the beekeeper, not the trunk and its efficiency. Therefore, this advice can be followed by beginners, those who are sensitive to stings, or when working on extremely sensitive tree trunks.
It is natural that the above sentence does not apply to larger, industrial apiaries, when the beekeeper burns himself in spring and summer due to lack of time.
5. What should you pay attention to when inspecting a tree trunk? Whatever the reason for dismantling the trunk, regardless of the special purpose, we will pay attention to the following things: whether there is honey, whether the nest is not too large, i.e. whether the last combs are occupied by bees, then: how much brood there is and what it looks like, —then we will conclude about the goodness of the mother, and further: whether the trunk does not drag under the frames and whether there are no nurseries established. We examine the queen cells to see whether they are red or not - this is how we will know the intention of swarming. For example, if we don't want the bees to swarm, we cut off the queen cells and, to dissuade them from doing so, we expand the nest by inserting frames with ready-made dried herb or artificial wax. We monitor a hive that is about to swarm more closely than others.
If we notice anything unnatural in the hive, immediately after completing the activity, we write down the condition of the trunk with an appropriate sign or abbreviation; we don't just notice a lack of honey, because we serve it immediately, without waiting a moment. If we notice a compact, evenly closed brood, it tells us about the goodness of the mother, a shot brood will indicate her or the bees' sickly disposition, a brood that is hunched here and there means that the mother in the trunk is old and qualifies for removal; when we notice a lack or very little brood compared to other trunks, we investigate the cause, carefully observing the signs: maybe it's due to moisture, maybe fluke, or a complete lack of supplies, so the brood is sucked out, maybe the hive is kept too cold, or the nest is too spacious etc. We save such a trunk in an appropriate way.
We destroy all work under the frames, we also cut out the drone work from the combs, or remove them completely, as long as they are not occupied on their further surface by working brood. We place the removed frames and pieces of drone plasters in a hive, for fear of arousing robbery, which can easily occur during periods of no collection.
When we cover the nest with a cloth, we remove the bees from the upper beams so as not to crush them. Place a pillow or mat on the canvas. If the bees have gone beyond the valves, we do not leave them to their fate, but chase them away with smoke, or by leaving the roof slightly open for some time, we give the bees the opportunity to get free - sometimes we help by sweeping a feather into the gap created by slightly lifting the valve. After finishing the program work, we close the hive.
When inspecting the trunk, it is better to use too little smoke than too much, which will show the beekeeper prudence. There are bees for which a few puffs of smoke are enough for the duration of their activity, while others, more evil and less sensitive to smoke, need stronger taming.
6. Sting. If we are stung, remember that the pain of one sting is less than ten, so let's not pay attention to the pain, but to the rushing and buzzing bee that cannot pull the stinger out, because with its behavior and complaints it can lure others to the rescue. We can even tolerate a single or several stings calmly. If the bees are so angry that they simply cannot be moved, let us not insist on our position, but rather leave the hive after securing it as necessary. After some time, when the bees calm down, you should return, being very careful, and finish the job.
We try to free the bee stuck with its stinger as quickly as possible by removing the stinger from the wound with a knife. Sometimes in this way we free the bee from the wound, healthy and alive, with only the stinger blades damaged, but more often it is necessary to remove the sting itself, which we scrape off or pry off with our fingernail, trying to keep the venom sac intact. If the body is very sensitive to the sting, wash the wound with water or saliva so that the drop of venom left on the surface does not absorb into the skin.
There are virtually no remedies against the effects of a sting, although theoretically there should be. Bee venom is an acid that should be neutralized by alkalis. Most often, they use ammonia to smear the stung area. You should not rub or scratch because an irritated wound, like a mosquito bite, inflames the body and causes more swelling. Each irritation of the injured area brings more blood, which spreads the poison to other tissues.
Experienced beekeepers do not advise sucking the bee in the morning, as it may cause headache, insomnia and have a bad effect on the digestive tract. In case of greater damage from stings, to prevent complications, they advise taking 5 to 15 drops of ammonia inside, depending on the swelling and the age of the injured person.
A sting is not an absolute evil. Only unique organisms suffer. They say that these people suffer from heart disease, but in general the effect of bee venom on the human body is beneficial, because it stimulates the body and helps with metabolism. Bee venom was often the only remedy for rheumatism, it is helpful in gout, arthritis, and dropsy; causing external irritation, sometimes cures skin diseases such as erysipelas and lichen; acting mechanically, it removes deafness, inflammation of the eyes, and even, although less frequently, restores power to the members. Some beekeepers familiar with bees consider a few stings a pleasure, because the venom of the bee's sting acts like a drug; it also has a stimulating effect on the bees' energy.
Bees owe their species preservation to their stingers. They say that in America, before the arrival of Europeans, there were once bees without stingers, but they became completely extinct. Bee venom not only protects them from external violence, but also makes their own organisms resistant to many diseases to some extent, and honey flavored with it protects them partly from fermentation and mold.
Despite all these advantages, stings in the skin are generally not desirable and beekeepers try hard to avoid this pleasure! For this purpose, when working in the hive, we avoid shocks, sudden movements, anxiety and calls in general.
We have already mentioned these comments several times, so there is no need to repeat them. Here we will answer the question of how to protect yourself from angry bees. Every home-grown beekeeper knows that the only solution is to escape. Some, caught by a swarm of angry bees, fall fully clothed into the nearby water and take a surprise bath, while others get rid of pesky flies by walking among the bushes near the apiary. Of course, the goal will be achieved, but this method of protection is not advisable. In the first case, unjustified revenge is taken and sometimes hundreds of bees are destroyed, and in the second case, the most innocent passers-by are exposed to stings, because the bees, tired of their anger, sit down to rest and, when approached, beat directly, without any warning buzzing. The best way is to hide in a nearby darkened building; the bees, even if they rush there in flight, will soon return to the light. A bee that buzzes around a person will also fly away once it has been herded. You should not just go out through the same door, but from the opposite side of the building, or if there is no passage, wait for fifteen minutes. In general, it is best not to return via the escape route. I mention here the bees running around humans. They only do this when they are angry in the swarm or angry in the trunk.
Pets, driven by instinct, escape on their own. The exception is the horse, which protects itself from bees with its hooves and head, so it can be stung to death; the only salvation in this case is a whip - on a horse, of course.
If the beekeeper causes the bees to become more angry or for some unknown reason, household members and passers-by should be warned about this.
It is worth mentioning that the reason for bees' great anger is always an external cause, and most often it is man himself who is to blame. Therefore, he should not take revenge, but listen to what he has done and then think about the cause, so as not to cause evil the next time.
7. Comments on external signs indicating the condition of the trunks and the need for action. When talking about unnecessary disturbances of trunks during inspection, we did not mean the complete neglect of the apiary, on the contrary, each activity should be carried out in a timely manner, any inaccuracies noticed must be corrected immediately without delay. Sometimes a little thing done in time can prevent extraordinary damage. In order for each activity to be carried out in due time, it is not enough to just browse through the trunks, but also to carefully observe and study the movements and behavior of the bees when leaving. Before noon, on a sunny and warm day, we can check the number of workers, a dense bark will indicate the presence and kindness of the queen, the tingling and unsteadiness of the bees will tell us that there are pests in the hive, a disease or the absence of a queen. The movement of the arriving bee, simple and heavy, proves that there is benefit in the field; uncertain and indistinct arrival will show us the gaps in the trunk. Sweeping in the hive or garbage thrown in front of the entrance clearly shows the condition of the trunk. Spring or midday flight, when it is boisterous and numerous, in the first case indicates a good recovery from winter, and in the second case, the goodness of the mother and the rapid multiplication of the trunk.
8. Working in bottomless pits. A bottomless hive is much less accessible than a box hive, but it also costs less time to inspect. When starting work in the bottom, you should, as always, blow smoke into the pond to keep the bees in check. Next, you need to remove the straw roof, lift the hive from the bottom and sweep away any dirt. Let us remember that under no circumstances should the remains swept from the hive be thrown onto the ground; you need to have a suitable basket or a light straw basket for sweeping. Garbage left on the ground in the apiary attracts foreign bees and may cause robbery, and also serves as food for greedy and greedy ants and encourages them to build nests in the apiary. And ants, as we know from "Bees", are annoying pests in the apiary.
We return to the swept bottom. First, we remove the headrest and slowly remove the cloth covering the bars (snozy). Then we cover the bees with smoke, as deep as possible, from the middle comb - the only movable frame - and remove it with due care. We look at it and, if necessary, check the combs that are next to it, until we are completely sure whether and how much honey is there. This can also be measured by the weight of the hive when sweeping. The frame will tell us whether and what the mother is like - what we infer from the brood. This information is enough to give us an idea of the condition of the trunk.
This is how we look through all the families in the apiary or some of them.
9. After finishing work in the apiary. After finishing the work, we return to the inspected hives, become aware of the deficiencies we have noticed, note them down in the book and prevent bad things at the right time.
When we return home, we take with us all the frames, pieces of dried fruit, a basket of garbage and tools. If the work is not done at the desired time and the activities take too long, we do not wait to clean up the combs taken from the hives until the work is finished, but we either put them directly into the hive or send them home with a handy boy.
After returning, we clean the tools immediately, storing them in the right place to have them all at hand for the next job.
When working in frame hives, putty is a major hassle as it sticks to your fingers, makes them dirty and sticky, and in hot weather limits your freedom of movement. After finishing the work, the putty from your hands is washed off with soap, and the remains are dissolved with a few drops of turpentine or spirit. You can also use soap and pomex to clean your hands.
A good beekeeper will not limit his stay in the apiary only to beekeeping activities. Due to possible and sometimes decisive events of robbery, fire, pests, etc., he will go through the apiary every day again and again. As everywhere, here too, your eye fattens the horse.
When a beekeeper enters the apiary and encounters persistent bees, he should not lose his calm, shy away or run away, but at most he should cover himself with his hand or hand to protect his face. Beginners and those who are hypersensitive to stings should wear a net on their hat, which they can put over their face if necessary. Pax humana—human peace—is to prevail while working in the apiary.
CHAPTER III.
Beekeeper's calendar.
We already have some idea about the arrangement and arrangement of the apiary and the general principles of work, now we begin to describe the activities in the apiary according to the seasons. It will be a professional beekeeper's calendar.
We start in spring.
1. Keeping bees in spring. Spring works take up the period from the first spring flight until the trunks are provided with tops. According to the annual calendar, this time usually lasts from mid-March to early June. However, you should know that the acceleration, delay or extension of this period is significantly influenced by: the weather and harvest conditions, the location of the area, and the value and strength of the trunks.
Flight. On the day of the spring inspection, the beekeeper should be present in the apiary; he should not entrust this activity to beekeepers, because without personal work, in this case, there will be no work. The clothes should not necessarily be formal during this first spring visit, because, as we know, the feces of cleaning bees destroys the materials. Each trunk should be tracked, because the behavior of the bees during flight determines the value of the trunks in spring. If we notice a defect, we do not wait for tomorrow, because the flash of warmth may be temporary, it will end today and long-lasting frosts may return again. So we save the tree trunks while we wait. We should be most sensitive to the stumps no. flying at all, as they may be on the eve of starvation. The faint rustle after knocking will confirm this belief, so you cannot delay helping for even a moment.
However, sometimes the trunks that do not fly are in the best condition, especially in warm and dry hives. The gusts of spring have not yet reached them so quickly and lured the sun to their joy
Hungry bees should be immediately given honey inside the nest in one or two spare frames left from last autumn. If there are no frames, pour heated patoki with a small amount of water into the dried material - 2 tablespoons per liter of patoki - and give it to the starving bees (Fig. 9). This food should be fed one and a half kilograms, which will be enough for three weeks. You should not give less, because in the event of longer frosts, we will not be able to look into the hives. We place the frames with honey in the center of the nest, or if the trunk is numerically weaker, right next to the nest, and on top of the beams we place sticks across the entire nest to give the bees the opportunity to go to the reserve even in frost.
Dig. 9.
Pouring food into the slices (photo: own).
Unfortunately, in a non-flying hive there may sometimes be fallen bees. Those that have fallen for a long time are moldy, some of them fall to the bottom, some of them remain between the combs and lie in the cells. However, it happens that the bees died of hunger a few days ago; sometimes such things can still be saved. If the queen (which we usually find among the scattered bees at the bottom of the hive) turns out to be half-alive, which we can recognize if she starts moving her legs after warming up, then we quickly start saving the entire trunk. Usually, the bees closest to the mothers did not die, although they did die, and they can be reheated. However, all the bees that have fallen to the bottom, as well as those that have congealed on the combs and in the cells, should be transferred to the hive, a spare comb with honey should be put in and the hive should be placed in a well-heated place. If there is no such place, as the heat to warm the bees must be around 309C, the fallen bees can be scattered on a mesh placed under the frames in a groove and place a well-heated brick underneath it. The salary for such treatments should be higher. However, we protect the bees from too rapid changes in temperature, as this could only harm them. The rescue takes place in the apartment. When the bees come back to life, after a few days we can take them out on a warm day to fly to the place of the trunk where they came from and immediately transfer them from the hive to the hive. Usually, not a very large number of bees will survive, so they need to be constantly watched carefully, prevented from being robbed, kept warm and strengthened at the right time.
We immediately remove the hives of bees that have fallen to death and remove them from the apiary as soon as possible, so as not to encourage the bees to rob them and, on the other hand, not to waste good combs which, if left in the hive, are quickly destroyed when attacked by the fluke. Delaying the removal of these hives harms the entire apiary because it allows various bee pests to breed.
If we conclude from the bees' behavior during flight that they are orphaned, we mark them with a circle when leaving. It is very good to mark the trunks with Roman numerals according to their strength, judging by eye. So the best ones are number I, the worse ones are II, III, and the worst ones are IV. We consider trunks I and II to be independent, which can and should grow without reinforcement, but I, if necessary, can be used to power the trunks marked with the number Ill. Trunks IV are earmarked for deletion.
2. First spring inspection. If the weather and weather are favorable, we immediately begin the first inspection of the trunks; it is called spring. His task is to factually confirm the classification made by eye, sweep up the bees, and make sure about the presence of the queen and supplies. When the temperature reaches 15%C in the shade, we can also adjust the size of the nests and remove moldy patches during the first inspection. If it is cold, we limit our activities, and after completing the inspection, we cover the trunks well with mats or pillows and narrow the outlets to a minimum to enable the bees to defend themselves and prevent robbery, which can easily occur at this time.
Sweeping the tree trunks. During the first inspection, we ensure that heat loss from the hives is as low as possible. So we only take out the mat first from the valve, and move the upper cushion in the opposite direction just enough to raise the valve slightly, under which the kitten will pass. If the cold is not bothering us, we remove the valve and after sweeping we check for the presence of honey; this one will usually be right on the first frame. The first brood comb will convince us of the existence of the mother.
When sweeping, carefully insert the vacuum cleaner up to the opposite valve and remove all waste from under the socket ¹). The beekeeper should pay attention to the components of the bees, as they will inform him about the course of the bees' wintering and the condition of the trunk. Grasslands with a lot of fallen bees indicate defects in the overwintering bees, i.e. the absence of a queen, a nest that is too tight, moisture in the hive, or too little supply to the trunk. In case of moisture, the remains and fallen bees, and even the combs next to the nest or the nest under the withers, will become moldy. In addition to the fallen bees, the waste will also include remnants of tree coverings and lumps of sugar-coated honey.
¹) We move hives with removed bottoms to other, fresh bottoms, or we sweep them up, lowering them a bit.
The waste swept from the hive should be dried in a place inaccessible to the bees, sifted through a sieve, the bees should be buried in the ground, and the sifted remains should be dissolved over low heat with a small amount of water; the wax and honey extracted in this way can be used for home use.
If the planting took place after a longer frost, so that the hazel has not yet released its catkins, we place a vessel with flour in a quiet place in the apiary; You should not place a comb with flour, as it would teach the bees to rob. To encourage them to eat this food, you should put a few drops of honey next to it. The flour can be wheat or oat flour, rye flour is not harmful, but it is not good because it turns sour quickly. It is good to add sifted fine pea or broad bean meal to the flour. Sometimes bees take large amounts of flour - this pollen substitute. This administration serves several purposes: it keeps the bees busy, prevents them from sniffing around for robbery, and to some extent stimulates the queen bee. Flour should be taken overnight to prevent it from absorbing moisture and clumping together (Fig. 10).
Feeding flour is one of the first activities in spring, which is why we talk about it first.
Watering. Bees use a lot of water to dilute the honey and produce milk during the period of heavy brood feeding. So it's good that they don't have to look for this cheap drink where it can cost dearly. Most bees die in spring when taking water from larger reservoirs, rivers and lakes; the waves wash them away and carry them away. They also die when trampled on wells by people and animals. Watering is therefore necessary, especially since in windy times there is no dew, which the bees willingly collect.
Dig. 10 Bees collecting flour from a baking tray (photo: own).
To protect bees from these dangers, it is desirable to provide appropriate waterers. It may be a hollow stump into which water is poured and covered with pure forest moss. In smaller apiaries, an ordinary bottle is enough. filled with water, turned upside down and placed on a piece of non-dyeing cloth or thin felt.
Whatever way we give the bees to drink, make sure the water is not stale and old. It is even good to add some salt to it, because bees, like sheep, like salt. Salt ingredients are desirable for the brood and bees, and when they drink salted water, they are not so keen on looking for manure. m
The water trough should be placed in a sunny place, protected from winds, and protected from birds that like to eat bees. To do this, unfasten threads with feathers attached over the waterer so that they scare away pests when gusts of wind blow. Watering bees becomes unnecessary only when there are no larger waters or watering holes nearby, but a small stream where the wind does not produce large waves. The waterer can be removed during the main brooding period, when the bees will have plenty of nectar water.
Similarly to flour, we can attract bees to water by dripping a bit of honey right next to the waterer.
We know that bees come back to life after their spring flight, but it is not always advisable and beneficial for the beekeeper. Emerging too early may result in a loss rather than a benefit, as, encouraged by the warmth, they begin their normal spring development before the return frosts arrive. Therefore, if a beekeeper is sure that his bees are in absolutely good condition and that they are wintering well, not only should he not speed up the flight, but on the contrary, delay it as much as possible. If the bees fly even in the second half of April, it will not be a loss for the beekeeper, because a lot of bees that would die during the uncertain spring weather will remain in the hive.
We never benefit from flying the bees too early and stimulating them to work. It is true that the more abundant brood apparently multiplies the workers, but during stormy times many bees die and the strength does not actually increase, in fact, sometimes it even weakens, so the beekeeper will also have a loss of honey that goes to raise the brood at the wrong time. In general, a later flight saves supplies and workers.
Speaking of delaying the flight, I do not mean to say that it is good to keep the bees in the hive by force, because this, as it is contrary to nature, would further increase the damage. Stopped bees, even if they have overwintered as well as possible, may become swollen and weaken. We should be guided by the principle that such conditions should be created for the trunks so that the flight becomes necessary as late as possible. So, in addition to the good wintering conditions that I wrote about in "Bees", the temperature in spring should be moderated so that it is not the sun but the warmth that lures the bees into the world. This is helped by turning all the outlets of the wintering trunks to the north in early autumn and by airing the lockstitches on cool spring nights so that the temperature does not rise above 10" C.
Trunks wintering in lockstitches under all the above-mentioned conditions may be exposed even at the end of April. It would seem that it would be too late, but the bees, released at a time of properly determined heat and whatever, well rested, get down to work with double energy and come back to full strength in time for the harvest.
Displaying from lockstitches. Hives wintering in lockstitches are to be numbered, as well as the locations of their positions. Placing hives in their previous places prevents bees from wandering around other people's bees. Stray ones would either be cut down or cause a robbery in the apiary.
Removing the trunks from the lockstitches should take place on a warm, sunny day and if the apiary is not too large, it can be done immediately, and the bees can be released for inspection immediately. However, in a larger apiary this would be risky, as the bees could rush too quickly into the foreground and start wandering around other people's hives in great confusion. Therefore, it is most advisable to take out the hives early in the morning, even better in the evening, so that the bees, calmed down at night, can be gradually and individually encouraged to fly around the normal weather conditions of a beautiful morning.
In the trunks exposed from the lockstitches, we carry out activities related to the first and second spring inspection.
3. Second spring inspection. The purpose of the second inspection is to create conditions for the normal development of bees in spring. This inspection is carried out at a temperature of 15 C, when the beekeeper in the apiary can wear light clothes without feeling cold.
The individual activities of the second inspection are as follows: sweeping the bees again, checking the supplies, confirming the goodness of the queen, adjusting the size of the nest to the strength of the bees, removing trunks orphaned from winter, removing or strengthening weak trunks, cleaning the frames and walls in the hive, and finally covering the nest well.
We already know what bees are supposed to do during spring. They themselves primarily strive to multiply, so we, through our leadership, should only help them to do so. By deleting orphaned trunks and reducing the nests of weak ones, we remove the reason for robbery; By equalizing the strength of the trunks, we try to ensure that they all develop properly at the right time and that they can equally compensate the beekeeper for his efforts.
Although we have often mentioned the need for adequate supplies in the hive, we once again draw the close attention of beginner beekeepers to this necessity. During development, the trunk consumes at least two kilograms of honey per month, so from mid-April to mid-June, there should be 6 kilograms of honey in the hive. Home-grown beekeepers think that if the bees came out of the winter well, that's enough, never mind the supply. They are wrong, and the result is the loss of the best trunks to starvation just before harvesting. There are, in fact, areas where there are large numbers of bees already in early spring, whether from fruit trees, wild boars or forest clearings - there the bees immediately protect themselves until they reach the main bees. However, such areas are unique, and exceptions cannot be considered the rule.
We can confirm the presence and kindness of the mother by examining the nest frames and examining the brood according to the instructions given above. It is not necessary to search for the queen unless it turns out to be a drone and needs to be removed. If the queen is old or infirm, as indicated by a broken brood or a humpbacked brood here and there, we either destroy the trunk or strengthen it using various methods known in beekeeping and listed below. We take special care of trunks whose mothers are too old. Once we discover that the queen has died, we remedy their eventual decline by breeding a new one when the drones appear in the apiary. It should be noted, however, that these treatments are not always profitable and it would be best to delete the trunk with an uncertain mother.
Warmth in the nest. We will talk in more detail about the need for warmth in the nest, as an indispensable condition for the normal development of trunks. We know that brood develops at a temperature of 35? C. This heat is produced by the bees, and by strongly settling on the red combs, they heat up the brood. The heat in the hive is therefore provided by the vitality of the bees themselves. Therefore, we adjust the size of the nests to the strength of the trunk, so that the interior of the hive can be heated sufficiently and effortlessly. The strength of the overwintered trunk may be different from the strength in autumn. Sometimes bees that are very strong before the winter, due to some defect, become very weak in the spring, while on the contrary, average or slightly weaker bees in the autumn turn out to be sufficiently strong in the spring. In spring, a trunk is considered too weak only when the bees occupy only two or three frames; strong takes 7-8 frames and covers the entire slices in black. Weak trunks are strengthened by either attaching orphaned trunks, which are sometimes quite strong, or by adding frames with covered mature brood, provided that the fly in the hive can sufficiently cover them. Removing weak trunks that have overwintered with the mother is the final step, because we are getting rid of a trunk that has cost a lot, consumed significant winter supplies, and which should bear fruit in the near future. Therefore, we only delete them when we cannot save them in any other way without damaging the neighboring tree trunks.
During the harvest, the trunks should be as strong as possible, so supporting the weak ones just before harvesting would not be in line with the economics of beekeeping; however, in the spring, applying force that is too strong will not only do no harm, but may even be beneficial.
Beekeepers wonder what temperature to keep bees in their hives in spring, cold or warm. When it comes to the weak, everyone agrees on one thing: keep them as warm as possible; strong ones, however, are advised to keep them at a cool temperature rather than at a too warm one, because in case of uncertain weather, they are forced to work outside the hive by large numbers of brood and die unnecessarily. Such suddenly weakened trunks can cause a lot of trouble and trouble for the beekeeper. So instead of cooling too strong trunks, we bring them to a level by feeding them flies and brood to weaker trunks. This must not be done in the summer, remembering that a trunk twice as strong gives four or five times as many benefits, but in the spring we will not lose on this, because time, the best healer, will cover the losses of the stronger ones, and the added strength will strengthen the weaker trunks and create normal conditions for everyone. development. They will therefore stand for roll call on time for admission and will be properly prepared for work.
The strength of the trunk and the heat in the hive - these are interdependent concepts for bees: the stronger the trunk is, the easier it is to generate sufficient heat for development, the more sufficient heat there is, the wider the bees spread out, the more the queen brood, the better the development conditions.
Warmth and sufficient trunk density, in addition to adequate supplies, are essential factors for trunk growth in spring. For this reason, we regulate the stocking density so that the bees cover all the combs and that they are too tight rather than too loose. As the trunks grow, you can gradually enlarge the nest by adding spare frames with dried or artificial wax. As spring progresses, when the heat becomes stronger, the trunks become stronger and the swarming period gets closer, you need to abandon the principle of crowding in the hive in favor of space in the hive. nest. However, let's be careful not to oversalt in the first and second half of the spring period. In the first case, the mother should not lack space for the brood, in the second case, excessive enlargement of the nest, and therefore cooling, should not weaken the trunks.
Some beekeepers believe that wrapping the trunks is only necessary for the winter, so they remove the pillows and mats after the beekeeping. This is a big mistake, causing a significant delay in the development of the trunks. It must be remembered that trunks that are not sufficiently protected from winter cold cause damage, mainly to honey and to some extent to the entire structure, and the damage from spring cold increases due to the inhibition of the development of strength on the right track, i.e. the benefits of bees are significantly reduced. in a given season. So in spring, as in winter, we cover the trunks with straw mats on the top and sides equally carefully. Anyway, the mats never go to the detriment of the tree trunks, because when it gets hot, i.e. when unwanted heat penetrates from the outside, the mats play a second role, regulating the temperature.
Repairing combs damaged during winter. During the second spring inspection, moldy frames should be removed from the nests and replaced with fresh ones, and the patches with dried percha should be removed and then either repaired at home or melted into wax. Slices requiring immediate cleaning, i.e. those with traces of perspiration, or smaller surfaces damaged by moisture, are repaired during inspection: we cut off the perforated cells with a beekeeper's knife, leaving the central node intact, and we remove the crusted areas by cutting the combs at home with pieces of fresh dried herb. Occasionally, we repair the frames occupied by the brood at the hive. Scrape the damaged beams of the frames clean with a penknife, and clean the walls of the hive if they are dirty or too covered with a scraper.
After inspecting the hive, we close it and move on to the next one. After completing the second step, we return to the previous one to sweep up the remains remaining after cleaning.
After the second inspection, we will find that we have a significant number of unnecessary frames with plasters, which should not be deleted because they can be repaired. We clean the combs from the fallen bees and hang them in a well-ventilated place so that the carcasses in the cells can dry and can be removed by partially hitting the frames horizontally with the hand, and partially removing them individually with tweezers. The same applies to dried bee bread. This job can also be given to small children.
We cut out the moldy or crusty patches removed from the nests in the completely rotten places, and replace them with pieces of artificial hose along the entire width. If the patches were placed on wires as artificial earwax, we do not cut the wires, but attach a hose to them. However, if the combs were built naturally by bees, we insert the missing pieces as follows: 1 cm lower than the line of the cut dried material, we make holes with an awl in both sides of the frame on the central axis of the side bars. Similarly, we make the second pair of holes 2 cm higher than the lower bar at the bottom of the frame. We thread a double wire through these holes so that it covers the piece of hose on both sides. The loop created by folding the wire is inserted with a nail resting on the bar. After stretching the wire, hook both ends to the spacing bottom nail or the one protruding towards the bottom of the frame. This wire can be pushed into the knot similarly to other cases when inserting artificial cerumen, described below (Fig. 11).
Unfinished frames cannot be placed on the trunks, because the missing spaces would be used by the bees for drone work and for breeding unwanted drones. In general, it is necessary to ensure that there is no drone work in the trunks, so if such combs remain in the hives from winter, otherwise we would not be able to arrange a nest with a supply of honey, they should be removed during the second inspection.
Hives of fallen bees withdrawn from the apiary should be washed, scraped, dried and stored for use by new bees in the summer. It is desirable to store empty hives outdoors, so that they do not get damaged unnecessarily, and in summer, during swarming, so that they do not heat up; swarms will settle more easily in cool hives.
Sometimes there are hives without visible deficiencies in equipment, but the bees do not winter well in them, or they consume too much food, or mold creeps not only into the side frames, but also into the nest; Sometimes you even find that water collects at the bottom and combines with waste to form mud. Some hives are so damaged that the bees cannot be repaired, so you cannot leave the bees in them; the hives need to be removed from the apiary and the bees moved to others in the same flying area.
Dig. 11. Slices sewn with artificial hose (photo: own). The first one was improved on old knitting needles, the second one was unfinished by bees last season.
4. Moving bees with a ready nest. This work should be undertaken on a warm, sunny day with little wind. Transferring nests from demountable hives to dismantling the same system is extremely easy in just a few minutes. The empty hive is placed next to it and frame by frame is moved, placing it in the same order as they stood in the previous hive. Cover the transferred frames with cloth and move them further, up to half of the nest. Then we move the new hive to the old one, making sure that the outlet is exactly in the place of the old outlet, and we move the rest of the nest from the now removed trunk. We hurry with the work, trying to cool the nest as little as possible and move as many bees from hive to hive together with frames as possible. We smoke very little. We knock off the remaining bees on the walls of the hive with a feather into the scoop and pour them under the frames through the valve, or into the nest that has been set up, or finally next to the removed valve. Based on the behavior of the bees, we determine whether the queen was moved with the nest or moved to the wall, and this determines whether we should be more or less careful when scooping the bees into the scoop, being careful not to accidentally destroy the queen.
Dig. 12.
Before starting work on the log (photo: own),
Much more work is required to transfer bees from non-demountable hives to frame hives. In this case, we will be dealing with hives that cannot be dismantled completely, even without a spigot at the top, or equipped with a hole in the headrest, which, by the way, makes the work extremely easier. The greatest difficulty in this case are live bees, which interfere with activities and restrict freedom of movement. The greatest fear is the loss of his mother. The queen usually hides herself in the deepest corner of the hive and can be damaged very easily. In hives with spigots, we drive the bees out with knocking and smoke into the basket placed above them and then pour them straight into the frame hive with the outlet directed to exactly the same place where the eye of the old trunk was shining. Then we move the combs only with the brood, so as not to prolong the work and prevent the too heavy honeycombs from sliding down. We place the frames with combs with brood in a new hive, leaving some of the honey in the combs at the bottom so that the bees can transfer it to the spare frames provided to them. Then we cover the hive and the job is done.
Dig. 13.
Construction in a log (photo: own).
Of all the activities described, the most difficult is placing the brood combs into the frames. We should prepare for this activity in such a way that we have all the necessary tools at hand, first of all, a table placed in the shade at which we will work; empty frames are to be prepared on the table, spacers made of thin strips the width of the frame, slightly shorter than the inside of the frames, an awl for piercing holes, a thin wire for attaching the combs, pliers, a beekeeping knife, a knife, water and a towel nearby, and all other necessary utensils during beekeeping activities.
We take out the patch with the brood and fit it to the frame with the upper part of the patch to the upper bar, cutting the patch with a knife if necessary, even cutting through the brood. Then we place the patch in an empty frame, positioned with the upper bar on the table. We place a spacer on the lower edge of the patch, now facing upwards, which should fit loosely into the frame. Now all that remains is to attach the patch with wire so that, when turned to the correct position with the frame, it hangs on the spacer and does not lean out. Using a thin wire, the end of which is twisted onto the upper spacer nail, we gently wrap the patch and the spacer in several directions, so that too much tightening does not crush the cells with the brood, and too much tightening does not allow the patch to lean out. To ensure that the patch can stay on the spreader more securely, we cut it evenly below the brood. We protect the brood patch from damage, so we do not place it face down on the table, and when touching it with our fingers, we handle it as carefully as possible so as not to dent the sealed lids. The placed plaster is rotated upwards with the upper bar of the frame, not through the plane but through the edge, so that the plaster does not lean out (Fig. 14).
All activities related to the introduction of brood should be carried out more carefully, the fresher the wax is in the nest being moved. We advise you to use thin wire to insert the artificial earwax, not strings and threads, as the bees may cut them before they attach the plaster.
For fear of catching a cold, the brood must be moved quickly and always with a helper. Do not remove all the patches at once, but put them in one at a time. Let us be careful not to leave eggs and young, unmated brood in the missed combs, which can easily escape attention, especially in older combs.
The frames with the brood attached to them, i.e. the bees' nest, transferred to the new hive, are placed in the center in front of the exit, and the sides are surrounded by frames with spare dried material to store the honey made from clippings and scraps of combs. There should be two frames surrounding the nest; We give a larger amount when the strength of the transferred swarm is high.
Dig. 14.
Frame with a brood in place (photo: own).
It is most difficult to move bees from bees that cannot be dismantled completely or from bees without spigots. We must be very careful to crush as few bees as possible and cover them with honey, and not to lose the queen.
We open the smoke-affected trunk and clean it one by one until the brood hatches. We cut each comb around, right next to the wall and from the ceiling, so that there are no remnants or nooks and crannies, and at the same time, we take care that the cut comb, sometimes loaded with honey or brood, does not suddenly fall to the bottom of the hive, crushing many bees. Put the empty slices into one container and the pieces with honey into another. Both of these vessels are to be covered immediately so as not to attract foreign bees. In general, you should pay close attention to the possibility of robbery during the job, and even more so after it has been completed.
Dig. 15.
Transferring bees from a log to a frame hive (photo: own).
The bees removed from the comb are scooped into the prepared hive with a feather. (Fig. 15). When we have selected all the combs and moved the brood, we remove the log and in its place we place a hive with a freshly placed nest, making sure that the new outlet is in the place of the old one. We disturb the fallen beehive with smoke and knocking, forcing the fly to fly out and, as a result, to return to the place of its former arrival, i.e. to the newly built hive. Sometimes you can place a beehive under the outlet and direct the remaining bees to the bridge of the hive with smoke (Fig. 16); let us be sure that as soon as they know the way, they will come in droves. A good beekeeper does not destroy or neglect any bees, so if they are flooded with honey or lost on the ground, he collects them with a feather in a scoop and throws them into the hive; This tedious job can also be entrusted to a teenager. The beehive should be removed from view and sealed so that no bees can get in there and learn to rob. You should not use any leftover honey to rob the bees if it could not be extracted by hand. This will not benefit the beekeeper and may cause great losses.
Dig. 16.
After removing all the slices from the log. Bees driven by smoke move from the beehive to the frame hive (photo: own).
From the description given here, we can see how much effort and time it takes to move bees from non-dismountable hives, which is why we do this at the most convenient time, i.e. in early spring on a warm day, i.e. when the number of brood and bee strength is lowest, or in autumn, when the brood it is no longer there at all, i.e. in the second half of September. In the latter case, you can simply drive out all the bees by deleting them with good results. a nest of a non-removable trunk and placing the bees on ready-made combs with sewn honey.
The second day after moving the bees with the nest, we sweep the trunks, taking the remains of the honeycombs given to the bees to the bottom of the hive. Further care will consist in protecting the new trunks from robbery by keeping the meshes half-sieved, and after three days we remove the wire that bothers the bees, as the patches have been glued to the frames. This should be done calmly and carefully, without tilting the patches even a little to the side for fear of breaking them.
Dig. 18.
After moving the bees (photo: own).
5. Balancing the strength of the trunks. Bees have a habit of reluctantly merging when there is no benefit, while orphaned bees willingly mate with bees that have a queen and no longer wander to their former flight site, from where the hive will be moved. Bees that have a mother or are newly orphaned are reluctant to associate with others and have difficulty forgetting their flight location. If we want to remove, connect or strengthen tree trunks, we must remember these habits and create appropriate illusions for the bees.
Settled bees (not from a natural swarm), having a queen, forget about the place of their previous flight only when they are taken three kilometers away from their previous place of residence, or when they are intoxicated by the smoke of a puffball. The bees will connect more easily when they are freshly fed, and using camphor or garlic will even out their odor. This procedure can only be omitted if we connect or rearrange the trunks during harvesting time, especially during the strongly fragrant flowering of fruit trees or acacias.
The rules only apply when we connect trunks or rearrange them in the same apiary.
However, we will briefly review individual methods of connecting and strengthening trunks. First of all, we do not delay it until the summer, because we would already be working for the next season, and this is not in line with our intentions. However, you should not hurry too much (in spring) so as not to unnecessarily expose temporarily stray bees to clotting and the brood to cold. The best time is mid-May when the temperature settles down. We do this because the work of a beekeeper is extensive and, in the event of a mistake or inaccuracy, it can be more easily corrected by the bees when the weather is warm and spring-like.
Connection. Spring is the most important time of the year for a beekeeper, because it is the best time to raise as many workers as possible for the breeding season. Therefore, spring work in the apiary should have as few errors as possible and be as decisive as possible. You should pay more attention to the strength of the trunks, i.e. the number of bees, and less to the number of trunks. If, during the first or second inspection, we came to the conclusion that a tree trunk will not gain strength in time for the main work, it is better to delete it. In addition to the losses resulting from having weaker trunks, we will harm our apiary in terms of reputation because the average income from the trunk is too low.
A trunk orphaned in winter is not suitable for saving because. Even if the bees warmed the mother from the given brood, in the absence of drones in the spring it would not be fertilized, and anyway the trunk would weaken to such an extent that it would not be worth strengthening it, and it would be easy to attack it. Therefore, we delete such a trunk without any scruples.
Bees that have been orphaned for a long time miss their mother very much and become so attached to their new normal family that they forget about the place of their former flight, especially when they are reunited in the evening and are not tempted to return to the old place where they left the hive. Therefore, the empty hive only needs to be removed and the long-orphaned trunk does not necessarily need to be drugged.
In the evening, after a beautiful, quiet day, we move the bees with combs to the designated hive, striving for the bees to unite in harmony in our presence; for this purpose, we either sweep the bees from the frames or use smoke to force them to come down from the combs and join together. To make the connection more reliable and effective, we give a lot of smoke, especially to the locals, to even out the smells and make them forget about their bad attitude towards newcomers.
The voice of a strong, normal tree trunk has a moving effect on bees that have been orphaned for a long time, and the louder the voice is, the stronger the sound. The orphans are dazzled and enchanted by the alluring tinkle, so that despite the fear of the smoke, an attentive beekeeper will easily notice among them a joyful shock and an eager tuning of tone. The joy can be so great that it almost equals the joy of the swarm. The beekeeper does not leave joyful orphans outside the nest, so that too long a time of joy does not lead to disappointment due to their strangeness.
However, bees that have been orphaned for a short time, bees that are not completely orphaned, or half-orphaned, behave differently because they have brood. The beekeeper usually takes the queen on the last day before mating to fully exploit the fertile power. mother's weak trunk, but leaves the brood, taking pity on the bees. Semi-orphan bees retain their individuality more closely and, when reunited, are more likely to return and wander to the place of their former flight. Such stumps should therefore be intoxicated before joining, or combined without intoxication in another apiary, 3 miles away. in a straight line. The reader will find information about the method of intoxication in the chapter dealing with autumn activities,
Strengthening the trunks by repositioning is one of the easier methods and is always successful with certain precautions. We do this on a beautiful, sunny day, at a time when most bees are in the field, i.e. around 11 a.m. and when the flight is frequent due to even a small number of bees. We put a weak trunk in the place of a strong one. in the place of the weak one, making sure that the outlets hit exactly the same places; At the expense of the stronger one, we support the weaker one, because the flying fly in the field will return to its former places, i.e. to the rearranged trunks. In this case, it is good to have four people at your disposal. Two of them quickly carry the weaker trunk, and the other two carry the stronger trunk at the same time. If nearby tree trunks are to be moved, two people are enough. They place the weaker trunk just behind the stronger one on any trestle and immediately move the stronger one to the weaker one, and then place the weaker trunk temporarily placed on the trestle in its proper place.
This entire manipulation is to be done without sudden movements so as not to anger the bees, and quickly in order to spare the young plants from wandering around unnecessarily, combined with flying to other neighboring trunks, which frustrates the treatments. As in all activities, we choose the lesser evil, so we start the transition with the weaker one, so that at that time the number of bees returning from the field and temporarily suspended in the air, i.e. wandering, is as small as possible.
Dig. 18.
A strong trunk after alternating with a weak one (photo: own).
A weak trunk usually accepts the attack without protest, while the stronger one is very surprised and lies down, not letting in the scared newcomers for now. To avoid the possibility of cutting off, the night before, as we have already mentioned, you should even out the smells of the trunks by putting a piece of camphor, the size of a pea, or a clove of garlic into both hives, or rearrange them during the flowering of the apple or acacia trees, and finally hit the outlets well. If we take these precautions, we will achieve our goal, otherwise we could be at risk of having our mother beheaded, which is not our intention.
Strengthening trunks by applying plasters. with brood. There are two ways: either we give weak bees only combs with mature brood, or red combs with a young fly sitting on them. In the first case, you should avoid colding the brood, so we give a weak trunk only one frame in which most of the cells have brown lids that are slightly concave, or when you can see the bees already biting out. We do this on a warm day and cover the nest thoroughly with mats. Further reinforcement can only occur when a brood emerges from the given first frame. As the strength of the trunk and heat increases, we can give two frames next time, being sure that the brood will be warmed by the bees.
By strengthening the trunk by adding red combs with a fly on them, we are less exposed to cold, but if left unchecked, we expose the trunk to the risk of cutting down the mother or causing robbery. To avoid this, we equalize the smells of the trunks, we do not allow the bees to return to their former colony, and when moving the combs, we are careful not to take the queen with them.
With this in mind, we can use slow and fast reinforcement. 1) Slow is easier. After leveling the smells of the relevant trunks, at noon on a fine day during the average harvest, we take appropriate combs with brood together with the fly on them and give them to the weak ones. This is where a young fly comes into play, as there is little of the flying fly, as it is a working fly and is therefore in the field. However, some of the bees will return to their old flight location and therefore the strengthening progresses more slowly.
2) The faster method, as it requires more time, is used less often. The idea is that we take the fly patches not at noon, but in the evening. Having two apiaries nearby, i.e. one more than 3 kilometers away from the other, is easy to do because the combs with the bees are moved from one apiary to save the weaker trunks in the other and vice versa. If you don't have a second apiary, you can do the following: in May, on a sunny day, around 6 p.m. or during rainy weather, collect the necessary number of combs for the colony along with mature brood, with a thickly covered fly, but without the mother, and keep eat them for an hour to make them feel orphaned and then give them to the chosen trunk for strengthening. The stump reinforced in this way cannot be left on the track, but should be taken to a cool cellar or a lockstitch and kept there for three days, giving the water necessary for the brood and bees; then take the trunk to its former place in the evening and leave it unstrained. All these treatments, together with a gentle inspection in the morning, help the trunk grow together. Moreover, if some of the bees returned to their former families, we would be protected against the brood catching cold, because the brood has either already left, or the remains will be warmed by a young fly that managed to burrow itself during the confinement.
Strengthening the trunks by adding fly can only be done in two nearby apiaries, or by intoxicating the bees.
In general, the result of reinforcement is that regardless of the added live bee, we stimulate the queen to red more strongly, so we deliberately use her reproductive capacity during the period of preparing the workers for the summer. However, care should be taken not to weaken the trunks too much, not to do it too late, and during the treatment, to protect against robbery by narrowing the outlets of the reinforced trunks.
Hives of deleted bees should either be removed from the apiary or moved to another place and strained.
6. Feeding out of poverty. Fueling. We have already talked about feeding bees in early spring, we advised giving them spare combs stored at home. Currently, for fear of frost, we give combs taken from rich trunks, and if they are missing, we pour honey into empty combs or simply serve them in feeders. During the feeding period after the second inspection or earlier, when the heat has settled down a bit, giving the bees honey is called poverty feeding. When feeding this way, it is necessary to protect against robbery, so the outlets of the fed trunks should be narrowed, food should be given at night, and the feeders should be taken away in the morning. Honey, as an emergency food, should be given to the bees in larger quantities so that it can be taken overnight. A strong trunk can carry up to three kg overnight. Honey intended for feeding should be heated with a small amount of water, in proportions to 2 tablespoons of water per liter of honey. Crushed honey should not be given. If there is no honey, you can feed the bees with syrup and add a little honey to encourage them.
The syrup is prepared as follows: dissolve 1 kg of pure sugar in one and a half or three glasses of hot water and cook over low heat. We collect the scum until it turns white, making sure that the syrup does not burn. This syrup can be served lukewarm. The good thing about syrup is that, since it doesn't have a strong smell, it creates less temptation to rob; the disadvantage is that, having a different composition than honey, it is less nutritious and efficient for bees. When feeding with syrup, do not neglect to season it with salicylic acid, as we wrote about in "Bees" in the chapter on foulbrood.
Poverty feeding is to replenish reserves, so we give a large portion or two in succession. and we don't crowd it too much so as not to give the bees the illusion of attention.
A completely different task is to be fulfilled by the so-called stoking, called speculative bee feeding. It is intended to give the illusion of the prevailing size and thus encourage the trunk to develop all its energy and multiply vigorously. Feeding only has its proper effect when the bees have adequate supplies in the hive. We can start them in spring only when we do not expect any more heavy rain or frost, when the currants will bloom. Stopping the bees earlier is risky - it could expose the trunks to weakening if the bees, after stoking, went to work on a cold and wet day. The beekeeper starts feeding five weeks before the start of the main harvest in his area so that a new batch of workers is prepared for the time of work. We know that an egg laid on the first day of feeding will become a bee in three weeks, and a flight bee in five weeks. Feeding can last one and a half to two weeks, every other day. The word itself indicates that it is not a strict food, but only a triple satiety, i.e. one part of honey or syrup, two parts of water. Feeding satie takes place in the evening, preferably in feeders with a tube in the cork. Just give one glass at a time, or even less. A larger portion is also not harmful, especially if we intend to partially feed it.
We serve the diluted filling the same evening, because honey diluted with water begins to ferment quickly and becomes unhealthy for the bees.
7. Adjusting and enlarging sockets. Artificial snake. In early spring, we adjust the size of the nest to the strength of the bees so that all frames are covered by bees. Sometimes it happens that even during the second review it is necessary to include more frames and leave only two or three. As the heat continues and the heat increases, the swarms expand, either naturally or artificially with our help, by equalizing the strength of the trunks. If the bees start to feel too crowded in the hives, we gradually add additional built-in frames with bee work. We place these frames on the edge of the nest, right next to the brood, in front of the comb, which contains a lot of deposited pollen. At the beginning, when the heat is still not very great, we add one frame every few or a few days as the trunk grows, sometimes on one side, now on the other side of the nest; we can also apply plasters on the side in which the trunk progresses with its development. Later, when the weather calms down, we give two frames, and finally, when the bees grow and the heat is certain, we can give four frames.
In the first half of spring, you should not rush too much to add frames so as not to stop the development of the trunks due to cooling; in the second half, however, you should not bother with it, lest the bees decide to swarm, because then it would be difficult to stop them, and swarming is not desirable in an economy with supers. In this case, the best clue for the beekeeper is the presence of quite a large number of bees in the last frame (Fig. 32). If the entire comb is covered and the bees form chains under the frames, we must, especially during swarming, check whether there are no queen cells already established. We delete the found queen cells and at the same time we significantly enlarge the nest. If the bees in the hive, which happens quite often, move their entire mass in one direction, we add combs to them on that side and move the entire nest in the opposite direction so that the entire hive is occupied evenly by bees. Usually, the entire hive is filled with combs in the second half or end of May, and the beginning of June is usually the deadline for adding supers.
We can add frames to overwintered trunks only with bee work. We do not provide frames with the beginnings, because as we know, bees in spring only carry out drone work. Therefore, we save the bees unnecessary time wasting in extracting drone wax, and at the same time we get rid of the unnecessary breeding of free-eating drones, which buzz around the hives and attract them to mate.
Spare frames are the beekeeper's wealth. The trunks have to. be served clean, dust-free and suitable for use by bees. You should never give your bees combs that are sour or smelly. Moldy or rotten slices must be cleaned before being placed and should not contain dried and moldy perza.
A beginner beekeeper usually does not have spare frames. However, you can obtain pure bee combs in the following way: 1) by putting together properly trimmed pieces of dried herbs in frames, taken from non-detachable hives, 2) by removing the stumps in the frame hives and connecting them. winter so that there are spare frames for the next year, 3) by feeding the trunks sheets of artificial hose fitted to the frames, and finally, as described below, 4) by fencing them with a trellis.
Dig. 19. Frame with wire around it (pg St. Brzósko (B).
Dig. 20. Frame with pieces of dried herb arranged (B).
Even irregular pieces of wax, as long as they are straight, are trimmed with a sharp knife to the size of the frame and the form. adjacent pieces, taking care that they have a natural position, i.e. that their cells face obliquely upwards. It is easiest to adjust if each piece is a strip long from side to side of the frame, because such a slice will easier maintain an even surface while working in the hive. The stitched patch, pressed tightly to the inside of the frame and fitting into it somewhat tightly, is tied together with the frame with a thin wire several times in different directions. If necessary, we insert pins or thin nails through the central knot of the patch (we make holes in the frame bars with an awl) to prevent the pieces from leaning out. We do not put such a frame inside the socket, but right next to the valve, and the next day we check whether anything is bent. After the bees have glued the comb together, we remove the wire. Supervision is needed because the earwax expands and bends easily due to the heat and weight of the bees. Careful work will give us patches so good that they will almost not differ from natural patches (Fig. 21).
Gathering the necessary stock of frames by deleting tree trunks is the most expensive, so this method is rarely used. However, it has the advantage that we immediately, without any help, have the necessary amount of spare combs for the next season and allows us to leave the trunks with the best young mothers. We will talk in more detail about deleting stumps in the autumn chapter.
Dig. 21. A patch made of pieces, finished by bees (photographed against the light to highlight the joints) (photo: own).
One of the greatest inventions (Mehring 1858) in the field of beekeeping, which fundamentally changed the beekeeping economy, is the invention and use of an artificial hose. It involves kneading the matrix of the slices in appropriate machines, creating artificial beginnings of working cells made of natural wax. The sheets prepared in this way, properly framed, are given to the bees, and the bees, if they are quite numerous, quickly stretch out the walls of the cell beginnings and build them up to the required height with their own wax. This wax serves the same purposes as natural wax, it even has an advantage over the latter, because when properly fitted and cared for, it gives more even slices and, most importantly, allows you to maintain the trunks almost completely without any labor. Moreover, it saves the bees work during the honeying season, when they receive almost ready vessels for laying honey, and finally allows the beekeeper to stock up on combs within one year.
Dig. 22. The node cells should be arranged in accordance with the nature of bees. (TPO).
In our country, wire rods for making artificial hose are made by Mr. A. Lankoff in Lviv. Please note, however, that Mr. Lankoff makes a good knot only for American hives and hives with a low-wide frame. However, it deviates from the pattern of nature when it wants to apply its design to hives with narrow-high frame stands, such as those from Warsaw and Ciesielski, most often used in our country. The natural rearing of the brood takes place in the cell with the edge facing down. It's a pity that we don't have a factory to produce the so-called prasek. Praska is cheap, but expensive in practical use, because only 1 kg of wax gives about 8 sheets of wire the size of a Warsaw frame, while on wire rod we get at least 12 sheets from this amount.
Dig. 23.
A press for making artificial earwax (photo by).
Praska (Fig. 23) is a form similar to a cake tin. Its components are two sheets of galvanized copper sheet, pressed according to the shape of the bottoms of the working cells. One sheet is attached to the bottom of the vessel, made of zinc sheet, the second, upper one, properly matched to the first one, is attached to a slightly smaller form so that it can be easily removed.
Melted wax is poured into such a press, moistened thoroughly with water and smeared with soap suds, and quickly covered with the top of the press and pressed for a moment. It will soon harden as a ready-made plaster of artificial snakeskin. After cutting the edges, you can fit it into the frame.
To produce artificial wax on wire rods, two machines are usually used, one of which is almost smooth (Fig. 24) and flattens the wax sheets, while the other (Fig. 26) extrudes normal sheets, sometimes quite long, which are cut to the size of the frame. To prevent the wax from sticking to the machines, we also lubricate the rollers with suds. Plates for the production of artificial wax are cast from pure wax to a thickness of 10 mm, and the width of the inside of the frame to which we intend to cut the wax is. They are poured on sheet metal molds moistened with whey or soapy water.
Dig. 24.
Smooth rollers for pulling out slices (p/g: own photo).
Dig. 25.
Golkoj rings for trimming artificial hose (TPO).
Inserting the artificial knot The sheets should be cut (Fig. 25) slightly narrower and at least shorter than the inside of the frame, because in the heat of the hive the wax expands and the comb would lean out without having room. The sheets of knots are placed in frames on three wires stretched from top to bottom in the very center of the frame. To do this, we use an awl to pierce three holes in the lower and upper bars. We thread the wire in one row, as if sewing, through all the holes, starting from the bottom up in the first side holes, then from top to bottom in the middle holes, etc. We tighten the wire strongly so that it plays like a string, and attach the first end to a nail stuck in from the bottom. lower bar and the other end. led above the upper bar of the frame, to the upper spacing nail. Then we insert the sheet of knots into the frame. between the wires in an interlace pattern so that the two side wires are on one side of the sheet and the middle one on the other. We place this frame on a damp measuring board, with small dimensions of the frame's interior, in order to embed the wire. Then, we drag the Voiblet knurl (Wuable) (Fig. 27) or Nowiński's soldering iron (Fig. 28) along the wire while pressing, heated in a non-smoking flame to the temperature of the hand that does not burn. The wax must be curled so that the pressed wax does not stick. Initially, we press in the middle wire, then turn the frame over and insert the two side wires. When removing the slat, do not lift the frame as the hose could break off. It is safer to move the frame with the hoses slightly along the plank to overcome the resistance of the glued wax, and then the frame is ready. If the wax becomes bent while embedding it with a knurl, you need to pull the knurl from the reverse side along the line of wires to deflect it, being careful not to cut the knots.
Dig. 26.
Wire rod spun into a form of cells, giving an artificial knot (p'g photo: own).
Dig. 27.
Inserting the artificial knot into the frame with a Voiblet knurl (TPO).
Dig. 28.
Nowiński's soldering iron (author's drawing).
Dig. 29.
In the first frame the knot is well sewn, in the second it is slippery (photo: own).
Nowinski's soldering iron is very cheap, and it is easy to make it at home from a piece of iron bar about 1 cm in cross-section with a notch. This notch is guided along the wires with not too much pressure, thus melting the wire into the hose.
You should not prepare a larger number of frames with artificial wire in stock or wait too long before inserting such frames into the hive, because the wax, subject to temperature changes, will not stick to the wire for a long time and may easily fall off.
Combs with fresh snakes should not be placed in the center of the nest, so that they do not collapse if they are suddenly loaded with bees. Likewise, you cannot plant a swarm on fresh artificial wax. To prevent the rope from slipping, we fuse its upper edge to the upper bar; We do this either with not too hot wax, poured from a suitable pot, or by simply dripping wax from a candle along the line where the hoses come into contact with the bar on both sides of the sheet.
Dig. thirty.
The frame is poorly built due to the collapsed hoses; there is a drone work under the upper beam (photo: own).
It sometimes happens, either due to lack of attention or when frames are added too quickly, that the bees get tired of extracting the earwax cells and instead of bee work, they build a drone (Fig. 31). To prevent this, you should not feed too many frames at once due to heat loss, and you should feed the bees heavily, at least four times a day (1 part honey and 3 parts water). The formation of drone cells on the cerumen is not usually associated with the deterioration of the central matrix. A distorted patch can be saved by clearing it completely of drone cells, leaving only a clean cord.
8. Spring swarm. Usually, swarms come in the summer, but sometimes the bees, either stimulated by an early hive or due to the queen's rejuvenation, swarm. Such swarms are called crushers because they appear during the flowering of the brittle willow. Even if they are not very strong, they are always worth it because they will have time to recover and gain strength in time for the main event. Usually, there is only one swarm at most, but you should make sure of this after the queen bee hive has sung.
A trunk that is not swept in spring, is dirty, infested with a fluke, hungry, neglected in general, leaves the hive completely as a miserable swarm. This should never be the case with a good beekeeper. We would like to draw your attention to the need to frequently sweep the tree trunks, as all bee pests multiply rapidly in spring.
9. Further spring care. It involves tracking down enough supplies to the acacia flower and the burdock, and failing that, to the white clover. We also sweep the tree trunks every week and destroy ant nests in the apiary, thus protecting the bees from pests.
A good beekeeper has all the trunks equal and all strong at the end of May.
Dig. 31.
Drone work made by bees on a sheet of artificial honeycomb, photo: own.
As we already know, in culturally run apiaries, some trunks support the other by removing, rearranging and adding frames. This results in the need to frequently replace the frames, and therefore, there is a risk of spreading all kinds of bee diseases. Therefore, at this time, it is necessary to pay close attention to the condition of the trunks, the appearance of the brood and the mobility of the bees, so that at the slightest suspicion, the questionable trunk should be isolated, and specimens of the brood, honey and bees should be sent immediately to the institute dealing with research on bee diseases. Currently, in the Republic of Poland we have two institutions where tests are carried out for a small fee, namely: in Warsaw, the Bacteriological Department at the Veterinary Institute, and in Bydgoszcz, the Faculty of Agricultural Chemistry at the State Agricultural Scientific Institute.
Purpose of spring activities. All spring activities in the apiary, carried out in accordance with the principles of progressive beekeeping, are aimed at multiplying the strength of the trunks a hundredfold, i.e. at generating significant numbers of workers and getting the most benefits from them. This certain materialism does not contradict our principle of love for bees, because we do not breed them for their beautiful eyes and hot stingers. A wise beekeeper knows that all spring activities, sometimes combined with effort, are sowing that will bring him a plentiful harvest in the near future. The thing about bees is that they reward each service they receive generously.
There are unfavorable years for beekeeping, cloudy, stormy, cold, windy years, full of mostly northern or eastern winds, with the heaviest and long-lasting rainfall during the harvest season. On the contrary, there are good years, sunny to fair years, warm, not too dry, muggy but not too hot, with a south-westerly wind direction.
Dig. 32. Last frame. If the hive is not full, you should immediately add new frames to expand the nest, and if it is full, add an extension immediately (photo: own).
Normally speaking, we don't count on the extraordinary; we take the total number of years as an average, we do not expect exceptional benefits from chance in order to avoid disappointment, but we do everything that is within our organized and intelligent power.
Dig. 33.
The extension was delivered just in time (photo: own).
The transitional period in managing bees between spring and summer is, in practice, filled by adding supers. Initially, the extension serves as an enlargement of the interior inhabited by bees, thus protecting against unnecessary swarming, and then, as more crops arrive in the field, it serves as a honey storage facility. The moment when the hive extensions are placed is when the bees have covered all the nest frames of the full hive and begin to hang down. Understanding the last words literally, let us know right away that this moment falls on a different day for each trunk, because it depends on the increase in the strength of the trunk. Putting the tops on prematurely, for example, weakens the trunks and stops their development, while putting them on too late does not protect against swarms and does not turn the top into a warehouse. If we noticed that the bees had chewed holes in the canvas covering the nest, we should be convinced that either we added the frames too slowly, or, if the lack turned out to be after the nest was filled, that it was too late to add the frame. When the bees decide to swarm, it would be a waste of time and money to waste honey because it would be difficult to stop them from doing so.
For a beekeeper, an unexpected swarm is a waste of time. Although in practice it is possible to prevent further swarming after the first swarm has left by destroying the excess queen cells, and even drive the first swarm back by removing the queen and destroying the redundant queen cells, the lost time will never be regained. The productivity of the swarming trunk decreases seriously, and the honey loss is quite significant. Swarming bees spend as much as three days during the best harvesting period for preparation and breeding. Therefore, an imprudent beekeeper, even if he drives back the swarming bees, will lose 15 to 18 kg of honey, remembering that a strong trunk collects up to 6 kg of honey a day during this period.
Normally, the additions should be made two or a half-third weeks before the main harvest in the field. In normal years, this date falls between early and mid-June. I say normally because there are many circumstances that sometimes change this date quite significantly, namely it depends on the weather and heat in summer, on the location of the apiary, the strength of the trunk and the heat value of the hives, and finally on the more or less careful, punctual and wise performance of activities. in the apiary. A beekeeper who has kept bees at least once will guess the meaning of all the enumerated conditions and will see in practice that even in one apiary, the most carefully managed and the best mature, the difference in the time of feeding individual stumps may vary from a week to two or sometimes three. It should be mentioned that the trunk that received a larger amount of artificial wax is slightly slower in its development, and the trunks transferred from non-dismountable hives to frame hives are similarly delayed. Frames served with ready-made herbs have no effect on the work and growth of the trunks.
When adding a super, you should bear in mind that it enlarges the interior of the hive by almost a third, so prudence dictates that it should be done during a sunny and warm season. The best day will be cloudy and warm, because then the bees gathered in the hive, feeling crowded, will immediately move to the super and immediately start their work, preparing and polishing the wax in their free time from the field.
A timely addition will be taken over by bees on the same day and will fulfill its purpose.
Before giving the super, inspect the nest, take honey from the unreddened combs and place the empty ones inside the nest to give the queen a free place to brood and avoid her unintentionally moving to the super. This applies especially to trunks that are lagging in development, when the honey has already started to grow significantly and there is a lot of honey in the frames occupied by the brood. If we notice that we are giving the top too late, we must carefully inspect each comb and remove all the beginnings of the mother cells.
Dig. 34.
A frame with a lot of bees (photo: own).
If the bees do not move to the super, which we will see the next day, we need to investigate the reasons: maybe the hive roof is leaking (cold), maybe the space between the bottom of the super frames and the top of the nest is too large or too small, or maybe it is unpleasant the smell of the bee repels it. d. However, if everything was fine, we drive the bees hanging under the nest into the super by dusting the trunk quite strongly from underneath. If, despite being forced into the super, the bees do not intend to stay there, we suspect them of planning to swarm. However, there is a sure way to overcome this resistance: we remove the excess queen cells and take away the queen, and after nine days we remove the adventitious queen cells again. In this way, we will achieve three benefits: we will stop the swarm, we will regenerate the queen and at the same time we will get rid of the brood that employs the bees and consumes the supplies. Orphaned bees will stop working because, having a natural queen bee, they will behave like a swarming bee, and if they set up new rescue queen bees, they will only be more malicious.
It is best if the frames in the extension are filled with new, clean dried herbs or artificial snake slices. As the honey arrives, the working cells will be extended beyond their normal size and, as they are deep, they will not allow the mother to lay eggs in them, even if she goes to the top, because her abdomen will not reach the bottom.
In the absence of whole patches in extension frames or artificial earwax, we can content ourselves with the beginnings. However, for a more reliable passage of bees to the super, at least two frames must be filled with wax; we place them above the center of the nest, i.e. above the place where the bees are pushing upwards the most between the nest frames.
The beginnings are strips of dried herb or artificial strings that we thread through the very center of the frame and which reach the side bars. We attach them to the upper beams. Strips of artificial earwax, placed on the middle line of the frame, are melted with a wax candle. It is a bit more difficult to insert strips of dried herb; we should also pay attention to their proper position, i.e. with the cells tilted upwards. It is easier and better to insert roots from unreddened, i.e. fresh dried herb; we touch such a strip to the hot stovetop and immediately glue it straight and evenly in the right place of the frame. If we only have older strips at hand, after melting the wax in a not too deep tin trough, we should dip them and fasten them, taking great care to ensure that the center of the beginnings is in the middle of the frame bar.
The bees, accustomed to the super, will consider it as a continuation of the nest and their work. They won't think about swarming because they will have an "empty" space in the hive, which we will create for them by constantly taking honey from the head of the hive.
Lattice. This tool, once indispensable in progressive apiaries, has now lost much of its value thanks to the use and widespread use of artificial earwax. However, a prudent beekeeper will not remove it completely from the inventory of beekeeping aids.
Today we condemned the system of fencing off the mothers, and especially confining them to the brood, as being contrary to nature and weakening the trunks. Basically, we do not use trellises, but we give the queen freedom throughout the entire life, and we protect the honeycomb in a more gentle way by providing thicker frames with bee work in the top. In short, the invention of artificial earwax was very useful for the cultural management of bees.
However, today a grid is still needed in two cases (apart from special ones), namely: 1) when using spare combs when there is no artificial earwax on hand, 2) when moving bees transferred with their nest from non-dismountable hives or other systems to frame hives.
1. In order for the trunk to be considered a separate serious unit, giving relatively significant benefits, it must be able to develop its full reproductive power, it should not harbor free-eating drones and it should be constantly working, which is achieved by eliminating the possibility of swarming. Without artificial wax at hand, the beekeeper would not be able to limit the rearing of drones without a grid and gradually achieve pure bee nests.
In the spring, there is no way to avoid heavy work if we only start. Bees planted at the beginning, as an early summer swarm, usually build nine frames; so there won't be enough left for next spring. In order to avoid raising drones when we start again, which we are forced to do, we place them behind a sealed grid that does not allow the mother to enter. If we wanted to constantly remove the drones from the bees as they build them, we would gain nothing, at most we would stop the trunks from developing and postpone the building of honey cells until the main harvest, when there should already be as many of these vessels for harvesting as possible. By allowing the bees to build outside the grid, we increase the number of honey vessels, and we can transfer the working combs to the nest after they have been built.
We don't know what influences the bees (perhaps sunny or wet days) to cause them to draw drone or bee wax. When it comes to the extraction of drone wax itself, the idea of young offspring plays an important role here, and therefore the desire to swarm, which was mentioned in "Bees". However, we do not know why the bees do not always carry out uniform work, but on a given comb they switch to work and vice versa. Basically, the strong trunk takes out about half a third of a comb the size of a Warsaw frame using a drone, and the rest, with small deviations, builds honeycombs. Although they will not be completely uniform, after cutting out the drone cells, we can decorate them with bee pieces. The combs, built behind a valve with a grid, after repairing them, will be at our disposal, either for reddening by the mother or for storing honey.
But why are we so wondering about ways to obtain working plasters, having Mehring's invention and being able to use artificial earwax? This is because there are circumstances in which obtaining and using artificial hose becomes impossible. It became impossible, for example, not long ago, during past historical cataclysms, it will be impossible in the event of the possible spread of infectious bee diseases.
What we said about gradually enlarging the nest by adding spare patches applies even more to frames with beginnings that we place only behind the grid. There, the bees will build according to their will, and the frames built with bee wax will serve us, even in the first year, to enlarge the fenced-off nest with the queen. It is desirable that the hive in which we perform this procedure should have two outlets to spare the bees, burdened with stuff, from having to squeeze through the grate. If we have to fence off the mother outside the nest, we must carefully ensure that there is no possibility of raising drones there, because, being larger, they cannot squeeze through the cracks in the grid, create anxiety in the nest, contaminate the combs, and after death, the unrecovered by bees, they create an unbearable stench.
The trunk, guided in the manner described, can also be provided with a top, but gaps in it should be secured so that the queen can pass through, and half of the top, which falls above the nest, should only be provided with bee work.
If we have the opportunity to make artificial wax at home or nearby, we do not use a grid because we can allow the bees to pull out slices of the drone's work, which we remove after the queen has reddened them, before the brood hatches from the eggs, and use them to make artificial wax from fresh wax.
2. To protect the trunks from building wax deposits, when bees are transferred from non-dismountable hives to frame hives, we are also forced to use a trellis. The idea is to remove incomplete frames with the brood moved outside the grid as quickly as possible, so that they can be removed from the hive after the brood leaves. However, we do not do this project right away, because the bees sitting on the brood would leave the mother behind the grate to waste, or at best the trunk would be stopped from developing for a longer time. Therefore, as the heat increases, before using the grate, we gradually insert frames with artificial wax, or even better, with ready-made dried wax, between the old slices. Only after the added patches have reddened can we gradually remove the partial patches outside the grid.
When talking about moving trunks, it wouldn't hurt to add the practical remark that the relocated bees will not provide any extraordinary benefits that year. During the move, we interrupted them from their normal course of life, and in further treatments, only those described, we created exceptional conditions for them, dividing the bee-bearing force into two groups.
CHAPTER IV.
Summer treatments.
Swarm.
The swarming of bees is a sign that the trunk has reached its peak: its development. This falls on summer time with a few exceptions; starting from mid-June until the holiday ends. Generally, the time of bee joy and celebration falls just before the beginning of the calendar summer, when mustard, burdock and white clover bloom. Then the bees are properly developed and favorable benefits encourage them to create new clusters. The swarm is also stimulated by the tightness of the nest, the structure of the hive, the outlets facing south, so it is hot, and finally the abundance of drones in the hive.
We established the concept of a nest and its tightness in "The Bees". Here we will add one more detail, depending on the situation: if the benefit is very high, in the absence of space outside the nest, the bees will hastily pour honey into the cells right after the bees have emerged, they will push the brood ball downwards, they will reduce the empty surface of the combs so that in a short time the mother will run out of space. until red.
Lack of space for breeding is one of the main reasons for swarming. The bees then set up queen cells.
By managing the bees correctly, the beekeeper places the frames right next to the brood and thus enlarges the nest, and then, when adding the supers, he takes care not to have too much honey in the hive, because by taking up space, it creates an opportunity for swarming.
A cold-built hive also affects swarming because it heats up too much in the sun and allows heat to enter the interior. The bees cannot maintain the proper temperature despite intense fanning, so they have to move outside the nest and lie down. on the wall of the hive and hang with their chin under the sternum.
However, we know that bees lying down in the summer will not benefit the beekeeper. Therefore, the cause should be removed as soon as possible, the hive should be shaded with mats and a cooling breeze should be provided. If these measures do not help and the hive is completely filled with frames, which makes it impossible to expand the nest, then we will either move the bees to another warmly built hive or expand the bees using an artificial method that we consider best.
Directing departures to the south is harmful at all times of the year. Even then, things are worse than in a hive that lets heat in from the outside, because the unshaded outlet wall heats up from the sun and the air circulation in the hive cannot be normal.
The sound of the swarm carries the bees and forces them to swarm. We often find bees from different tree trunks in a swarm, which can be easily observed if we have different breeds of bees in the apiary. Therefore, if the inhabitants of the hives forget about the conflict that divides the trunks during normal times, and even the entire trunks break out into a swarm at the sound of the bees swarming next to the trunk, even though the bees are not prepared, the trunk is left without a queen and only after the firstborn leaves it establishes rescue queen cells, - we owe to the exciting buzz of swarming bees. Notice that the sound of a larger number of drones flying in the apiary is similar to the singing of bees coming out in a swarm.
Inducing and limiting swarming. Z. we only see from what has been mentioned that there are reasons beyond our control or unnoticed that influence the swarm. If we intend to expand the apiary using natural swarms, we must remember that we can create conditions for the bees that force them to swarm.
However, in a progressively run apiary, this should not be done, because natural swarming takes a lot of time from the bees and the beekeeper. This is precious time which, when unused, will be lost forever. After all, artificial swarming is so easy and reliable for a beekeeper familiar with the nature and life of bees that he should not resort to natural swarming.
The task of natural swarming, in addition to enlarging the apiary, i.e. the number of trunks, is also the renewal of mothers, which is necessary. A progressive beekeeper can also artificially remedy this problem, as there are many reliable ways to raise young queens for replacement.
If, when running an apiary in a progressive way, we allow the bees to swarm naturally, we let go of management and voluntarily put ourselves at the mercy of the bees. This is leaving everything to chance, because although bees are generally predictable, during summer time they are guided only by the weather and the situation at a given moment, and having no calendar to show them the approaching end of the honey harvest, they often go out at the wrong time.
The second disadvantage of natural swarming is that the bees become weaker while swarming, and only strong bees can fulfill their task.
It happens that even with the best supervision of an apiary run on natural swarms, bees escape and die for the beekeeper.
An experienced beekeeper knows that a stump - a swarm - will not produce honey because, firstly, it is busy with initial preparation, and secondly, it is neglected, wasting three days for a swarm - and there may be several of these days, as there can be more than one swarm - finally, he is fed with a shortage of supplies, because the bees leaving the swarm take the honey with them. It is a proven fact that all the swarms taken together, together with the mother plant, will not produce half as much honey as the trunk that did not swarm at all. It can be accepted as a rule that the trunk that swarmed lost 16 kg of honey. Backward beekeepers do not believe in the cultural efficiency of the tree trunks, which is sometimes astonishing. However, if they wanted to understand the loss in individual hives, and also took into account the amount of honey wasted on feeding countless drones, they would easily realize that in the apiary, as in other areas of the farm, one must move forward and not stick to a senseless, backward approach. , home-grown economy.
A progressive beekeeper in spring, and even more so in summer, does not let the initiative and management out of his hands, he tries as much as possible to ensure the profitability of the apiary and the self-sufficiency of the stumps. Therefore, if necessary, he untangles early or at a time that is most convenient for him, does not divide the trunks too much and keeps an eye on all of them.
There is never a need to force bees to swarm, even in non-demountable hives, because artificial swarms can be created from them, which are in no way inferior to natural ones in terms of their internal state, but are much less expensive.
However, if anyone would like to learn how to artificially induce natural swarms, let us say a few words about it. As we know, crowded conditions, lack of space for brooding, abundance of honey and the considerable strength of bees create the need for swarms. So you can fuel the bees in the spring to create considerable strength; enclose places in the hive, either by compressing the nest in framed hives or by creating gates in non-demountable hives to reduce the undeveloped space and create crowding. You can take the queens and, after keeping them overnight, give them back, then the swarms will be on rescue queen cells, but the primigravida will be with the old queen; you can take away the mothers permanently and there will be swarms of singers. Some people recommend stimulants, e.g. adding formic acid to your diet. In such a case, the percentage of poison should be moderated, similarly to the treatment of trunks suffering from rot. I have not tried this method myself and I do not advise beekeepers to resort to Latin cuisine unnecessarily.
Beginner beekeepers are impatient, they want to reach the desired number of trunks as quickly as possible. Therefore, it is worth using the strongest possible arguments to stop them from doing so. Hastily multiplying the apiary, i.e. fragmenting it, never leads to the goal, but on the contrary leads to the collapse of the apiary. After all, an apiary consisting of one trunk, if it is multiplied by twice its number for ten years, will reach the number of over 500 trunks. O voracious and pernicious impatience!
Regardless of how we run an apiary, for honey or for swarms, we must always prepare for the need to collect natural swarms and settle them in the summer. So we will prepare: a swarmer, a scoop, poles for bags for collecting swarms, a sikawka, a ladder, a bag or basket, a sheet, and finally the hives.
Preparation of hives. The hive should be placed in its place, and if we kept it in a cool place, so that it does not heat up in the sun, in order to make it easier to maintain the newly established swarm, we arrange tables, checked with a level, on which there are no corrections, unwanted bees during flight and hectic work during swarms, you could arrange hives. The interior of the hive, standing on a stand or in a closet, should be arranged in such a way that even tapping with a hammer is not necessary; so the bridges and latches are attached, both valves are fitted, a cushion, 8 frames with artificial knots at the beginning, covered with cloth previously used for bees. It won't hurt, while waiting for the swarms, to sprinkle some dried herbs that bees like on the bottom of the hive, or just before settling the swarm, wipe the walls with an old cloth heated in the sun. wax, but not too early so as not to attract pests. It is best if we use old, already used hives, saturated with bee atmosphere, to settle swarms. For this purpose, it is a good idea to give new hives to overwintered tree trunks, and to allocate the old, improved and tidy ones to natural swarms.
You should never give bees hives that are unfinished or have an unpleasant odor. Kerosene, varnish, turpentine, tar, drive away bees; wormwood and chamomile are unbearable for them.
If it is necessary to provide frames with roots from old dried herbs, we will prepare them in advance, but we will not leave bees in the hive unattended.
Preparations closer. The bees try to keep their wedding secret. Before the swarm comes out, they all come inside and the trunk is as if frozen - it's the calm before the storm. On the day they are going to come out in a swarm, they maliciously and fiercely attack the beekeeper who is looking into the hives in the morning, they frighten and wander around the front wall of the hive with a knife, the most attractive comb will not attract them to honey, even though before they were nice, polite, hard-working, tireless, lavishly laden, greedily gathering honey.
A beekeeper immediately suspects the intention of a swarm in his apiary, especially when he notices a couple or several days beforehand of scouts on branches and trees, walking in broken flight and looking for a shelter for the swarm.
Typically, bees start setting up queen cells, i.e. preparing for swarming, when the first drones appear; sometimes adding ten days to their release date will show the day. swarm for a given trunk.
A covered queen cell inside the hive indicates an immediate danger of division of the family.
Swarm. It happens that either intentionally or unintentionally, a beekeeper produces a natural swarm. This joyful news, in general, sometimes strikes a beginner beekeeper like a bolt from the blue. The bees were sitting quietly, it seemed like happiness - danger beyond the mountains, and here it is! The next step is to look for everything without any order or composition. The world is hot, the summer sun is burning, and here there is violence: running, calling. Perhaps the swarm will escape! There's nothing at hand. The "bee beekeeper" comes running, out of breath, joyful, tired, sweaty, unsure whether the swarm will attach itself or escape...
They give water, sprinklers and continue celebrating with a flourish. Meanwhile, others are running around, carrying everything - in short, everything as if in the heat of the moment, even the house and the economy upside down.
Hello! Disturbing swarming, noise, anxiety and sweat of the beekeeper do not encourage the bees, generally gentle in the swarm, to be polite. How can you disturb these workers, always honest, in toil and toil, who tirelessly bear the yoke throughout their lives, on their day of joy and joy? It's their holiday, it's their life. The singing of the worker bees, the buzzing of the drones and the bass crunch of the mother is all music, intoxicating to remember. It affects bees like hashish - a drug. After all, they will forget the place of the old flight. They will probably return there exceptionally if there is no heavy mother among them, who could fall to the ground in flight.
Let's leave the "beekeeper" to himself.
Along with the swarm, other bees that belong to the same trunk come out. But only some, as if conspired, go out into the world to an uncertain fate. linen, intended for raising younger sisters and princesses in cradles, will escort the sisters away, wishing them happiness and saying goodbye to their mother; they will return en masse to the hive when the swarm, out of breath and intoxicated by the mother's presence, begins to "bond" nearby.
Guarding and collecting the swarm. The bees do not yet show their intention to swarm in the morning; They are waiting for complete peace. Drones, however, start losing in advance.
The decisive moment comes. The trunk froze, speechless, speechless. The bees have gathered inside, filling themselves with honey. directions and departure information awaits. The guides, who are now taking the helm in hand, run across the edges of the slices at lightning speed with a mysterious signal. Immediately the first bees appear, flying out half an elbow from the pond, as if thrown from a slingshot, with a whistle and force; these and the next, already crowded, immediately begin to dance in a circle, make a clang, called singing, much higher than usual, rise higher and higher in a spiral and grow like a flame, increasing in number; the stream that has begun carries away further streams. In a short time, the circles made by the swarming bees become wider and wider, and the swarm hovers just above the hive, like a cloud. The roaring flock continues to fill most of the apiary, and the center itself pulls in a certain direction, usually not towards the sun, and begins to alight nearby.
In an ordinary primigravida, the mother emerges in the second half of the swarm, and the first mother emerges in the swarm, right at the beginning of the swarm. Other mothers, previously forcibly confined in cradles, take advantage of the confusion in the hive, come out later and join the swarm at the end.
The beekeeper can keep an eye on the queen and catch her in a cage when she comes out. This way, you will save yourself the trouble of collecting the swarm from a sometimes inaccessible place. The old mother is easier to capture because she is slow in her movements and not quick to fly, so she wanders on the bridge for a long time. He carries the captured bee to where the most bees are and in the one given to him. rojnicy is placed between frames. When the bees notice the mother, within a few minutes they will gather eagerly towards the dark alley. Moreover, there is no need to keep it as soon as the bees agree on the whereabouts of the queen, which can be inferred from their movements. You can then lower the nest slowly and place it on the ground.
The frames in the garden should have narrow beginnings and be well attached. They can be given to any hive beforehand for the bees to fix.
The bees collected in the hive are immediately transferred to the hive intended for them and the swarm is "planted".
If the swarm is located low, in a convenient place, you can place a previously prepared hive with a raised latch and a thin plank attached to the bottom, take a few bees from the swarm with a shovel and pour it into the hive. Once poured in, they will begin to rumble and quickly move deeper into the darkness they desire, the rest will quickly descend into the hive so that the beekeeper can collect them in a relatively short time. all without losing a single bee. Then he places the swarm with bees on the ground, leaving a small gap or a hole to attract the rest of the flying bees, if any, and in the meantime he finally prepares the hive for the relocation of the swarm. There is no necessary need to find and imprison the mother.
In a similar way, we collect bees sitting on hard objects: on the ground, on a wall or on a thick tree branch.
If the swarm has settled on a thin branch, in a place that is not very convenient for keeping the swarm for a long time, or if it would be necessary to hurry for any reason, you can simply place a previously completely open swarm under the hanging swarm and shake it straight into it. The movement of the branch should be sharp, sudden and short, so that the bees that are clinging with their claws can unexpectedly remove the hanging point. Then all the bees will fall down, and unless the colony is placed too far away, not a single one will fly up; only later will they begin to rise from the fallen cluster.
If a thicker branch does not allow for a sudden shaking, you can use another method instead of shaking it. One will hold the hive just below the bees, while the other will hit a branch close to the hive on the side of the tree trunk with a heavy wooden hammer. All of them will fall, one by one. The blow should be sudden and short so that the branch does not shake too much from the impact. If you are concerned that the tree will not get cancer in this place due to the impact, you can place a piece of even wood on the impact site and press it down for the duration of the impact. When attempting this activity, it wouldn't hurt to try this move on an empty branch first. Instead of a basket, you can use a larger basket or a light straw basket with equal effect.
Swarms—swarmers behave slightly differently. As we know, they often settle higher up, so if the methods given for collection were not sufficient, the last resort would be a basket on a pole or a bag. It is shaken off as usual, or a rope is thrown over the branch and the bees come out with a sudden jerk.
In case of even more difficult bee-bonding accidents, you can without reservations ask for help from home-grown beekeepers; They can perform activities related to collecting swarms precisely.
Deposition. There is no need to find the mother in the collected swarms, regardless of whether they are firstborns or swarms with young mothers; on the contrary, such a practice should be considered insecure and harmful. Firstly, we are not always sure whether it is an ordinary swarm or a songbird, so we would not know for sure whether we have caught all the queens (we would have to have a separate cage for each of them), then it is not advisable to keep the queen in a cage, because if it is an old fertilized , we lose on brooding, and we tire the young ones with captivity.*) If we want to prevent the swarms in the hives from escaping, we should follow what we wrote about their preparation to the letter, and for greater certainty, we can place the swarms in the place of the swarms that were left aside. In this way, we will strengthen the swarm with a flying fly from the removed trunk, and the queen bee will not suffer much damage, and even if it is a non-dismountable hive in which we cannot delete the excess queen cells, it will be easier, although not always, to give up the desire to swarm. If we caught the mother of the firstborn when the swarm was leaving, we let her out of the cage during settling or at the latest on the same day in the evening. To protect ourselves against swarms escaping, we can keep the bees in a cool place until the evening; the primordial swarm should not be kept at all and further loss of bee time should be avoided.
*) There are cases of swarms escaping for no apparent reason, even after 9 days, and then cages will not help.
Newly settled bees are sometimes given a comb with uncovered brood to make it easier for them to settle down. This practice stops the swarms well, but it poses certain difficulties for the farmer without artificial earwax, namely, such a swarm, established at the beginning, begins to work hard earlier. Therefore, this frame with the brood, when the swarm's own brood appears after settling, should be completely removed and given to the neighboring trunk. Feeding the brood also has the advantage that if the mother of the brood dies due to overheating, the trunk has the opportunity to raise a new one.
Dig. 35.
Introducing the swarm into the hive using the sheet (photo: own).
An external sign of the swarm settling down is the fact that the scouts stop circling around the place where the swarm was stuck, and an internal sign is the cessation of singing in the swarm of the songbird. The final and sure sign of complete settlement is the presence of your own brood.
The settling activity itself can be carried out in various ways: you can move the frames with the beginnings from the hive to the center of the hive nest, and pour the rest of the bees between the frames with a sudden blow. However, it is better to let the bees remaining on the walls of the hive enter the hive through the outlet. If the swarm was collected not in frames or in a hole, but in an even wider container, we can pour it onto a sheet attached to the hive, resting its center against the bridge of one of the outlets, and sprinkle a certain number of bees towards the bridge and into the pond; as soon as the first bees enter the interior and start rumbling, they will take all of them with them (Figures 35 and 36). We do not necessarily need to see the queen to be sure of her existence, because the very fact that the bees stick to the cluster and do not return to the place of their old flight is proof that the swarm has a queen. To ensure this certainty, if we want to build a hive in the place of a matrix, we put it only when the swarm is already settled and is behaving calmly. If the queen is locked in a cage, we can carefully release her into the hive so that she can enter the hive in a group of bees.
Dig. 36.
It's still the same (photo: own).
If the swarm has been collected in a bag, you can pour the bees into the middle between the frames by untying the bag and shaking it out.
The last step when establishing a swarm is to make sure that there is no gap anywhere between the valves or the cushion, through which the bees could escape and get lost.
The maintenance of swarms will consist in the fact that, avoiding any disturbances, shocks and smoke as much as possible, we will monitor the progress of the work and immediately correct any deficiencies. Let's avoid anything that could alienate the bees from the new apartment, let's look through the glass of the frame valve, and if necessary, dismantle the nest as carefully as possible.
The swarm can be placed not only in strips or beginnings, but better in slightly rebuilt clinics, as this will help the bees to recover faster. However, you should not give the clinics to large dogs, as this could encourage them to work early. Therefore, if we place a nest of clinics, make sure that the longest one is placed in the middle of the outlet, and the shorter ones are gradually placed towards the edges. In general, whenever we give the bees frames that are not fully built in, we use the shortest ones possible.
If the weather is favorable and there is a lot in the field, we check whether the beginnings have not slipped and whether the work is going well, i.e. whether the slices do not go beyond the frames - and our care is finished until we add frames if necessary, or arrange the nest for the winter. In the event of long-lasting wet weather right after the swarm is established, the bees should be fed abundantly with honey no later than the third day, because if left without help, they will die of hunger.
If the swarm is placed on a ready-made nest made of dried herbs or built-up combs, then after 4-5 days we place a top over the nest, filling it with the number of frames corresponding to the width of the nest and sealing it on the sides with valves reaching to the upper nest bars to avoid the bees from getting lost. The investment in artificial wax will always pay off, because a swarm placed on a ready nest will not only be profitable in a good summer, but will also provide the beekeeper with a significant profit, sometimes reaching half of the harvest from old stumps.
Swarms planted at the beginning, if they are early and strong enough, and when they receive a significant harvest, are processed within 9 days. After processing, i.e. after the frames have been completely installed. you should add one or two more to them with the beginnings. You should not give too many frames at once, because the bees will not be able to build them, and because it is more difficult to heat a too large interior, they will struggle with extracting earwax. A strong swarm can get at most 7 frames with beginnings, while a established swarm can get up to ten.
Ways to attract swarms. So far, we have had to deal with a swarm that comes out spontaneously and settles wherever it likes. In progressive apiaries, these are quite rare accidents, but it does not hurt to be prepared for them. It is therefore desirable for the bees to settle in accessible places where they can be collected without too much effort. Therefore, the beekeeper, counting on the possibility of spontaneous swarming, should, as it were, indicate the place where it should mate. It won't be foolproof, but it will be very helpful in many cases. First of all, in order to prevent the swarms from settling too high, you need to make sure that there are no tall trees in the apiary and its immediate vicinity, but rather dwarf strains and shrubs. Bees are strongly attracted to the scent of melissa, so you should wipe the most accessible twigs with the oil from this plant (you can buy it at any pharmacy) or even with the herb itself before swarming. The smell of old crushed earwax has the same effect. You can also create visual illusions for the bees by hanging appropriate pieces of dark-colored bark from old alder or birch trees on trees in convenient places. They say that bees, guided by the similarity of the swarm, also willingly alight on a sheep's cap hanging down from the slat. These decoys should be hung in the shade of trees on branches or poles. For swarms that want to settle higher, it is advisable to hang boxes made of slats the size of a single swarm, equipped with a small hole for a not-so-large mesh so that the birds do not nest there, and equipped with three frames with herbs. Such a lure is very convenient because if a swarm is adopted, it can be easily transferred to the appropriate hive immediately or on the same evening. Equipped with a larger number of frames, it can serve as a spare street until the autumn chill. You can also arrange such decoy streets in rotten tree stumps one meter high. You can sew together freshly removed fir bark with a wire lengthwise, with round bottoms at the top and bottom; the lower bottom can be attached with nails, while the upper one must consist of two connected discs, one of which should fit loosely inside, and the other, slightly larger in diameter, should be placed on the edge of the street. The upper double lid is to be attached with hooks so that it can be easily lifted if a swarm enters. For encouragement, the dried beehive is rubbed inside and out with herbs that are good for bees, and three pieces of old dried herb, well attached to the disc at the top, are placed.
The described decoys can be placed even as high as possible, but make sure that they do not wobble, are protected from leaks and are not exposed to direct sunlight.
It is desirable to install bee attractants not only in the immediate vicinity of the apiary, but also in forests and on lonely trees in the field, naturally after obtaining the consent of the land and tree owners. Not only should this practice not be considered reprehensible, but it should be considered praiseworthy, because regardless of the benefits, we provide protection to wandering swarms. It sometimes happens that bees from neighborhood apiaries come to these decoys. To avoid misunderstandings, it should be known that the moral owner of such a settled swarm is, first of all, its own host, if he directly followed the escaping swarm or has proven his rights to it, and only secondarily the owner of the land on which the bees settled. (Figure 37).
Stopping escaping swarms. A swarm tied up in the apiary stays for about 20 minutes, sometimes longer, and sometimes even all night long, and only then goes to the place chosen by the scouts. However, it sometimes happens that it does not get attached at all and, without being caught in time, escapes. If for any reason we cannot collect the swarm immediately, we prevent it from escaping by sprinkling it from above with water from time to time; You should not spray from below because the drops hitting the abdomens irritate the bees. If we notice a swarm already in flight, we try to stop it. Namely, we throw off the trail of the scouts who go ahead and lead the swarm. Sometimes throwing sand in front of a moving swarm, shooting with an empty cartridge, or water from a jet falling from above as rain works well. Worse ways are to imitate thunder and lightning: ringing a bell or knocking on a scythe produces thunder, rays of the sun passing through the swarm in flight and reflected in a mirror produce lightning. The bees do not like and are afraid of this, as a storm.
Stopped swarms settle in a place that is not always convenient for collection; away from people's homes, in the field, we often don't have any supplies with us, but we still have to deal with it. Some people tie a jacket, not too sweaty, buttoned, with sleeves around a hoop made of any twig, fasten the collar to create the appearance of a bell, collect the bees and take them home. [Others tie a few willow twigs, place them on a swarm that has settled on the ground, and when the bees move to the broom, they move them. In the first case, bees willingly climb into an unbuttoned jacket because they find shade in it, and in the second case, they climb on twigs because they do not like sitting on the ground. Sometimes the swarm can be gathered into a cap by placing it carefully on the swarm; you just need to lift it very slowly and carefully so that the cap tipping over due to the weight of the swarm doesn't cause the bees to fall down. Since such an accidental tipping may cause pressure on some bees, which may result in anxiety and anger, the cap should be turned over before putting it on and the brim should be placed on a pebble.
Dig. 37.
A temporary street that can serve as a lure for migratory swarms (TPO) *).
*) Illustrations marked with the letters TPO are borrowed from the Beekeeping and Horticultural Society in Warsaw, ul. Wiejska 12.
Deaths, called gatherings, are very undesirable in apiaries because, at best, they add work to collecting them. Therefore, care must be taken to ensure that a second swarm does not fall on the swarm that has already settled in the apiary. Most often, rallies occur after a few days of bad weather, during the intended swarm of a pair of tree trunks. So deaths can be partially predicted and dealt with accordingly. When we notice that the bees are eager to fly, we immediately collect the bees that have already settled or cover them tightly with a moistened sheet. Taking into account the fait accompli, we collect the bees in a larger container, even a bathtub, and hang there as many frames with wax as there were supposedly connected swarms. We place the vessel with the swarms, covered tightly but airily so that the bees do not suffocate, in the shade; by evening the swarms will separate themselves and settle on their frames. If there are no patches, we can provide green, not very limp twigs. A beekeeper who knows how to easily find queens can scatter the bees on a large sheet, find the queens, place them in cages, place them on the ground around the sheet and cover them with boxes resting on pebbles to provide an entrance. The bees will gather around their mothers. To make it easier for them, each mother is given some entourage at once, and the path to each box is sprinkled with bees.
When collecting an ordinary swarm, the beekeeper avoids smoke so as not to upset the happy bees. In the case of deaths, if the bees have joined together in unison, there is no need for smoke, but if they get together, light them strongly and abundantly. Care must be taken to ensure that the mothers do not cut themselves.
In the absence of appropriate assistance and time for such activities, the beekeeper may divide the swarms into convenient clusters, search for queens, and place them directly in the hives. The swarms should be divided so that they are strong enough. There is no need to be embarrassed by the number of queens or the supposedly larger number of emerging swarms, because we only care about the strength of the trunks. We can use one or more mothers as we wish. Creating a swarm from death without the certainty of having a queen is not advisable, even if we provide an unmated brood to raise it, because such bees will scatter to the mother nests.
If the beekeeper knows from which trunks the swarms *) came and have joined together to form a flock, he can find queens, place them with handfuls of bees in prepared hives and place them in place of the queen bees. Honeymoon bees without queens will disperse to their former flight sites and divide on their own. In case the lot spilled on the sheet, from which we believed we had taken all the mothers, kept falling apart, we can be sure that it still has a mother. However, we can force the rally to collapse due to smoke. When smoking occurs, we pay attention to the outlets to see if we made a mistake. If the bees returned to any hive that we did not move, we can immediately correct the error by replacing a new one, as above, or let the bees return. After finishing the work with the lot, we will divide the trunk in half; either we will use the queen that we found on the canvas after the bees dispersed, or we will make both swarms on indoor queen cells that we will find in the trunk in question. Surplus nurseries must be deleted.
¹) Prof. T. Ciesielski gives a good way to check from which trunk the swarm came. “We take a handful of bees from the swarm into a glass and walk with them from stump to stump, holding the glass with the opening towards the pond. If the bees start to move towards the pond with their abdomens raised and flap their wings, we can be sure that the swarm has emerged from that trunk. You can also sprinkle some flour on the bees in a glass and then throw them into the air and see which trunk they fly to. I will add a small note: sprinkling flour should be done carefully, as the bees' eyes may be blinded to death, which means that they will not be able to return to the hive at all.
Swarm time. “Swarm to St. John will be saved for a cart of hay. Bees left to their own devices in the apiary swarm endlessly; sometimes they leave even after the reception is over. In years with long-term benefits, there are even so-called swarms, i.e. swarms from this year's swarms.
A wise beekeeper always remembers that he is the master of his apiary and manages it purposefully. The beekeeping rule states that each new swarm must stand on its own and may only need help in exceptionally bad years.
Preventing swarming. We have already described the reasons and the natural swarming itself. As we know, in a progressively run apiary there should generally be no natural swarms. In the spring chapter, we paid attention to honey management, which resulted in the provision of supers. Now we will consider preventing swarming.
The Warsaw hive without the extension has a capacity of 90.8 liters, with the extension it has a capacity of 119.3 liters 1¹); authentic Dadant Blatt hive 64.8 liters with one extension 98.6 liters, and with two extensions 132.4 liters. From my experience, I know that the Warsaw hive is so spacious that, with the exception of an exceptionally favorable spring and uninterrupted spring harvests, which favor the multiplication of bees, it will be enough to accommodate the overwintered swarm and its complete expansion during the peak bloom of the trunk. So it is rarely too tight. Dadanta is similar with two extensions. Basically, there is no need to reduce the strength of the trunks, which is always the case with natural swarming or artificial spreading. From this we can conclude that bees do not always have to swarm because of the tightness of the space, or that the beekeeper necessarily has to disperse them.
¹) In exceptional cases, two supers can be used and then the capacity of a normal Warsaw hive will be 147.8 liters.
By adding frames and supers, we enlarged the nest and developed a great amount of strength to make numerous workers work for us.
However, we are not sure whether the bees will follow our ideas, which in this case, i.e. honey management, may be contrary to their natural drives. So let us be vigilant and continue to thwart their intentions. At dawa-. When removing the supers, we removed the nurse cells in the trunks suspected of wanting to swarm. Let's continue to remove the queen cells, either while collecting honey or during a programmatic inspection of all the trunks at nine-day intervals. This will happen 4-5 times, counting from mid-June to the end of July. These inspections are not always necessary, and it depends on whether the bees show a greater or lesser drive to swarm in a given year. This will not provide us with absolute protection against swarming, but we will be sure that the bees will not swarm in their usual natural way. Of course, they can come out in a swarm, leaving no queen cells, but in such an apiary, due to the complete lack of natural swarming and the minimal number of drones, this is doubtful, as they will not be stimulated to disobey and thwart our plans by the trunks swarming nearby. The conclusion is that in modern apiaries, run only for honey, there should be no trunks intended for natural swarming.
When I talk about preventing natural swarming in breakout hives, I mean the expensive breeding time and the last two weeks. before it starts. However, if during our spring management strong bees, either due to their development or due to the change of queens, swarm naturally, we will gladly accept the swarm. However, it should come out three weeks before the start of the main harvest, so that the mother plant and the swarm have time to raise a new generation for the duration of the entire harvest, or at least for its second half.
It sometimes happens that, despite everything, a natural swarm appears in the apiary. This event should be used to regenerate the queen and at the same time stop the swarm. So we carefully look through the queen cell, delete all the queen cells except the one that is covered, and take the queen from the collected swarm and let the bees return to their places. Deprived mothers will do this, and they will not be able to start swarming again, because before the new mother emerges from the nursery, she will be fertilized and redden the empty spots left after the old one's litter has emerged.
If, taking advantage of the opportunity to multiply the apiary, we plant a hive, do not forget to remove the excess queen cells of the same trunk within six days, i.e. before the new queen emerges. By taking undamaged queen cells, we can of course use them for breeding queens.
Preventing swarms in non-demountable trunks is not possible without simultaneous reproduction of the apiary, because we can only do this by creating artificial swarms.
However, it sometimes happens that the beekeeper wants to stop further swarming in the non-dismountable trunk after the primordial plant has emerged. Planting a swarm in place of a matrix plant and removing the latter sometimes stops further swarming. Weaning, as a preventive measure against swarming, is only partial, but it serves very nicely to feed the new swarm and establish itself thoroughly. The radical method is as follows: in the evening, when the bees have gathered in the hive, we drive all of them into a basket placed on top of their heads and, protected from suffocation, we lock them in the basement for the night. UI, left almost without bees, will receive a queen from one of the maturing queen cells, which will immediately delete the remaining ones after leaving. In the morning, we return the bees to the hive by flying them on the canvas and removing all the queens. After such a treatment, the trunk, which no longer has nurseries and only one mother, will not be able to swarm. We carry out the above operation on the seventh day after the first bird leaves, or the day after the best boy leaves, i.e. when singing begins in the hive.
1. Creating artificial swarms. A beekeeper should never allow bees to lie not only in removable hives, but also in baskets or even in logs. Therefore, if he notices bees congregating outside, either due to crowding or heat in non-removable hives, he will immediately start artificial breeding.
Dig. 38. Drumming of bees into a raised basket (TPO).
You should prepare a frame hive with beginnings or, even better, with ready-made herbs. The mouth of the lodging trunk is strained, the lodging bees are driven away by lightly smoking so as to have them at hand and not to look for them in the hive, the bees sitting on the wall are collected and driven into the prepared hive; then the log is put aside and the bees, already collected and settled, are placed in its place. Then, the strained log that has already been set aside is opened and as many bees as possible are driven to the walls with smoke and knocking, so that the collected bees can be added to the new hive. If you manage to extract the queen in this way, you have an artificial swarm similar to the primigravida, with the advantage that a natural swarm is avoided. If the beekeeper performed this activity in warm weather, he may not be afraid of the brood catching cold or starving, because the heat from the brood itself will be sufficient in the hive, and the remains of the bees left, which will constantly increase in number from the mature brood, will be its nurses. Such a trunk only needs to be watered, because it would suffer from thirst if it did not have a flying fly.
You must remember constantly and always: water is given whenever the trunk is left without a fly.
If the old trunk has given its queen to the new one, there is no longer any fear of swarming, even if the queen cells are ready. However, if the mother hides herself in a corner and does not let her go at all, which happens less often, the trunk, deprived of strength, will not take any further steps towards the swarm.
It is a good idea to add a frame with uncovered brood or eggs to the bees poured from the hive into the frame hive; In this way, we will save a lot of time, as there will be no need to look for a mother, who, if she were not present, would be replaced by one raised from the brood.
After completing all the activities, the beehive should be placed far enough from the place of its former flight so that it does not attract the chased bees. You can also hide it somewhere just behind a tree.
If we want to bring the apiary to a predetermined number of trunks in a relatively short time, we cut them ourselves, but very carefully, and make swarms only from trunks that are really strong, so we are not afraid of weakening them.
Of course, we take advantage of the opportunity to purchase bees from natural swarms from neighbors who do not know how to control the swarm and who, as a measure of the goodness of an apiary, consider its abundance. Our own natural swarms would cost us 16 kg of honey, while the price of a swarm purchased nearby will be less than half of the own cost. A good beekeeper has no reason to be ashamed of buying from bungling people, because they will have swarms without honey, and the beekeeper will have honey without swarms.
The frame trunks that we intend to tear down should be stoked in spring. Feeding, as we know, does not cost much and if the two trunks from which we are to make an artificial swarm yield even 4 liters of honey, such a folded swarm will cost cheap. It is true that the new offspring is raised not by fed food, but by the supply of honey in the hive, but the bees, quick at work and encouraged by feeding, will in an honest way obtain so much honey that, together with the fed supply, they will be able to grow additional strength.
There are dozens of ways to create artificial swarms in beekeeping textbooks, but I will limit myself to only a few tried ones that do not destroy the apiary.
Suppose we are to derive a third from two trunks. Let's call the first two letters A and B, the third one C.
We start work on a beautiful day just before noon. We insert several spare frames into the prepared hive, leaving the center unoccupied to receive frames from AiB trunks. From hive A, we move two frames with brood and the infested fly and hang them inside in the middle before the exit. We put street C in place of A. In place of the frames taken from A, we add spare frames to the set. Then we take 6 frames from trunk B, without the queen, but with the fly present, and we also give them to the hive C. The new trunk created in this way has 8 frames with brood and the full strength of domestic and flying bees. He is very strong, but still without a mother. So we give it a covered spare nursery, attached to a frame that we place in the middle of the nest. We add frames to the set, even with only the beginnings, and we add an extension to everything at once. The set aside trunk A has lost a flying fly and some home flies, so it will be a little weakened, but it will recover on its own until autumn.
In an abandoned stump, the mother will be afraid of losing the bees and will refrain from breeding for a few days, and the young ones will be reluctant to fly. In order not to lose the growth of bees and honey, you can place hive A in half of the flight with another trunk D, similar in appearance to trunk A. In the latter case, we would create one new swarm using three old ones.
Half-flight placement is done as follows: the selected hive D is placed a little more than half of its length, and hive A is placed right next to it so that the exit is slightly closer to the place of the former flight of trunk D. Bees returning from the field do not seeing the exit in the right place, at first they start to swirl, but after a short thought, because they are very tired and heavy, they start to pull into the holes: some go to hive D, others to A. Slowly, the bees will get used to the place of the new flight, and the beekeeper after 3-4 days he can start pushing them apart on clear days, a few inches at a time, until he reaches a distance that is comfortable for the trunks.
During this period, the bees are gentle and compliant with each other because they return from the field full. Beetle colonies are even less distinguished by their specific smell, partially neutralized in the hive by the aroma of evaporated nectar, while bees are strongly permeated with the scent of flowers they visit in the field. So there is no fear of bees crowding at this time. At other times, and especially in times of complete lack of attention, moving the hives, whether to strengthen or equalize strength, is more risky. However, it can be done without harm if the bees bring something from the field. In times of complete lack of attention, it is necessary to compensate for the smells of the trunks with a bit of camphor, thrown into the hives in the evening of the previous day before changing places.
The second method of making an artificial hive from several trunks at once is as follows: during the flight, we insert a frame inhabited by bees, brood and a natural covered queen cell into the prepared hive; at this time, it is easy to find one in one of the hives where the bees are preparing to swarm. Let's be careful that there is no queen among the bees.
When it comes to spreading, beekeeping equipment becomes invaluable to us.
We continue to bring 2-3 frames to the hive in question from other stumps, also with flies and brood, and in this way we fill them almost completely. On the side of the glass valve, we place two frames with beginnings so that we can observe the work and use it to deduce when the mother came out and when she was fertilized. Usually, at the beginning, the bees drag the drone earwax until they break out, and sometimes until the young queen is fertilized. This type of construction will not spoil our preparations, because the combs placed at the end will be easy to remove at the end of the brood, when the time of swarming is approaching.
Such a complex trunk will be extremely strong, so after a few days we give it a top and we can expect a lot of honey, because the young bees will produce quickly and will work during honeying.
When assembling such a swarm, make sure that the decomposition of the brood is similar to that in the natural trunk, and it must also be of different, and preferably older, age. In the trunks from which we have taken frames with brood, we fill the empty spaces with artificial wax.
The above two methods of artificial lightening can be used before or at the beginning of the season, but they can also be used during the summer, when we notice that it is a favorable time for honey harvesting, so there will be plenty of honey. We always refrain from rejoicing in bad and unfavorable years.
Generally, breeding, except in the case of the need to control the forces of too vigorous swarms, is associated with a certain cost and this is included as an outlay - sowing for the next year.
It is much better to use the described methods of intoxication on young mothers brought up in the wedding streets, or on old mothers taken from other mothers. In any case, they must be created only with construction. Creating swarms without building frame hives in this apiary could be done as we described at the beginning about beehive breeding ¹). At the end of the lesson on lightening, I draw the beekeeper's attention to the necessity. adapting to the nature of the bees in the nest arrangement and maintaining continuity of strength. I have just talked about the socket arrangement, and I will add a few words about "continuity of force". We know that we can only consider a trunk to be normal if the ages of the brood and bees are arranged in chronological order without major gaps. In "The Bees" I described the activities of the bees and mentioned that they are the duties of the worker bees in turn as each advances in age. Otherwise, the job won't go smoothly. If we create a swarm with an old mother, we give it a predominant amount of older mated brood, the young brood will begin to arrive from the direct litter of the fertile mother. If we arrange a stock completely without a queen, forcing the bees to set up rescue queen cells (which is not advisable due to the too long time needed to raise rescue queens), we place more emphasis on young, unmated brood, etc.). Similarly, we pay attention to the age of live bees.
¹) In frame hives, there is naturally no need to expel bees, because we simply sweep the required number of bees from the frames, either directly to the selected hive or to the colony.
²) When giving the hive a barren queen, it should be kept in the cage for one day to allow the bees to become familiar with it and avoid killing it.
Beginners should not be discouraged by not fully understanding these remarks. These are precisions, not essential necessities. The bees themselves mitigate the differences caused by oversight to some extent, but it should be known that more or less accurate compliance with this rule significantly affects the well-being of the trunk and its efficiency in the harvest.
2. Raising young mothers. Where to get queen cells for swarms? It sometimes happens that bees prepare themselves for natural swarming, so covered nurseries of such trunks can serve as the beginning of new swarms. And if we they did not want to wait for chance, we can force the trunks to establish natural nurseries, just as we forced the trunks in frame hives to swarm naturally. We just need to make sure that the trunk does not grow out without our knowledge due to the tightness. It often happens that already on the eighth day after narrowing the nest, the trunk will have covered nurseries (usually later, up to 14 days), which we can use as we like.
Some people advise taking away the queens and forcing the bees to set up rescue queen cells, and then after 9 days use them for breeding or for raising queens. However, this should not be done, unless exceptionally, because the rescue queen bee, made in a hurry by orphan bees, is not exemplary and produces weak queens, especially if they are raised from older caterpillars. There are also known methods of making natural nurseries artificially.
It is best to use young, fertile queens to create swarms. Raising them is also necessary in honey management, where we do not allow swarming. It is best if we have one- and two-year-old queens, three-year-old mothers are good, but for fear of losing them during the winter, we replace them with younger ones. Instead of queens, you can give the bees indoor queen cells. In order to do so. To achieve a reliable result, we take away the queen, and after 20 minutes, when the bees become convinced of their orphanhood, we add a patch with a rescue queen, natural or inserted.
Inserting queen cells. First of all, the indoor nursery should be whole and not damaged, otherwise it will be destroyed by bees. Therefore, you should not touch it with your fingers, do not put it on its side (in an unnatural position), and especially do not turn it over and do not catch cold. We know that the queen fertilizes herself while flying outside the hive, so she needs wings very much, and they would not develop in a cold queen cell. The mother cell is cut out through and together with a piece of slice in the shape of a triangle, with the base at the top. We can take it as this basis. To protect against cold, we place the mother cells in heated boxes with cotton wool, protecting them from sunlight and storing them in a drawer. After selecting all the nurseries and deleting or leaving the uncovered ones for further heating, we begin to stir in the nurseries. In the slice near the side bar of the frame, we cut out a triangle through and insert the mother plant. However, so that the queen cell given to the bees does not tilt out, we attach it with a pin or a nail through the frame bar. The end of the pin should hit above the mother plant at the base of the triangle (Fig. 39). This work can be done in the apartment, being careful not to touch the inserted and attached nursery with your fingers. We take the patch immediately to the hive. There, the bees will strengthen it properly and warm the mother.
Dig. 39.
A seasoned nursery plant (photo: own).
Giving queen cells to bees, even the best ones, is somewhat risky because the hatched queen, apart from possible natural deficiencies, has a dangerous wedding flight ahead of her, during which she may die. Therefore, it is best to give the trunks ready-made fertilized queens. For this purpose, we must make the effort to raise queens artificially in wedding streets.
Industrial production of mothers. Raising queens in an artificial way should, as far as possible, meet the natural needs of first the caterpillar and then the bee pupa. Therefore, the mother brood must be fed like a prince from the very beginning, be in an upright position, be looked after with the care due to mothers, and be sufficiently heated. We will add one more to these conditions, namely: the eggs should come from a good mother, from a trunk that is not teeming, hard-working, and not malicious, and the mother brood should also be raised there. We also choose the largest bees. This brings us to selection. Mothers raised in this way should be impregnated by drones not from the same family, but from an equally good family. Not from the same one, to avoid harmful incest. In the spring, we leave the trunk selected for this purpose intended for raising drones free to draw drone wax at the beginning and raise any number of drones, while we completely destroy the drones in the entire apiary.
If we intend to properly breed queens on a larger scale, the apiary should not have any other bees within a four-kilometer radius, and the raising of drones must be absolutely limited to the trunk designated for this purpose. We therefore have to check all other tree trunks every three weeks and carefully destroy all the drone bugs.
If, despite these measures, live drones appear here and there, we will not kill them, because they may come from a drone hive. Bees really enjoy the company of drones, so they should not be denied this pleasure.
We begin to arrange nurseries when a significant part of the drone brood in our drone trunk is covered with lids, so that when the queens mature and the time of the wedding comes, they do not wander due to the lack of drones, thus exposing themselves to destruction.
There are several ways of raising queens: the first one is raising them in queen cells on native comb, the second one is raising them in queen cells grown on bee cells, and the third one is raising them in the beginnings of artificial queen cells. It should be noted that in the first case the set of queens is smaller.
1. In the selected trunk we take an almost new slice, which contains eggs or at most tiny, modern worms. Along the line we have marked, slightly bent downwards, we cut and remove a piece of the comb so that the brood is visible above the cut line and there is at least 60 mm of free space below. The eggs above the edge are used for breeding mothers. If the patch is red enough, we can create a second line of mother cells below it. To make it easier for the bees to process the cells above the cut, cut them to half their height with a sharp knife. At the same time, on the opposite side, we cut off all the cells almost to the middle node. It is good if, while doing this, we can cut off the protruding eggs on the back side. On the front side, we destroy unnecessary eggs by using the end of a stick or a match to crush three of them, leaving the fourth one, so that the raised queen cells are not too close to each other. For each of the eggs left behind, the bees will extract a queen cell that is very close to the natural one. On the other hand, if it is not possible to kill the eggs, we destroy all of them, being careful not to damage the base of the cell (nodes). It is not necessary to destroy the eggs on the entire comb, but only in the immediate vicinity of the future queen cells. To do this, we cut strips under the peeled brood to create a vacuum in which the queen cells would hang vertically (Fig. 40).
Dig. 40. Mother cells grown on native comb (p/g Kramer-Zürich).
We take the queen from the trunk with the comb cut in this way and remove the unmated brood to force the bees to set up rescue queen cells, to take special care of them, and to direct as many nurses as possible to nursing. We can give the removed brood to other trunks for rearing, and fill the void with covered brood taken from those trunks.
The queen cells grown in this way should be taken away on the 12th or 13th day, i.e. the day before or two days before the mothers go out and move them to the wedding streets, one for each.
The wedding street (Fig. 4 and 42) is a box measuring 255 mm in length, 130 mm in width and the same height. The walls are permanently attached, the top and bottom are removable and attached with screw caps. The interior is to be divided into two chambers across; one smaller one, 50 mm long, with a cover, is used for storing food (kandi, discussed in the chapter on winter), the other larger one, 200 mm long, has a hole in its upper part for bees to pass behind the compartment to get food and is a place for receiving the swarm. It is also covered and has a hole in the lid plugged with a wooden cork. At the top of the chamber there is a small outlet with a movable bridge that can be closed with a screw cap.
Dig. 41.
Wedding street open from above (photo: own).
The nursery is attached to the cork in the wedding alley with melted wax, and two liters of the young fly are poured into the alley. The bees will tightly cover the queen cell and, using the provided supply, they will quickly build earwax, attaching it to the internal half-cap with a stopper. However, to prevent them from pulling randomly, you need to place strips of artificial earwax along the chamber. To make it easier to find the mother, we attach the snake to three thin strips, two of which are movable and can be tilted sideways. We do not give honeycombs to bees to force them to work and thus produce more heat.
Dig. 42.
Wedding street open from the bottom (from my own photo).
When the mother comes out and starts laying eggs after warming, and when we see that she is fertile by the compact, uneven brood, we can immediately place her where she belongs. The rooster, once again strengthened, can continue to serve as a tutor for the mother from the new nursery.
We cannot keep the fertilized mother in the hive for a long time, because the eggs leave this too cold and cramped place.
After closing the outlet and removing the latch located in the bottom, the wedding alley with the wreath can be easily transported.
Some beekeepers recommend placing already hatched queens in such hives. For this purpose, they make cages for queen cells (Fig. 43, 44, 4) and after adding a few bees to the cages, they place them in the trunk extension - the nursery nurse. In this way, mothers growing up gain normal warmth until the end of their development. The beekeeper will learn about the queens leaving by hearing their battle songs. The trunk that we entrust with warming the queen cells in the cages should be orphaned, because if we have an old mother, it could give rise to a swarm the day after the queen cells are placed. Therefore, it is best to entrust the cages to the trunk that raised the nurseries. The mothers raised in this way remain in cages for three days so that they mature completely in the warmth of the hive and can be transferred to the wedding streets.
Dig. 43. Kramer-Zürich nursery cage.
The second method of raising mothers is to cut out individual cells from a red patch, cut off the cells to half their height, so carefully as not to damage the egg or crush the cell, leaving a border of adjacent cells. We carefully glue the cell to the cork by pouring a drop of melted wax onto the end of the cork and when it starts to harden, we place the cell on it. Then we give plugs to the orphaned trunk, devoid of uncovered brood (as above) and leave the nurseries until they are covered. The further upbringing will be as in the described cages, and the mothers hatched in the cages will go to the wedding streets.
The third way of raising mothers is in the beginning of artificial nurseries. The mother cup is created by repeatedly plunging the rounded end of an 8 mm thick stick into melted wax. We immerse the stick not too deep, 5 to 6 mm, and after removing it, before the wax hardens, we immediately place it on the cork. The stick should be soaked in water beforehand, so it will easily come away from the wax. Eggs taken from bee cells are carefully placed into the thus prepared queen cell starters. Eggs are removed using a special spoon.
In the second and third methods, plugs with the beginnings of queen cells are placed in holes drilled in the strip, which should be fitted, like a spacer, to the nest frame. The plugs will fit loosely into the slats so that they can be easily removed later for placement in Root or other cages.
Dig. 44.
Root nursery cage. The hole visible at the bottom right leads to the food supply.
When dealing with queen cells, you need to be extremely careful, which can never be too much, so when handling bees, be careful not to damage the queen cells with a feather, and you should not turn them over or shake such combs, especially when the queen cells are covered.
The last two methods require considerable dexterity and practice, but they are not too expensive, as we have plenty of bee eggs and corks are not too expensive. In the latter case, it may be difficult to attach the egg to the bottom of the inverted artificial queen cell, but this can be easily achieved when we moisten the bottom with milk taken with a pipette (dropper) from the cells that raise the young caterpillars. You can get a pipette at any pharmacy.
Dig. 45.
The queen cell or queen cage, if used as a queen cell, is placed vertically in the hive (TPO).
Artificial rearing of queen cells on a larger scale should only be carried out during the breeding season, or with significant feeding, so that the mother caterpillars have enough food; we know that bees are stingy and reluctant to disturb old reserves.
Adding mothers. Rules: 1) bees will not accept a foreign queen under any circumstances unless they are orphaned, even if their own mother is infertile, infirm, or even if the trunk has queen cells.
2) Orphaned bees are more likely to adopt a fertile queen than a fertile one.
3) In order for the bees to accept the queen, they must be protected from attacks, or there cannot be a single foreign bee in the hive.
4) A trunk with a poison bee will usually not accept an added queen.
5) The timid nature of the queen, especially when she is frightened by the beekeeper, makes it difficult for the bees to accept her.
6) The greater the need for a queen in the hive, the easier she will be accepted.
7) The bees, currently reluctant to the mother, will become accustomed to her as she acquires the smell of the hive.
This data will sufficiently instruct the beekeeper how and under what conditions he should replace the queen.
In order to produce a new queen, the beekeeper should leave the stock orphaned for as long as the bees, on the one hand, recognize their orphanhood and, on the other hand, have time to establish rescue queen cells. otherwise, despite the greatest efforts, the mother will not be accepted. The right time to give the queen will be when the bees start howling and sometimes running restlessly around the hive. The fertile queen is placed in a cage with a few friendly bees taken from the community in which she was raised. The cage is placed between the combs in the center of the nest, i.e. where the bees are most concentrated. It must be set up so that both the mother and the servants added to her can feed on the hive's supplies.
The queen given in this way is released after a day or a day and a half, namely: avoiding the slightest disturbance of the mother and the bees, we open the cage and let her go out on her own. It is a good idea to seal the open cage with a piece of artificial hose dipped in honey, then the bees, licking the honey, will bite the partition and release the queen. However, before this procedure, the beekeeper should check the behavior of the bees towards the queen. If they press towards her with violence and signs of anger, it is clear that the intention to release the mother is premature and must be postponed until the next day. If, despite this, the bees are still angry the next day, you should check the trunk, it certainly has queen cells, after removing which the trunk will improve.
The queen can be released only when the bees occupying the cage treat her with respect, do not press each other violently, but are at an appropriate distance, and, fanning with their wings, bend their abdomen with joy.
The best time to administer it is when it is necessary for the bees, i.e. during their reproduction and when the queen is brooding, as well as during honeycombing. So, for example, if you want to give the bees a queen in the fall, they should be given the illusion of an existing bee by feeding them. However, you should be careful about the possibility of causing an attack, because then the bees are very suspicious of all visitors, including the given queen.
If we save bees that have been orphaned for a long time, we must remember that older bees have a harder time adopting a queen than young ones. To remove this difficulty, the bees should be given a comb with a young fly taken at noon from a stump of medium strength. Feeding the fly from a trunk that is too strong could result in robbery or shearing, because the stronger the bees, the more likely they are to attack, and among the young ones, there may also be old ones on the comb that are prone to shearing. To prevent this, they should be lightly sprinkled with satie, heavily smoked, or finally dusted lightly with flour, lightly, so as not to blur the bees' eyes.
3. Main point. The reward period begins for all the beekeeper's efforts, costs and work. We have already written about the number of possible harvests in successful years in "Bees". If the harvest is good, the summer is not too dry, but it is sunny and muggy, with prevailing gusts of south-westerly winds, so in exceptionally favorable conditions and in a pleasant summer, the trunk can return the entire investment in one year and richly reward for the work. Very good results can be achieved by those who do not make mistakes, protect bees from bad accidents and unfavorable conditions, both inside the apiary and the stump, or outside, and finally pay close attention to the heat in the hives - this is, after the food supply, probably the most important bee development factor in spring.
When the yield in the field is high, honey will appear in storage frames. The beekeeper does not take it immediately, he waits for it to mature and be sewn up so that a lot of water in the nectar carried from the field evaporates. Honey can be taken from the top frames when the bees cover at least three quarters of the comb surface in half of the top frames. This should not be done too long, lest the bees, having plenty of honey in the hive and in the super, decide to swarm. Sewing honey cells and finishing the combs in the super always starts with the nest. lm closer to the upper banks, the honey arrives relatively later. However, we do not cover the entire extension, we take 6-7 finished frames from above the nest and slide the unfinished ones into their place. We fill the free space with top-mounted spare frames or freshly emptied honey frames.
We start work with an extension on legs, full of spare frames. Such an extension, called a bollard, is needed for each group of people working in the apiary.
Tools for honey harvesting must be prepared in the apartment or storage room, so: a clean and dry honey extractor, a crooked knife, freshly sharpened, a vessel adapted to support the frames when opening the combs, water for washing hands and a towel.
There is no need to emphasize that the work must be carried out in the utmost cleanliness. The knife should not be washed, but the sap and honey should be wiped off on a strip of hardwood. How honey is shaken is described below in the section on tools.
Some beekeepers advise collecting honey only after the harvest is finished, in order to completely cover the honey in the frames; and in order to create an empty space in the bees' heads, they add fresh supers, placed under the filled ones. This is a good method, but impractical, because it requires much: greater expenditure on the apiary, in the form of spare frames and top boxes, a large amount of spare dried herb, and in winter, large warehouses to store huge livestock.
It is also known that for such things, which attract flocks and swarms of pests, the storage room should be airtight. The method of collecting honey given here will completely replace the second supers; the honey will be ripe enough, and the enlargement! further nesting through a new super in the Warsaw hive is not necessary. If the tightness is too great, the only way left is to expand it or take it by force.
In the honey years, during the main harvest, to avoid overcrowding, it is necessary to go through all the supers in the apiary every third or fifth day.
When should you dismantle nests during the main break? Bees busy at work should be disturbed as little as possible. Therefore, you should avoid dismantling the sockets, unless of course there is an urgent need. The bees that work in the nest during the peak of their flight will not be able to produce even half of the honey on that day. We will be convinced of the truthfulness of this practice by two trunks placed on a scale, similar in strength and diligence, one of which will be taken by the beekeeper to look at it. Therefore, in order not to disturb the bees in their work and not to toil in hot weather, we carry out all necessary inspections, and even, if possible, collecting honey, on cloudy days or at the end of the day. It is understandable that collecting honey and examining trunks in larger apiaries cannot always be carried out only in the evenings.
Despite everything, the need for inspection may arise when we are afraid of swarming in order to destroy the queen cells, when we have to remove the structure under the frames, kill the drone brood, when we expect too much honey in the nest, limiting the mother in the brood, and finally in special cases, such as rearing mothers and others.
If it is necessary to dismantle the nest, remove the extension carefully, if possible without shaking it, and place it together with the frames inside it diagonally on a handy, empty extension. Then we smoke the bees located on top of the nest frames and cover the nest with a cloth, leaving only a few frames uncovered on the side where we start the inspection. The above covering during the inspection protects against the intrusion of bees.
Taking the slices drawn under the frames from the nest, we carefully clean the lower beams of wax remnants so as not to encourage them to start the work again. We remove all the beginnings of the queen cells and use the covered ones to raise queens. In place of the built-in, non-red frames filled with honey, we replace them with empty ones or ones equipped with an artificial hose.
After completing the work, carefully remove the cloth and place the top, taking care that the bees that are disturbed in the top and come out to its outer sides are not crushed when placed. The frames taken from the nest, emptied of honey, are either placed on the next trunks or, licked by bees, used as nests for natural swarms ¹). However, you need to be careful when taking honey from the nests and take into account the future arrangement of the trunks for the winter, because if the harvest suddenly stops, you would have problems with feeding the bees, which is always undesirable. Such accidents may occur during a period of wet or cold days.
¹) Combs that are emptied of honey but not dried cannot be given to natural swarms because bees saturated with honey for the journey have no way of sucking out the wet cells and the swarm escapes immediately after settling.
How to avoid working under frames? Spacing - the free space left under the frames in Warsaw hives often makes it necessary to inspect the trunks during clearing. This is highly inconvenient, which is why in the technical department we suggest making slips or using other treatments. If we have special hives that require significant care, we place feeders with the bottom turned upside down under the nests, which will at least partially prevent the unnecessary work leading to the raising of the drones. If we need to remove slices that already have brood, we can give them to the chickens to choose from. In one apiary I saw trained starlings doing this job with extraordinary accuracy.
When discussing the removal of unnecessary wax from under frames, it will be appropriate to mention the need to avoid raising larger numbers of drones, contrary to the opinion of some beekeepers. The belief that only the drone is fed with royal food, which the bees lose after feeding the heavily brooding queen, is inaccurate, because this food is also used for young worms; Therefore, there is no fear of harming the bees due to excess milk in their bodies, on the contrary, the bees' enthusiasm must be used to produce milk for the benefit of the trunk, i.e. to increase its productive power.
Knowing that wax costs dearly, almost twelve times as much as honey, the beekeeper, in the name of the rule - one measure at a time - grain by grain - collects its smallest crumbs. The melting of these fragments in the sun and the extraction of wax by melting in water and pressing will be discussed in the technical part of this work.
Ventilation of hives. During honey harvesting, you should pay close attention to the heat condition in the hive. The bees work until the outside cold or the heat of a hot day stops them. In our country, there is almost never such heat in the shade that would not allow for adequate ventilation. However, the direct action of the sun is so strong that, as we will see from the description of the solar melter, it can melt the wax. When the temperature in the trunk reaches over 35" C, the bees, fearing that the brood will suffocate and the combs will fall, will move away and; as we know, they hang unproductively on the hive; fanning with the wings was not enough. The sun, the cold penetrating the walls of the hive and the heating of the wall facing the sun contribute to the increase in heat on hot days.
The warmer it is inside the trunk, the more flying bees will be busy cooling the interior by quickly fanning their wings. When setting up the hives, the beekeeper should create good ventilation conditions, and if they are lacking, he must radically remedy the situation. If everything is fine, but the bees start to hiss out of the hive, open the roof or open the flaps under the gables to create a small draft. With the slightest gust of wind, the wax will harden and the bees will slowly start to enter the interior.
A good beekeeper will not allow the bees to lie down even for a moment, so if he notices it, he will immediately investigate the cause and apply a rescue measure: he will cool the hive, gain strength to strengthen the weaker one, and expand the trunk. If the hive is cold and allows sunlight to pass through, the trunk should be shaded. If this does not help, the bees should be moved to another hive, deleting the queen cells, if any. Once repaired, such a hive can still be used.
For hives that have been repaired due to lodging, it is better not to plant natural swarms, as it is difficult for bees to settle in them.
To allow the bees to ventilate during hot weather and to facilitate the flight of the bees during hive, some beekeepers provide their hives with a hinged bottom. This method is good for hot summers, but in our climate, used in hives that are also opened from the top, it is not suitable because due to autumn moisture, the swollen wood twists and gaps appear, causing robbery in the autumn and harmful drafts in the winter.
Sometimes it happens that it is not the hive that is to blame because of its faulty structure, but the bees' fault because of their inability to withstand heat - so if it turns out that they will lie in another, previously good hive, such a stump should be deleted.
4. Honey production in sectional frames. Honey, as a healthy and nutritious product, creates a temptation for dishonest traders to counterfeit, especially since the price of honey under normal conditions is usually twice as high as the price of sugar and glycerin. It has come to the point that in some countries, consumers have simply stopped believing in the natural purity of honey. So when honey produced in sectional frames appeared, it was received with great joy. These frames, thanks to their dimensions, contain a certain amount of honey. The idea turned out to be good and it worked. As a result, honey sales have improved significantly because the consumer has. almost complete certainty that the honey is unadulterated. Sold in frames, it is divisible, nice and appetizing. However, it must be admitted that it is quite difficult to produce because the bees are reluctant to work in small sections. Sections only become a prime commercial commodity when the slice surfaces are completely sealed. Meanwhile, in the hive producing sections, more honey is easily collected, which is why the fear of swarming increases. By leading the bees to harvest honey in the usual way in the super, we create the illusion of a lack of reserves in the heads of the hive by constantly replacing full frames with empty ones, thus forcing the bees to work excessively hard. However, we do not lose out on the wear and tear of the bees, because they die anyway regardless of whether they work less or more. Besides, they will not survive until the next spring, and the strength of the trunk is created in the autumn from a new generation. The trunk that we use to work in sections in whole extensions does not work very efficiently; having a full supply, it lags and as a result only produces half of the honey.
Dig. 47.
Beekeeping wagon in 1925 (Bartnik Post.).
The fear of swarming and lower honey production costs dearly. In addition to the price of honey in section, there is the cost of the frame and the much higher price of wax, which leaves the apiary with the section irreversibly. Honey production in sections can only be profitable. when there are buyers nearby who care less about the price and more about the purity of honey and its delicacy, so close to summer resorts, climatic stations and larger cities. The foreign market is also very desirable, although currently still risky due to the careless treatment of honey packages by the railway and postal services in Poland and abroad. Therefore, the railway management should be applauded for providing a beekeeping wagon and promoting beekeeping education among railway workers. Such an awareness-raising campaign should also be carried out among post office officials so that the inscription "careful - section honey" is not an empty sound. For now, we regret to inform you that the frames will be delivered. sectioning must be undertaken by the beekeeper himself and hand over his product directly.
Dig. 48.
Sectional frame; around it there is a strip prepared for a complete section, in the middle there is a complex section, A notch, B folded in the notch.
Dig. 49.
Sections stacked.
Honey produced in frames will cost at least three times the price of a package from a honey extractor. In our country too. making honey is still relatively easy, and as long as the beekeeper is conscientious in keeping his work clean and serves his honey to consumers in beautiful and separable vessels, a buyer will be found and a good price. In order to protect beekeeping from the blatant competition of adulterated products, steps should be taken to ensure that the purity of honey is guaranteed by law.
Since honey production in sectional frames still has a great future ahead of it, a few words about it.
Sectional frames (Fig. 48), commercially available, are tiny stock frames made of linden or aspen strips 3 mm thick and 38 mm to 50 mm wide. The ends of the slats are toothed to connect them into a quadrilateral lock. There are three transverse cuts on the edge where they are folded, A on the inside, so that B does not break when bent. Before folding, the bends are thoroughly moistened with water, which increases the elasticity and prevents breakage; you can also wash the slats in hot water and dry them after assembling.
The section forms a square designed to hold a slice of a given weight, usually one-half to one kilogram. The sides of the sections have indentations about 3 mm deep on all four sides so that, when placed side-to-side, they allow the bees to pass in all directions (sections without indentations should not be used). However, the corner surfaces of the beams fit tightly together so that the bees do not seal the gaps. The corners of the sections have the correct height and the bar in the corners have the correct width (usually 50 mm) of the storage frame.
The frames are placed either directly in the extensions or above the center of the socket in boxes of appropriate dimensions.
The bees fill the cells of the first comb faster and pour it more abundantly with honey, so the thickness of the frame started later will be much smaller, and the surface of the adjacent combs sewn together will not always be even; is often distorted. This would negatively affect the uniformity of the goods, cause differences in the weight of individual sections and cause transport difficulties. To avoid this, dividers in the form of thin slats are placed between the sections, having notches corresponding to the joints of the sections, so that the indentations of the sections' bars, meeting the notches of the slat (6 mm), create passages for bees. Such a slat forces the bees to build combs of equal thickness and equal surface area. The rainsplitter has the appearance of a field divided into squares, where the grooves do not go lengthwise and wide without interruption in both directions, but are interrupted in those places where the divider hits THE corners of the frames. (Figure 50).
We supply the sections with slices of artificial cord, made of the thinnest and whitest possible wax, not reaching the bottom (Fig. 51); it is better to avoid starting scraps (Fig. 52) so that the bees do not work hard, thus encouraging the queen to lay. The sections should be filled with glowing slices, and the honey in them should be unleavened.
Dig. 50.
Divider for sections arranged on three floors (own drawing).
Dig. 51.
Artificial snake in sections arranged in an American frame (PB).
In strong trunks, you can place sections over the entire nest, but it is better to place only a few rows of sections above the center of the nest, and fill the rest of the extension with frames. It is not advisable to provide any types of grids, as this would make the bees' already difficult job more difficult.
Dig. 52.
The beginnings of knots in the sections of the American top frame (P. B).
When producing sections on a smaller scale in the supers of Warsaw hives for our own pleasure and curiosity, we can place two sections in normal super frames; the best are French ones (Bertanda) with dimensions:? 105 by 130 by 50 mm. They are placed as shown in Figure 53. Both sections are placed next to each other in a frame on the lower bar; fill the remaining 14 mm on both sides with slats or 7-mm clinics; in this case, gaps will be created between the frame trabeculae and the section membranes. We fill the void at the top with a 12 mm strip adapted to the inside of the extension frame. Between the frames with sections, we place dividers made of zinc sheet in the extension (Fig. 54).
Dig. 53.
French sections placed in the Warsaw valve frame. abo the membranes of the section, which are the lower and lateral trabeculae of the supraalveolar frame, d the upper trabeculae of the supraaltebral frame. The numbers indicate dimensions in mm. The lines on the membranes of the sections show indentations for bees to pass through (author's drawing).
The production of a larger number of sections can also take place in a Warsaw super, but then they should be arranged in three or four rows lengthwise, and five rows across the super, which in total constitutes 15 or 20 sections in the hive. Since the width of the extension is 252 mm and the thickness of the five sections is 250 mm, the dividers, of which there will be three between the rows, will only take up two millimeters, so they must also be made of thin zinc sheet. The tightness of the sections across the extension will be sufficient. If you use dividers made of thin slats (3 mm thick plywood), the extension should be extended in a place corresponding to the set of sections. It can be easily expanded by cutting appropriate places with a handsaw and planing the wood between cuts. We later erase this recess by lightly nailing in strips - dividers, which level the surface and are available for the next year.
The base of the sections in the extension can be a 5-0 mm thick board with gaps along the length, corresponding to the gaps of the sections, nailed flush with the edges of the extension (Fig. 55). The sides of the sections can rest on slats attached across the extension. The upper edges of the side compartments rise flush with the tops of the extension frames.
Dig. 54.
Zinc sheet divider for hanging sections between Warsaw extension frames. The meaning of the letters is as in Fig. 53. Dotted lines correspond to obscured sections (fig. on).
In this way, we create a box with 15 or 20 sections in the extension, above the center of the nest. In the first case, the partitions forming the tops of the box arranged in the extension will be placed at a distance of three sections (315 mm) from each other, and in the second case, four sections (420 mm). These partitions, as well as the dividers, should have gaps corresponding to the cutouts between the sections to facilitate communication between the bees.
The sections placed in the box will be 24 mm lower than the extension frames, and the cutouts between the sections will allow the bees to spread out under the roof, so to close the passages, level the level and overwhelm the sections, we place an inch board (24 mm) and a brick on it.
Dig. 55.
A drawing giving a rough idea of how to arrange the sections in the extension.
The method of setting sections in dadanas will be discussed in the chapter on the hive.
To avoid staining the sections with putty, frames should be placed tightly, which is achieved by using a spring or a sealing wedge on the side of the hive inside. Moreover, sections should be inserted right at the beginning of the honey harvest, because at its end, when the bees start to supply the nest from the cold and remove the putty, despite the tight arrangement, there will be stains. Early insertion will provide us with other benefits, namely: it will allow the bees to finish the combs thoroughly, as a result of which they will have an attractive, clean, unblemished appearance. Of course, the trunks are not sectioned before the main harvest begins, in order to avoid covering the finished cells with putty, which the bees always do in their free time to strengthen the structure, and which they refrain from doing when time is pressing because honey is abundantly coming from the field.
Old, red, very dusty and dirty combs should not be added to the tops next to the sections, so that on the one hand the bees passing by do not dirty the frames and, on the other hand, they do not use the dirty wax for covering. cell superstructure with honey.
There are cases where beekeepers try to force the bees to finish sections that are too late by feeding the trunk for this purpose. However, such combs lose much of their value because the bees cover the combs with glowing lids and create a slippery and water-soaked surface. So far, the cause has not been investigated and no way to remove this defect has been found. Moreover, the bees that are busy filling the walls in the hive have dirty feet, so there will be brown spots and stains on the surface of the slices. This deficiency is to some extent removed by sulfurizing the patches in specially constructed cameras.
Well-sewn sections can be covered with glass, and the edges of the joints can be covered with aesthetic labels-stripes. Such sections. as the most valuable commodity, they are ready for sale.
You should know that combs in sections should not "cry", so it is advisable not to expel the bees from between the sections with smoke, but to remove them using commercially available removers. We pay attention to this detail. When we take away the frames. after the hive is finished, suddenly with a vacuum cleaner, then the hungry and scared bees break the cell lids to fill with honey. After removing the sections from the hive, handle them carefully, especially if you want to clean them of putty with a blunt knife.
Unfinished sections should be considered a failure of the beekeeper because, as we have seen, the feeding does not achieve the desired effect and the product loses its value. They cannot be stored with honey, so the honey must be extracted using a honey extractor and the combs given to the bees to dry. They can be used again in the second year, but to achieve the aesthetic appearance of the patches, the tops of the cells must be cut off, leaving almost only the middle walls (node). We do this because the wax darkens over time, even if it is never red.
Dig. 56.
Progressive development of sections.
The apiary tries to make the sections, in addition to their attractive appearance, seem larger with the same dimensions and weight, and at the same time make them easier for the bees to finish. It solves this in one shot, namely by giving slightly oblong, rectangular frames instead of square frames. The longitudinal section gives the illusion of a larger one, and when placed on the shorter side it is more convenient for bees to work in. It is a proven fact that the ratio of the work speed of bees in vertical to horizontal frames is 3 to 2. But the beekeeper takes care of one more thing: he avoids larger honeycomb surfaces in favor of thicker combs, thus saving wax. Hence, Bertrand sections measuring 105 by 130 by 50 mm are best. The worse ones are used by Root, measuring 102 by 127 by 35 mm, because they use a lot of earwax and contain a relatively small amount of honey. The worst are, but the most common, 108 by 108 by 38 to 47 mm. In America, where the production of honey in frames is on a large scale, Root sections and others with dimensions of 98 by 127 by 48 mm are widespread.
Dig. 57.
Sections well earned and finished (B).
Finally, we can add one more detail about sections. The surfaces of the covered slices can be given signs or initials of the beekeeper if concave, inverted forms are placed on the dividers.
5. Management in straw baskets and bottomless hives is much simpler than in frame hives, but it is more primitive, so it is more difficult for a beekeeper to master. In frame hives, thanks to the artificial wax and the complete disassembly of the nests, we can avoid drone work, but here, despite our efforts and efforts, it cannot be done, which means that we must agree to raise more drones - parasites and destroyers. Although a basket with a movable middle frame, equipped with a tenon at the top, has undeniable superiority over an ordinary log and allows for many activities of progressive beekeeping, a beekeeper in słomianki may be chosen out of necessity by a poor beekeeper, a beginner, who does not have the resources to buy a larger number of frame hives with extensions.
The spring work on the coniferous plants was described for frame hives and was mentioned on page 26 of N8, so we will not repeat it. The only difference in management is the need to cut off the combs that are moldy at the bottom or are not covered by bees due to the small size of the swarm and are susceptible to fluke.
We talk about the method of adding a top elsewhere in the technical section when describing the construction of baskets.
Honey harvesting in straw bottoms can be done using frame hives. So we set up straw streets with outlets facing in different directions, two at the same bottom. Before the light comes, on beautiful days, we gradually bring the mouths of the bottoms closer together so that after some time they will come together and the bees from both bottoms will have one common flight point. Let us not be afraid of robbery, because the abundance of benefits in nature makes them gentler. Then, in the evening, we remove the bees from both hives and place them in different positions, and in their place we give them a frame hive with a structure with an outlet that goes to the flight site of both bottoms, we drive the bees into the frame with one queen *), and we give the other queen back to her your own hive. In this way, we will gain a very strong swarm in the frame hive, and in the bottomless beehives, the small number of remaining bees will increase in number from the emerging brood. An orphaned beetle will raise its mother in a rescue nursery. Both butterflies will grow to their strength in the fall, and one of them will have a renewed mother. We will treat the frame hive as we would any other hive. If it is built in such a way that the bees can winter in it, we have gained a swarm, if it is a box made temporarily of thin slats, the trunk must be removed in the autumn and the drugged bees, after taking away the queen, should be given to the weaker bees.
*) The hive will benefit much more if it has an indoor nursery.
We do this artificial procedure to protect ourselves from natural swarming, because bees in a bee box are prone to swarming due to the crowding and are very inefficient.
If the baskets stand separately, we give each basket an extension. The time for giving the bottomless tops must be significantly accelerated and must occur before the harvest. Here, the extension serves primarily to enlarge the nest, so it should be placed when the trunk has built up almost to the bottom and begins to feel tight. Such streets should also be cooled by placing them on additional embankments or on foundations protected from moisture. The bees are then able to draw the earwax lower thanks to the cold coming from the ground.
You can also create a draft by cutting holes in the bottom and the top of the extension; they must be strained to protect against pests.
The extension must be placed firmly so as not to be knocked down by storms, and the gaps must be sealed with rags and smeared with clay. To make it easier for the bees to get to the top, remove the bottom with the spigot and fill the vacuum between the ends of the bottom and the lower bars of the frames with scraps of dried bee. These scraps should not be too high and should not raise frames. The erected extension is covered with the same straw roof.
We take the supers from the baskets earlier than from the frame hives, because we cannot set up a nest here, so a few days before the end of the collection, we give the bees the opportunity to stock up for the winter. You should not delay in taking the supers to avoid feeding them in the fall, which is always associated with the fear of robbery.
It is advisable not to add frames with drone work to the tops given to the baskets.
After removing the supers in autumn, we move the bees downwards between the snoses so that they do not interfere with further work and, as carefully as possible, we collect the combs made above the nest with the bent end of the cutter, carefully avoiding spilling the honey.
At this time, we check the condition of the bee colony and the amount of supplies in the bee basket. By the way, it is difficult to determine the amount of supplies at this time based on the weight of the hive, because combs occupied with brood are heavy regardless of the amount of honey. Here again there is a great advantage of the movable frame, because after removing it we can see the amount of honey sewn above the nest. A basket that has half of its movable frame covered with honey a few days before the end of the harvest will manage to finish the job and will not cause any new problems.
Later efforts will involve protection from cold and pests (the outlets should be narrowed). In winter, if the bottom is not secured to the bottom, we will put a handful of fine hay, cover the top bottom with a tow spinner, protect the roofs from leaks, and wrap the legs of the stool with juniper branches to protect against mice. Well-stocked bottomless boxes can overwinter on a toque and the bees emerge from them in a completely satisfactory condition.
6. Renewal of wax in frame hives and bottomless nests. In framed beetles, it is necessary to replace the combs when they are too old, have holes, have more queen cells, or have a larger amount of bee bread that is damaged so that it cannot be removed. Sometimes it is necessary to remove combs with even healthy bee bread, when too much pollen in the cells makes it difficult to assess the supply.
Removing combs built in spare frames is not difficult at all, they are simply removed from the hives in autumn and disposed of for melting. It is much more difficult to remove them in the spring when they are in the nest and red from winter. We remove them from the nest gradually, moving them closer and closer to the edge of the nest, until the brood comes out.
Much more time and skill is required when renovating nests in bottomless and basket-shaped nests. It is easiest, but with risk, to renew nests during swarming, when the swarming period for a given trunk has already ended, i.e. after 21 - 22 days from the emergence of the primordia, after the brood has completely left. We can use this on trunks that produce early swarms so that they have time to grow before the harvest stops, and cut out only half of the nest in one year, leaving the other half for the next year.
Since the harvest does not always start and end at the same time, and the weather is not always good on critical days, a heavy trunk, as it is not very strong, can rarely be worked without help. Another, better way of renovating nests is as follows: About nine days before the start of the main honeyflow, in warm weather we remove the bees and the queen from the bottom of the bottom into another bottom, equipped with quite large beginnings of new herb. The expelled swarm, replaced by the mother swarm, is similar to the natural swarm; I'm sure he'll be able to work it out until the end. We place the queen bee in another place nearby, together with a certain number of bees, sufficient to raise the brood and establish rescue queen cells. After nine days, we remove all the bees from the matrix again during the day and return them to the swarm we have created. In this way, we strengthened it with a new group of young flies, missing to draw earwax. In the matrix, the flying bees remaining after the second removal will start to act as additional heaters, and the trunk will be so weak that it will allow the queen who comes out the next day to remove the queen cells without any protest. After 13 days, i.e. 22 in total, we knock out the bees for the third time, cut out the old combs, leaving only strips up to 8 cm wide, and let the bees and the young, then already fertile, mother back in. The next morning we move it with another strong bottomless plant with an old mother and an old structure, intended for removal in the autumn.
Although we had trouble with tapping three times, but... There were also great benefits, as we gained a new structure in two puppies and changed the mother in one. There were no bees fighting and no robberies, because it all happened during the holidays. For the operation to be successful, the first swarm that emerges must have a young mother, i.e. last year's mother. The mother plant in third place, being very strong, will be able to be processed, especially since the scraps of combs left behind already had a significant supply of honey. Leaving scraps does not make the treatment half-hearted, because the remaining length of the patches is not red, so they do not require renewal. With the above method, you need to have one spare bottom for every twelve.
Deleting patches and renewing the nest may not be possible at all. take place every six years. The time period will not be too long considering, on the one hand, the significant cost of similar treatments and, on the other hand, the greater value of older combs for wintering birds. The need to speed up can only be caused by illness. brood or bees and molting; the latter, especially in hives with a stationary structure, in bottomless beehives and baskets.
If the nests are not renewed for too long, the bees become diminutive due to the gradual reduction of the cells in the light as a result of brooding after previous generations of brood, and in addition, trunks with an old structure are more sensitive to diseases and less resistant to pests. At this point, it is worth emphasizing the mistake of beekeepers who, in order to renovate the nest or stop the swarm, remove combs with working brood.
7. Benefiting the bees. Honey plants. A beekeeper, concerned about the fate of his apiary, tries his best to increase the number of plants in the field, so he cares about the propagation of herbs, shrubs and honey trees. He takes care of sowing, for his own use, cereals and fodder plants, which, in addition to economic benefits, secrete significant amounts of nectar. Sainfoin, buckwheat, yellow lupine, serradella, winter and summer rapeseed, mustard, white and Swedish clover, incarnation, mint, reseda, beans, dill, broad beans and cucumbers, and finally seed beets, cabbage and sprouts - this is a group of plants useful for bees . Efforts will be made to plant wastelands and road embankments with honey bushes, and the roads themselves with trees: linden, buckthorn willow, birch, iwa, wild chestnut, mulberry, acacia, elm, maple, sycamore. Tree planting festivals in schools should be taken into consideration. The school counselor may have a decisive say here. The beekeeper will also grow medicinal herbs, which are very commercially available and produce a lot of honey, such as: foxglove (Digitalis ambigua), common mullein (Verbascum Tbapsus), borage (Borago offic.), common echium (Echium vulgare), melilot (Melilotus). offic.), rosemary (Rosmarinus offic.), melissa (Melissa offic.). Among farm plants, the white two-cut clover from Algiers (Hedisarium Coronarium), which is not very common in our country, deserves attention and produces first-class honey.
All listed trees, shrubs and herbs, apart from honey, provide building material, food, or, in the case of medicinal herbs, cash. Linden is the best tree for carvers and for making honey shells, mulberry allows us to spread silk production, a very profitable industry, and mulberry fruits are very sweet and fragrant and are great for making fruit wines. Acacia and elm provide excellent material for all farm equipment, and maple and sycamore are sought after as furniture material.
Removal of stumps for use. Understanding the need to prolong the honey harvest, after the beekeeper stops taking care of himself, he can take his apiary or part of it to an area rich in honey collection, which may be a few, several, sometimes a dozen or several dozen kilometers away by train. The cost incurred will be reimbursed with interest.
We have already written about transporting tree trunks. However, it was about the most convenient time, and here I will give some comments, because nowadays transport requires special care. Trunks with fresh wax should not be transported, including older, abundantly red wax. You can transport hives filled with old, hard combs containing brood, but without bees *), and the bees separately in the transporter. You can prepare for transport at noon, when you drive all the flies from any trunk to a new hive, equipped with older wax, and distribute the brood to other trunks. You can strengthen this trunk before you leave by adding flies from the trunks that are to remain at home. You can transport hives with frames, and in the transporter you can carry a swarm of any number of flies taken from several trunks. The nestling should be given a spare mother, or better yet, a frame with little-bred brood to warm the mother. To make sure that the beetle does not have a mother, or that we do not expose two trunks to orphanage unnecessarily, we remove the fly from frames with honey on which there are no brood. It will usually be an older fly. fit for flight, useful in a new place for collecting honey. Depleting the trunks that remain in the house by partially removing the flies will not cause the brood to catch cold, because there is still enough heat, and we only take away the bees sitting outside the nest. There is no need to worry about the hibernation of bees at this time, unless the honeyflow has stopped completely in our area, but in this case the smoke will do its job.
*) The expression "without bees" should not be taken literally, because, whether during fertilization or summer transport, it is necessary to leave a small number of bees for the brood that needs care.
A hive intended for transport should be protected against breaking the frames and valves, but we travel much more carefully than in spring. After arriving at the place, we place the hives in the selected positions and, if the bees were transported separately in transporters, we pour them into the designated hives. For renting such a bee "pasture" and taking care of the hives, you can pay even 1.5 to 2 kg of honey per trunk, of course when the care requires some effort. If we take them to the heathlands in sparsely populated areas in August, we will have to pay more for care, but of course it will be cheaper if we find a forester's lodge nearby.
It will be much less difficult before transport if, when adding the frames in spring, we already think about the future transport of some trunks and supply them with old, hard wax. Before exporting such trunks, all you need to do is take away the excess honey and protect the frames from breaking.
If we transport whole trunks, filled with frames and bees, we carefully protect them from suffocation by providing appropriate ventilation. So we take a couple of frames from the extension, attach the side frames with nails, and cover the top with wire mesh. Sieving the outlets does not provide sufficient ventilation even in spring, and now it would certainly lead to the suffocation of bees. From this you can see that holes need to be covered with sieves in the tops of the hive roofs.
The bees brought and placed in their place will be ready immediately, if the time of day allows it, and seeing the lack of honey, they will start trying hard to get supplies.
After the harvest is finished, we can wait until the brood and stumps come out without any worries and we can take them back without any special precautions.
8. Should the mother be limited to the brood during the mating season? Limiting the mother when all natural conditions force her to grow red is a violation of nature, which will retaliate sooner or later. So in principle you should not do this. It is one thing to limit the queen's reproduction on a certain number of combs with bee work intended for the nest and not allowing her to use combs with drone work in order to avoid raising unnecessary parasites-drones.
Absolute restriction of the mother can only be used in exceptional cases. Such accidents happen to beekeepers who want to produce specimens or conduct purposeful experiments. The queen is enclosed in several frames and, regardless of the natural disadvantages of a given trunk, the good of one bee family is sacrificed for scientific purposes.
Separating the queen from drone work is completely understandable and consistent with the nature of bees. Although the trunk, left to itself, raises a significant number of drones, limiting this number is not contrary to nature. Let us remember that when a beech felled in the forest became a log in the apiary, and there were more than one natural log, the need for a large number of drones in each trunk disappeared. A beehive in the forest had to rely on its own strength, so in the event of a swarm, the number of drones was to be sufficient for all the swarms. Hence, they needed their drones for their mothers, who needed fertilization and could not look for them far away without risking accident. When the beehive became a log, and now the log became a hive, arranged in a greater cluster, a large number of drones became not only superfluous, but even harmful, because it is naturally desirable for the mother to be able to impregnate herself with a foreign drone and thus avoid incest. In larger apiaries. there is no reason to fear the lack of drones.
Therefore, if for any reason a beekeeper is forced to use drone combs, he is acting in accordance with nature by not allowing the queen there. By doing so, let's try to prevent the bees from having to frequently climb through the grid, so let's divide the outlets in the middle with it, or if this is not possible, let's make a separate outlet for bees outside the grid.
Restricting the mother in red, as we have seen, is not advisable at all; The fact that the mother speaks against this. maggots behind the grid to the drone cells. Raised drones, like the mother, cannot squeeze through gaps that are too narrow for them and, by pushing persistently towards the passage towards the light, they create violence and anxiety in the hive, and when, exhausted, they fall off, they smell of rot and the bees will not be able to drag out the decaying insects. bodies.
Taking the mother away during the mating season is the most radical thing. not limiting redness. Raising a brood, as we know, consumes quite a significant amount of honey, and the raised brood keeps the educated fly busy with homework when it could fly a second time and go to the field more quickly.
However, taking away the mother causes the trunk to weaken. If we remove it from a trunk not ready for swarming, we will lose 22 days until the new queen starts brooding, which will result in the production of 66,000 fewer bees, counting three thousand eggs per day. This is the number of inhabitants of one medium-sized trunk or two medium-sized swarms. This calculation is not exaggerated, as some researchers claim that a good mother, under the most favorable conditions, is capable of reddening up to 5,000 cells a day.
We can see from the calculation that suddenly taking the queen without any advance preparations weakens the trunk too much, and also gives a mother raised in a rescue nursery, which is usually less valuable. Taking the queen can only be agreed to if we provide a covered nursery in place of the one taken away. natural at hatching. Then we only lose 15 days of time. This also weakens the trunk, but we gain by renewing the mother and saving honey.
Mother regeneration, when it comes to this, can be done at a lower cost if we give orphaned stems young mothers already fertilized. However, there are indeed cases when we sacrifice the strength of the trunk to save it, which happens in hungry years, when bees are unfavorable, when we try to accumulate the necessary supply of honey for the winter, which is constantly eaten by the raised brood, or when we breed bees in poor areas.
At this point, I emphasize once again the need to maintain only strong trunks, because only such are profitable. A certain number of bees are always needed to cover the needs of the trunk, both inside and outside. Each free bee in excess of this number is of double value to the beekeeper, because the excess bee only brings profit to the beekeeper; the more there are, the more honey there will be. So you need to be on time. honey harvests only strong trunks, and weak trunks can be strengthened at the expense of others only in spring, but never right away or during the harvest time.
It is true that a strong trunk causes a bit of trouble for the beekeeper - the constant fear of swarms; this is not a big problem, because in general we pay close attention to it. bees, and can be easily prevented by artificial separation or excessive force. Meanwhile, a weak trunk requires efforts all year round and often requires out-of-pocket expenses.
Now the question arises: when is the best time to take or replace the mothers? From what we have just said, we see that the time just before the harvest is not the right time, because then we are concerned rather with accumulating strength - to supply the worker for the time of the harvest. Let's calculate so that the time of temporary weakness of the trunk falls on the time of the cessation of the harvest, so in the month of August, so the removal of queens may fall back by five weeks, i.e. in the second week of July.
Searching for the mother. Speaking of taking, fencing and limiting mothers, it would be helpful to say a few words about how to find them.
The mother is a mature insect, much longer than the bee and more slender than the drone. Its movements are flexible, not jerky, like a drone's, and not driven, straight, like workers. The walking mother is hampered by her slightly long abdomen, especially when she is fertile and red, so she wobbles from side to side - her movement is worm-like (Fig. 58). The mother's legs are thick, covered with golden-colored hairs, and in place of the brushes of the worker bees, it has dense, shiny golden hair. The abdomen is much longer than that of a worker bee, filled with pollen tubes that produce eggs, and shows a yellow junction of rings. Her timid nature makes her hide under the bees on a comb exposed to the light, and her desire to swarm in spring brings her quickly to a patch of poison wax - she can be found there the next day.
In the immediate vicinity of the mother bee, the bees behave significantly differently than when they are far away, namely, they are lively, and from time to time they make a sharp, interrupted sound at attention. Left alone in the gathered swarm for some time, they turn their heads towards her and, tilting their abdomen with a white handkerchief, fan them happily with their wings. The mother, worried and frightened by the smoke, makes a crackling bass sound and indicates the direction of her presence. This sound should be distinguished from the loud cry of individual smoke bees, similar to the cry of a baby. The presence of the queen in the trunk gives the bees vitality, diligence, self-confidence, the absence of the mother - complete disorganization.
Dig. 58.
Mother in motion (photo: own).
If the mother is not intended for breeding, we do not pick her up with our fingers, so as not to damage her abdomen in a hurry and with nervous movements, which could lead to infertility. So we either provide the mother with a cage into which we introduce her, or we hold her with tweezers specially prepared for this purpose.
9. Final remarks of the summer period. During good times, you can work on honey in the apiary, even if only in a shaded place. The bees will not interfere with your work, at most one or the other will fly, but they will not be attracted to taking honey. An obstacle can only happen unless the bees are angry. Only when the demand stops, they start to flock to the honey and simply won't let them work. Therefore, in general, you should not shake honey from combs in the open air. We allocate a suitable place in the hall or room to work on collecting honey, and we also bring the frames taken from the hives there. It is good if the window of the room in which we work is equipped with a net with a bee remover at the upper frame (Fig. 59). The remover is needed to safely remove stray bees or those brought with combs.
The method of collecting honey from combs is given below. If, despite our caution, the patches become bent or cracked, they should be restored to their proper condition by straightening the surface. the corrected pieces and put them back into the hive for repair. Damaged: the combs should not be placed in the center of the nest so that they do not bend again under the weight of the bees.
If our work takes place after the honeyflow is finished and we do not intend to put in any more frames or nests, we give the combs to the bees to lick. So we put them in the hives. For fear of an attack, we add them in the evening and take the frames away either in the morning or in the evening of the next day. This caution is necessary because the smell of fresh honeycombs is attractive to bees. We look through the combs cleaned by the bees again and shake out every drop of honey, even from a few cells, in a honey extractor. Only then can we safely store them until next spring. Drops should not be underestimated, because in a larger apiary, hundreds of frames will yield tens of kilograms of honey.
Dig. 59.
Single bee remover (Portera).
If the honey hardens from the cold during the last work, heat the room to 25" C for the night and work the next day. We do not mean solid honey, because it will not flow out of the cells despite the heat.
It happens that honey in combs from some hives is so thick that even with a honey extractor it is impossible to extract it and sometimes half of the honey remains in the cells. It is heather honey or comes from too dry hives and is good for wintering. However, it should be remembered that as it is devoid of moisture, it is easily susceptible to crusting and is unsuitable for overwintering. Namely, nests can be placed either in the hives from which it comes, as warm ones, or in trunks intended for wintering in a lockstitch.
Purity of honey. The honey from the honey extractor is slightly contaminated with wax crumbs, grains or stray particles. forehead with bees. So we strain it through a strainer placed on a vessel placed under the spigot of the honey extractor (Fig. 60). We can only pour the purified honey into vessels intended for long-term storage of honey, either for trade or at home.
Despite everything, honey from a honey extractor, even if strained through a fine strainer, still contains tiny particles of wax. If you want to obtain greater or complete purity of honey, pour it into quite large and tall vessels, placed, like a honey extractor barrel, on legs, with a spigot at the bottom. Such vessels are called sinks. After a few days, we pour the honey through the lower spigot for storage, and pour fresh honey from above. This procedure has two advantages: the smallest impurities float to the top, and the honey that sinks to the bottom is heavier, therefore more ripe, i.e. more easily and quickly crusted, and therefore more quickly marketable. The thinner honey remaining in the sink at the end of the season can be used for filling or for other home use.
Dig. 60.
Honey strainer (TPO).
Honey storage. Honey, poured into vessels, should be placed in a ventilated and dry place. In order for the rest of the moisture to evaporate, we only cover it with a clean, linen cloth. After crushing the honey, the smaller vessels are first covered with wax paper and then with white, thick paper and tied tightly. Barrels are secured with spigots. Honey prepared in this way does not spoil for several years.
The size of the dishes depends on demand. For wholesale trade, not very large oak barrels are used, 25-0, 50 liters at most. Larger ones should not be used due to the weight of the honey, and spoilage once the barrel begins. The barrel intended for honey should be clean, so it should be either new or former cognac. Wine barrels should not be used to store honey because they give off a foreign smell. Never use containers for honey that have ever contained acid, e.g. cabbage, cucumber, etc.
Honey looks beautiful in white glass jars containing 0.5 to 1 kg of honey (no more). White honey, derived from linden, sainfoin and other plants, is poured into these vessels and has an attractive, white appearance when crushed. Darker honey, from honey, heather and similar plants, is better. pour into enameled vessels with a capacity of up to 5 kg. Enamel vessels are actually the best for storing honey, but they have the disadvantage that they are too expensive, but they can be sold with honey and counted as separate vessels.
In all cases, whether honey was poured into barrels, jars or tins, we should tare the vessels before pouring, i.e. weigh them and write the weight clearly and permanently on the bottom of the vessel. It is a good idea to provide all vessels with the beekeeper's handwritten signature, proving the purity of the honey and clearly indicating its place of origin. It is a good idea to label smaller vessels with colorful and beautiful labels, which, in addition to the above data and signature, also mention what herbs the honey comes from. Beekeepers abroad pay close attention to these details, and since not everyone can afford printed labels, they can buy them in beekeeping tool stores. Let us also pay attention to these details, especially since, due to the spread of progressive beekeeping in our country, we may experience an overproduction of honey and then a more aesthetic supply may count on greater demand.
To pour honey, do not use vessels made of porous or honey-affected material; Therefore, unglazed clay pots are not suitable, but stone ones, which are currently little used, will be good; Iron or zinc sheets are not suitable, as formic acid decomposes the metal and spoils the product.
Small portions of honey can be poured into linden tree shells, made of one piece, without staves, with a hot bottom. Such dishes, purchased from a reliable company, are completely suitable for the purpose. Barrels for pouring honey should be tight. Oak is best. However, it is generally quite difficult to find reliable barrels. The tightness, which does not allow water to pass through, is not sufficient to keep the honey in, and it sometimes seeps out, not only through cracks and veins, but even through the tree itself. The reason for this is the different grade of honey and its ability to absorb moisture; it takes away the moisture contained in the planks and causes the vessel to dry out.
Barrels intended for storing honey, washed and well dried, must be filled through the spout. They should be placed far from the walls, so that even the slightest leakage could be noticed immediately and fixed with a mixture of half-and-half plaster and cement mixed with a little water. In order for the barrel to stand evenly, it should be placed on a trestle or at least rested on pieces of wood.
Honey should not be poured over the top. After pouring, cover it with a cloth until it is ready. Only after scraping the barrel can you confidently roll it without fear of spilling it.
Crow honey. There are cases, most often when moving from non-dismountable hives to frame hives, or when farming in cages and bottomless hives, that we extract honey from the hives in combs intended for breaking. Similar accidents occur when removing hives that cannot be dismantled, when combs break or fall off frames, and finally when cutting out frames that are not built or are poorly built.
We crush the slices to be broken in the old way using a paddle, working as carefully as possible, and we sew them to the bottom, once in a vessel of appropriate size. We can do this in the sink mentioned above, or in any barrel with a spigot at the bottom. After a few days, the lighter wax will float to the top, and the pure honey is poured down. Honey, coming from fresh or not very old combs, is in no way inferior to honey extract and can be similarly loaded or mixed with it. Crow honey from older combs should be considered inferior.
The remains of honey that could not be extracted in the manner described can be rinsed in water and the rinses used for wine or saturated honey, while the rinsed wax should be heated in a small amount of water and intended for squeezing. Can be mined. also the remains of honey by means of overheating: for this purpose it is inserted. put it in appropriate oven dishes after freshly baked bread. The wax, as it is lighter, will flow from the hatched brood and honey will collect at the bottom. This honey should not be mixed with honeydew honey, because when overheated it is difficult to crumble.
In a similar way, we separate honey from the store from the wax by cutting off the combs before placing them in the honey extractor.
Securing trunks at the end of summer. If we notice a weakening of flight in the apiary, despite nice weather, we know that the benefit has stopped. Our assumption will be confirmed by a beehive standing on a scale at our place or a neighbor's, and sometimes by bees stretching on the bridges. This will usually be just after the winter grain harvest.
Our first action after finishing the harvest is to protect the trunks from robbery. We narrow the outlets and close all accidental cracks in the hive tightly or cover them with clay. We will pay the most attention to weak trunks and spare trees. To this end, we remove the unnecessary number of frames as quickly as possible from the weaker trunks in order to concentrate the bees closer to the exit, and we designate the wedding streets either for proper use, i.e. for replacing older queens; or for transport, and we supply the rest of the wedding streets with flies that get rid of the collected roods. To avoid the added bees from cutting off the queens and returning to their former flight sites, we pour them into one hive in the evening and intoxicate them with puffball smoke and the next day. Only before the flight do we add the appropriate portion to each hive, while smoking to make it easier for the bees to connect.
CHAPTER V
Autumn works.
The cessation of a significant demand does not mean its complete cessation. If the weather is warm and sunny, bees find nectar on late-blooming or late-blooming plants and, at least to a small extent, produce honey. However, in case of incomplete feeding, feeding is limited, as a result of the mother's food portion being reduced.
1. Autumn treat. If the year was wet and the nectar has a larger amount of water, then the hive scale, despite the hive, will show a decrease in weight on the one hand due to the evaporation of honey and, on the other hand, the emergence of the brood, which weighs much more in the cells than the bees that emerged.
The beekeeper takes all this into account and if the scale does not show significant changes, he hesitates to take the supers. The delay can be explained by the fact that the bees, excited by the crowd, can swarm because of the crowd. The fear of swarms in Poland may last until August 15 or longer. In strong trunks, the best time to remove the tops is when the drones start flying. This note does not apply to weak trunks and this year's swarms of singers. Therefore, the actual beginning of the autumn period in practice falls on the time of collecting the extensions.
The bees, returning empty from the field, alert the trunk about the coming hunger and the news is generally accepted. Its direct effect is the loss of energy and mass gathering into a ball. More active people check their supplies to see if they will be enough for times of poverty, and the period is long, lasting more than three quarters. So they bring the uncovered honey from the more distant combs to the center of the nest and fill the cells emptied after the brood with it, thus accumulating honey above their heads. These treatments are carried out with the greatest possible economy. Meanwhile, the drones, deprived of milk, try to compensate for the loss of protein by consuming more honey.
Only now are the gentle and relative sisters coming to the conclusion that there is no need for freeloaders, that they should be put to the sword where the pepper grows. Perhaps the first reason for the riots will be the accident that a strange drone came to visit, and meanwhile a bee rode away on it, like on a horse.
Then the bees are angry. It is difficult to go to the apiary without a net, because, irritated by the loss of property, they see anyone approaching as an attacker for their benefit. And rightly so when it comes to the beekeeper.
2. First autumn inspection. SSupplies for the winter. When we look into the hive after the honeyflow has stopped, we will be surprised by the emptiness. The first will be the assumption and fear whether there was a swarm. Previously, the bees covered all the combs, sat on them quite rarely and only kept feeling with their limbs; Currently, they only cluster in places where there is a significant amount of brood.
Bees left to their own devices in logs or beehives. standing, they do not need anyone's help in building a nest, as long as the settlement itself is suitable for wintering and as long as they do not get pissed or die of hunger. Driven by their natural instinct, from the very first moment they store their supplies upwards, displacing the brood lower and lower. When the honey harvest ends, they inevitably have a ready nest. Man, leading bees to his cultural goals, must take vigilant care of them before winter and arrange a nest that is abundant, rich, and adapted to actual needs.
The bees, gathered in a ball, would be ready to hibernate on the combs they occupied. Usually they would do badly because they calculated the reserves in their heads with the top frames. After collecting them, the beekeeper should think about how to arrange a nest of combs with the appropriate amount of honey for the bees. This activity can be called the first inspection after all and should not be delayed. As long as the bees are hiding brood and are still quite lively, they can fix what the beekeeper ruins while arranging the nest.
It would be desirable to leave the summer nest for the winter, which some beekeepers even consider necessary. In my opinion, this is not necessary. They explain the need to leave it for nutritional reasons in winter - it is bee bread, arranged in cells in a way that is most similar to nature. If we wanted to apply these arguments in practice, we would have to wait some time for the brood to partially emerge, and then feed the bees an appropriate amount of slightly diluted honey. However, this procedure is unnecessary, as pollen is also found in sufficient amounts in the combs outside the nest. If there is a shortage of it, the bees, feeling the need, will replenish the supply, because the cessation of honey production does not mean the cessation of pollen production.
To protect the bees from this deficiency, we do not put a pollen-free drone in the nest; anyway, such patches are not desirable because of next spring.
We avoid feeding bees in autumn. By giving the bees ready-made sewn combs with a sufficient supply of honey, we avoid many surprises that could occur due to mistakes, especially by beginner beekeepers, including robbery and failure to sew honey due to the late hour.
Therefore, in frame hives, in normal years, we always do without feeding, but in bad years we cannot do without feeding, even when we manage: in baskets with supers that we took too late.
There are those who, wanting to exploit the bees to the fullest, take away their honey completely and give them sugar syrup instead. This is only an apparent benefit. Bees wintering without honey, i.e. deprived of natural food at the hardest time of the year, come out of winter very weakened. Honey is a chemical compound and although it contains, among other substances, three types of sugar, it is uniform, while the syrup will always be a mixture of cane sugar and water, which freezes faster than honey in the event of severe frost, bursting the earwax cells, and takes a lot of heat when it thaws. Moreover, the syrup has the property that the water in it freezes, separating from the sugar. Concentrated sugar naturally flows to the bottom of the cell, and ice flows to the surface. Therefore, when the frozen syrup thaws, two layers are created, one of which will be very little sweet, but susceptible to fermentation on contact with air in the cells burst by the ice, and the other - concentrated sugar - easy to crystallize. It is true that there are not always such severe frosts and the hives are so badly equipped that the syrup freezes, but the fact is that the bees, hibernating on the syrup alone, come out with perforation.
Apart from the greater nutritional value of honey, just in case. the beekeeper was forced to winter the bees on syrup, he should have placed the trunks in a lockstitch. Partial feeding of syrup is not harmful if the bees manage to consume it before the frost arrives.
Knowing that bees do not fly around throughout the winter and retain their feces in their feces, we make sure that their food creates as few residues as possible. Therefore, the syrup served with mousse must be made of solid sugar and completely free from sugar. Therefore, there is no question of any other inferior nutrients that will need to be fed to the bees in spring.
The honey we supply bees with for the winter should come not from honeydew, but from nectar, and, if possible, not from cruciferous plants. Honeydew honey often causes curdling due to the high content of indigestible particles, honey from rapeseed, burdock, turnip etc. quickly crusts.
If the trunk does not have sufficient reserves and we are forced to feed it with honey extracted from the combs, i.e. patoka or crushed honey, dissolve it with a little water and heat the food to 60-70”C. Water should not be given more than two tablespoons per liter of honey. The cooled honey is given to the trunks overnight in larger portions. In order to avoid an attack, even if the honey is not consumed by the bees, we remove the feeders from the wound and can feed them again the next evening.
In general, the apiary should be managed in such a way that there is no need to feed the trunks in the autumn. Therefore, in general, honey should not be extracted from nest combs. The exception are years rich in honey, when a huge amount of honey in the nest could cause swarming due to the lack of empty cells for brooding, but even then you need to be careful.
There is no point in delaying the feeding of the trunks. The bees should have time to sew the honey provided, because, as we know, this is the only way they can overwinter on it. You can feed in autumn as long as there is brood in the trunks, especially uncovered brood.
If it is necessary to provide food for weak trunks or late-growing trees in autumn, we give them ready-made combs, ready for overwintering, which we do even if there are no spare combs. They should be taken from rich and strong trunks, which in turn should be fed. This replacement will not hurt, because strong bees will be more likely to prevent an attack and will defend themselves more quickly. A strong trunk can take up to three kilograms of honey per night.
The Miller feeder is a good solution for feeding bees in need in the fall. This - from strong trunks, when they have narrowed outlets, you can not take them away even during the day (Fig. 61).
How much honey and frames do you need for the winter? The frame of the Warsaw hive, all covered with honey, contains about 3.2 kg of honey, while the frame of Dadanta Blatt slightly more than four kg. Each three square decimeters of the surface (300 centimeters²) of the nested comb sewn on both sides gives 1 kg of honey. Each trunk, regardless of its strength, should receive 14 kg of honey for the winter. The frame, given to the bees in a hive stand for the winter, should contain 30 cm of honey, counting from the top, so the Warsaw frame and the Ciesielski frame will each contain two kilograms. The frame in a deckchair, being wider, must necessarily be shorter in height so that the bees have room for a winter bed.
Dig. 61. Müller's feeder also serves as a pillow covering the nest (TPO). A cross-section of the feeder can be found in the next section on page 178.
A medium-strong swarm should get 7-8 frames, a stronger one 9, rarely more. Weaker swarms that do not occupy 5 frames should not be wintered alone. Applying the number of frames to the strength of the trunks in dadanas, we take into account that the frame there is larger by 1/4. If we want to keep a weaker roik, we should not leave it on the toque for fear of freezing. Weaker bees eat more honey to stay warm; stronger ones relatively less, because they themselves are able to generate more heat. If the bees' need to keep warm by eating food were removed, they would consume about 2 kg in a large swarm throughout the winter to maintain their subdued existence. Frames given to bees for wintering should have honey sewn on both sides.
With all this in mind at the first autumn inspection, we will know which frames and how many to leave for the bees for the winter. Since this inspection takes place in August, we are unable to remove combs that contain brood and are unsuitable for overwintering due to usually insufficient amounts of honey. We have to leave them until the second autumn inspection, which will take place around mid-September. We take away unnecessary frames from full hives, i.e. empty, too full ones, leaving them suitable for overwintering and occupied by the brood. QWe do not spread the nest out of fear of catching the brood, which could happen if we moved it aside and immediately prepared a winter bed in the middle from ready-made frames.
A larger amount of honey than 14 kg will not harm you, and will increase the certainty of wintering and development of the trunks in spring. When allocating slices for wintering today, let's not be stingy, but have 1 frame in reserve in each trunk just in case. The number of frames should be balanced so that there are neither too many nor too few of them in the hive.
If we determine that the bees' honey supply will not be enough for the winter, do not delay feeding until late autumn, but make up for it immediately by giving the appropriate amount of food in larger portions.
If it turns out that the trunk does not have a sufficient number of frames suitable for overwintering, but that there is a sufficient amount of honey in all of them taken together during the first inspection, i.e. in a full hive, then, after removing the empty frames, we cut off the cap from frames with a smaller supply. and place them near the nest or behind the valves so that the bees can carry the honey to the nest. For this purpose, we place the valves on sticks located at the bottom of the hive, providing access to the bees and facilitating communication. For overwintering, we give preference to older combs, because bees overwinter better on them, as on warmer ones.
After removing unnecessary frames, we cover the sockets arranged in this way with valves and take away the glass one to avoid moisture - after all, there will be cold mornings and evenings. We cover it all with cloth and put a wooden pillow on top.
Bees, unaccustomed to a certain tightness, are ready to spread out and get lost, so let's make sure not to leave unnecessary gaps, when we give combs to pick out or lick honey outside the valve, we cover the side of the hive where we let the bees work with another part of the nest cloth.
When carrying out autumn work, we pay close attention to foreign bees looking for robbery. If we notice an attack, even if not very numerous, with simultaneous anger of the bees on the operated trunk, we close the hive as soon as possible. In order not to create a constant temptation for robbers, we now do not use a handy cone with legs, but a rojnica. The extensions taken from the trunks should be immediately returned to the storage room. We do not abandon wax particles, especially those with honey; We will wipe up every drop of honey accidentally spilled. Caution is not exaggerated, because at this time the bees have not yet lost their summer vitality and are eager to eat.
3. Strengthening trunks in autumn. From what we have just said, the reader could conclude that too weak trunks should not be winterized. However, you can still strengthen the bees in August, preferably by adding mature brood from strong trunks. We can also give weaker trunks patches with a fly on them at noon on a beautiful day, first to even out the odors. Strengthening the trunks in autumn by rearranging them does not achieve the goal, because the arrival of a flying fly will do little to encourage the queen to molt, and the old bees will not survive until spring anyway. Strengthening the trunks by adding bees from deleted queenless plants also has little effect. However, these treatments will be useful if the trunk, reinforced with the old fly, is fueled for a week.
We have no problem saving trunks that have not been properly treated from starvation - we can give them ready-to-use frames made of other trunks, suitable for wintering. If it is not profitable to save the weak and hungry (probably for the sake of the young mothers), we do not leave them to their own devices, because we would risk losing honey and give stronger bees an opportunity to rob them. They need to be deleted.
Just as bees are governed by unchanging and inexorable laws, the beekeeper who manages them cannot afford half-measures: "it will be somehow." As soon as it comes to the conclusion that this or that bee family is not able to respond to the important tasks of the moment - in this case it will not be able to overwinter - it is deleted, guided by the principle that a smaller loss is better than a larger one. Providing total food, or some extraordinary strengthening, can only take place when the beekeeper wants to achieve a specific goal: to maintain a certain number of trunks or to intensively multiply the apiary.
Deleting stumps. It consists in the fact that the trunks that are not suitable for wintering are combined with others or a few or a few weaker ones are formed into a good family. A reasonable and humane beekeeper will never allow himself to kill or sulfur bees because, apart from other considerations, he will suffer material damage. The bees, taken by weight, constitute three times the value of the honey, so if there is already a failure in this or that hive, there is no need to add a new loss to the loss. For the same benefits, it will rather buy bees intended for slaughter from its neighbors and will spend the winter in 5 - 6 frames with a normal winter supply.
When removing stumps, remember that orphaned bees come to terms with the queen most easily, especially when she is fertilized and settled, so she is confident. Bees feel uncomfortable in a strange hive, so it is better to attach them to stumps that have their own queens, and not the other way around. Added, sprinkled with flour, or lightly sprinkled with flour and dusted heavily, they combine harmoniously. In order for the bees to forget their former flight location, they should be combined in the evening and transported to a distance of three kilometers. Instead of taking them away, you can intoxicate the bees with smoke from puffballs or saltpeter (Ammonium nitricum). They are also easily fused and forget their flight if, after the brood comes out, they are left orphaned for a few days and fumigated into a hive that has a mother and is located in the immediate vicinity.
We do not drug bees intended for export. Putting bees to sleep with puffball smoke does no harm at all, saltpeter is worse; We exclude the mother from this last procedure whenever possible. To intoxicate the trunk, you need 5 grams of saltpeter, soaked in a cloth and dried (Bertrand).
The puffball (Lycoperdon Bovista), called quite drastically in the folk language, is a spherical mushroom that grows in pastures. It sometimes reaches a considerable size. Initially, it has white flesh, and as it matures, it produces spores in the form of fine brown pollen, which, among other things, heals sore spots on the body. For intoxication, an immature puffball is collected when it has not yet had time to produce spores, it is cut, dried, then stored in a dry place, and when necessary, a portion the size of a walnut is burned. The little puffball also grows in forests, but it is not used to intoxicate bees.
We intoxicate in this way: We seal the nest surrounded by valves to prevent smoke from escaping, then we place a vessel with a small amount of heat, covered with a net, under the nest at the bottom of the hive, then we close the hive tightly and cover the outlets. The bees will immediately feel the unpleasant, suffocating smoke and make a noise, which will quickly turn into noise, then rustling, some bees will begin to fall to the bottom, and finally everything will become quiet. We don't wait any longer, we open the hive immediately, collect the bees that have fallen to the bottom and start dismantling the nest. Most of the bees hang between the frames and fall to the bottom when moved, while the rest cling to the combs. Frames that are more densely covered with bees are intended for temporary insertion into a reinforced trunk, and those that are less densely covered with bees are cleaned with a feather.
The state of unconsciousness does not last very long, 15 to 20 minutes at most, so we either rush to empty the bees or move the trunk to a nearby place for a new flight. We collect the bees that have fallen from the combs to the bottom of the hive again, e.g. into a large hole, adding a layer that is not too thick to avoid suffocation, and when they start to come to life, we pour them under the nest of a reinforced tree trunk. To avoid choking, we give the local bees some puffball smoke, no more than 1-2 puffs, because we only want to balance the smells and not cause any problems. to the fight, we search for and take the mother from the drugged hive.
By clearing the logs, we are forced to drive the bees to the hive for two or three frames, even with the beginnings, we set it for some time at the flight site, allow all the bees to gather, and then we intoxicate them. We don't necessarily have to burn the puffball on coals, you can seal the beehive by covering the mesh and smoke from the vacuum cleaner to the outlet, making sure that not a single bee comes out, so we stick the end of the fume directly into the beehive through the outlet and stop smoking when the bees stop humming. It is understood that it takes much more puffball to intoxicate the bees from the vacuum cleaner.
There is no need to fear the bad effects of intoxication, because the smoke from the puffball is completely harmless, so that the next day after the bees are united, we will not find a single dead bee at the bottom, unless we have damaged one through carelessness. The effect of intoxication is complete forgetting of everything they have experienced so far, especially about their former mother and the place of their former flight.
This procedure can be used not only to reunite the bees, but also in all cases when we want the bees to forget where they came from.
After connecting the trunks, we leave them alone for the night and remove the empty hives from the apiary, or at least move the strained ones to other places.
Robbery. The easiest way to prevent robbery is to move the trunk. robbed with the robber; especially when there is no other way to do it. In less urgent cases, an attacked hive can be protected from a new influx of robbers by constantly (every few moments) closing and opening the latch so that its own bees returning from the field can enter and the foreign bees can escape without the support of a fresh attack. After some time, stop, but you-. Just leave one flight separated by the width of one bee and, if any, fill the gaps in the hive with clay. By leaving the hive for some time, we can place a glass pane on the bridge, other people's bees will bump against it, and our own bees will go to the outlet next to the glass. When the attack calms down a bit in the evening, the internal cause of the robbery should be removed, so if necessary, the nest should be reduced and, if it turns out that the trunk is orphaned, it should be deleted; Retrieve the hive from this place. Narrow the outlets throughout the apiary. The trunk that is being attacked can also be hidden from robbers in a dark and cool place. If the robber's trunk is in our apiary, it is best to put it in a goat, if the attack comes from a foreign one, you should hide yours. If there are attackers circling around the site of the hive that has been robbed or removed, it is a good idea to build an empty hive there, in which we place a vessel with kerosene, or hang bunches of wormwood or stinking chamomile inside, opposite the outlets. These odors will discourage robbers and you will be able to take out the hidden trunk, make sure it still has the mother, which could have been cut down during the robbery, and leave it. it with latches moved to the width of one bee. Trunk. the prisoner should be watered using a wet cloth cloth inserted through the gap in the latch.
If the robbery has not yet taken on the characteristics of an attack, we can save the attacked trunk in the way given by K. Lewicki's father; “We put a strainer on the trunk for ten minutes and during this time we use smoke to fend off robbers without letting smoke into the pond. If the bees are irritated by the sieve, we will open them. these will come out with force and will better guard the exit, pushing away the intruders. If the robbers still push in, it will have to be repeated in a similar way several times. If these treatments do not help, the only thing left to do is clean up the stump for a while. To remove hidden robbery, place a piece of camphor on the robbed tree trunk in the evening.
4. Storing spare honey frames. How: we know that a beekeeper should have several or a dozen frames filled with honey on hand in case he saves the trunks from starvation in winter or early spring. These frames should be properly preserved. They should not be placed in a damp or frosty place, as the slices will start to leak or lose their cohesion due to freezing. The worst way to store patches is in an unheated room with warm air. It is best - in a warm, constantly heated room, for example in a warm kitchen, as long as there are no major temperature fluctuations there, protected from dust and pests. When stored in this way, the honey will evaporate slightly and lose weight due to air entering through the accidentally formed pores in the cell lids.
Sectional frames, protected with glass, should be stored in a similar way when we no longer have a market for them.
Storing empty patches. Drainage. In a progressively run apiary, properly stocked, it is appropriate and necessary to keep plenty of spare frames during the winter, so that in the spring they can be given to the bees as ready-made cradles to accelerate the development of the trunks, and in the summer they serve as honey vessels. The slices, fully finished, constitute capital, yielding three hundred percent per annum. A sheet of artificial tree trunks is much less valuable because it requires the beekeeper's work to fit it into the frame and the bees' hard work, which to some extent stops the development of the trunks. Spare frames are essential equipment for a beekeeper.
To get the proper benefit from your spare frames, we store them carefully, protecting them from mold, mice and fluke.
In order to prevent the fluke from getting into spare frames, beekeepers advise storing them in tight closets and sulfurizing them before storing them for the winter. This is a very good measure and should be recommended to anyone with a small apiary. The situation takes a different turn in a larger apiary, where several hundred, and sometimes more, frames are to be stored. Then you only need to put the older patches in the closets, easier for the fluke to control, sulphurized of course, and hang the fresh ones between the slats under the ceiling in the hall, in the storerooms, etc.
Sulfurization consists in burning a certain amount of sulfur on coals in a closed cupboard after setting the frames, the acrid smoke of which kills pests and their embryos.
If the beekeeper is unable to undertake these measures, he will hang all the frames from the ceiling, taking care that the older combs are at least 4 cm apart from each other. So if one is damaged by a fluke and there is no communication, the neighboring one will be unscathed. New patches, as we see, do not require so much caution.
In spring, you should be careful with older frames and place them in the hives first before the first spring. mid-May to prevent the pest from entering.
T. Ciesielski in "Beekeeping" advises placing the patches in a well-ventilated place, protected from mice and the influence of moisture or leaks. He orders the frames to be hung under the attic, in the attic, on horizontally suspended poles. The ends of the poles should not touch the roof or rafters to prevent mice from entering. Frames are hung on these poles on wires bent in the shape of the letter Z. One bend in the corner of the frame is tightened, and the other one grips the pole. This method is good because it allows you to choose the right patch without moving the whole thing. The bad side is that it gives easy access to bees in autumn and spring; they swarm to rob and get lost in the cobwebs of the attic, spoiling and cutting off the combs in the process. To avoid this, you should take the frames to the attic only in mid-October and take them to the attic. spring before the bees find out about them.
We protect dried fruit from mold by placing it in a dry and warm or cool and airy place.
It is much more difficult to store frames in extensions, which are usually stacked directly on the floor. You can profitably use stools that are not too high, which can accommodate two extensions next to them, on which further ones can be stacked. We tie the legs of the stools with juniper branches, with their tops down but not touching the ground. We also place stools near the walls. Regardless of these measures, mice should be exterminated inexorably, as they are the beekeeper's greatest enemies.
For the sake of the fluke, which is more likely to nest in older combs, you should not add red wax to the supers, because the supers are only used for a few weeks, they are under the care of bees for a relatively short time and they are exposed to danger during the two breeding periods of the fluke.
Honey frames removed from the centrifuge, if not given to bees to lick, should be stored even more carefully than spare honeycombs, in a dry and constantly heated place to protect the honey remaining in them from fermentation. This is easily formed when honey absorbs moisture. However, it is best to give the frames to the bees to dry, because instead of harm, we will benefit from the honey. The remains of honey remaining in the combs in the heat will crust over the winter due to loss of moisture and the bees will throw the crusts away without use. If left in moisture, honey will ferment, the combs will become moldy, or at best they will smell of yeast. Therefore, we can easily expose ourselves to losses, because the bees, weakened by diarrhea due to receiving bad honey, are exposed to the risk of May disease, which in some countries destroys entire apiaries.
5. Second autumn inspection and supply of trunks for winter. In August, we stocked up the hives and prepared nesting material. Currently, around mid-September, i.e. when the brood is gone, we can start completely setting up the winter nests and finally removing all the combs that are no longer suitable for overwintering.
We begin this work at the right time, without hesitation. However, it is impossible to define the exact date because the brood does not appear at the same time every summer. There are years when the brood is gone by the end of August, and other times, when the autumn is warm and the moorland and seradel are abundant, the brood ends only at the beginning of October.
Dig. 62.
Correct setting of the nest for winter. Vertical dots indicate honey, squares indicate brood, and transverse lines indicate dry matter. On the sides of the valve. The numbers at the bottom indicate the weight of the honey in the frames (pounds).
A certain difficulty in beekeeping work at this time is the fact that the bees are sluggish, as if lethargic, they spread out when the hive is opened, and when the comb is moved, they fall to the bottom. Therefore, a few minutes before starting work on the trunk, you should disturb them by knocking on the hive and blowing a few clouds of smoke into the outlet. This disturbance must be sufficient for the bees to suck where they have gathered together. Opening the hive too suddenly may, on the one hand, expose us to the loss of the infirm queen if she fails to climb onto the combs, which happens often, and on the other hand, to break the combs by scattering the bees too quickly, because they are hungry while remaining in the cluster. —not like it was in the summer.
At the right time, we take the extra frames from the nests that we were waiting for the brood to come out of, leaving the desired nests at the first autumn inspection. We use them to arrange nests in accordance with the requirements of the nature of wintering bees. If we have frames richly supplied with honey, we arrange them so that the one with the least will stand in the center of the nest (Fig. 63), and the combs with the largest reserve will stand on the edges. If, for any reason, the frames are less well stocked, we place the comb with the largest amount of honey in the center and place combs with a smaller amount towards the edges.
Place the nest in the middle of the hive, opposite the outlet. Since we have included several frames after the brood has emerged, it is necessary to move the valves towards the center. Since we would have to wait for the bees to gather on the frames, which would take too much time, we gather the bees only from one valve and move this one to the right place, i.e. right to the last comb, and leave the other one, preferably from the valve, until the bees themselves they will gather in a group. Meanwhile, we are working in another hive.
Dig. 63.
When arranging the nest in this way, the frame with the number 3 should be removed and sticks placed across it, because there is not enough honey in the middle frames. It would be better to place the frames with less margin around the edges of the socket.
Currently, we can put mats on the sides, apart from the valves, and a straw cushion on top of the canvas, and a wooden one on top of it to protect the nest from leaks, which can easily happen due to temperature changes in winter and cracks, especially when the roofs are not covered with roofing felt. , ruberoid or sheet metal.
If it is warm outside, you should not immediately cover it with a straw mat during this inspection, but leave the pillow board until the first frost. At this time, too much heat in the hives unnecessarily stimulates the bees and encourages them to raid.
There is no harm in placing 5 mm thick sticks under the canvas on top of the nest, to make it easier for the bees to climb over the top of the frames in case there is no honey on the combs occupied by the withers during the winter, as bees do not pass through the edge of the frames in frosty weather. This procedure can be easily performed on frames adapted to the extension. If someone does not yet have hives with supers and the tops of the frames fit tightly, after setting up the nest, you can pierce the combs at the top in the middle twice with a piece of wood or wire to create passages if necessary.
The trunks should also be protected from harmful drafts, so you must be careful not to leave any gaps at the top, especially when you place the sticks and the cushion rises above the ends of the side mats.
Let's assume the rule that air can enter the hive and frost can only penetrate through the outlets. Then we will be safe about the proper wintering of the bees and we will not complain in spring about moisture in the hive and the resulting damage.
The advice to leave a gap next to the nest is wrong. at the top for ventilation. As long as the hive's eye is not placed lower than 30 cm below the ceiling and the nest is covered with cloth and a straw mat, ventilation will be sufficient and the air will be relatively moist and dry.
Moving bees from logs and non-removable baskets. Currently, after the brood comes out, we can remove non-dismountable trunks in order to connect them with others, or transfer them to frame hives to ready-made nests, prepared in advance from the frames sold during the first and removed during the second autumn inspection. We have already treated this topic when we talked about moving bees with brood. We found there that bees moved in spring do not provide benefits throughout the year, and in even very successful years they generate much less income than those not moved. Relocation in autumn, so as not to destroy the mother, gives a completely good result in winter and benefits from the transferred hives. will be the same the following year as those from the established ones.
The work will go much faster and will be beneficial for the beekeeper, because there is no need to handle the bees with the brood. The bees don't lose anything, a little anxiety won't hurt them at all, because on a warm day they can swarm. If only she had died doing this job. mother - let's say one in ten trunks - then the beekeeper does not suffer a loss, because he gains from the greater value of bees in demountable hives.
Transferring from baskets is very easy. We eject the bees scared by the smoke through the open spigot into the basket placed on top. We pour the bees into the frame hive, placed in place of the box, on the ready-made nest.
The supply of honey and wax from the basket remains for us as a partial refund for providing the bees with a nest.
It is much more difficult to work with logs, which are generally not very accessible. A distinction should be made between standing and lying logs. In the latter, the work is easier because it is easier to drive the bees from between the combs to the side than downwards in a standing log. In both cases, we prepare the work in August by selecting all the unnecessary combs and leaving only part of the nest with the brood. At the same time, the walls of the beehive should be thoroughly cleaned of wax residues to make it easier to sweep the bees off the internal walls without being crushed. If we did not prepare this work in August, we can do it a few days before the driving. Preparation is necessary in order not to flood the bees with honey during the final work. After all, working in a log "dry" is unthinkable.
In a lying log, we drive the bees from the middle of the combs to the opposite end, previously cleaned; there they will hang in a ball and you can partially scoop them into the scoop and pour them into the beetroot. If the hole is too narrow or the hive is too tight and we cannot operate the shovel, we further disturb the bees so that they go to the edge of the lying log and from there we scoop them straight into the bee hive.
We can place a standing log on a trestle and drive away the bees in the same way.
Then we calmly take the combs without fear of flooding the bees and the queen, and we stick the logs tightly to avoid robbery and leave them nearby. We build frame hives in the place of the removed logs.
In a similar way, we can transfer the bees during the swarm, when 22 days have passed after the first swarm, i.e. all the brood has come out.
6. Treating a tree trunk with a drone queen and a drone bee. A trunk with an infertile mother should be orphaned and either deleted or, when it feels orphaned, given another, fertile mother. Adding young brood is not advisable because the trunk is weak and will melt completely before it warms up the young mother. This risky procedure can only be resorted to if we want to maintain the number of trunks and if we are able to strengthen it in one way or another. If we warm up the queen from the given brood, we should pay attention to whether there are any drones in the apiary; if there are, then in order to reduce the work for the bees, we cut the brood from the drone queen or cold the uncovered brood, then give the combs to other trunks for cleaning, if there are no drones. , we strengthen this trunk so that it will be able to raise its brood and drones.
It is much more difficult to save a trunk with one or more poison bees, because it is elusive and does not differ externally from an ordinary worker bee.
In the spring, it is not worth trying to treat the trunk with a poison bee, as it will not be useful in the current season. Besides, we lack a fertile mother that could be given to the treated trunk; Even if we raised a mother from the given brood, she would have difficulty fertilizing, having only a small number of drone offspring in the whole world. It is much easier to treat such a stump in summer or autumn, when taking power from other hives to strengthen the sick hive is not dangerous and it is easier for us to obtain a fertile queen. Of course, you must first deprive the bee of the poison so that the trunk is willing to accept the fertile queen given to it. We do it this way: we supply the empty hive with a few combs with beeswax and put it in place of the treated trunk. We take it nearby, open it and take away the combs, sweeping away every single bee. The bees, seeing the emptiness in the hive, will start to worry and, since they are all old and therefore flighty, they will start to return in droves to the place of their former flight, almost all of them will leave the old hive, and in the abandoned hive only a few bees will remain with poisons, which have adopted the mother's habits and will not leave the hive. they fly out. They can be collected, sprayed lightly and placed in a normal, strong tree trunk, where they will leave their nests in the presence of a suitable mother. We give the bees whose tubes were taken away a fertile queen in a cage. In a new hive, built in place of the old one, you can add a fertile queen directly on the comb, without a cage, along with her relatively numerous bodyguard. If there is no spare fertile queen, we give two combs: one with a young brood and the other with a mature brood, along with a young fly sitting on them; this one, feeling orphaned, will set up queen cells and raise a mother. Bees born from mature brood will replace the dying older ones. We can strengthen this trunk by rearranging it.
If we do not intend to grow this trunk, we connect it with the neighboring one after removing the trunks. There is no need to drug the bees, because they are longing and will easily get used to the new surroundings and will forget their old flight, provided that the hive is removed from its place. We deal with drone brood in the same way as with normal brood, because if necessary, these drones are able to fertilize the mother.
By working vigilantly and persistently, deliberately organizing our apiary down to the smallest detail throughout spring, summer and autumn, before winter arrives we will have bees completely prepared for wintering. When the snow begins to fall and the frost sets in, we will be sure that our beloved "orphans" have enough vitality to survive happily until the first dawn of spring, their resurrection.
CHAPTER VI.
Winter worries.
Winter is the rest period for bees. Bees need peace the most, and the closer to spring, the more they need it. Anxiety at the beginning of winter forces the bees to eat more food, so the accumulation of feces in the fecal casing is a further cause of impregnation. Mating itself causes anxiety towards spring, because the bees, unable to fly and having their insides full of feces, immediately clean themselves.
We do not delay the final preparation, i.e. providing the bees with straw mats until frost, because we could allow moisture to spread, adversely affecting the combs, honey and the condition of the wintering bees. The final dressing is done when the temperature is no longer expected to rise above 120C in the shade. During the final dressing, the trunks need to be swept up because the bees, overworked in the summer, are already starting to die. This symptom is natural and falls between September 15 and November 1.
Some beekeepers, for the sake of the coming spring and protection against moisture that creeps in from the individual bottoms of the hives, place paper on the bottom, sprinkled with a layer of dry peat fines, which greedily absorb moisture.
We support hives wintering on a toque with patches from the east and south, because storms most often come from opposite directions. If they are foldable, we close the bridges to protect the trunks from sharp winds getting inside and driving snow, we leave the outlets narrowed to the width of two bees *); if the hives are made of straw, we secure the legs with juniper twigs.
*) It doesn't hurt to have the outlets narrowed enough during the late autumn flights so that the bees become familiar with the situation and when they leave in winter they die and do not wander around, dying in the outlet.
After frost, we make sure that the outlets do not become overgrown with soot, especially on foggy days, so if necessary, we carefully plug them in with a stick, without making any noise. Let's avoid frequent walking near beehives on frozen, squeaky snow.
It can be safely said that wintering bees without falling and without defects is the final test of a beekeeper. A good result of the overwintering proves, if not his complete skill, i.e. the overall knowledge of beekeeping, then at least a thorough understanding of bee laws, which are the most absolute and fundamental in winter.
1. Feeding bees in winter. The beekeeper should have the trunks prepared for the winter in such a way that they are protected from hunger. However, there are unexpected cases when you need to feed bees in winter, if not at your home, then at least at your neighbor's. A few words about this.
It is impossible to dismantle the nests in frosty weather. Rescue by providing spare combs can only be done if the bees can be revived and allowed to move normally, otherwise, tied in a ball between the combs, they sink to the bottom when the frames are moved and solidify there. Bees alone cannot warm up.
In winter, bees can only be fed in two ways: with warm syrup after bringing the tree trunk into a warm, darkened room, or by serving honey cake, cake, known abroad as "kandi" outside. In the first case, you should never feed honey, especially if the trunks are to be taken out again, because unsewn honey ferments and is harmful to bees. If we decide to save the bees from starvation by providing spare frames covered with honey or filled with syrup, we proceed as follows: we bring the hive, equipped with transverse sticks at the heads, to a moderately heated apartment, and if there are no sticks, then on a possibly warm day, After filling the outlets, we carefully open the hive in the heads and place the sticks on the frames under the canvas. There is no fear of crushing the bees, even if they reach the very ceiling in a ball, because the sticks provided will protect them from this. These sticks should be made longer so that they reach the place where the added frames will end. After the bees calm down, we move them to the room and give them the frames. To prevent bees from getting lost in the windows, you should hang the windows completely tightly and work in the dark. You can cope with it using a regular flashlight or a small electric one, which you turn on when necessary. We can leave the bees free to walk under the canvas near the sticks or simply shake them to the bottom and carefully sweep them under the added frames.
However, such treatments should be avoided in the second half of winter, because anxious bees can easily become infected.
If we do not have ready-made frames of honey and we intend to save the bees from starvation with the syrup, we boil it properly and pour it into the empty cells of the comb with a syringe, placed over any vessel.
Some beekeepers advise feeding bees using sugar plates. We check the set syrup, which has been boiled but not burnt, in this way: dip your finger in cold water, dip it in the hot syrup and immediately dip it into cold water again. We certainly won't get burned if we do this quickly and skillfully. There should be a thin residue left on the finger in the form of a scale or crust without crystals. Crystals indicate that the syrup has been cooked too much, while the scales are proof that the syrup is well prepared. Put the syrup off the fire, stir for some time, and then pour it into appropriate forms. Let's be thorough in this work, because excessively evaporated syrup will be crushed by the bees, and undercooked syrup will flood the nest.
Honey cake is easier to make and safer to use. Gradually add 4-4.5 kg of sugar powder to 1 kg of warm honey dissolved from the crumbles, stirring constantly until a thick, hard dough is formed. They are then placed in a warm place for two or three days, then processed again, adding powder, and finally they are rolled to the appropriate thickness and the pieces are cut off. The thickness of the ring is smaller or larger, depending on the time the bees feed. The width of the cake should be up to six nest frames, the corners may be rounded, but the cake should cover the entire cluster of bees. It can be placed directly on the frames above the bees or, better yet, separated from the nest with perforated paper. If the bees have already reached the top of the beams, to avoid crushing, place sticks across the nest.
Serving sugar plates or honey cake should be done indoors during frost and outdoors during thaw. The entire activity should be organized in such a way that from the moment of discovery. The robot nest moved quickly, carefully, without losses.
Preparing the dough and saving the bees is a method known for forty years, well-tried, and overwintering is certain, as long as you sweep the trunk as soon as possible in spring to remove the fallen fleas to prevent the attack.
2. Bees wintering in lockstitches. Bees consume most of their supplies when they are exposed to sudden changes in temperature outside. Placing the trunks anywhere under the roof, in cold buildings, saves a lot of honey. Weak and less well-stocked trunks require this care above all. If the bees are protected from disturbance in such shelters, they will overwinter well and are less likely to become pregnant. Be careful not to let the temperature in these compartments rise above +8°C, the best is +6°C to +8°C.
Owners of larger apiaries hibernate bees in lockets, i.e. dark underground buildings, protected from temperature fluctuations, i.e. inaccessible to frost and heat.
Dr. Teofil Ciesielski worked hard to calculate how much honey bees wintering in various conditions consume. He reached the following results: trunks overwintered in a box, i.e. outdoors in cold hives, consumed 5.30 kg of honey from October 15 to April 1, during the same period wintered in warm hives - 4.05 kg, in lockstitch - 2.10 kg , in the room at 18°C. — 2.07 kg, underground — 2.07 kg.
This means that the cheapest bees hibernate when they are covered with soot. They cost the same if kept in a dark, heated room and given water at the same time. These methods are difficult to implement on a larger scale for many reasons. It is relatively convenient to keep bees in lockstitches. Building a lockstitch is currently quite expensive and constantly causes time and trouble, but in a larger apiary the outlay will quickly recover.
We arrange the lockstitch like a basement, without windows, in a place free from stagnant water, covered with a straw roof, the eaves of which reach much further than in ordinary buildings. Where the water falls from the eaves, we dig the lockstitch with a groove for water to flow from the sheathing. The locker room has an entrance from the north, equipped with double doors, at such a distance from each other that those entering can close the first one before opening the second one. The door leading directly to the lockstitch has a filong at the bottom - a latch that can be moved when necessary to ventilate the lockstitch on cool spring nights. Filong has a wire mesh on the opposite side to keep pests out during airing. Double ceiling, filled with moss or fine peat to protect against fire, covered with clay. In the ceiling there are two or more fans, depending on the size of the lockstitch, closed with flaps and protruding above the roof, like chimneys; they serve to exchange air and regulate heat (Fig. 64).
The entire building is half buried in the ground, the rest protrudes above the level, and the protruding walls are covered with earth. The covering can be made of appropriately thick boards supported, sprinkled with earth and peeled. We protect straw roofing from fire by soaking the straw in clay. The reader will find the method of fireproofing roofs with straw in farm textbooks.
Dig. 64.
Lockstitch in cross-section p/g. Ciesielski.
Bees are brought into the dried and aired lockstitch during good weather, as the hives should be dry. It is best to bring it in when the outside temperature is 4 - 6°C - sometimes in the second half of October.
It is good when hives designed to be placed in lockstitches have easily removable roofs, so they can be placed in twos or threes, one on top of the other. The lower ones should not be placed on the ground, but on prepared joists. The hives should not touch the walls of the lockstitch. The outlets are to be directed towards passages, 70 cm wide, so that it is easy to listen. The central passage is to be 1 meter wide or more. The hives should be arranged in such a way that, if necessary, they can be taken out individually for sampling. A thermometer is permanently suspended in the middle of the lockstitch at half its height.
We regulate the temperature using a damper in the door and fans in the ceiling. We protect ourselves against mice by all means, but we do not let the cats out because they would disturb the bees. We check the lockstitches every time the temperature changes to regulate it appropriately. In the lockstitch, half buried in the ground, with a double roof, with walls covered with eaves, the temperature does not drop below zero, even in the hardest frosts, and the beekeeper should be careful not to let it rise above 8°C. Temperatures above 10°C are harmful to bees because they start to feel thirsty and splash out of their holes, getting lost outside the hive. You should also not cool the lockstitch too much to avoid increased consumption of supplies.
For the sake of next spring, positions in the apiary should be marked with the numbers of their hives.
In spring, bees can be kept in the lockstitch for a very long time, i.e. as long as the temperature suitable for bees to overwinter can be maintained.
3. Warm wintering of bees. Bees hibernate best in appropriate external warmth, because in these conditions they will never suffer from humidity, they will consume very little honey, and most importantly, in the event of poor honey arrangement in the combs, they will not fall out from hunger, because they will be able to bring appropriate food to the nest. amount of honey from adjacent combs.
In order for the bees to emerge from the winter hibernation without harm, the following conditions are needed: 1) peace and darkness, 2) external heat, not transferring 18" C 3) constant watering of the bees, as honey exceeds 10? C stops absorbing moisture from the air and the bees become anxious due to thirst.
We provide water in various ways, either by soaking moss pressed into half of the outlet, or by using a waterer, for example in a frame feeder, or by using wet rags immersed in water with the other end, etc. Mr.
Warm-wintered trunks should be completely covered with sieves to protect against unpleasant surprises. There is no fear of the outlet being clogged by bees that want to go out with death, or of the stuffiness from fallen and decomposing bees, because the fight against MAINTENANCE does not exhaust the older bees and they will survive until spring, especially since the oldest ones already died before being brought into the apartment.
The bees hibernate warmly, come out extremely strong in spring, fly in droves and, even though they are quite weak in autumn, quickly reach their prime value in spring.
Perhaps, few people will want to devote fuel and effort to the tree trunks throughout the winter, but this information is necessary for those who would like to hibernate their mothers in the wedding streets. This is the easiest way to overwinter, especially since bees in small numbers do not make much noise. Such streets can be winterized, for example in a closet with good air access. You just need to take care of water for them. Bees wintering in an apartment require peace and are especially sensitive to music.
Wintering of weak trunks and roes with spare queens. I'm not talking about trunks that are too weak, orphaned or hungry. These should be deleted absolutely. Every beekeeper understands that the apiary should be profitable and multiply on its own, because outlays made by force only result in trouble and monetary losses.
However, a late swarm may occur with the current year's mother, or there may be a need to winterize spare queens, raised in wedding streets, or to save trunks orphaned from winter, or for sale. It is best to hibernate these swarms using the method described above in a warm place, provided that there is ventilation, peace and water. It would require much less effort to leave them on a trunk or store them in a lockstitch, but it should be remembered that a trunk that is weak in numbers will not overwinter outdoors on its own, but must be heated by a stronger neighbor.
Dierzon advises placing tiny swarms with spare queens in sieved boxes in the hive above the cluster of a strong swarm. They will certainly survive the winter if they are provided with an adequate supply of food. A sugar-honey cake of appropriate thickness placed in a box can be of great benefit. For a roe wintering in these conditions, 1.5 to 2 kg is enough. This type of hibernation is more reliable in stand hives, because here the bees do not change their place, so the hive will be constantly warm. Four boxes can be placed above a strong swarm, arranged in a superstructure, two in a row, but they must be secured so that there are no gaps at the top and sides that would cool the hive and create drafts. For this purpose, we prepare side straw mats reaching to the upper edge of the super; in normal hives, we use bags of chaff to cover the nest from above. The ends of the bag, or in the absence of longer mats, with chaff, should hang to the sides of the nest in the extension outside the boxes with rolls and rest on the ends of the side mats. Place a handful of hay on top, as the straw pillow will no longer fit under the roof of a normal hive. If you intend to winterize a larger number of spare queens in this way, you need to have hives adapted to two supers, which can be used for the strongest trunks during the winter. These roosts, after the end of winter, should be used as quickly as possible, because the bees, not having separate outlets, would die from impregnation and thirst, and if they were taken out and released for flying, as they are too weak, they would quickly become the subject of robbery.
The method described, which is suitable for spare queens, is not suitable for weak swarms with young queens. The following method is more advantageous for them:
The swarms are placed behind a thin but tightly fitted valve, next to normal, strong swarms, on honeycombs, and are provided with separate outlets. In this way, you can winter in one hive with two weaker ones next to the stronger one in the middle. However, we should pay attention to the following circumstance: the trunk in which we are to winter two swarms must be provided with food very abundantly, not only because we are at greater risk, but also because the bees form a winter cluster differently when they are alone, and differently when they feel a neighbor next to them. Both swarms are brought together by warmth, and although they are separated, they form a common nest, so if the supply of honey was scarce towards the edges of the nest, it could run out of supply, and what's worse, if the stronger swarm collapses, the weaker swarm, despite the supply, would be at risk of freezing.
In spring you can take away the queen and unite the bees by removing the valve: they will come together in unison. We delete the outlets, leaving an opening for one bee for a certain time to prevent them from wandering around.
To make better use of heat, you can divide hibernating swarms next to each other with wire or hair mesh. The first has the disadvantage that iron is a good conductor of cold, the second must be used in late autumn so that the bees do not have time to spoil it.
The first organizational section of the bees' productive life in the four seasons has been completed. As everywhere, so here: what seemed most pleasant to me was the glory of the working hand. Let the incident of Samson - honey coming from the lion's mouth - be a guide for all beekeepers. You have to fight the "lion", i.e. all the unfavorable conditions for the development of bee life, and then nature and the bees will not skimp on honey and income, and the lion's mouth will produce sweets.
I encourage all my fellow beekeepers to work wisely and deliberately. Let the beekeeper's calendar - the hardships and activities of spring, summer, autumn and winter - let it enter our blood, let it become our addiction, and then our trunks will burst with cascades of honey and streams of sweets.
TECHNICAL DEPARTMENT.
CHAPTER I
Street
At the forefront of all technical issues in beekeeping is the issue of the plan and structure of the hive. The hive is a living honey factory. We understand perfectly well that although the bees abandoned their natural habitat in the beehives and moved to artificial settlements, they did not lose their nature and natural requirements in their development and production. Just as it is a matter of science to slowly discover the laws governing the life of bees, it is a matter of rational technology to create the framework for a bee's life, i.e. to build hives that would best suit the natural idea of "housing" bees.
The plan and structure of the hive are not indifferent, in fact they are among the factors that in the future will determine either the flourishing of beekeeping in the Republic of Poland or its bankruptcy - in the area of international trade. Meanwhile, "in Poland, whatever you want." We use standing, lying, frame, snoose, tenon and deaf beehives, we have straw beetles of all types, species and sizes, i.e. baskets, little baskets, straw baskets, sewn according to various possible and impossible ways, finally we have boxes of all names and professions, starting from ordinary peasant ones with frames made of grafts or membranes, ending with foreign systems lying and standing - in short, like at a fair .
What is best and most appropriate? Let's consider.
1. Conditions for a good hive. A hive is a settlement built by humans for bees, where swarms can live, reproduce and deposit honey. In order for a hive to fully respond to these living conditions, there is no doubt that it must be built with complete knowledge of "Bees" *), that is, with an understanding of bee life and nature, as well as with a sense of organizational structure.
*) "Bees or the science of bee life and nature" by the same author.
The fact that the natural habitat of bees has been a beehive in a living tree since ancient times is proven by the history and the traditional way of building a nest and brood system in the shape of an ellipsoid by bees. The issue of the hive became vital from the moment when man transferred swarms from beehives to boxes, and especially when he used movable frames for his convenience and began to deliberately work in the apiary.
Dig. 65.
Palaces in Warsaw (photo: own).
We won't go into much detail about the superiority of a demountable hive over a beehive. This is an undeniable fact and already recognized by everyone, even the most progressive beekeepers.
The carpenter defines the conditions of a good hive as follows: "The hive should be: - 1) cheap, 2) durable, 3) of the simplest possible construction, 4) light, 5) warm, 6) relatively spacious, 7) comfortable for the bees and the beekeeper ". The Incomparable Ciesielski is absolutely right; such conditions are necessary and clear.
Among the many types of hives used by us and meeting the above conditions, the most important is the so-called Warsaw street, i.e. Lewicki street, to which Stanisław Brzósko added an extension. Although this hive is not cheap or light, it is difficult to concentrate all these features in one hive system so that it can fulfill its task given today's various beekeeping requirements. For example, if we want the hive to be large enough, it must be large and therefore heavy. And it must be large if we want the bees, strong in spring, to have enough space without swarming throughout the summer. The Warsaw bee, when used skillfully and managing the swarm, can satisfy the natural requirements of bees and prove to be very practical in use. The high price of a hive is also a disadvantage at a time when it is difficult in terms of money and credit, but for beekeepers who have no means, properly constructed straw houses may be enough for now. With good intentions and skills, if you have a "straw" apiary, you can use the income from it to cover gradually higher expenses for frame hives and, over time, earn a "wooden", progressive apiary.
If every average beekeeper in Poland built only one proper box hive for his apiary every year, after 15 years all our bees would live in "Warsaw palaces".
From the point of view of the organization of apiary work throughout the Republic of Poland, to the enumerated conditions for a good beehive, we should also add the wish that beehives throughout our country should be of exactly the same dimensions. We would thus gain a lot for science, industry and trade, because on the one hand, any improvement in apiary management, introduced somewhere far away by a single beekeeper, could easily be adopted everywhere without special outlays, and on the other hand, all commercial transactions could be carried out more easily with the greatest possible comfort and speed.
In addition to the Warsaw beehive, the American beehive, built by Dadant and improved by Blatt, has recently become popular in our country, commonly called Dadan. It gained fame not because it is suitable for our national beekeeping assumptions, but probably only because it is "American".
The famous Russian scientist prof. Serbinow *), a researcher of the life of bees, especially foulbrood, author of many bee works, writes:
*) J. Ł. Serbinow "The bee rot and borba with it." Petersburg 1910, p. 74.
“There is no doubt that the hive system plays a great role in the development of the European foulbrood in its greater or lesser malignancy. There is no doubt that the Dadant-Blatt hives system does not fully suit Northern Russia. The large size of the hive does not maintain a sufficient amount of heat, especially in cold summers, which I have often observed among peasants.
“Of all the hive systems in terms of the fight against foulbrood, the most suitable for the north, in my opinion, is the Lewicki hive.
“The Anglo-American Street, recommended even by a special Russian commission. The beekeeping plant, as very convenient and profitable in beekeeping, is not very rational when it comes to foulbrood in the northern provinces. Yes, it is good in spring, it often gives early swarms, but in summer, due to the small size of its nest, it is stuffy and hot inside, especially in dry and hot years. I have often witnessed that bee colonies that were strong in the spring in this hive succumbed to the very malicious and persistent brood rot. In the north, this hive is the other extreme in contrast to Dad.-Blatt's hives. During the rapid development of the trunk, there is too little air in relation to the amount of the fly, and in spring the brood develops abundantly in it.
From the above-mentioned opinion of Serbinow, we can conclude that this eminent scientist is not only convinced of the superiority of our hive over the above-mentioned ones, but also praises it as a golden remedy to fight the beekeeping disease - foulbrood. Needless to say, a hive that can withstand criticism and perform well under the most unfavorable conditions must be excellent and recommendable for use under normal conditions as well.
You praise others, you don't know your own...
Let us now briefly look at the structure of the most common hives in our country. Of course, in terms of detailed study, I give preference to the Warsaw hive.
2. Warsaw street. It is a box with a removable or movable roof, supported when opening on an appropriate support, nailed to the front wall. When opened, the roof tilts towards the holes so that you can work freely without disturbing the bees' exit. The bottom of the hive cannot be movable because the tree, even the best one, shrinks, warps and creates gaps and, consequently, drafts.
The interior of the hive is 252 mm wide, 750 mm long and 500 mm deep.
The main dimensions in the hive are: the size of the frame and its distance from the walls, so the width of the frame is 240 mm and the distance on both sides is 6 mm. The location of the outlet is also important - it should be in the middle of the front wall at a distance of 250 mm from the ceiling, and no more than 300 mm. Less important is the space under the frames, which should be different for winter and summer, and the length of the hive interior, as well as its structure, which provides warmth, a beautiful appearance and protection against leaks.
The nest frame of the Warsaw top-mounted hive is 240 mm wide and 435 mm high. Side and upper bars - 24 mm wide (one Polish inch), 8 mm thick, lower ones, called bars, 8 by 10 mm. The bars connecting the sides of the frames protrude 4.5 mm on both sides. The 435 mm long side bars have a tenon at their upper ends, 8 mm high and wide, and at the bottom there is a groove, like a mortise (feder), through which the ends of the connecting lower bar, 8 by 10 mm, pass (Fig. 68).
The frame in the Warsaw hive hangs on the arms (whiskers) in a rebate (rebate) 7 mm wide and 8 mm deep. The upper beam is supposed to reach loosely to the end of the frame, so it is 264 mm long.
The beams are only planed on the outside, but on the inside they remain rough with a kerf so that the bees can firmly form the combs. No additions are needed inside the frame, so a triangular strip is not nailed to the center of the upper bar, the side bar is not rounded, and it is not advisable to attach the upper bar, which is only needed for frames in beehives and deckchairs, due to the considerable length of the upper bar. Any additions inside the frame dimensions, i.e. increasing the thickness of the bars, are unnecessary as they only reduce the frame light and take up valuable space in the hive. (Figures 66 and 67).
There are two holes in the upper bar (Fig. 68 c), 8 mm in diameter, separated by their outer edges by 240 mm, i.e. the width of the frame; In this way, its ends create 12-0 mm arms on which the frame hangs in the rebate of the hive. The ends of the sill protruding beyond the sides allow for a moderate distance of the side of the frame from the hive wall when it is removed and prevent the bees from being crushed (Fig. 68 b). The letters a in figures 68, 70171 represent two spacing nails on each side, protruding above the surface of the side of the bar by 12 mm, i.e. together with the bar they form a frame 36 mm thick. The nails are headless so that they do not interfere with the operation of the honey extractor. They are inserted into the side bar on the bottom right side and in the upper left side near the end. They can also be inserted opposite the hole, thereby attaching the pin of the lateral trabecula.
Dig. 66. Various forms of the upper bar of the nest frame. But. century, b, transitional form used for the extension. c,unacceptable,d,it should be like this (author's drawing).
Clustered frames must be rectangular and not tilted (warped). To ensure a more consistent form, it is a good idea to nail them on a tree board provided for this purpose (Fig. 69), on which you should stud the clasps in appropriate places to the extent of the protrusion of the spacing nails. If you don't have a tree tree, make an anvil from hardwood with a cut in the middle, exactly 36 mm deep. Before driving in a nail, it is a good idea to puncture the beam with an awl to prevent it from splitting.
The 8 mm thick and 10 mm wide groove fits completely into the lower cut of the side bar (o in Fig. 68) and is attached to it with a nail about 30 mm long, which, although not fully inserted, protrudes downwards by 12 mm. It is needed so that you can support the frame on the hive while working and not crush the bees hanging under it.
Dig. 67. The upper bar of the nest frame seen from the side. A, according to St. Brzósko, B, with a triangular strip nailed on, C, this is what should be in the hive stand (original drawing).
The hive is built for the frame. We assemble a box with an internal width of 252 mm, a depth of 500 mm and a length of 750 mm. The side walls have a frame, carved along the entire length from the inside, 8 mm deep and 7 mm wide, so the beehive is 492 mm deep, counting from the frame. The frame serves as a bearing for the arms (whiskers) protruding beyond the side bar of the frames.
The bottom is stationary, made of half-track, nailed across and nailed to the lower edges of the walls.
The walls of the hive are made of 36 mm (1.5 inch) boards glued together with a mortise joint, i.e. that there are gaps in the edges of the fitted boards into which strips smeared with glue are sealed. The top boards, like the bottom, are made of half-tracks joined together with a mortise joint, and the bottom is connected in the same way.
The most important thing when building a hive is to ensure that it does not change its internal dimensions and shape. Therefore, you need to use dry wood to prevent gaps from forming, and the box is packed together with lengths of boards, as the wood drying out lengthwise is least visible. That's why we make the bottom from transverse boards.
Dig. 68.
A. The entire Warsaw frame. B. frame components. Upper and left lateral trabecula - view from above on the pristine region (author's drawing). The numbers indicate dimensions in mm.
One gable is closed, while the other one leaves room for a door, called a valve. It is not important which top the valve should be placed in, in fact, in larger apiaries they should be placed alternately, which sometimes makes it easier to place the hives closer together on a rack or in a lockbox for the winter. The door opening has the internal width of the hive and its height is 370 mm. The door itself has the same, but smaller dimensions; they are, if possible, made of one piece of board, fitted with a rebate, i.e. they close the hive precisely and cover the gaps with the outer edge protruding after closing. They move on hinges made of four springs and are fastened from the inside with a transverse fin strip (spaga). They can be closed from the inside using an appropriate cap (Fig. 76).
Both tops protrude beyond the surface of the hive box by 60 mm, and the bottom by 50 mm, thus forming wings to which the formwork is nailed (Fig. 70e).
The extension is an elongated box made of 17 mm (4 inch) boards, without a bottom, with a rebate for frames at the top in its side walls. Placed on the hive, on the nest box, it corresponds with half the thickness of its boards to the ends of the whiskers of the nest frames; the further half of the thickness extends above the box's nesting half-track. When placed in this way, it raises the hive up along one line of its internal walls.
Dig. 69
A tree for nailing frames. Above - view from the front, below - view from the lower gable (photo: own).
Dig. 70.
Horizontal projection of a Warsaw hive at the place where the nest frames are hung, a spacing nails, b frames, c valve d vertical strips, e frames at the ends of the gables for nailing the formwork (authored drawing).
The width of the extension inside is the same as the hive - 252 mm, with the same 7 mm wide frame as in the hive, but 5 mm deeper, so 13 mm deep. It is used to hang extension frames, 158 mm high. The extension inside is 152 mm from the frame, and the extension frame, not including the upper beam, is 150 mm (158 - 8 = 150), so it is 2 mm higher than the frame, intended to prevent the board from drying out.
The extension does not stand directly on the nest, but on short posts, 5 mm high (Fig. 71, n. 5). These posts, attached with nails to the top of the nest box, in places corresponding to the corners of the super, serve to create the necessary space between the nest and the super and allow it to be placed without the fear of crushing the bees.
Bearing for the extension. In order for the super to fit under the hive roof, a sufficiently high headrest should be provided for it, built 80 mm above the top of the nest frames, into which it should fit quite tightly so as not to leave gaps on the sides where pests could multiply and where bees could climb out. peak.
The bearing is created by having the tops of the hive protrude 80 mm above the level of the nest and side boards corresponding to the sides of the extension are nailed to them. The bearing is 288 mm wide and as long as possible longer than the inside of the hive; Therefore, the top boards should be placed opposite the tops of the extension, not half-track (36 mm), but inch boards (24 mm). This will create a bearing length of 774 mm, which will result in the internal length of the extension closest to the length of the hive.
Let's go back to the height of the extension. The extension is made of a single board 165 mm wide. The gable pieces are not rebated, and the sides have a 13 mm deep rebate in which the frames are hung. The top frame, as we know, is 158 mm high when suspended, and in the frame it reaches 150 mm lower because it lies on an 8 mm thick beam. If we leave 2 mm for the boards to dry, the height of the extension will be 152 mm inside and 165 mm outside, including the edge of the frame.
Therefore, the frame in the extension should be 13 mm so that, if it is necessary to install a second extension, it is possible to avoid any additional devices, apart from the notches in the frame beams upwards (as in Figure 6lb). When storing the supers in stacks outside the hive, the high rebate creates a gap at the bottom of the frames and prevents them from piling up, which is harmful*) in case of small imperfections or accidental remains of putty or wax left on the bottom of the frames.
*) Due to easy access for mice and dust.
The extension frame is 240 mm wide and 158 mm high and has 8 mm thick bars, the upper ones are 264 mm long and 50 mm wide, the side and bottom ones are 36 mm wide. There are no spacing nails. The extension holds 15 or 14 frames. The top width of the extension frame may vary from 48 to 50 mm; Such differences will make it easier to arrange the frames tightly when the sides of the upper beams are slightly covered with bees. The top frames should generally be 50 mm wide and should not be narrower than 48 mm if we want the mother brood not to go to the top. After placing the frames in the extension, sometimes there is a vacuum that cannot fit the frame, so we cover this place with a strip.
Beehive boarding. The gables are not boarded. Their lower edges reach the bottom and cover the gaps at the bottom joint. The ends of the gable boards protrude, like wings, 60 mm beyond the sides of the hive, and in their ends there is a groove 24 mm wide and 10 mm deep (Fig. 70e). 10 mm thick boards are nailed to these frames along the hive. The formwork boards are laid in a row, i.e. in such a way that: the frame of the higher one overlaps the planed edge of the lower one (Fig. 71, letter O). The void created between the nesting boards and the formwork is filled with dry moss, chaff or chaff.
To make the hive more secure, it is a good idea to place vertical strips in the gap between its walls and the upholstery (Fig. 70d). In the back wall there will be one in the middle, and in the front wall there will be one. two next to the outlets. They can be inserted into the outer walls of the hive box with their fins, and the formwork boards are nailed. These strips can be 24 mm thick, 50 mm wide (except for the fin) and 570 mm high, i.e. as much as the hive with the bearing inside, apart from the bottom and the upper cover above the gap. Do not hammer nails from the inside of the hive so that the iron heads do not collect moisture in winter. Before nailing the formwork, outlets are made and pieces of slats are attached diagonally downwards to the front wall, protecting the outlets from being covered with mulch (Fig. 71 above and below the number 9 in the outlet).
Instead of formwork, you can only use straw, placed vertically, about 60 mm thick. It is pushed under the horizontal top. 80 mm strip, and in the middle and at the bottom it is fastened with strips made of half-track. Hives upholstered in this way, called peasant hives, are much lighter, cheaper and even more suitable for wintering bees. The outlets are arranged as in a shuttered hive, so below and above the mesh there will be two separate bunches of straw, held by two pieces. thinner slats or the line of outlets will be properly trimmed with logs, as in Fig. 72.
Dig. 71.
Cross-section of a Warsaw beehive (author's drawing).
A—nest part, B—headrest, C—interior walls, D—place for pouring bedding, the whole on the left side of the drawing is a form for the vertical slats shown in the previous drawing. d No. 70, E—upholstery, F—canopy ceiling boards, G—support, I—extension, K—outlets (eyelets), L—bottom, M—wall-. battens, N—strip covering the ceiling, O—connection of upholstery boards, PT—roof made of boards nailed to the face for covering with ruberoid, etc., R—groove connection method (feeder, tongue), S—bridges (saddles), Rg — nest frame, Rn — extension frame, a — place of spacing nails, b — lower frame nails. The numbers indicate the dimensions in millimeters. The hinges are located between lit. M G. The arrows between M and O on the left side of the drawing indicate the places where the hive opens.
It is desirable to board the bottom. In boarded hives, this can be done with straw attached to the longitudinal ones with three slats. upholstery boards, which (upholstery) together with the gables should protrude 30 mm below the bottom. If the hive is covered with straw, we widen the lower slats by 30 mm as in Figure 72. If the hive is not covered with straw underneath, it is a good idea to place thin straw mats under the nest in winter. Some beekeepers sprinkle - with good results - peat powder on the bottom of the paper spread under the nest.
We see from the description that the hive is built without legs, and rightly so, because it is easier to move and transport, and being sufficiently strong, it lasts longer. The legs soaking up moisture, even if the hive was placed on a foundation, would rot quite quickly, drawing moisture up to the hull; because they constitute the entire attachment of the hive, the bonds then loosen quickly. Besides, a hive without legs is cheaper, and pegs driven into the ground under the hives, made of just anything, serve their purpose perfectly. There is no need to use good material for the legs.
Dig. 72.
A beehive covered with straw without formwork boards (photo: own).
Outlets, latches. There are two outlets in the middle of the front wall: the higher one, 250 mm away from the ceiling, the lower one, at the bottom, under the first one. Both are 9 mm high and 120 mm wide, made obliquely downwards so that little light enters the hive and the wind does not blow rainwater.
Destination of outlets. The reader, knowing Lewicki Street, will notice the difference in the dimensions of the outlets. To ensure that the outlet used by the bees to communicate with the outside world is not too narrow for the stronger trunk, it must have sufficient surface area and opening. With two outlets 9 mm high and 120 mm wide, the entrance area is 21.6 cm? will be sufficient, and their height will allow the bees to pass each other easily.
The outlet also serves as a vent for air exchange in the hive. Warm stale air comes out through the upper one, and cool and fresh air flows in through the lower one.
The outlet should not give access to the interior to pests. The most dangerous are: mice in winter and death's head in autumn. This August pest can squeeze through gaps as small as 5 mm. With an outlet height of 9 mm, both pests can be easily avoided by placing a thin wire in the middle, along the outlets, after finishing the feed.
To protect the trunks from robbing bees and annoying autumn wasps, we provide the outlets with latches (Fig. 73). These are plates pierced with tiny holes to prevent the bees' heads from entering them. These plates fit, like dampers, into appropriately bent pieces of sheet metal with a hole cut out for the eyelet. l The free movement of the damper allows you to adjust the outlet size according to your needs and the season.
Dig. 73.
Outlet flaps for frame hives (sourced drawing).
Apart from the two outlets described, other holes leading directly to the socket are not needed. So we delete the Lewicki outlet at the top of the hive as it creates a draft. If we wanted to allocate a hive not only for one hive, but also for raising queens, for wintering two unequally large swarms, or for breeding, we would treat it as a double (or triple) hive. We can then provide other outlets in convenient places, but if we use the hive for one swarm, we close the unnecessary outlets tightly.
Some beekeepers wonder whether a third outlet should be provided, leading directly to the super. Probably not, because bees do not bring honey from the field, but nectar, which undergoes transformation in the lower parts of the combs and is then transferred to the upper storage areas for the undergrowth. For the beekeeper, this outlet would even be harmful, because the queen attracted to it would brood in the super, especially if there were cells from the artificial tube not very deep or poisonous earwax. We would also encourage bees to deposit pollen into the working combs in the super, which would unnecessarily burden the super and significantly reduce the value of the honey, giving it an undesirable taste.
A bridge is placed under each outlet. It is a small board, nailed diagonally downwards, on which bees alight when returning from the field. The bridge is inclined to facilitate faster drainage of rainwater. The bridge of the upper outlet is not very large, while the lower one is much larger so that it can catch more bees that become weak in flight. Some people make lower bridges diagonally reaching almost to the ground, attaching them to a stool or beehive with wires.
It is good if the bridges are made of two pieces, connected with buckle hinges, so that the lower one can cover the outlet in winter, thus protecting the hive from sudden gusts of wind, snow blowing and sharp sunlight in March.
The roof has two eaves. The opening angle in the ceiling is 120". The roof frame covers the hive body on all four sides with a frame cut in half to an inch size. Half of it lies on the edge of the hull, and the lower part of the frame covers the street. The wall panels, i.e. the front and rear inch strips that hold the roof along the sides, are quite low, about 50 mm, and cut diagonally at the top to hold the eaves boards. The peaks of the roof, also made of 24 mm, reach right up to the ceiling and are closely matched to the form and width of the boards that make up the roof. To enable ventilation during hot weather, it is not a bad idea to make holes in the ceiling gables with flaps for other seasons. Inside, these holes are lined with a dense mesh to protect against pests.
The roof covering is made of inch boards, laid overlapping. The boards must be of the best quality, completely free of knots, so that they do not allow water to pass through. A knot, even if it appears to be the strongest, will, in a relatively short time, create a gap sufficient to allow moisture to pass through. A gap created in the ceiling by joining two. the boards should be covered with a separate strip called a wolf strip. (Fig. 71 N).
When building a roof, you should pay close attention to protection against leaks. It is much safer to cover canopies with waterproof material. You can use tar felt, as long as it doesn't smell of carbolic acid, but it is not durable enough and requires frequent replacement. Smoothing the roofing felt is risky because the bees may abandon the hive. Ruberoid and linoleum, although more expensive, are much more suitable. Some cover. roofs made of zinc sheet; To prevent overheating, place quite thick newspapers under the baking tray or place a moth-proof felt blanket under it*). Hives covered with sheet metal should not be placed directly under trees, as the raindrops falling during wet weather would disturb the bees, but shade is very desirable.
*) Do not put arsenic or solutions of copper or iron sulphate under the sheet metal.
If we are building roofs with the intention of covering them with some waterproof material, we do not nail the boards overlapping, but next to each other to the front (Fig. 71 PT). To prevent rainwater falling from the roof from damaging the walls of the hive, the eaves should be wider and the boards above the gables should be longer than the hive itself. It should be noted that above the gable where the door is located, the boards should protrude much further.
The canopy, adapted to the hive, moves on hinges that can be dismantled, making it possible to remove the canopy for the winter. when setting it in the lockstitch and erecting it in the summer if it is necessary to add second extensions. So instead of a fixed pin in the hinge, there may be a bent wire.
The open canopy is supported by the edge of the eaves on a support nailed in the center above the eyelets.
3. Hive supplies. For a Warsaw hive, you need at least 18 nest frames and 14-15 super frames. To demarcate the nest from the rest of the empty space in the hive. is not inhabited by bees, two gates are needed, made of transverse inches, held together with fin strips (floors) lengthwise. Their dimensions are almost the same as the interior of the hive, as long as they fit in slightly, namely: height 499 mm (including the bar) and width 250 mm. The tumblers are equipped with whiskers for hanging on the frames, just like the nest frames. The strip serving as the upper beam is not thicker than the board. The valves should be made in such a way that, on the one hand, they can be easily moved, and on the other hand, they demarcate the nest so that the bees do not get lost through the gaps.
In addition to the above, it is good to have one more valve, 499 mm high, built like a frame, with a flap on straps at the bottom, 60 mm high, used to sweep the hive without disturbing the bees too much. This frame is filled with glass, which should not be putty, but attached with small nails. The glass valve (Fig. 74) serves to facilitate the observation of bees during their summer development and replaces the ordinary wooden one. It can replace another valve in the cold season, but then it is necessary to replace the glass with an appropriate piece of slat. Otherwise, the moisture collecting on the glass will negatively affect the condition of the bees.
Dig. 74.
Lewicki's glass valve (TPO).
The sheet metal or partition grid has already become obsolete in modern beekeeping, but before the spread of artificial hoses and the use of extensions, it played an important role during honey harvesting. The grid is made of round ones. wires connected with narrow metal strips. The distance of the wires from 42 mm to 4.3 mm allows the bees to squeeze through, but the queen and drones, being larger, cannot get through the grating (Fig. 75). The grids created "great inconvenience, they were torture for the bees, and the sheet metal was a knife for their wings.
Dig. 75.
Ą a grid, B a piece of partition sheet.
The task of the trellis was to prevent the mother from entering the honey extractor, from where the unreddened combs could go unhindered to the honey extractor. The use of trellis, despite the torment of bees, had a significant impact on increasing the efficiency of apiaries.
The grating sheet should absolutely be removed, but the wire grating should not be completely out of use, as there are cases, although exceptional, where its use becomes necessary; so it's good to have a pair in the apiary. The grate is fitted with a compact frame gate.
Finally, about the valves, it is worth mentioning once again that they should all be made from the side of the slices as much as possible. without notches or frame recesses, because strong bees do not like the slightest unnecessary vacuum in the hive and in places where the valves are uneven they pull the cells, distorting the surface of the combs. Therefore, the bars of massive valves should be even with their surface, and frame valves should be built in such a way that after inserting glass or later plywood into them, they form one even plane. The same applies to the valve device with a grate.
All valves are provided with spacer pins in appropriate places.
The upper version has a loose transition between the upper bars of the socket frames and the headrest. Such a nest cannot be directly covered with a board, because the bees would stick to the frame and be disturbed when opening it; so we put a cloth for the nest. It may or may not be vaulted, but it should not be old or mangled, as it would be quickly eaten by bees. The best is a webbing canvas, quite thick, straight from art, if possible without worse, so washed. It should be so long that, if necessary, it can cover all the nest frames along the length and breadth of the hive, - a headrest from edge to edge. Half the width of a piece of an ordinary home-made product will be enough for the width of the hive.
We put on the canvas the so-called pillow. It is an inch board, fastened with fin strips, 286 mm wide and approximately 450 mm long.
The extension must have at least one gate, constructed similarly to socket gates, hanging on the tendrils in the frame and reaching tightly to the top of the frames, i.e. 163 mm long and 250 mm wide. These valves are sometimes needed when this year's swarm, mounted on ready-made frames with built-up wax, lays honey immediately in the first year. We usually plant a new swarm on 9-10 built-in frames, so the cover with the extension should not be wider.
A hive boarded on only two sides would be too cold for the winter. So, to completely protect the bees against frost, we cover the nest with straw mats on both sides and, instead of a wooden ceiling, we put a straw mat in the headrest. The mats can be replaced by bags filled with dry forest moss, oat chaff or chaff (Fig. 76).
Side straw mats have the width of the interior of the hive, and the length is the same as the height of the hive inside to the top of the nest frames, i.e. 500 mm. The mat that serves as a pillow is 400 mm long and 286 mm wide.
How to sew mats. To make straw mats, you need a workshop, which is desirable for every beekeeper. It is a stool with two rows of posts placed side by side on its board (top). The rows are spaced 50 mm apart - this is the future thickness of the mats. The distance between the posts is standardized so that longer and shorter mats can be sewn in the same workshop (Fig. 77). The posts are firmly fitted through and through to the board, which is made of hardwood. Behind the posts, there should be a gap, approximately 36 mm wide, in which another movable post moves along. A strip d is nailed on the edge, creating a 36 mm wide gap.
Dig. 76.
The hive is equipped with bags filled with chaff for the winter (photo: own). Details of the door-valve device.
Four pairs of posts are placed at equal distances from letter a to b over a space of 400 mm - this is the length of the mat - cushion. The fifth post is set so that its edge at c is 500 mm from a to every 500 mm - this is the length of the side mats.
Dig. 77. The stool plate of the workshop for sewing straw mats and the lever for pressing the straw (B).
If during the wintering period we intend to place sticks across the nest to enable the bees to move under the canvas to the adjacent combs in case the supply of honey above the nest runs out prematurely, the side mats should be made slightly longer, namely: 505 - 510 mm, so if necessary, we can nail them down strip to one of the edge posts.
Dig. 78. Pressing straw in the workshop. a lower hole of the movable post, b, lever c, plug of the movable post, e plug for the fixed posts, 5 of the latter are needed for the whole, (B.).
In the set posts, we drill five holes through each pair, and the fourth hole will be at a height of 251 mm from the board, which is the width of the side mat. The fifth one, needed only in four posts from a to b, is to be at a height of 286 mm - this is the width of the upper mat-cushion. We drill transverse holes in the movable post at the same spacing as in the fixed posts. We provide each pair of stationary posts with wire hooks at the ends so that they do not come apart when the straw is pressed. We also need a lever to press the straw between the posts (Fig. 77, No. 2).
The mats are sewn as follows: Between the rows of stationary posts, we place handfuls of straw, with ears alternately, over both gables of the workshop. We press the straw quite strongly using the lever, up to the first holes at the bottom, and through them we insert wire plugs that will hold the straw. The wire should be quite thick so that it does not bend under the pressure of the straw and ends with a key-like loop that will allow you to easily remove the plugs. Then we place a new layer of straw, just like the first one, and press it with a lever. to the second hole and pass it through with the wire taken from the first lower hole and so on (Fig. 78). When we reach the height we need and we have a wall between the posts, limited on top by plugs (Fig. 79), we start sewing the mat.
Dig. 79.
Straw pressed in the workshop to the height of the side mat (photo: own).
One plug is enough for each pair of stationary posts, five in total, and for a movable one that fits loosely in the gap. e (Fig. 77), one plug is also needed to support the lever lit. c (Fig. 78). The movable post plug is placed gradually higher and higher as the work progresses.
When pressing the straw, we make it medium compact so that the mat does not wobble after sewing as it is too soft, but also so that the straw blades are not crushed, as then the mats would not be warm. and
Stitching is done as indicated in Fig. 80. Sewing should be done with galvanized wire, size 18-20 (if there is no wire, with varnish twine), threaded into the eye of a straight needle made of hard wire. The drawing explains the stitching method quite sufficiently, but it should be noted that the first step is to tightly wrap the mat around the wire; then, running diagonally through and through, we cover the straw with a twisted stitch, attached to the wire surrounding the mat, and return to the opposite side. In the drawing, the beginning of the work is where there is a straight arrow at the bottom right. Please follow the direction of the entire line, paying attention to the pointing arrows, and the entire work will become completely clear. Figure 81 shows a sewn mat, ready for use.
When sewing side mats, we put straw only into the fourth holes and cut it flush with the posts at lit. a and c (Fig. 77). The mat will reach the fifth holes and will be sewn at the b pillar in the same picture. Cut the protruding ends of the straw with an old scythe along the outer line of the posts a and b for the cushion mat, and along the line a and c for the side mat.
Dig. 80. Stitch used to sew on straw mats (B).
The feeder is a trough almost as wide as the interior of the hive, elongated and not too high to fit under the frames to the bottom of the hive. It should be tightly packed so that no honey can leak through. It is used to feed bees in need when we do not have spare honeycombs. We can prevent the bees from drowning by making a raft of cuttings, which we put in the honey given to the hive under the frames. If you don't have a raft, sprinkle the honey with clean chaff or wax crumbs.
Dig. 81. Sewn mat (B).
A very good way to feed the bees is to use a feeder made of a bottle, plugged with an ordinary cork, in which there is a glass or metal tube, cut diagonally at the outer end. The bottle, poured full and closed with a cork with a tube, is turned upside down and the end of the tube is placed at the bottom of a narrow trough. It flows until the liquid covers the obliquely cut opening of the tube, so there is no fear of overflow; water from the bottle will gradually decrease as the bees take their fill from the trough. You can place the trough at the bottom of the hive and rest the bottle in the corner next to the valve; however, it is better to build a trough that would fit in the nest frame just under the upper beam and at a distance of 6 mm from it (Fig. 82). Such a frame, equipped with a crossbar, can be filled from the bottom with an artificial snake. The built-in frame then serves two purposes: a comb and a feeder.
It is also used to feed and feed Miller's feeder, attached in cross-section (Fig. 83). A general perspective view of the feeder is shown in Fig. 6 years old
The described method of feeding the bees has the disadvantage that the bees can only be fed three times a day or thinner from the cork feeder, because the honey, being too thick, will not flow through the tube.
Dig. 82.
Feeder with a cork (photo: own).
4. How to convert Lewicki Street into a Warsaw extension street. Our famous beekeeper introduced two types of hives: the first type has double roofs, the second type has a single, two-eaves roof. The first is a very beautiful-looking hive, the front half of which, intended for wintering, is covered with straw and has two outlets at the top, while the rear half is without upholstery and has an outlet only on the side (Fig. 83 and 84).
Dig. 83. Miller's feeder in cross-section (author's drawing). A chambers for honey, B entrance for bees, C sloping bottoms in the chambers D chamber covers, as latches.
By modifying this hive, we make a simple roof, but its front half can be used by extending it to the entire hive by means of studs. The stucco roof should be covered with a dense material so that it does not leak. We upholster the rear part of the hull, not boarded, in the same way as the front one, and add the headrest of the hive to a height of 80 mm, using the method described in the construction of the super hive, creating a nest for the super hive. You can simply, after removing the roof and completely upholstering the hive, attach additional slats of appropriate thickness to the internal walls of the hive, all the way up, while the width of the extension socket should be 288 mm. At the tops of the headrest, the crossbars should reach the outer upholstery of the side walls. We formwork the added part on the sides and then fit the roof. The gable hinges should be removed and moved to the upper edge of the front wall, as in Figure 71 between the letters M - G.
Dig. 84.
Lewicki street with a double roof, first type (photo: own).
Before starting upholstery, we delete all the outlets and replace them with two in the middle of the front wall. If we leave any former outlet for special purposes, remember not to create drafts.
The second type of Lewicki hive - peasant's - with a uniform roof will only require the addition of walls and improved outlets. In both cases, the upper superstructured part of the hive will take the form indicated in Fig. 71 in the place marked with dashes and the inscription "Hive headrest".
The frames in the discussed hives have the correct dimensions, the only difference is that their bars, which meet at the top, are 36 mm wide; they should be planed - after checking whether there are no nails stuck in anywhere that would damage the plane. The treatment is easy when the frames are empty, but they can be brought to the desired state when they are covered with wax, or even when they are brooded and loaded with honey. In this case, we will nail a horizontal strip of the length and width of the frame beam to the smooth wall right next to the corner of the building, protruding 2 cm above the wall level. At the end of this strip, we will drive a fairly strong pin into the wall, protruding 20 mm above the top of the strip, which will be used to support the frame bar during planing. Below we provide a stand to support the frame in the robot. We cut the frame bars standing up so as not to place combs loaded with brood or honey horizontally.
Dig. 85.
The same street is open (photo: own).
After planing the beams, we place spacing nails in the appropriate places. To avoid shocks from hammer blows, we pierce the places intended for nails strongly with an awl.
5. Changes in the Warsaw top hive. The deviations that can be noticed in this description from the description given by other authors are insignificant. I only went back to the dimensions of K. Lewicki's (father's) hives and, using an extension, I did not accept the changes introduced under the influence of dadans, by the famous author St. Brzósko. Due to the fact that the normal dimensions of the frame, the width of the hive and the top are maintained, these deviations will not make a difference to anyone who already has Warsaw top hives.
The positive sides of the hive I have described are as follows: it combines two systems of hives - the Warsaw top hive system and the regular Liewick hive system. Having the advantages of both systems, it removes the disadvantage of a removable bottom; through the glass in the valve, it allows you to observe the bees through the valve in the summer, at the time when it is most desirable - before giving the top; in accordance with the needs of bees, it guarantees good air exchange in the hive; removes moisture from the bottom and finally allows the use, if necessary, of a grid.
It remains to add one comment, rightly recommended by other authors: you should carefully observe the dimensions in millimeters, and have good and accurate inches. So far we had Polish inches (24 mm), Russian inches (25.5 mm), then Prussian inches (25 mm Reinland), and finally English inches (25.25 mm). Therefore, in a hive built according to any of these measurements, we will find significantly different dimensions than in the original Lewicki hive.
A beekeeper who has several hives that are so defective should not pursue the problem any further, but should continue his work with good measure. He should slowly repair the hives he has by installing additional boards and slats, or get rid of them gradually. It is a great nuisance for a beekeeper when, at the most critical moments, he is disturbed by the unequal dimensions of the hives in the apiary.
So far we have omitted one less fundamental but important detail. We did not take into account preventing bees from pulling the robot under the frames. This treatment is only needed in summer, i.e. when the strength of the trunks is greatest.
Well, there are two ways: 1) appropriate construction of the hive with side supports for the winter nest and 2) the installation of triple plywood supports for the summer just under the frames.
The first is that we build a hive with a frame placed lower so that the frames hanging on it almost rest on the bottom of the hive with nails sticking out from the lower bar. Bees will not build there for fear of vermin and mold. Although there will be 13 mm of free space under the frames, they will not build it up. On the sides and top, gaps larger than 7 mm would be drawn.
Such a distance from the bottom, sufficient for summer, would be harmful as it would be too small for winter, so when arranging overwintering nests, we hang the frames higher on appropriately adjusted slats, the length of the winter nest; these slats raise the nest to the desired height (Fig. 86 B).
In such a solution, the side flaps should be shortened by the amount of the lowered frames for the summer, and for the winter, a further series of them should be added under the lower end of the flaps in the form of transverse slats, with arms inclined inwards, which should be turned under the socket so that they do not interfere with the close to the nest with straw mats (Fig. 86 D). In this case, the mats remain unchanged. This is the idea of St. Mr. Józef Szreder, a passionate beekeeper and former head of the carpentry workshops at the Beekeeping and Gardening Museum in Warsaw.
Dig. 86. Part of a cross-section of a Warsaw beehive arranged in Szreder's way (author's drawing).
After positioning the frame board B, a space will be created under the frames A, which is necessary for air exchange in the winter. C the valve with the flap down and the second one C also the valve with the flap up. C' and D second method of valve device.
The second way to avoid unnecessary construction is to use a support for the frames, which can be placed on pegs or inserted into a rebate in the side walls of the hive below the frame.
Both of the above methods are good, but they have a drawback: they create a tight space in the hive and do not allow the bees to hang under the frames (which they like very much). Therefore, to prevent a lack of space, it is highly recommended to provide two extensions and adjust the height of the headrest accordingly.
6. Material for beehives. It should be dry and well-rested, but it is not necessary that it be of good quality. Old, rotten boards, unsuitable for almost anything else, edged boards, remnants, even those taken from an old demolished building, from floors, ceilings, cladding, can be used - but they should not be rotten or infected with fungus.
If you don't have similar materials at hand, it's best to buy core boards, as they are the least likely to dry out and warp. The best tree will be called missing, with healthy red moth. Such boards are much cheaper than really good material, but they are valuable for beekeepers because they are extremely liked by bees and they have them. significant durability and moisture resistance. Moreover, muckwood is warmer for bees because it is a poor conductor of heat. If we finally had to make hives from fresh material, containing a significant part of the so-called white - a new grain - very susceptible and sensitive to weather changes, when breaking the boxes, we always turn the side of the board closer to the core outwards.
We recognize the middle side of the board by observing its end: the arches of the grain are convexly turned outwards, and their ends are turned towards the inside, i.e. towards the core.
When a tree is cut into boards, it dries more on its sapwood than on its core side, because the freshly grown rings are less tight and more saturated with tree sap. Drying boards shrink in the direction that is more fragile, i.e. in the direction away from the core. Therefore, we nail the less sensitive surfaces of the boards on the outside so that they do not stick out at the edges while drying and do not create gaps in the hive. Then, in the worst case, they will bend slightly arched outwards.
Speaking of fresh material, I do not intend to advise building hives from wet material.
What I said about the wall applies to the box and (too bad) the lower part of the roof, but these remarks should not be applied to the boards covering the roof of the hive. If the boards are not to be covered with a waterproof material, they should be of the best possible fit and without knots, as we have already mentioned.
In addition to the described wood material, any other material can be used. The condition is that it must be porous, non-compact, and therefore retain heat. The best material is always straw, hives made of it are cheap, light and warm, and cool in summer because they do not let the heat of the sun's rays through. It is very good to combine wood and straw when building hives.
7. Painting beehives. UI, completely finished, is simply coated with oil paint.
Hives should be painted in different colors, but roofs and hulls can be given different colors in various combinations. Bees like the shades of blue the most. In general, it is better to use dark colors.
In order to protect the interior of the hives from moisture that accumulates inside and prevent it from drying through the pores of the tree painted outside, some people also advise painting the hives once and inside with oil paint. To paint the interior, it is best to use beeswax and wax varnish. The varnish is prepared as follows: the beeswax is washed in well-warmed water with the addition of sulfuric acid. Dry, purified putty is dissolved in warm linseed varnish in the weight ratio: putty 1, wax 1, varnish 4. To prepare a suitable varnish for this varnish, place the linseed oil in a warm oven and steam it there for 14 to 20 days without cooking. The varnish made of such varnish is resistant even to boiling water, so in some countries it is even used to coat wooden kitchen utensils. When painting beehives inside, you can prepare the varnish less carefully.
8. Cheap Warsaw high street. We described the construction of a beehive from boards, which is quite difficult and expensive to make for a self-taught person. Currently, I am giving you a way to tinker with a beehive at home, almost without tools, it is light and cheap, built according to Dzierzon's method.
We make a box with the internal dimensions of a Warsaw beehive: 252 x 750 x 500 mm from thin boards from goods boxes. The boards are to be nailed crosswise. The outer corners of the box do not protrude, but are made into straight corners. However, the bottom, nailed across from the same slats, protrudes 50 mm in all directions. In the box, frames can be hung on the upper edge, so the edge will serve instead of the frame made in a half-track in the previously described construction (Fig. 87). We will surround the box at the top with strips made of the same board, the edge of which will protrude 80 mm above the top of the box and be approximately 110 mm wide. On top of the above-mentioned strips, we nail a frame made of an inch-inch, having the same light that was created in the middle of the box after nailing the strip. This created a frame for hanging nest frames and a headrest, i.e. a socket for an 80 mm high extension.
The outlets are made in the right place.
We cover this hive with straw braid in two rows, and so that the outlets are not clogged during the covering, we nail bottomless boxes made of thin slats, 50 mm high, in front of them.
In one of the gables we cut out doors, which are to be slightly narrower than the doors of a regular hive, because if they reached to the very walls, they would create a gap unconnected with anything, so to prevent this, in the middle of the hive, in the corners of the gable intended for the doors, we nail triangular strips. At the same time, they will fill the corners created by the side gaps, where garbage would accumulate during sweeping. So we make the door 220 mm wide (or narrower) and cut it out; so that they do not fall apart during cutting and further work, we connect the slats included in the door with thin strips, like pins. For now, we attach the cut-out doors from the inside with strips so that they do not fall out when wrapping the braid.
Then we weave straw braids, similar to those used for foot mats, and run them horizontally, starting from the top, closely, down the entire box, with the edge of the braid towards the wall of the hive. We cover the bottom in a similar way, concentrically starting from the center. If we fail to weave 50 mm wide braids, it won't hurt, and it will even be better if we run the narrower ones twice, hitting the recesses between the first row braids the second time. This will create a beautiful-looking wall, dense enough to protect the hive from frost and overheating from the sun.
Dig. 87.
Cheap Warsaw high-rise hive (author's drawing). a the side ones - the braid that surrounds the hive twice, and the lower ones - the bottom covering, d part of the roof, g nest part of the hive, n headrest, r bottom of the nest frame, rn frame above. rate. The arrows at the top left indicate where the hive opens.
The described sheepskin coating will be sufficiently durable, and as it rests on the ends of the bottom slats, it will not slip; and in order to prevent further damage in the event of any small defect or break somewhere in the braid, as is the case with hand laces, we can nail them from the inside of the hive with wooden nails, and connect the braids with sticks from the outside.
After finishing the straw covering, to the edge made of rulers; and nailed to the headboard of the hive, we attach quite wide strips around it and then wrap it around the hive again. We do the same at the bottom, nailing these strips with half of them to the protruding boards at the bottom (Fig. 87 a-a). The slats extending downwards cover the side of the braid that secures the bottom.
We start installing the door. We cut the straw through the gap created by the saw when cutting out the central slat for the door with a crooked beekeeping knife; everyone will understand that such work would cause this part of the covering to fall apart, so first we nail double frames to the straw, smaller ones, made of strips corresponding to the size of the door, and larger ones, corresponding to the door frames - and we connect these frames tightly: one with the door and the other with the wall of the hive.
9. Dadant Blatt's Hive. This hive, commonly called a dadan in our country, is a foreign invention, adapted to the local conditions in the countries where it is introduced. In our case, it can only be used after the front and rear walls have been boarded. It will then differ from our Warsaw hive in that it will be a deckchair hive with a low-wide frame. The disadvantage of this hive is that the cladding outside the interior is not protected against leaks and, consequently, against moisture, which makes it less durable.
Moreover, those who break the kopjes into pieces build them so arbitrarily and introduce so many changes that their fathers, Dadant and Blatt, if they looked at them and measured them, would not recognize their hives. For the sake of accuracy, it would be best to stick to the original type and retain the essential features of a given hive in the apiary.
The Lewicki hive, called a stand-lounger, meets all the natural needs of bees. It is therefore large enough, has adequate spacing in all directions, and its feature is that it is a stand. It spread in Poland and Russia very quickly and widely, because within a few years after its construction by the inventor, several thousand of these hives were sold, mostly as models. In areas rich in honey, such a hive brought 50-80 kg of honey (3-5 poods), so it was also considered the best. Currently, in Russia, this hive is being replaced by American hives, not because it is worse, but thanks to the Russian government sending beekeeping instructors to America for three years of training after the Japanese war. They began to introduce a new type of hive, supplementing the lack of a cold structure due to the harsh, mostly Russian climate.
In Poland, there is no need to abandon our Polish hive, equipped with a super and without unnecessary legs, for St. Brzóska, it's best to stick to our invention. Let Polish science celebrate its just triumphs not only at home, but also let it boldly radiate abroad.
However, despite my belief, in the name of authorial impartiality, and in order to give the reader the opportunity to compare these two Systems and their possible application, I am including a description of the authentic "dadan", while trying to remove unnecessary accretions and changes introduced by our and foreign practitioners.
Basic features of the Dadant Blatt hive: 1) dimensions of nest and super frames, 2) distance of frames from the sides of the hive in the nest and super 7.5 mm, 3) distance from the bottom of the nest frames to the bottom 13 mm, 4) distance from the top of the nest to the bottom 7 mm extension frames, 5) removable floor, 6) removable extension and finally 7) no legs and ceiling. Other details, such as boarding the front and rear walls, adding or removing the number of frames, tilting the roof this way or that, or making it a two-eaves roof - are not the essence of the matter. In our conditions, with an abundant but short harvest, a larger number of frames is recommended, so in some of our beekeepers it reaches up to 16 pieces (the original hive has 12 frames). It is better if the roof is two-part, with the eaves extending quite far to the wider sides of the hive.
Ul dadan, it is a box that is 450 mm wide, 450 mm long and 320 mm high inside. The nest frame measures: horizontally 435 mm, vertically 300 mm, thickness 37 mm. This dimension should be counted from the center of one frame to the center of the adjacent one. The dadana contains 12 frames and one thin (8 mm) valve, small enough to measure the interior of the hive. This hive may have two or three supers, depending on the size of the swarm and the abundance of food, placed one on top of the other, each measuring 167 mm. height, with internal dimensions of 450 mm by 450 mm. They can be given without a cover, or covered from the sides with boxes (muffs) of the same height with dimensions such that they can be placed in place of the roof on the hive body and fit under a properly constructed roof. The boxes covering the extensions should be made of 10 mm thick boards.
The body, the bottom of the hive and the extension are made of 25 mm thick boards, with frames at the ends - the joints, as shown in lit. E in Fig. 88. The hive is held together with nails.
At the top of the front and rear walls, frames are made 14.5 mm deep and 12.5 mm wide (Fig. 88 between the letters A and B). They are used to hang frames whose arms fit approximately 1 mm into the frame, leaving a vacuum of 1.5 mm at the ends of the beams. Since the arm of the upper bar is 7.5 mm thick, it remains 7 mm in the frame upwards (14.5—7.5—=7). This creates a seven-millimeter gap above the nest under the pillow in winter, under the oilcloth or canvas in spring and under the bottom of the extension frames.
Dig. 88.
Part of the cross-section of the Dadant-Blatt hive in the area of hanging the nest frame. (Fig. own).
ABD details of building the front side above the outlet, E method of connecting the corner pieces of the hive body. A the body of the hive, BF the extension, D the roof, C 30 the strip around the hive on which the roof rests. C 50 a strip making a space F for the roof, a a side bar of the nest frame, b a distance from the wall of the hive to the frame, o a distance between the upper nest bar and the lower extension bar. a' side of the frame b' distance in the extension. The numbers indicate the dimensions in millimeters.
Dig. 89.
Cross-section of an American hive (author's drawing).
A the nest part, B the extension, C roof supports - strips surrounding the hive, D the roof, F the second board of the rear wall, G the bottom, H the eaves above the outlet, a the nest frame, a' the extension frame. The numbers indicate dimensions in mm.
****The bottom should be cut with a broken line, not finished
Some people move this distance from the nest part of the hive to the bottom of the super. This should not be done, because only when placed in the body it only performs the listed tasks. Moved to the extension, it is convenient only for it. Indeed, this distance is necessary to some extent for supers when storing them outside the hive. In case the extension frames do not stand evenly on the floor and are piled up here and there, it is not necessary, because we have a 7-0 mm vacuum at the top of each frame, which will compensate for minor defects.
To clarify the concepts, please remember that I will call the front wall the one in which the outlet is located, and the rear wall - the opposite wall. The right and left sides of the hive correspond to our right or left when we stand facing the hive in front of the outlet.
The front and rear walls are 320 mm high, i.e. the depth of the hive. The above-described frames for hanging frames are made in them. The side walls are 25 mm longer (so they are 345 mm high), have frames at the bottom that are 25 mm high and 10 mm wide, which fit into the bottom and the frames cover them from the sides, preventing rain moisture.
The rear wall is made of two 25 mm thick boards: the inner one, 320 mm high, and the outer one, 25 mm longer, for a total of 345 mm. They are pressed together so that they form a double wall that is equal at the top and has a frame 25 mm high and wide at the bottom (fig. 89 letter F).
The base of the hive is a bottom that is 25 mm longer and 15 mm wider than the dimensions of the hive inside. The width of the bottom is 465 mm. It does not protrude beyond the sides of the hive, but fits loosely into the frames in the lower edges of the hive walls from the inside. The lower frames of the side walls of the hive, as we know, are 25 mm high and 10 mm wide. After placing the compact box on the bottom, a tiny vacuum (2.5 mm each) is created in the lower side frames along the sides of the bottom as a reserve for possible swelling of the material. The bottom is 760 mm long. Its rear end goes completely under one rear board and rests against the other, 25 mm longer one, i.e. it rests on a frame created by nailing two unequal boards (fig. 89, letter F, lower).
The front end of the bottom extends under the front wall on the outside and forms a bridge, projecting 260 mm in front of the hive and sloping obliquely down towards the end.
The outlet at the bottom, 8 mm high and 240 mm wide, is carved into the lower edge of the front wall and blocked with appropriate wedges, i.e. slats, placed loosely on the bridge and covering the outlet if necessary. Sheet metal latches from various systems can also be used for this purpose.
Above the outlet, on the front wall of the hive, some people nail a slightly oblique, slightly protruding board to protect the bees from the storm - it creates a kind of roof or porch.
Dig. 90.
The lower angle of the American nest frame (author's drawing). A side bar, B bar. lower, C projection towards the bottom of the bales. side 5 mm.
The bottom of the dadan is made slightly inclined towards the front, so that the wind does not blow rainwater into the hive through the outlet and so that the water that is there due to moisture can drip out.
From the outside, the entire body of the hive is surrounded by a strip 10 mm thick and 30 mm wide, nailed 20 mm below the outer upper edge of the hive. A roof is placed on these slats, and so that the contact point does not soak up water, the tops of these slats are slightly beveled downwards (see the transverse slant between letters C and D, Figs. 88 and 89). To prevent the roof from sticking too closely to the extension, there is another strip on the front wall, 12 mm thick and 50 mm wide, nailed flush with the edge of the hive.
Dig. 91.
Upper dividers (author's drawing).
The roof, made of 10 mm thick boards, is a box with a bottom protruding, like wings, on all sides by 20 - 30 mm. This box covers the street. The roof is constructed in such a way that its walls fit loosely into the hive and create a 1 mm vacuum on all sides.
The canopy is 265 mm high, 547 mm wide and 502 mm long.
It is desirable that the canopy slopes towards the rear, so it can be about 300 mm high at the front and 265 mm high at the rear. The two-eaves roof will be inclined to the sides of the hive. Ventilation holes are made under the canopy ceilings and they are provided with mesh.
Frames. Spacing. The nest frame is 435 mm wide and 300 mm high on the outside. The upper bar, forming the arms and side bars, is 7.5 mm thick and 25 mm wide, and the lower bar is 15 x 15 mm. The upper bar, due to its length, should be fastened in the middle with a 10 mm thick bar and will look like in Fig. 88 lit. Rg. Both are compact, or the entire beam can be made from one piece of wood. with appropriate cutting tools. The lower ends of the side bars protrude beyond the size of the frame by 5 mm below the lower bar and are slightly planed to make the frames fit more easily among others (Fig.90). The nest frames do not have spacing nails, which can be replaced in various ways, e.g., by driving wire staples into the frame at the top, indicating the width (12 mm) of the space between the frames (Fig. 91). They protrude above the tree surface only by the thickness of the wire and allow you to adjust the distances by eye. At the bottom of the frames there is a thick wire, appropriately bent, which maintains the spacing (Fig. 92). Only top distributors are needed for extensions. Extension frames do not have ends protruding downwards and are separated only by dividers in the frames of the extension. The tops of the top frames do not meet each other, but are covered in the same way as the nest frames before the tops are placed, i.e. with cloth or narrow slats, under which there is a passage for the bees.
The extension frames are 435 mm wide, 160 mm high and 37 to 42 mm thick including the spacing. When producing sectional frames, the thickness increases to 50 mm *).
*) Incorrectly, extension frames have a normal thickness of only 37 mm and only reach 42 mm, they should be 48-50 mm thick.
For winter, the hive is provided with an appropriate number of frames, which should be surrounded with valves and straw mats, and the nest is covered with a cloth stretched so that there is a 7 mm space above the frames for the bees to pass - a pillow is placed on top of it.
The pillow is a frame made of slats, like a bottomless box. 10) mm thick and 60 mm wide, with the external dimensions of the extension. It is covered from the bottom and top with thick cloth and filled, preferably with oat husks, as the lightest and warmest material.
The bees are fed from a trough carved out inside the bottom of the hive. The trough is quite large: 385 mm long, 240 mm wide and about 6 mm deep. If the hive stands straight, it is good and easy to use. Food is poured into it through a metal tube screwed through a hole drilled in the back of the hive. The tube ends at the outside with a funnel, turned upwards and permanently covered with a hinged flap. After pouring the food, the flap closes itself and prevents bees from getting outside. Instead of being placed at the bottom, you can place a feeder in a pillow.
The hive is inspected completely or partially, depending on the need. With the latter, you can slightly move the adjacent frames apart and remove the one you need for viewing, then put the frames in their places. If you want to look at the entire hive, you move the valve behind one compartment of the divider wire and look at the frames one by one. If there is no space in the hive to remove the valve, or if the entire hive is filled with frames, we remove the first one from the edge, where it is loosest, put it in the nest and, after examining it, we put the valve or frame on the opposite side of the nest.
Dig. 92. Various forms of bottom dividers.
The top picture illustrates how to hang frames, and the entire frame has braced bottom spacing. It's a pity that our simple nails are not known abroad!
Dig. 93
Parts of an American hive.
If it is necessary to inspect the nest when the trunk has a super, it should be removed and placed across it on an empty nest frame so as not to crush the bees under the super frames.
The hive is swept either by replacing the bottom with another one or by lifting the back of the hive and scraping it.
Four wires are placed in the nest frames for artificial snakes.
Sections. The French section, which is best adapted to Dadant Blatt's hive extension, has dimensions of 130 x 105 x 50 mm. Four such frames fit into the top frame. One section, filled with honey, weighs about 500 grams. Top frames intended for honey production in sections should have upper bars 50 mm wide, while the bottom and side bars may remain 25 mm wide.
10. Slavic hive by D. Ciesielski. This hive is almost universally used in Małopolska, in its original form it is a bit cramped, but it suits the conditions of our climate well and satisfies the natural needs of bees. It is a beehive stand with long, uniform frames. Internally 240 mm wide, 640 mm high, 410 mm deep, with frames 227 mm wide and 480 mm high, this hive has double walls made of boards or single walls made of straw. Round outlet, 45 mm in diameter, 250 mm from the ceiling and 225 mm from the rear wall. The hive opens from the pediment (top).
The frames are made of strips 6-7 mm thick and 25 mm wide; including the spacer nails, they are 35 mm thick. Before the widespread use of artificial earwax, the small thickness of the frames prevented the construction of drone plasters to some extent. The frames stand on 20 mm wide bars nailed to the hive walls at a distance of 495 mm from the ceiling, or they hang with their arms resting on slats nailed to the hive walls 20 mm from the ceiling, or in frames carved into the walls. The frames, intended to be placed on slats, are smooth, without arms and lower whiskers, the distance from both walls of the hive is regulated by thin triangular slats, 7-0 mm high, nailed one by 130 mm and the other by 380 mm from the ceiling of the hive. The hive has 10 frames with spaced nails, driven two alternatingly on the side slats; one valve, equipped with a grid, which can be closed if necessary. There is a support under the socket below the frames.
The hive is built without a roof; A completely separate canopy is attached to the top of the box. The spigot in the ceiling, placed above the outlet, is used to feed the bees, feed the queens, cool the trunks in hot weather and, finally, as a passage to the top. Extension - This is a separate box with the tenon down, holding 10 half-frames of normal width. The half-frames stand on three-cornered bars and are supported by slats on the sides. like in a beehive.
Practicing beekeepers quite cleverly avoided the difficulty caused by too small a hole connecting the extension with the nest by using extensions made of single boards. In this way, they were able to enlarge for the summer a street that was too narrow for the large swarm. Currently, these methods are no longer available due to the resolution of the nationwide Beekeeping Congress in Lviv on September 27, 1925. At the request of the commission appointed by the Congress, the following resolution was unanimously adopted: "Due to the fact that the current economy has shown that the best system is the economy of vulachios opened from above, the Congress decides and recommends that all three systems: Warsaw, American, Ciesielski, be adapted to this economy. ".
Dig. 94.
Various forms of straw baskets (photo: own).
Next: Vaulted street, horizontally divided, bottomless.
11. Straw bottom. Everyone knows the streets, drawn in primary school textbooks, round, conglomerated baskets with bees and large birds. Such baskets and bottoms, used in apiaries even now, despite their disadvantages, especially their narrowness, have two great advantages: they are light and warm, and thirdly, they are cheap. So who is not able to purchase immediately or. to make more expensive apartments for their employees, it is best to buy round straw bottoms with a movable middle one. frame.
When making this description, I will follow D. Ciesielski's instructions, with the difference that I will adapt it to the dimensions of the Warsaw hive.
First, we prepare a round tree with a diameter of 315 mm; so we cut two boards round: the diameter of one of them is 295 mm and the other 290 mm. We prepare 18 hardwood posts, smoothly planed, 20 mm wide and about 400 mm high. Then we nail the ends of the posts at regular intervals around the smaller board. Place the larger board at the opposite end of the posts, between them, at a depth of 100 mm from the upper ends (Fig. 95).
Dig. 95.
A basket in the robot, where a bunch of straw sticks out, an adjusting ring; next to it there is a tree tree (photo: own). It is better to make the rule according to the description, not the drawing.
Such a tree should be fastened well by nailing it, but the posts should not be inserted into the boards. This is how we create a tree with the diameter we want, on which the bottom is sewn.
Sewing is done on the protruding ends of the posts, and the sewn bottom circles are slid onto the lower part of the shoe tree. Because the tree is slimmer at the bottom, sliding is easy.
The best material for sewing round hives is rye straw, combed and weedless; it is very good if it can be without ears, so that it does not look inviting to mice.
The stitching itself is done with basket willow branches; Spanish reed is good, although expensive, then pine and juniper roots, and finally galvanized wire and twine. These last two materials are less convenient because the iron wire absorbs frost in winter, and the twine unravels during work, even if it is varnished, so it is not very durable.
We take a handful of straw, squeeze it from the side of the ears with our left hand, and wrap it with the material we are sewing with with our right hand. We make the roller hard enough by immediately bending it into a circle so that it does not break later. When we have the length to cover the shoe tree, we put it on the upper part of the shoe tree and sew it, piercing the shaft in half or a third of its thickness and pressing quite hard so that there is no gap in the joint. This brings us to the first ring.
We continue in a similar manner, sewing the roller to the roller until we obtain the appropriate height of 80 cm. When finishing the work, we make the last rings thinner and thinner, flattening them more and more, the closer to the end, to give an even and smooth base and so that the bottom when placed does not wobble.
While working, we constantly add straw, feeling the thickness with our hand, or passing the coils through the appropriate circle shown in Fig. before sewing. 96 to give the wreaths uniform cohesion and avoid notches and thickenings. When the walls of the box (bottom) built in this way begin to exceed the height of the tree, we place them on a stump of the appropriate height.
After finishing the work, we cut off the protruding straws or lightly burn them with straw.
To prevent the bottom from easily tipping over, it does not matter if the last ring is much thicker, evenly sewn, and round, which is achieved by sewing a second, wide, not too thickly protruding ring at the bottom.
At the end where the head is to be, we insert a hoop (Fig. 97 letter O), which we sew inside as deep as space is needed to place the beams (snoses), and on them a round board-bottom, with a tenon hole ( Fig. 96) so that the surface of the board is even with the edge of the bottom. From this we conclude that the top edge of the rim should be 32 mm from the level of the upper shaft (cap 24 mm, slats 8 mm).
If we are installing a bottom without a movable frame, we place slats on the rim, equipped with spacing nails, with a total width of 36 mm and a thickness of 8 mm. The first bar is placed perpendicular to the outlet, in the very center, and the next ones are placed towards the sides, parallel to the first one, and the beams can be inserted into the straw ring of the bottom with sharply cut ends, or secured against breaking with nails driven into the rim or straw.
At a height of 250 mm from the ceiling, we add an eyelet; you can cut them out with a round chisel after sewing the bottom, or even better, remember while working to leave the outlet in the right place. So, right next to the last stitch connecting the rings, we cut the straw with a knife across the roller, making a gap about 100 mm wide and about 12 mm high. We strengthen the gap thus created by wrapping the reed around both adjacent rollers several times, which gives the outlet durability and a beautiful appearance.
Dig. 96.
A bottom to cover the bars in the headrest of a straw hive.
Such a bottomless tank should have a bottom. It is a board, half-track, with a mortise, fastened from the bottom with fin strips and placed on four pegs driven into the ground in the apiary. On the top of the bottom, we cut a recess for the lower outlet. It is created by carving the tree deep and wide enough, but not too long, so that if it is necessary to delete the lower outlet, it can be covered by simply moving the tree slightly back.
The bottomless belly is equipped with a roof connected with a bunch of straight straw and if the hive has its beginnings, attached to the snoses, it is ready to receive the swarm.
Such a device is sufficient to run an economy that is not very progressive; however, it will differ significantly from a log. A straw bee, lighter and cheaper than a log, even with a removable bottom from the snoshes in the headrest, will allow you to drive away bees, create artificial swarms, i.e. deaths, stopping, to a certain extent, swarming and placing a top box on it, equipped with frames with the dimensions of regular Warsaw tops. However, it does not allow you to look through the trunk and check the presence and value of the mother, as well as the amount of reserves, from the brood. To eliminate these deficiencies, we provide the bottomless device with a device that would allow at least the middle slice to be removed without damage.
Therefore, we use a removable frame that should reach at least the center of the outlet, i.e. to the center of the nest, where the brood usually stays when it's time for it. We cannot provide the entire frame because it would be too long and difficult to remove. If we wanted to hang the frame without any other devices, the bees would attach combs to its sides to the bottom wall; so we try to prevent the bees from doing this. For this purpose, in place of the middle snoz, we fit a sheath frame, 252 mm inside, without a bar at the top, but only one in the middle and the other at the bottom. The lower beam can be so long that it reaches the walls of the bottom, so that it not only rests on the inner sides, but can be stuck into the straw with its sharpened ends. In the center of this frame, below its upper loose ends by 256 mm, we place the crossbar. This entire sheath frame, 600 mm high, will have the appearance of the letter H connected at the bottom (Fig. 97B).
Dig. 97.
Cross-section of the bottom with a sheath frame (author's drawing).
A Insert frame, B sheath frame, C pin in the bottom D, G: nail heads, O rim, P bars, S cross-section of the bottom walls.
The hanging frame for letter A is to be 250 mm high, the crossbar in the sheath frame will be 6 mm lower, for a total of 256 mm. The hanging frame will rest with its arms on the upper ends of the sheath.
We proceed to attach the sheath frame to the bottom. First of all, we place the bottom on a completely horizontal surface and use a plumb line to mark the direction of the sheath frame. The upper ends of the sheath frame, equipped with holes, are nailed to the ring sewn into the headrest, flush with its top edge. In the place where the vertical is indicated, we drive the sharpened ends of the strip into the walls of the bottom, which will serve as a support, and the lower ends of the sheath frame. We do this in the plane corresponding to the ends of the side trabeculae of the sheath. After nailing the lower transverse strip to the sides of the sheath frame, the whole will look as shown in Figure 97. During this entire work, we make sure that the side of the sheath ends up in the center of the outlet.
The only thing left to do is to protect the bees from being crushed during manipulation in the bottom so arranged. So we drive upholstery nails with round brass heads into the side bars of the insert frame, two on each side (G). They are designed to protrude a scant 6mm. In this way, we will protect the bees located between the slats of both frames when removing them; in order not to crush bees located on adjacent combs, we place limits on the movable half-frame so that it does not swing sideways; so we drive headless nails or cut hard wires sticking out from behind the sheath frame, slightly open at its sides, into the walls of the bottom. To make these nails visible just at the inner edge of the sheath frame, we cut the bars of the sheath frame at the back with a penknife. In these jams, the nails will have support, they will not break, and they will easily come out of their designated place when inserting the frame. We put two pairs of nails on each side. They will act as a sheath, keeping the frame at the same distance from the adjacent patches during the operation. Hence the name of the entire frame.
For all these measures taken together to be successful, the insert frame must be completely built-in, and the adjacent frames must be equipped with beginnings from edge to edge. Moreover, the hive must be located on a horizontal bottom.
In the bottom with a movable half-frame, you should be very careful to fasten all the beams firmly in the headrest so that they do not go beyond their designated limits, especially since the beams with their sides facing the movable patch are not equipped with spacing nails.
Dig. 98.
Outlet flaps for straw baskets (author's drawing).
A slightly inclined bridge is attached to the lower arms. The cutout at the bottom of the damper shown in the drawing is intended to prevent the damper from sliding down. Concentric marks on the damper are holes for air exchange while the outlet is "narrowed".
When arranging a bottom, whether with or without a movable frame, you should consider securing the outlets with latches. If the outlets are made horizontally, you can use commercially known latches used for frame hives; and if the eyes are round, we provide bolts as shown in Fig. 98. In both cases, we sew them to the bottom with a thin wire. We also attach the bridges in a similar way.
Bottomless beads placed on a toque can be protected from being blown away by strong winds using supports or pegs driven into the ground behind the hive, to which they can be tied with ropes.
Finally, a few words about the extension. The latter should be made of half-track boards with 7-8 extension frames. We will easily understand that the extension can be bottomless only where it is adjacent to the upper opening of the bottom, created after removing the tenon board, and the rest of the bottom of the extension, protruding beyond the edges of the base, must be covered from the bottom with boards carved in a semicircle, leaving a space in the extension under the frames. 6mm. The remaining vacuum below the extension frames above the snoses should be filled with strips of dried herb to make it easier for the bees to move from the nest to the top. A super designed in this way, loaded with honey, would crush the hive too much, so we provide it with supports on the outside, either in the form of pegs driven into the ground or shorter supports based on the bottom.
Dig. 99. Baskets with extensions (photo: own).
A round board, lying on a nest covered with cloth, has a square hole carved in its center, enabling various activities. This hole is covered with the same erupted piece, connected to a slightly larger piece of thin board "overlap" and equipped with an eye for easier removal (fig. 97 C).
Dig. 100.
Wielkopolska basket - components.
Dig. 101.
Kószka Greater Poland.
Dig. 102.
Wielkopolska basket with a top (photo: own).
Bottomless canopies can be wintered on a rooftop, as long as the canopies are protected from leaks. To protect the bottoms from the cold, we place a twig of tow under the roof, on the tenon board, and a handful of fine hay at the bottom, on the bottom.
In Greater Poland, in addition to various German frame beehive systems, they use Kanitza horizontal beehive beehives. Each division has 4-5 straw wreaths and is equipped with snoses. For these hives, called Wielkopolska baskets, extensions with relatively high frames are used. The accompanying Figures 100-102 give an idea of the hive and its handling, keeping in mind the science of beehives contained in this chapter.
Dig. 103.
An old way of farming in forest beehives.
12. History of hives improvement. Of course, just as Krakow was not built in a day, people started building cultural hives for bees. A lot of water passed before the bees moved from the hollows of trees, from the clefts of rocks, from the wild, to human care, at least first to forest beehives, and later to garden logs. Nevertheless, the practical human sense, systematically taming the wild nature of the animal world and exploiting its forces to its advantage, has long been engaged in the culture of beekeeping. Our compatriots also played an important and outstanding role in this important matter.
To conclude the chapter on the construction of hives, we provide some data from the history of their improvement,
The Greeks already knew how to use snoses and remove slices upwards from woven straw baskets. The Romans, a state-organizational nation, did not make any progress in building the hive, but paid close attention to the mother and gave her the title of leader. The role of the mother in the hive and the swarm system were defined only by the Dutchman Jan Swammerdam in 1737. He was followed by the outstanding Reaumur (reomiur).
The first glass hive for observing swarms was built by Szyrach Lusaka (Luzas), and after him, the Swiss, Franciszek Huber, for the purposes of scientific research on bees and swarms, was the first to build a demountable hive, the so-called book (1784). Huber's hive consisted of individual frames, each of which was an independent whole and each of which contained a patch. The 35 mm wide frame strips were placed next to each other, connected with hinges and tightened with string. Each frame had small semicircular holes at the front and back, which, when put together, created as many outlets at the front and back of the hive as there were frames (Fig. 106). The hive was closed by the last gable frames, the first and twelfth, equipped with glass, and to protect the bees from the light, the glass was covered with slats. If necessary, the unnecessary number of large outlets could be closed using latches located on both sides of the hive.
Dig. 104.
Logs standing in Stefan Bondar's apiary in Naumowicze (photo: own).
If necessary, the inventor could take a particular frame, glaz it on the spot and observe it separately - this is how the observation alley that is still used today was created.
The book hive, far from the idea of dismantling the nest for the purposes of rational beekeeping, was not suitable for practical use, but it was the ancestor of modern hives.
Huber's idea was taken up by practical beekeepers and began to be used in beekeeping, but progress in the development of demountable hives could not be achieved for a long time, because with its use arose problems that were difficult to solve, namely the lack of heat in the hive and moisture seeping through the gaps between the frames. However, the Huber's hive, close to its original form, spread to lands with warmer climates and has undergone improvements over the course of 63 years.
Dig. 105.
Lying logs by Mikołaj Bondar there (photo: own).
Hübner (1802), one of the beekeepers, Huber's successors, removed the side cooling holes, also removed the cold structure of the nest, provided outlets under the top boards, placed the hive on a common board and deprived the frame of the lower slat. Hibner frames allowed the bees to communicate with each other more easily, but unconnected at the bottom they were unstable in practical use. Despite this, Hibner's hive, like the original, did not protect the bees from the cold, so in more northern countries it was used as a summer super, placed above the spigot of non-removable hives. In Poland, such an extension was used by Captain Wieśniowski, a famous beekeeper at that time who covered the hive with straw mats, followed by Witwicki and Putsze, in Russia by Prokopowicz, in Germany by Knauf, and in England by Nutt (1825).
Efforts were still made to use the hive for entire swarms and to eliminate the annoying cold of the brood in spring, so, following Ramdorf's example, our and foreign practitioners began to discourage disassembly and built hives similar to the original Huber's, but with much wider frames in which the 2-3-4 combs each, and even our Czaplowicz built a hive consisting of two parts placed next to each other.
It was believed that the trunk would gain more heat if it was built like a hanging hive, so Witwicki built a pyramidal hive, and Christ built increasingly narrower boxes placed one on top of the other.
Dig. 106.
Ul Hubera p/g Dolinowskiego.
Morlot (1839 "Frame Hive") returned to Huber's original idea, improved the hive slightly and protected it from moisture by using a cage with a roof. This improvement led to good results, but was difficult to use in practice because it made operations more difficult. Morlot's hive was known in Małopolska and was described by the Greek Cat. priest Jan Bielawski (1847).
Sileniusz (1847) introduced new improvements, namely, he left the top outlets and the base of the hive built by Hibner, but provided the frames with slots at the bottom, removed the clubs that held Hibner's hives and connected the frames with ordinary hooks (fig. 107).
Dig. 107.
Huber's construction improved by Sileniusz in 1847.
Regardless of Huber's invention and the painstaking efforts of his successors, priest Jan Dzierzon ¹), following the Greeks' ideas and the forgotten idea of Della Rocca (1790), used, in 1838, for practical purposes, removable bars (snozy), equipped with spacing nails to ordinary logs and forced the bees to pull the work not from the ceiling, but from the beams placed in the grooves of the internal walls of the log. There were several notches every 29 cm in the beehive stands and a few rows in the deckchairs. The bees attached these combs, drawn from the snoses, to the walls of the hive and to the lower slats. If it was necessary to remove the combs, they had to be cut off and the honey-flowing honeycombs had to be placed or hung on appropriate trestles. Working in such a hive was extremely tedious, many bees were wasted, honey was spilled, and the activities took a lot of time. The internal walls of the log had to be even and smooth. For this reason, Fr. Dzierzon started building beehive stands from thick cobblestones and then from boards which he "furnished" with straw. Dzierzon's idea was a step back, a modification, to the idea of the dismantling of the hive; compared the previous efforts of several decades, because it reduced Huber's frame to the upper bar - snoza; however, it completely solved the previously vexing issue of lack of heat in the hive and allowed for the normal growth of bee families, protected the trunks from cold during all seasons of the year, but did not protect against cold and the danger of the brood catching cold while disassembling the trunk.
¹) Fr. Jan Dzierzon, born in the village of Łowkowice, poviat Kluczborski in Upper Silesia on January 16, 1811. He was ordained a priest on March 16, 1834. He had a small Catholic, Polish parish of Karlsmarkt, consisting of 421 souls, including 391 Poles. He died on October 26, 1906. He was a Catholic priest and not, as one contemporary author wrongly states, a Protestant pastor.
Dig. 108.
Fr. Jan Dzierzon, parish priest in Karlsmarkt in Silesia (PTO).
Dig. 109.
Ul Dzierzona 1851 (B)
Although Dzierzona Street was not accessible, it was still a step forward. Its advantages were extremely great: the nest of an ordinary log became removable, it could be enlarged or reduced if necessary, that is, the interior of the hive could be adjusted, to some extent, to the size of the swarm, remove unnecessary combs and replace them with new ones, strengthen the trunks not only by rearranging, but also by adding combs of brood together with the settled fly, and generally supplying the trunk with what it lacked at any time. We can see that such a small improvement has completely changed the apiary management and brought it closer to "scientific requirements. The greatest advantage of Dzierzon's hives was the possibility of conducting research on bees, which the inventor himself took advantage of, gaining immortal fame by discovering the virginity (parthenogenesis) of bees. These hives, still used today in some apiaries, quickly became popular because they significantly increased the profitability of the stumps. Moreover, a hole in the ceiling of the hive allowed the creation of a swarm by knocking it out and enabled the bees to be fed.
Dig. 110.
Father Dolinowski's street 1854 *)
*) Fr. Dolinowski born May 15, 1814
Despite the admiration of beekeepers and naturalists over the abilities of Fr. Given, human thought did not stop working in the direction once chosen, so, following the example of Huber, in 1854, Fr. Jan Dolinowski from the Lublin region, mindful of the cold weather in our climate, placed the Sileniusz hive in a box that opened from the top. It turned out that there was a need to hang frames. So he made the upper beams longer, forming arms. He placed the outlet in the front of the box, at the bottom, about 35 cm from the ceiling. The hive was about 90 cm long and had 16-18 frames. Two glazed valves could make the nest smaller. UI Fr. Dolinowskiego, of course, had many inconveniences, especially that the upper and side slats of the frames touched each other and were hung not in frames (rabbets), but directly on the edges of the hive, the frames entered the hive quite loosely, but the space between the hive, i.e. the frames and the interior The hive's "case" was vanishingly small, intended not for the bees but as a reserve against drying out and to make it easier to remove the frames from the hive. There was a 12-millimeter gap under the frame bars, which made it easier for the bees to communicate between the combs and gave them free access to the outlet.
Dig. 111.
For building a frame hive in a case (TPO).
Fr. Street Dolinowski's was an original, homely invention, which was almost not influenced by contemporary ideas of American and German beekeepers. The inventor well solved the issue of the need for heat in the hive all year round, just like Dzierzon, but in contrast he did not lose anything from the existing improvements of beekeepers in Western Europe and the management of the hive. it gave much better results in honey and wax. Unlike the knitted hives, the structure of the Dolinowski hive allowed the trunk to be dismantled without the risk of brood catching cold, and had the main advantage of frame hives, namely that all activities could be performed "dry", i.e. without pouring honey on the bees and tearing off the combs, - in other words, the management could be was to be conducted in a way very similar to today.
Father's idea Hole. he had not yet solved some important problems, so he did not arrange the frames to be independent from each other, which was very disturbing during activities and was the reason for crushing the bees. Although he had determined the correct location of the outlet on the edge of the honeycombs in the center of the nest (cold structure), he had not yet determined its height from the ceiling. However, ul. ks. Dolinowskiego was the best beehive in Poland for over 20 years, because apart from the listed advantages it had a very simple structure, so it was awarded many times at domestic and foreign exhibitions, and even gave Jan Ramoszyński a gold medal, the only one intended for the Agricultural and Industrial Exhibition in Warsaw in 1870 .
Dig. 112.
Langstroth's hive (photo: own).
Independently of the work of our priests, Langstroth in America, in 1851, built a beehive with frames touching only the upper parts of the side bars. In the same year, a few months later, the German Berlepsz, not knowing Langstroth's invention, also used a frame that allowed bees to pass in all directions. Langstroth's idea was so accurate that his hives are still widely used in cultural apiaries in America today (Fig. 112). By the way, making the Berlep frame was too expensive to be used. This frame, having at the upper and lower bars the so-called buttresses, i.e. small edge extensions, preventing the entire planes of the beams from touching each other, required a lot of work in its construction, especially since it was connected with tenons.
Meanwhile, in our country, the final expression of progress in the improvement of hives was the street. priest Dolinowski, until 1875.
A further step towards improving the hive was to reduce the contact area of the frame sides by adding spacing nails. Famous in this respect are: Ciesielskiego, Lewicki and Dadant streets. He was the first to present his frame hive at a beekeeping convention in Lviv in 1875. The spacing nails were driven in alternately, and the thickness of the frame including the spacing was 35 mm. The most important improvement of Dzierzon's hive was the use of frames and the correct placement of the outlet, which went to the center of the nest at a height of 25 cm from the ceiling, in accordance with the nature of the bees. AT! this one, described in the book on page 208, provided the bees with sufficient warmth during the winter and coolness in the summer. The spigot at the top, in addition to the advantages listed in Dzierzon's beehive, made it possible to use the extension to a limited extent. The disadvantage of this hive was that it turned out to be too tight, required the beekeeper to be in a bent position while working, and when dismantling the nest, there was a risk of losing the queen and catching cold of the brood due to the need to remove the frames.
Dig. 113.
Ul prof. Ciesielski called Galician (Slavic).
Dig. 114.
Fr's apiary Lipińskiego in Nowy Dwór near Grodno, Qa ul. Lewicki, ul. Warszawski.
Soon after Ciesielski, Kazimierz Lewicki (father), in 1880, built a beehive most similar to today's one in Warsaw. It was modeled on the beehive of Fr. Dolinowskiego and Jakowicki, built with legs, without an extension, with a rather complicated structure, with outlets in the top, so with the construction of the so-called socket. warm. The beams of the side and bottom frames did not meet each other, and the upper beams, just like in the pattern, formed the ceiling. This street with an exceptionally beautiful appearance (figs. 84 and 114) quickly gained great popularity and demand in Poland and abroad. The economy in it was to fence off the mother and confine her in the red. It was timely, because at that time, despite Mebring's invention of artificial earwax (1859), it was not used. still widespread.
A few years later, in the museum founded by Lewicki, the first street called Warsaw, built similarly to Lewicki Street, with legs (Fig. 115), but the outlets were moved from the top to the side. One of these outlets was at a height of 25 cm from the ceiling, and the other just at the bottom. The roof and upholstery were made uniform, which greatly simplified the construction.
UI Warsaw has undergone further changes. St. Brzósko left the internal form and frame dimensions of L.ewicki, but, following the example of Dadant Blatt's top hives, he separated the frames at the top with spacing nails.
Dig. 115.
Warsaw hive.
He moved the outlets to the center of the front wall, and also recommended using a cloth to cover the nest and, by providing an increase under the roof, he used an extension by removing the partition plate. The only things that were not accepted were the ones introduced by the above-mentioned author: a removable bottom, too long frame whiskers and a too thick upper bar of the nest frame. This hive is built without legs and placed on appropriate trestles (Fig. 116), which increases its durability and reduces its cost. Instead of the removed bottom, the height of the Lewicki hive and the top valve were maintained to enable sweeping.
This particular hive called the "Warszawski nadstawkowy hive", described in detail by me, is currently used with great success.
Meanwhile, development abroad was going its own way. Langstroth's hive was improved in 1853 by M. Quimby, who gave it a simpler structure and enlarged the frame on both sides. Quimby's hive was adopted by Dadant, a Frenchman who ran a large apiary in the United States of America. Its description can be found in "Petit Cours d'apiculture", a book published in 1874. This hive came to Europe and was modified by a German, Blatt, in such a way that, at the expense of the height of the frame, it increased its width (Dadant's nest frame outside 475 X 300 mm, Dadant Blatta frame 450 x 320 mm).
Dadant Blatt's hive is generally called dadan in our country and some beekeepers are fighting hard to popularize this system.
Regardless of the improvements gradually introduced to the construction of hives, throughout their development we see two basic types: a stand and a deckchair. The first type developed and spread in our country. In order not to be false in my statement, I quote on page 216 a table emphasizing the frame format used by the most famous beekeepers in Poland (and other important details in the construction of hives), which allows bees to accumulate larger supplies in the heads of the hive, and in winter it is easier to keep warm in a narrower room. For our cold climate, all the above-mentioned structures were built solidly and warmly. In the much warmer American climate, beehives with a low-wide frame, a single structure, and therefore cheaper, became popular. Supporters of beehive loungers praise them very much.
Dig. 116.
Stanisława Brzóska Street (B).
Taking into account the whole issue of the value of a good cultured hive for progressive beekeeping, we must state that the normal development of the swarm, its vital strength, honey yield, resistance to wintering, a loud, healthy spring flight, the hope for a fruitful summer work, depends to a large extent on the appropriate hive. My experience shows the outstanding goodness of the Warsaw hive and I give it priority in my apiary. I have found out that in our climatic conditions, rational, systematic and purposeful work in the apiary can be carried out completely in the Warsaw hive and gives very good results.
Of course, apart from the hive, the whole success of beekeeping consists of learning, learning and more learning - about bees, about their nature, life, customs and customs, as well as serious personal experience of bee keeping.
**** TABLES *****
CHAPTER II.
Beekeeping utensils and tools.
1. Honey extractor. It is an essential piece of equipment in a progressive apiary.
Forethought requires a good beekeeper, as it does any wise farmer, to have a place prepared for harvesting. In our case, it will be about properly prepared honeycombs. Honey is the most important product of the apiary. As for the wax, we know that only in the best conditions of light and heat, bees sweat it out on their own and build cells themselves - vessels for honey. It takes 12 pounds of honey to produce a pound of wax, not counting the time lost. Therefore, if the extraction of earwax falls during the busy season, the beekeeper loses not only on the honey converted into wax, but even more on the fact that instead of providing the bees with ready-made vessels in which to store the honey while it flows abundantly, he employs them in the hive.
Dig. 117.
Four-comb honey extractor.
Practice confirms the truth of this remark. If a beekeeper keeping logs gets 8 kg from a log, a progressive beekeeper will take at least 45-50 kg. In my apiary in 1919, among others, I had one log lying around that I needed for observation. There was 2 kg of honey to take from it. After the bees were moved in the fall to the ready supplies, there were still about 8 kg left in it. Meanwhile, I took 73 kg from the best box hive that year, but also left about 15 kg for the winter. In the first case, the total harvest of the trunk was 10 kg, in the second case - 88 kg.
An unprogressive beekeeper, who manages the beekeeping as he did in the times of King Ćwieczek, will certainly think that I must "know how to pray well" if I achieved such incomprehensible results. Yes, but this "pacierz" is a good book, which collects the proven experiences of learned beekeepers and people who think and love bees.
Dig. 118.
Gear for a honey extractor (photo: own).
We owe the invention of the honey extractor, i.e. a machine on which honey is extracted without damaging the combs in order to return the ready earwax to the bees, to a Czech, Major Hruszka.
Dig. 119.
Manual single-comb honey extractor (TPO).
The operation of a honey extractor is based on exploitation. centrifugal force. The combs are placed in a spinning wheel and rested against the mesh to prevent them from breaking. When rotated quickly, the honey will be thrown out from the cells facing outwards. To prevent the honey from splashing uselessly, the honeycomb with the combs is placed in a tin or wooden barrel. Honey spilling from the cells onto the walls of the vessel flows to the bottom and is strained through a strainer, through the hole into a bucket, and in the case of a good beekeeper, into a bucket. Honey extractor in the apiary - necessary. You can buy it, make the hatch yourself, having first learned about it from a neighbor, or in a beekeeping supplies store.
Shaking honey on a honey extractor is done as follows:
Usually, the combs are covered with wax, so in order to empty them of honey, they need to be uncapped (Fig. 121), i.e. cut off the tops of the cells together with the wax covering them; this is done with a crooked beekeeping knife. This knife should be well sharpened so as not to break the cells and cleaned from time to time to remove any honey or wax adhering to it. It can be cleaned using the edge of the vessel, or better yet, with a stick placed on the vessel.
Dig. 120.
Beekeeping knife.
Place the sewn combs into the honey extractor, making sure that they are of equal weight opposite each other to avoid shocks and damage to the honey extractor device. We start the rotation slowly, and then, accelerating our pace, we clean one side. After shaking out the honey from one side of the combs, turn them over to the other side. Older combs can be curled quickly so that after the first insertion, the honey will completely flow out of the cells facing outwards. Fresh patches should be handled much more carefully. Turn the first side a little longer - slowly, then turn it over, completely unscrew the honey from the opposite side and return to the first side again to remove the honey completely.
Dig. 121.
Uncapping (unstitching) a comb with a beekeeping knife (photo: own).
Reddened combs, especially those with uncovered brood, should not be used for honey extracting. Slices covered with bee bread are also not suitable, especially if they are freshly made, as they are very heavy. We pay more attention to new patches, handling them carefully, as well as the top ones, because they are not red and heavy due to their thickness.
Young honey, i.e. unsewn honey, flows most easily from the cells in hot weather; much harder when it's cold. Crumbly honey in combs cannot be shaken out in a honey extractor, honey produced in a completely straw hive is also very difficult to extract from combs, it is ductile, too dry or comes from heather.
If it is difficult to cut open honeycombs, it is a good idea to dip the knife in hot water from time to time.
You must have an appropriate vessel to assemble the jar. Honey leaking from the store can be easily separated from the wax using a strainer placed in a vessel. The rest of the honey is separated by heating the lidded honey in a warm stove. Then the honey will sink to the bottom and the wax, being lighter, will be on top. If the seal was taken only from new slices and not mixed with old brown lids, it is the best material for making artificial knots for sectional frames.
If for any reason, even from dipping a knife, there is a lot of water in the honey, do not mix it with other water-free honey, because when diluted it is easily fermented. It goes without saying that you should not add any honey coatings, so as not to lose the storage stability, acidification, and spoil the taste and, therefore, the price of the honey. Such honey can only be used for various preserves. In general, the honey of a beekeeper who respects his opinion should not be like the milk in cities - baptized, "straight from the cow".
2. Protective net. There are beekeepers so concerned with bees that they only use nets in exceptional cases. Basically, everyone needs it, especially when the body swells and is not yet accustomed to the venom of bee stings. The net is most needed during honey harvesting. The most suitable material for the mesh is black gauze, but you can also use tulle. The color of the material should be black so that it does not irritate the eyes and does not interfere with viewing. A bag without a bottom is sewn from an elbow of gauze (60 cm), with an elastic band threaded to the hem at one end so that it can fit tightly to the head of the hat above the brim; the seam turns backwards so as not to bother the eyes, and is not sewn to the end for a space of 19 cm. A hat fitted with this net and placed on the head will sufficiently protect the face and neck, especially when the lower, unsewn end of the net is placed behind the clothes; not sewing the mesh on the back will make it easier to wrap ourselves more precisely. To protect yourself against gusts of wind, which, by moving the folds of the mesh, damage your eyesight and create the risk of being attacked by the mesh when it sticks to your face, make a wire ring slightly smaller than the brim of the hat, place it under the mesh before putting the hat on your head, and This covering is placed in a semi-inclined position. After placing the net behind the collar, we lean back, the wedding ring falls with its own weight below the chin onto the net and thus, creating a barrel-shaped interior, eliminates the mentioned dangers. The ends of the wire should be wrapped once with a thick black cotton thread so that the sharp edges do not damage the gauze. You can also use nets of other systems, which the reader could see in the drawings illustrating various beekeeping activities. The more sensitive ones use weapons as in Fig. 122.
Dig. 122.
Armed beekeeper (TPO).
3. Gloves. Do not use woolen, leather or rubber gloves, as they irritate the bees and do not provide sufficient protection against stings. If you want to protect your hands, you can sew loose mittens from a piece of soft cloth, tied with a string on the sleeves. It would seem that such gloves would be very uncomfortable, but in practice, with a little practice, they are irreplaceable for those whose hands swell greatly - they partially protect against stings and completely protect against bees getting into the sleeves. If we do not use such gloves, it is a good idea to secure the sleeves with rubber garters (Fig. 6 and 122).
4. Kurzysko. Indispensable equipment in the apiary. It should be arranged in such a way that it can be used at any time while working, so that it does not go out and that the smoke can be directed to the appropriate place (Fig. 123 and 124).
Dig. 123.
Kurzysko (Italian).
Dig. 124.
Bingham's hen.
The vacuum cleaner is filled with rot, or rather, decayed wood from coniferous trees, but it is much better to use deciduous wood such as willow or poplar.
5. Other equipment. To sweep the tree trunks, you need a brush (Fig. 125). It is an elongated piece of steel sheet, placed in the center on a thick wire with a handle at the end. It is used to scoop out garbage from under the socket into the dustpan or into any box.
Dig. 125. Kitten.
It is also good to have a short scraper (Fig. 126) for cleaning putty from walls or frames.
To extract honey, you need a crooked knife (Fig. 120). It is also used for many other activities in the apiary. It can be made from an old scythe, with a blade like an ordinary knife, preferably double-edged. To prevent the shaft from spoiling the earwax, it should be broken right at the base.
Dig. 126. Scraper.
For straight trunks and branches, you need a cutter (Fig. 129), which is a thick wire, about 40 cm long. It has a straight knife blade at one end and a sharp 30 mm long knife at the other end, bent at a right angle. The knife is used to cut the combs from the walls of the hive, and the bend at the other end is used to cut the combs at the desired height. The bent end of the cutter, 5 mm wide so as not to crush the bees, is carefully inserted between the combs and at the desired height, the bend is turned towards the cut comb, leading it evenly towards the wall. In this way, the slice, peeled on both sides and on the top, slides down with its own weight.
Dig. 127.
Tonelli beekeeping knife for larger apiaries, heated during operation by steam flowing from a cauldron heated by a spirit lamp (B).
Dig. 128.
Stapler comb.
Feathers taken from the wings of large birds are needed to sweep bees from the combs. The feather should be thick, with an unabraded end, so that it does not scratch the combs and irritate the bees. Some people use commercially available long-bristle toothbrushes for this purpose (Fig. 130).
Dig. 129. Butcher.
Likewise, it's good to have a wing to sweep away trash and dust. However, this should not be used to catch bees, as it unnecessarily irritates the bees, who waste themselves by stinging the wing.
Many activities require a sharp pocket knife.
Root's chisel is an invaluable tool in beekeeping (Fig. 131). It is used to open stuck frames and clean the walls of the hive or frames covered with wax in unnecessary places. It is made of a piece of flat steel. One end resembles a chisel, and the other is angled 5 mm to resemble a hook.
Dig. 130.
Bee sweeping brush.
Dig. 131.
Root chisel at the top, Root chisel operations (TPO) below.
Dig. 132.
Mother's cage (TPO).
Dig. 133.
Cage for covering the mother on the comb (PTO).
Cage for the mother. An indispensable beekeeping accessory. You should have several of these in your apiary and can be made at home at little cost (figs. 132-134). It should be arranged in such a way that it can be easily hung in the hive between frames. It should be quite spacious so that the mother does not get tired in the cramped space and so that, if necessary, a pair of servants can be added to her. Made of a combination of wire mesh and sheet metal on a piece of wood, easy to open. It can be 50 mm long inside and 15 to 18 mm wide. The cage should have protection, covered with a sheet of metal in the third part, so that the mother can hide there from unfriendly bees when we give her to strangers.
Rojnica (Fig. 136), is a very light street with a device for hanging frames. Its width may not be entirely precise, contrary to the necessity in the hive, it may be slightly wider, and the length may be sufficient to accommodate 6 frames. The fixed parts of this box are the two sides, the back and the bottom, while the top and the front wall are retractable. The two sides are connected at the top by a crossbar on which the retractable top moves. The removable front part rests on the slightly protruding bottom and, held by two metal claws, reaches the crossbar at the top and the cap hooks it there. The front is built as a frame, the upper half of which is equipped with a wire mesh, and the lower half is equipped with a slat that slides in the frame, which can be lifted during the swarm settlement and slid onto the mesh. The cap holding the front of the rojnica should be designed in such a way that it can also stop the sliding top. Buckles are attached to the outer sides of the rojnica, with the eyes facing vertically, so that, if necessary, it is possible to thread and tie a string or wire needed for carrying or hanging. The outside bottom should be equipped with two longitudinal parallel sticks so that the placed nest does not overwhelm bees accidentally lying on the ground. The rojnica, also called the śransportówka, is one of the most necessary equipment in the apiary. It is used to collect swarms and transport or move them, even with built-in nests. During beekeeping activities, it is used to temporarily place honeycombs to protect against the intrusion of foreign bees, and frames with brood to provide some protection against gusts of cold wind and colds.
Dig. 134.
Frames 132 and 133 combined (TP O):
Dig. 135.
Vesta cage (TP O).
To collect swarms tied high on a branch, where access to a tree or ladder is impossible, we prepare a bag made of airy, strong material, such as thin linen. One end is slightly wider and has a thick wire ring sewn into the edge. The hoop consists of two semicircular half hoops, fastened together with ends bent into eyelets or loose rivets. Regardless of the connection, at the end of one half-rim we attach a holder for the pole on which the bag will be suspended. There are rings soldered to the outside of the side arches of the rim. We tie a strong thin string to the ring attached to the movable half of the rim, i.e. the one without a frame, and thread it through the other, opposite ring. The end of the string extends to the bottom of the pole. By pulling the string, we close the open bag; and to prevent the hoops from opening too much, a support made of the same wire is attached to the stationary half-rim, holding the movable part in the appropriate measure. The movable part should not be in a straight plane, but slightly raised, so that when the string is pulled, it provides less resistance when closing. This bag is to be unsewn at the bottom, but tied with the ends of the string sewn to it, so that the collected bees can be poured into the designated hive without opening the ring after untying the string (Fig. 137). Some people, instead of such a bag, use a light straw basket, which is mounted on a rod passed through the basket, and the ends of the rod are covered with metal clasps, which cover the basket and connect under its center. The joined ends of the claws are designed in the form of a frame for mounting the pole in it. Such a basket is less convenient because it does not have a cover and allows the bees to scatter.
Dig. 136.
Rojnica (B).
Dig. 137.
Swarm bag (p/g Ciesielski).
The scoop (Fig. 138) is used to remove bees from the hives. It is made of thin sheet metal, bent semicircularly at one end and with an edge at the other. The first one is for round hives, and the second one is for demountable hives. It is mounted on a sheet metal shaft that moves loosely in the plates soldered across the bottom so that one end can be used at a time and the other end can be used.
Dig. 138. Dipper.
A long-reaching hand sprinkler is needed to stop escaping swarms and to fill the herbs with honey or syrup when, due to the cold, the bees cannot take food from the trough.
It is good to have a handy trestle for hanging frames, called a bollard, for activities in the apiary during the holidays. It can be an ordinary extension, equipped with legs so high that the nest frames suspended in it do not reach the ground. The legs must be connected at the bottom with slats to strengthen the stand thus created. To make the flip less tippy, you should equip it with legs that are slightly extended downwards.
6. Solar melter. Knowing that wax costs dearly, almost twelve times as much as honey, the beekeeper collects the smallest crumbs. During summer works, there will be something in each trunk that needs to be repaired or removed, which sometimes accumulates kilograms of wax in larger apiaries. I'm only talking about crumbs, because larger pieces of old earwax, or the contents of entire frames, deleted due to old age or other deficiencies, are best immediately melted in hot water and squeezed out. It is best to melt particles or beginning slices in a box prepared for melting wax in the sun (Fig. 139).
Dig. 139.
Solar melter (photo: own).
The melter, or smelter, is made of planks. The top is inclined towards the sun, and the interior is covered with sheet metal. The 1.5 cm thick bottom measures 65 by 50 cm. The back wall is 65 cm long and 33 cm wide, and adjacent to it are two slanted sides, 50 cm long, 33 cm high on one edge and 4 cm high on the other. Front wall 65 cm by 4 cm.
The cover is a glass frame with an area of 67 cm by 58.5 cm. The frame is made of slats 2.5 cm thick and 3.5 cm wide. The cap is attached to the rear wall on hinges. The lid is 1 cm larger than the box. The edges of the box fit tightly to the lid, and in case of wincing, they are covered with cloth selvedges. These serve to retain heat and keep pests out. The bottom must be nailed to the box from the bottom.
The second bottom, slanted inside, measures 59 cm by 39 cm, is made of slats, rests on diagonally nailed slats and is covered with English sheet metal. The size of the sheet in all directions should be 2 cm larger, i.e. 6 l cm per 4 l cm. Three edges of the sheet are bent up 1 cm on the sides and back, while the fourth one at the front is bent down to create a slope. The surface of the attached sheet metal is 12 cm at the back and 8 cm at the front from the bottom of the box. The slope is created as a necessary slope for the melting wax and should not be too large, because the wax would flow down with dirt, or too small, because it would stop on the surface and lose its value due to being soaked with dirt.
Inside the melter, along the inserted bottom, there is 5 cm of free space between the front wall and the lower edge of the inner bottom, covered with sheet metal. There is placed a tin box 59 cm long, 5 cm deep and 7 cm wide. It is slightly wider at the top for easier removal of the hardened wax. To make it easier to separate the wax from the walls of the box, the inside should be greased.
To make it easier to melt the herb, it is not placed directly on the baking sheet, but on a suitable, slightly smaller metal mesh with eyes. kami 1 to 1.5 mm, covering 2/3; sheet metal parts, dimensions 59 by 28 cm. The net is attached to a strip of sheet metal, supported on metal legs, and for strength, it has two metal slats crosswise underneath that do not touch the bottom.
Dig. 140.
A trough for dipping strips of dried herbs - beginnings, glued to frames (PTO) in melted wax.
The melter is exposed to the sun and rotated gradually so that the rays fall directly. You should protect yourself from ants by rubbing the legs of the table on which it will be placed with chalk, or by placing them in canned boxes filled with water. In this way, several blocks of wax will be melted, which remains liquid during exposure to the sun and can be cleaned properly. When one vessel is full, we open the glass lid and carefully move it under the movable bottom, and put in another spare one. You can have up to five molds and boxes, as this is how many of them will fit inside the melter.
At the same time, such a smelter can be used to melt honey from young crowbar combs from beehives or from cutting bees. To protect the glass from breaking when the melter is idle, and at the same time to increase the light and heat while using it, you can add a blind cover with hinges, covered with a shiny sheet of metal on the glass side. The open lid will serve as a reflector, casting rays into the box.
Dig. 141.
Henda hive horizontally brave (photo: own).
CHAPTER III
Observations and notes.
We know well that the life of bees, and therefore the development of beekeeping, depends on favorable natural conditions. Therefore, it would be very desirable if we could become privy to the above. It would then be necessary to draw conclusions as to how the trunk bears fruit under given meteorological conditions; what can we do when weighing the street? Since the development of our apiary is influenced not only by external factors, beyond our control, but also by our activities, which are more or less successful and sometimes erroneous, they should be recorded separately for individual trunks, with the condition of these trunks visible. This will give us an immediate picture of the value of the apiary and a test of our knowledge about it.
Therefore, weighing of the experimental trunk, meteorological observations and recording of beekeeping activities are necessary.
Our old Lubieniecki (1859) roughly noticed that some meteorological factors influence everything positively or negatively. He stated that significant relative humidity (muggy), frequent thunder, high cloud cover (Cirro-Stratus form - feathery and layered), - these are the factors most favorable for plants to secrete nectar and honeydew, on the contrary - northern and eastern winds "bring a completely only the lack of honey, like constant rain, then cold, rain, finally the time after the great storm and thunder - it will all stop completely. Poor harvest comes in times of great drought. Dr. Ciesielski, when describing a place convenient for an apiary, says to avoid local cold winds and choose warm ones that occur on quiet May evenings.
These are rough observations without any measure, weight or ratio of one meteorological factor to another. We cannot end with these observations. Moreover, such observations, made individually, in the past or now, not systematically, without a plan, will not provide a whole and it would be difficult to rely on them to draw permanent - practical conclusions. Therefore, observations should be carried out according to a pre-defined plan.
Natural sciences: organic chemistry, physics, physiology, biology, zoology, botany - these are the sciences most useful for beekeeping. They explain and complement many phenomena in beekeeping. Moreover, meteorology - the observation of factors of light, heat, air and moisture, which make all creatures on Earth so dependent on each other, is a very, very important factor for running an apiary and fruitful work in it.
We know, for example, that flowering plants secrete nectar only at temperatures of 17°C and above, we know that in addition to heat, moisture is needed in the ground and in the air, but today we cannot say what the actual ratio of influences of one to the other in terms of nectar secretion is. This is a simple example - all factors taken together give a lot of combinations, and when compared to the effects that the trunk shows on a scale, they give facts.
A beekeeper who conducts meteorological observations, if he wants to use them properly, can not only benefit himself in agriculture, but will even bring benefits to you in aviation and many other fields.
Meteorology combined with soil science will help determine the conditions of growth and strong flowering of melliferous plants, as well as the acceleration or delay of flowering, so hitting periods more or less convenient for bees depending on the semi-monthly recurrences of cold and heat, and then determining the optimum growth and flowering. and honey yield of plants. These three factors - predicting the harvest, determining its intensity in given conditions, in given areas or sections of the area, and therefore indicating the most convenient places for apiaries. Today, all we know is that, given the prevailing winds, only half. nocturnal, it occurs only in sheltered valleys.
The most immediate benefit of meteorology for the beekeeper conducting observations is predicting the weather, so he can plan apiary activities for a certain distance.
Not everyone will be able to afford the cost of setting up a full weather station, but if they are willing, they can set it up at a lower cost, or if they have a well-maintained station nearby, they can compare the results of their apiary research with the station's quotations.
Moreover, to conduct approximate, relatively accurate observations, much cheaper and easier-to-use tools can be used. So instead of a mercury barometer - an aneroid, instead of an aspiration device and the Jelinek table - a hair hygrometer, instead of an anemometer - a flag on the roof. Wind speed can be determined according to the Beaufort scale; It is easy to rent a rain gauge at the National Meteorological Institute, and you also need to buy two accurate thermometers, one of which is to observe the temperature in the shade and the other in the sun.
The reader who wants to become familiar with the methods of observation can find them in the Instructions for Meteorological Stations of the Polish Network, ed. Min. Agricultural. No. 10.
On this occasion, I consider it necessary to draw the attention of beekeepers to record their observations using international symbols.
Now briefly about some of the sections of the table below and how to take notes.
Meteorological observations are recorded three times a day: at 7 a.m., 1 p.m. and 9 p.m., according to local time.
Box 15—cloud cover—is recorded with numbers 0-10, 0 means no clouds, and 10 means the sky is completely covered. If the sun is shining during the observation, the sign O is noted next to the appropriate number. Section 17 - quality and duration of precipitation - in addition to rain, dew, croup, hail and other phenomena, such as storm, lightning, winds and wreaths around the sun and moon using the following characters:
rain snow hail croup ice rain ice needles frost soot black ice dew fog total fog lower fog dry
storm close storm distant (thunders distant) lightning without thunder rainbow ring around the sun ring around the moon wreath around the sun wreath around the moon snow blowing northern lights wind from 15 bowls. snow cover, sun during observation time
In columns 18, 19, 20, the indications of the scale on which we hold the street are recorded. The 18th column indicates the weight of the trunk at the time of recording, in the next one we write how much has increased since the last weighing, and in the 20th column, how much has decreased.
Box 21 is used to record the general addition or loss in the trunk, starting from the 1st of a given month. Box 22 is used for various annotations, as well as for accidental changes in the hive due to adding or removing frames, feeding the bees, or - vice versa - taking away honey.
For example, here is the following. standard form:
METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS AS APPLIED TO BEEKEEPING
with observations of the second decade of July 1925 regarding meteorological stations. 2nd order.
**** TABLES ****
NOTE: Quotations in column S are written strictly in line with the thermometer readings. I do not take into account the corrections indicated in the "Instructions", because I am not aware of the reason why t0 on a wet-bulb thermometer is sometimes higher. Perhaps the culprit is the design of the "English cage" - inappropriate for our climate, perhaps the temperature of the water in the vessel did not have time to cool down in relation to the sudden drop in the surrounding temperature. air.
Three such forms are needed per month.
I would like to draw the reader's attention to the fact that these quotations, as well as the graph in Fig. 143 took place in a year that was extremely unfavorable for beekeeping and was called a disaster in professional journals.
Weighing the hive is very important for rational management of the apiary. An appropriately constructed scale is used for this purpose, unfortunately at the moment it is a foreign product (Fig. 142).
The trunk intended for weight should be normal, so neither too weak nor too strong, and the hive should be the lightest. A hive placed on a scale should not be exposed to direct influence of moisture, and therefore it should be covered with a fairly wide separate roof.
Weighing can start from April 1st. Some people weigh once a day. This will give you an idea of how much weight you gained or lost on a given day. When making meteorological observations, the weight of the hive should be recorded simultaneously with the observations. It is a good idea to weigh the first time in the morning every few days, when the bees are still at home. Weighing in the morning will give you an idea of the rate of nectar evaporation at night, which is very desirable during the harvest. Such observations can be recorded in box 18. Weighing in the morning and at noon will, on the one hand, allow you to observe the gradual arrival of honey and, on the other hand, provide an estimate of the number of bees in the field.
Dig. 142.
Weight for the hive (photo: own).
If we undertake any action in a hive that is standing on a scale, we should weigh the hive first and then note the difference in the notes.
For quicker orientation, recording observations above the hive on the scale can be transferred from the boxes to graphed paper; there will be daily spaces between the vertical lines at the bottom, and each square towards the top may indicate a weight of 200 grams. By drawing a line between fluctuations, we obtain a graph of fluctuations for a given time. (Fig. 143). When it comes to meteorological records, we make the graphic charts a bit wider, giving three boxes for each day, and above the graphics we provide charts of the lowest, highest and average temperature. We draw the middle one with the thickest ruler, the lowest one with a broken line, the highest one with a thin ruler. Temperature observations are plotted on top of each other - they have a common starting point on the same thermometric scale. From where the thermometric graphic begins, each box upwards represents 0.2" of temperature. Lower down, under the scale graphic, there is a new graph of barometer fluctuations, then a new graph for relative humidity, in the lowest, single lines, the following are noted: wind, wind strength, cloud cover, amount of precipitation in millimeters.
Dig. 143.
Graph of the condition of the trunk on the scale in July 1925 (Italian).
During peak times, on a favorable day, it would be a good idea to record all meteorological factors and the weight of the hive at half-hour intervals for a day or two, from early morning until the tree is completely calm. Such observations, when transferred to a chart, can lead to unexpected positive results.
In addition to the observations described above, which give an idea of the conditions for the development of the apiary and the value of the collection, there are also necessary notes taken from individual tree trunks. For this purpose, you need two books: an annual beekeeping book and a notebook for recording current activities.
1. The annual book form contains two lines for each year for each hive, and each hive has its own separate page. Individual items are listed by title.
ANNUAL BOOK FORM. **** TABLES ****
2. Book—the notebook is filled out similarly to the first one, only it is more detailed. Activities and condition are recorded after each trunk inspection. The spring notes of the year book are transferred to a notebook and these serve as a starting point. After the end of the season, the status of the trunk is transferred from the notebook to column II of the annual book. In the notebook, just like in the yearbook, each hive has its own page.
NOTEBOOK FORM.
**** TABLES ****
The observation hive is used to examine the structure of the bee family and, as the name suggests, to observe the work performed by bees in the hive. It is a box glazed on two sides corresponding to the plane of the plaster and containing only one plaster. The space from the glass inside the hive should not exceed 35 mm so that, after inserting the frame, you can observe the bees covering the comb with only one layer. To protect from light, the street is covered with cloth stretched on wires placed horizontally at the top and bottom outside the street.
Dig. 144.
Observation street.
The observation hive should be built in such a way that a normal nest frame can be inserted inside it without any special effort. It is very good to place the window on the window (north side) in the room and lead the outlet under the frame. Let the beekeeper spare no small sum for the pleasure of observing the secrets of the swarm (Fig. 144).
Perhaps not all beekeepers will make meteorological observations, and even fewer will write them down. Let them know, however, that these activities, although theoretical, are very useful for the full success of beekeeping.
CHAPTER IV.
Beekeeping trade and industry.
1. Purchase and transport of bees.
In the past, before a thorough study of the habits and essential needs of bees, there was no way that bees could be traded farther afield, especially since there was no means of transportation and the bees lived in beehives sometimes at a considerable height from the ground. Currently, with caution and skillful packaging and supply, this trade can develop. [The shortage of transport services is a real challenge, as we have already mentioned above. Live bees are treated as an ordinary commodity, non-perishable, and we know how sensitive bees are to even minor disturbances, not to mention confinement and isolation from the world for a longer period of time. The beekeeper must sacrifice himself completely and ride in the wagon with the bees, bearing the burden of the journey.
Another detail, more important than the previous one, is the need to be sure that when purchasing a stump or a queen, or an entire apiary in a remote area, you are purchasing a "premium product" and are not limited to yourself, and therefore also to your surroundings, by a bee plague. We know that there are several malignant diseases, one worse than the other, that we should avoid them with all our might, and yet many beekeepers, wanting to get rid of sick bees, often sell them.
An intelligence service should be organized among beekeepers, which would let them know in beekeeping magazines where and what things worth recommending in the field of beekeeping can be safely purchased. Such service is all the more necessary because the damage extends to all the inhabitants of the country and, if the malicious plague spreads, it reduces the value of the national heritage. The State must be interested in such matters, so it should come to the aid of beekeepers through appropriate legislation. Moreover, district agriculture and beekeeping instructors at local assemblies, district associations of agricultural circles or beekeeping societies should inform wider groups about the state of beekeeping and the emerging diseases in the district, not only through letters, but also through official announcements.
Then, it would be necessary to determine the legal liability of dishonest traders of bees and apiary products and include it in laws. Foreign trade would have to be included in the framework of customs regulations, prohibiting the import of bees from countries where contagious bee diseases occur, especially from the Isle of Wight or from northern Germany along with stone rot, which harms not only bees, but also people.
When transporting longer distances, the value of the trunks always decreases, so you need to carefully check the transport conditions first, otherwise you would receive not bees but hives. Due to these difficulties, both international and domestic trade does not develop properly and is mostly limited to the purchase and sale of mothers of the appropriate breed and culture. We rarely have to transport entire trunks over long distances, because natural swarms or overwintered trunks can be found quite easily everywhere in the immediate vicinity. So instead of losing money on transportation, we gain value when we place or move them to box hives.
We talked about buying bees and the price above. If you want to send swarms over longer distances, by rail, they should be placed on old combs without any supplies, and the bees should be fed with a honey and sugar cake placed in the hive in a way that is most accessible to the bees.
The mothers are transported over longer distances in appropriate cages. It is a box the length of a postcard, 36 mm wide, made of an inch board. The board is drilled with a centribore with a radius of 30 mm, three holes next to each other, not reaching the mouth. These under-drillings create a bottom. All recesses are connected with each other with a hole, selected along the slat in its center with a drill with an intersection of 10 mm, or directly by selecting intervals between the recesses as in Fig. 145. Three boxes created and connected together in one piece of wood constitute a cage. After plugging the right top hole c with a cork, we fill the right cavity 3 with food - honey cake; the remaining two chambers, 1 and 2, will serve as temporary accommodation for the mother and her servants. A wire mesh is attached to the top of the cage, and the queen and bees are let in through the left top hole a, which is then closed with the mesh. A piece of cardboard with the address is nailed to the mesh covering the top of the postcard frame. The bees thus confined would soon suffocate from lack of air; To prevent this, in the part occupied by the bees, on both sides, the cage has small holes made with an awl b. Since there may be a larger number of such cages in the post office and their sides may come into contact with each other, which would prevent the access of air, the outer sides of the cage should be equipped with into the frames, creating a channel for air access.
Dig. 145.
A cage for sending the mother over a longer distance (author's drawing).
Dig. 146.
Transport cage in cross-sections (author's drawing).
The mother intended for transport is given several or a dozen servants, depending on the distance to which the shipment is intended. More bees are needed for the further journey. The time of sending the queens can only be in the warm months, as a few bees will not generate enough heat to clot on the way.
After collecting such a queen, the beekeeper takes out the right top plug and gives the cage to the orphaned trunk. The trunk bees will select the medium and mate according to the queen given to them.
2. How to recognize the adulteration of honey and wax? Honey is sometimes adulterated with various products that negatively affect its nutritional value and, even worse, its health. For adulteration, they use ordinary sugar in the form of syrup, potato flour syrup, starch sugar (invert), beetroot syrup, flour, and even glycerin and molasses from sugar factories.
I am presenting the table of recognition of some honey adulterations, according to Zarin. There is no doubt that honey adulteration has an extremely negative impact on the normal demand and sale of natural and bee honey and undermines the normal honey trade.
**** TABLES ****
3. Wax adulteration. Natural yellow or white wax is sometimes adulterated with: tallow, Japanese vegetable wax, white ceresin, yellow ceresin, paraffin, stearic acid, rosin, flour, heavy spat.
Nowadays, they use adulterated wax with impunity to make church candles. What's more, there are "wax" candles in which there is not even a bit of wax. It is known that counterfeit candles do not burn the entire product and a significant amount settles on the walls in the form of smoke and unburned volatile components that condense and harden. The coating spoils sometimes very valuable paintings.
**** TABLES ****
4. Wax melting. We wrote above about the method of melting wax using sunlight. Now a few words about melting wax in the usual way, on fire.
Deleted combs, which come from collecting honey from logs or baskets, cannot be melted in the sun, if only because it usually happens in a sunny season, anyway. older slices are less suitable for melting in the sun.
The dried herb crumbs are poured into the boiling water and, after dissolving them, they are poured into the bag with the water. The wax should be simmered over low heat so that it does not boil over, and the vessel in which the wax is melted should be kept on low heat so that it does not burn. When the wax breaks down, extinguish it with a few drops of cold water. The wax pressing bag should. be sewn tightly, with double seams, of strong, thin hemp cloth. Some people squeeze the wax in the original way between two oak sticks tied at one end. This job requires three people, because two of them hold the sticks tied and pull them down, and the third one twists and pulls the bag up, while the squeezed wax flows into the soaked tub.
Dig. 147.
Press for pressing wax.
It is better to use wax presses. They are screw, wedge and lever. The first one, built by Root, fired a bolt when the wax in the steam over boiling water melted. It is quite good, but expensive, and what's worse, it's foreign. So better. there will be a home-made wooden screw press shown in Fig. 147, or with wedges, commonly known, used for cheese pressure. In such a press, the bag is placed between boards fastened with fin strips at the back, with longitudinal semi-circular strips at the front, nailed downwards lengthwise, made of hazel split in half. Before putting the bag with melted earwax in, these boards are poured with hot water to warm them up and allow the pomace to remain in a liquid state longer. The wedges should not be too sloping so that they exert more even pressure and do not cause the wax to flow out and prevent the bag from prematurely deteriorating. The pomace taken out from the bag is subjected to this operation a second time until the wax is completely removed, and "then they were of no use except for dressing instead of cataplasms for colics and swellings of the body, in which they are very effective," as Lubieniecki says. Nevertheless, a certain percentage of wax is formed in the pomace, which can be separated by dissolving it in ether. There are plants operating in this industry abroad, but there are no such devices in the country. The same procedure is followed when using a lever press.
Due to the rapid setting, the extruded wax is not completely clean, so it must be clarified. For this purpose, it is kept in a liquid state for a long time in a little water in vessels slightly open towards the top. After standing for a few hours, the wax will harden and the impurities will remain in the water or will stick loosely to the bottom of the disk. It is even better to pour the separated wax carefully, without disturbing the dregs, into appropriate molds of a certain weight, and pour all the grounds to stand again.
The wax should not set too quickly so as not to crack it. Well-melted wax should be light yellow in color.
Good wax can be stored in a dry place for several years without losing any of its properties, except for weight. This loss is generally insignificant.
It sometimes happens that despite the most careful cleaning, the wax turns gray; such should be cleaned by treating it with dilute sulfuric acid. For this purpose, the wax is dissolved in boiling water acidified with the mentioned acid in a weight ratio of 1:100 or 1:200, depending on the degree of contamination of the wax. This work should only be performed on unpainted, enameled vessels, because sulfuric acid, even diluted, has a chemical effect on metal vessels, spoiling them, and also stains the wax in an undesirable color. The wax, boiled with sulfuric acid for an hour, is set aside and should remain liquid undisturbed for at least 12 hours. Then you can treat it as if you simply melted it. The remaining wax will not contain sulfuric acid.
When melting on a fire, be careful not to let the wax boil over and catch fire, as, apart from the losses, it may start a fire. In the event of an accident, do not extinguish the fire on the plate with water, but with sand or ash, and pour a small portion of cold water over the wax burning in the pot, cover it and scatter the fire under the plate.
Another question that needs to be answered is what is the yield of wax from dried herbs intended for pressing? From new, unreddened dried fruit, wax is extracted with very little weight loss; older, brown dried leaves give 2/3 of the wax, while an old, blackened plaster will not give 1/3 of the wax. The weight loss during extrusion can be calculated on average half and half. According to this calculation, old plasters were bought from villages and slightly less than half the price of melted wax was paid.
5. Wax bleaching. Well melted and evenly hardened wax has a uniform color throughout the entire cross-section of the disc or block. However, sometimes you need the natural wax to be pure white in color. We then bleach it, just like canvas, in the sun. So we pour water over the wax shavings, spread them out on the canvas and protect them from being blown away by the wind. The thinner the streams, the greater the sunlight and the more constant the evaporation, the faster the whitening progresses.
Thin shavings are obtained by pouring melted wax along a rotating wooden roller that barely protrudes from the water, or by pouring a thin stream into cold water and brushing off the resulting shavings with a perforated spoon.
The bleaching process, if the tiles are thin enough, takes place during a sunny week.
Slices of artificial snakes intended for sections can also be bleached in the sun by placing them individually on a wet board and pouring water from time to time. Be careful not to move too hot slices before pouring fresh water over them, as the wax, when it melts, becomes brittle and falls apart like groats.
CHAPTER V
Honey and preserves.
Honey serves not only as food, but also as medicine and was and is used to prepare ointments. It can be used with good effect in diseases of the stomach, intestines, heart and respiratory tract. A portion of honey ground with a couple of beaten eggs cures gastritis and intestines, raw honey mixed with half and half butter removes lung congestion and the beginnings of asthma, warm, boiled milk sweetened with honey cures heart neurosis.
There are people who do not like honey, but they can use it sparingly and will not suffer any harm. Honey is a digestible food, leaving no residues, nutritious, and has a positive effect on blood circulation and metabolism. Honey as a medicine was known in ancient times and until recently it served as the only concentrated sweet, so it is widely used in cooking. Finally, honey served our ancestors to cheer up the soul, because it was consumed in large quantities as rich honey, called brewed or drinking. Saturated honey is a cheap and healthy drink, easy to prepare, so it should also appear on our tables today and banish vodka, which Dzierzon calls a "real hell".
For honey to become a drink, it must be fermented with yeast.
Yeasts are plant microorganisms that grow and develop similarly to other microorganisms that we mentioned in "Bees" when writing about foulbrood and nosema.
There are large numbers of microorganisms in the air around us, in water, in the ground and on all objects. Some of them are harmful and pathogenic - these are the bacteria of typhus, smallpox, scarlet fever and other infectious diseases; different, on the contrary, useful. These, whether they loosen the soil, decompose fertilizers, or take nitrogen from the air. Others are either harmful or beneficial depending on the conditions in which they are found. The latter include yeast; harmful to the beekeeper when they multiply in the food intended for bees, useful when it comes to the fermentation of wines and honey.
Yeasts are found in large quantities in nature; they are carried by the wind and settle on all objects.
Yeast does not develop in concentrated sweetness, but in moderate sweetness at temperatures ranging from 6" to 30°C. C., grow and multiply rapidly. Sweetness with less than 11% sugar. it is a good environment for acetic microorganisms, even less good for putrefactive ones.
Yeast, growing in sugar, produces a release of alcohol, while at the same time abundantly releasing a gas called carbonic anhydride. Alcohol is a volatile substance, so it evaporates in air; the liquid, deprived of sugar by yeast and alcohol by air, undergoes acetic fermentation again. Vinegar is also a volatile substance; a liquid deprived of a certain amount of vinegar becomes a place of putrefaction. These three types of microorganisms exclude each other and where one grows, there is no room for the other. Nevertheless, the acetic microorganisms, when present in larger numbers, can overwhelm the yeast and take its place and thrive in conditions suitable for sugar yeast.
Dig. 148.
Pressed yeast (photo: micro: X 270).
Just as pets come in different breeds, yeast also comes in different breeds and cultures, depending on the conditions in which they were raised. So there are brewer's yeast, wine yeast and wild yeast, the last one being the one we have talked about so far. Breeding of purebred yeast is carried out by the Institute of Fermentation Industry in Warsaw, ul. Krakowskie Przedmieście 66.
Saturated honeys are fermented with wild or brewer's yeast, the so-called pressed yeast. Fruit and honey wines are fermented with wild or cultured yeast.
The liquid intended for fermentation should be placed in a vessel devoid of any acid, because then instead of honey or wine we would get vinegar. Finally, the apartment or cellar where fermentation is to take place should not be contaminated with vinegar or acid; Therefore, where we prepare cabbage, cucumbers or store vinegar, we do not place vessels with fermenting wine or honey. Fungus in the premises intended for fermentation negatively affects the taste of the drink.
Yeast, as we already know, produces a lot of fumes (carbon dioxide), harmful to animals and humans. Since these gases are pressurized and can burst a vessel, even the strongest one, the fermenting liquid should not be corked or blocked, but a large opening should be left for the escape of the gases; and to prevent pests or insects from entering, it is covered with thin cloth or a dense wire mesh. Since the gas released during fermentation is deadly to life, and as it is heavier than air, it flows downwards, so we place the vessels a little higher above the ground (not too high) so that it does not negatively affect the fermentation. Premises where large amounts of liquids are fermented cannot be inhabited by people and animals should not be brought there.
If the fermenting liquid is set at a temperature of 6° to 10°C, it will be exposed to the so-called yeast. the lower one, which works slower but produces a greater amount of lift, and at a temperature of 18-20° C, will be processed by the upper yeast; fermentation will then take place faster, but will produce weaker drinks, because these yeasts are less resistant to the effects of the fermentation they produce. The best conditions for yeast development are provided by a temperature of 25° to 30° C. Yeast dies at temperatures above 60° C.
One or another yeast can only produce a certain amount of spore, and once it has produced it, it dies, producing spores. The bodies of the dead yeast are heavier than the liquid, so they sink to the bottom and the liquid that has completed the main fermentation becomes clear.
Dig. 149.
Spigot during use.
The fermentation process, in addition to carbon gas and alcohol, produces residues that are useful or harmful to health. A by-product of liquid yeast fermentation are subtle aromatic substances of primary value, derived partly from the fermentation and partly from the breakdown of the yeast. The mentioned products give special health value to fermented liquids and cannot be replaced artificially, either by mixing known wine ingredients or by counterfeiting. Must only becomes real wine or rich honey when it is fermented with yeast, because there is no way to replace the "leftovers" with an artificial method to create a subtle taste and health value. Other leftovers are called fusel or underdog, they are very harmful to health, cause blindness and harm the liver and kidneys. Fuzel, lighter than the liquid, flows to the top in the form of a glassy coating, and when mixed with the liquid it gives it an unpleasant taste and smell. Vodka fermentation produces the most fusel, and in samogon vodkas it is visible on the surface as fat. During honey and wine fermentation, a very small amount of fusel is produced, and even this can be removed during extraction. The conclusion is that fermented honey products, although they contain alcohol to a greater or lesser extent, are not harmful to health if used sparingly. The tastier and healthier the liquid will be, the less it contains fusel and yeast, so before pouring into bottles it should be completely dry and the siphon should be sunk into the very center of the vessel.
Dig. 150 Removal of fermented and solidified liquid. The second carboy is filled with the liquid intended for fermentation, the third one is filled with the remaining liquid.
After the turbulent fermentation stops, during which the liquid becomes carbonated, quiet fermentation occurs, the yeast falls from the top and the liquid becomes clear. In the case of turbulent fermentation, there should be no more liquid than 3/4 of the vessel, so that it does not boil over, which could clog the rag with yeast and cause the vessel to burst. Moreover, the spilled liquid could cause vinegar fermentation and spoil the work. After turbulent fermentation, you can pour the liquid into another container until it is full (last drawing in Fig. 150).
Liquid poured into other vessels for silent fermentation may remain clogged tightly until it clears completely. When it comes to glass vessels, you need to be very careful because they break easily, so it is better to plug the stopper with a thin glass tube, which with its protruding and bent end will be stuck in water mixed with glycerin. This way we will prevent fresh air from entering and allow gases to escape (Fig. 149).
Download. Fruit wines and lighter honeys undergo fermentation and clarification for half a year, and then they need to be bottled and tightly corked. The vessel in which the liquid was clarified should not be moved or shaken so as not to disturb the yeast and the glassy top coating. We do not pour the liquid, but remove it using a lever. A yellow rubber tube, two meters long, with a glass tube at the end to provide load during immersion can serve as a jack. One end is carefully lowered into the liquid so that it does not reach the yeast, and with the mouth, below the surface of the liquid, we draw air from the other end until the liquid reaches the mouth. Then we squeeze the rubber and insert its end into the bottle, which is also placed below the surface of the liquid being removed. The liquid from the jack tube should not return to the tank, as it would stir up the yeast standing at the bottom, so never raise the end of the jack higher than the surface of the liquid being emptied. To avoid work competitions, try this activity in clean water (Fig. 150).
When the liquid is full, we gradually squeeze the end of the rubber, then, when the honey stops flowing, we move the end of the lever to the next bottle. With proper work, you can remove honey or wine from the largest barrel without disturbing or spilling a single drop. While draining, be careful to move the lever gradually downwards as the liquid disappears, and stop draining when the yeast starts flowing. In this way, we excluded the impurities that settled at the bottom and did not take away the mug floating on the top, because as the liquid decreases, it settles on the walls of the vessel and remains on them.
Just like the fermentation vessel, bottles and corks for storing the clarified liquid should be completely clean and odorless. It is best to use Hungarian wine or cognac barrels for fermentation; they just need to be scalded well. Drawdown bottles should be washed, drained and dried *). Glass carboys should be prepared similarly to bottles. They can be purchased occasionally in various stores, but they will be contaminated with various chemicals, so they can only be used after thorough cleaning and washing. Soaked in water for a long time and kept in the sun, they are cleaned with diced potatoes and a small amount of water. Oily dishes that are too dirty are soaked and washed in a 5% soda solution. Heavily contaminated using hydrochloric acid and then scrubbing with coarse-grained sand (without pebbles) and water.
*) To avoid surprises, it is a good idea to pour honey and wine into sulfurized bottles, which is achieved by filling them with the gas released from the burning sulfur and then rinsing them with boiled water.
Dig. 151.
Draining yeast (photo: own).
The remaining yeast after removing the fermented liquid is poured into one-corner bags and placed on a common pole over a vessel (Fig. 151). Until the pores of the bag are filled with yeast, a cloudy liquid will flow through them, which we immediately pour into the bags; Soon, much cleaner fluid will begin to ooze out. After two days, only the solid yeast will remain and the liquid will drain off. The liquid drained in this way is much worse than one drained without any floaters, but it is still wine or honey, and although it was strained in a cool place, it has lost a lot of alcohol. To avoid it becoming sour when left to stand completely, sweeten it by adding 2 kg of sugar per 25 liters, mix thoroughly and then leave it alone to clarify again.
Water for wine and honey should be soft, from a stream, river or spring. Hard well water contains ingredients that chemically influence the bad taste of processed products. The water should not smell of anything or have any unpleasant taste that would later be present in wine or honey.
If there is a need to leaven the honey with pressed yeast, add 20 grams of yeast per 100 liters, dissolved in a 30-inch pot of boiled but cooled down liquid. In the 20" liquid, the yeast will start producing bubbles, and then we pour them into a container with the liquid intended for fermentation.
Honey saturation. The names of saturated honey are various, and the name itself comes from the saturation of honey with water. It is mead because it is used for drinking, and it is brewed because it was boiled before fermentation.
Honey can be made of various densities. For home use, czwórniak honey is enough: it consists of three parts water and the fourth part honey. Trójniak Christmas honey, good honey, richer, has two parts water and one part honey. Next, dwójniak, half and half with water, and finally one and a half - it has one part honey and half water. The last two honeys are fatty and require a longer time to stand due to their considerable density. A half-and-half may be really good after a dozen or so years, both with a double-sided fruit can be stored for hundreds of years, while a three-sided fruit is ready for consumption after half a year and gains in goodness over the course of several dozen years; it ferments and clarifies quickly, so it is ready for use in a relatively short time.
Pure honey is the healthiest and best, and has healing and refreshing properties when prepared with fruit juices. Often, however, amateurs prepare spiced meads by adding the appropriate amount of hops, cloves, anise, cinnamon, nutmeg or flower, violet root and many others, while mixing the scents in various proportions according to taste.
Honey mixed with fruit juices or poured over berries has the names of gruszniaki, wiszniaki, jałeczniak, followed by dereniaki, agrestniaki, porzeczniaki, etc. Fruit honeys are more expensive because the juice usually replaces a certain amount of water.
All these names, derived from the fat content and type of fruit, create a large list of names, and combinations of names are possible depending on the ratio of additives. Moreover, the very species and origin of the honey intended for processing give the honey its original taste and properties, and hence its taste value; so there can be countless names.
When we decide on a certain density of honey, we spread it in the appropriate proportion with warm water. Pour the filling into the cauldron up to 2/3 of the height - not too full, so as not to overflow during cooking. Just before boiling, we mark the height of the liquid on a paddle, and when it boils, we skim it, collecting the foam with a strainer spoon. The fillet is cooked for three to four hours. During this time, it evaporates significantly, so we compensate for the loss by adding water to the initial quantity. While cooking, be careful not to burn the honey, so stir before boiling. We do not let the fire rise above the cauldron so that the honey does not smoke. Those who process honey in large quantities build cauldrons and arrange the fireplace in such a way that a fire can be lit at any time. If the honey rises too much, you can sprinkle it with cold water.
After brewing, it is removed from the heat and allowed to cool, then poured into a clean vessel. The barrels are placed on trestles half a meter high. We keep Trójniak and Czwórniak honey at a temperature of 18-20”C, fattier honeys can be stored in the cellar. After pouring off the fermented and settled honey, the bottles should be corked tightly with new corks and sealed, and stored in a cool place, inaccessible to frost in winter.
The reader who has carefully read what I have written about yeast and the saturation of honey will certainly make good honey to his own satisfaction and to the delight of his guests.
Finally, about the filling of honey, I quote literally the recipe for Kaunas honey, once so famous, given by Józef Strumiłło. “You take 10 pots of pure white honey, called July. Putting it in the pot, pour 10 pots of soft water into it. Boil the honey and water for 5 minutes to dissolve it. Then, keeping it on moderate heat, when scum appears on the top, collect it until you are full and it stops producing scum. Once the fermented honey is free of scum, pour it into a clean 30-gallon barrel and place it one elbow high above the ground, near the stove, in the room intended for this purpose. Then take 5 pounds of the best English hops and put them with a bag in a separate pot, pour 10 pots of soft water, simmer for 24 hours during brewing. When it boils halfway, add water again and cook until only 5 pots of decoction remain in the pot.
“Pour this hop decoction, while it is still warm, into the barrel containing honey. The next day, pour half a pint of fresh, thick yeast, and if the yeast is used from July honey, the better it is. The room in which the barrel will stand should have a constant temperature of up to 18°C. In such a heated room, July will begin to ferment and therefore the barrel cannot be closed until the honey slowly cools down, i.e. until fermentation takes place. The July barrel should be kept in an insulated room for 10 months. After this time, strain the yeast in the barrel with the yeast through a cloth bag, and if it is not yet clean, strain it a second and third time until it becomes completely clear. Pour the strained liquid into a separate barrel and let it stand for another month. Then, carefully so that the dregs remain at the bottom, bottle the clean July, cork it well and cover it with tar. After removing the sludge (feces), there should be 20 pots of pure drink, which can last for a hundred years or more without spoiling, but the older it is, the better it is. It is therefore not surprising that in Kaunas July was once made this way and a bottle was sold for two ducats. Anyone who would like to have a lighter July, although not as durable, can pour thirty pots of water for 10 pots of honey, in which case a 50-0 pot barrel should be used.
This method is quite cumbersome in its entirety, especially when boiling hops for 24 hours, when it is much more difficult to find workers than before, but it can be used with some simplifications. Instead of straining through bags, the fermented honey should be drained with a siphon, and boiling the hops, if you want to use it, can be combined with boiling the honey by putting the hops in a bag and immersing them in the already dehusked honey.
It is best to weight the bag with hops with a pebble tied on a string to avoid burning it, in case a pebble placed inside the bag drags it to the bottom. The pebble should be slightly indented so that the string around it does not touch the bottom of the vessel.
If we intend to drink honey not from pure honey, but from honey rinsed from the combs, so we do not have a measure of the sweetness contained in the water, we use a device called a sugar meter, which determines the percentage of sugar content. Instead of using a sugar meter, you can do the test at home: a freshly laid egg is immersed in a liquid with a temperature of 149C, and it will float to the surface in a lying position in the dwójniak; the emerged egg ellipse will be 4 cm long and 3 cm wide, in the Trójniak it will be almost vertical and will give a circle of 3X2.5 cm, in the Czwórniak it will give a circle of 1.5 cm in diameter. The less honey there is in the liquid, the deeper the egg sinks at the same temperature.
Fruit and honey wines are much better and cheaper than honey. They differ from saturated honeys in that they are used either unboiled or only boiled. Wines made with boiled honey have a milder taste and are devoid of raw ingredients. All types of our fruit can be used to make wines, but the best wines are made from berries: currants, raspberries, amberberries, blueberries (blackberries), wild strawberries, gooseberries, cherries and plums. Apples, most useful for wine, are sour and winey. Pears are the least suitable material for wine because they have "too much sweetness and too little fruit acid." A smaller fruit is better than a larger one.
The fruit used for fabrication should be ripe but not overripe. The signs of ripening are that it acquires its own aroma, the sweetness is somewhat astringent and the acid is not too strong. We do not use overripe fruit in wines, so we use excessively dark raspberries, apples and pears. We completely exclude muddy, buttery and spoiled fruit from the production of wines. Bruised fruit can be used provided that it is used immediately after the damage.
In other countries, they make wine from pure grape juice; these have balanced amounts of sugar and acid, so there is no need to add or dilute these ingredients, and in our climate, fruits have little sweetness and too much acid. To make up for the deficiencies and give the required ratio, the acid must be diluted with water and the too small amount of sugar should be supplemented with honey. Fruit wines produced in our country are not only inferior to foreign ones, but are much better and healthier, especially since foreign brands, being more expensive, are often counterfeited, which is never good for consumers' health. Meanwhile, wines prepared at home are cheering and healthy. When we consume wine, we introduce refreshing fruit acids into our body. Blueberry wine is superior to all French red wines, currant wine is superior to Hungarian wines, and wine made from white greengages is more beautiful than gold.
If you take the precautions described during fermentation, fruit and honey wines are always successful, as long as they are made according to the recipe and the recommended proportions. The proportion takes into account two needs, as we have discussed: on the one hand, it dilutes too concentrated acid, and on the other, it adds the necessary amount of sugar.
There are dry wines - sour and sweet. In the former, there is a sufficient amount of honey to make the wine mature and tasty, in the latter, the sweetness is in excess, it does not undergo any fermentation and, remaining in the wine, it makes it sweeter and milder. Therefore, if someone wants to exceed the given proportion, he or she cannot reduce the amount of juice or water, but can only add sweetness.
Proportion: for 2 measures of sour fruit juice, add 3 measures of honey and 8 measures of water. For sweet fruits, the amount of honey is reduced, so instead of 3 measures, you can use 2.5 measures. Sour fruits include currants, raspberries, blackberries, barberries, dogwoods, cherries, apples, plums; sweet: gooseberries, cherries, wild strawberries, blackberries, pears, sweet pears.
Juicing fruit is quite easy. In small quantities, it is done by hand in a clean linen rag; hands must also be washed well. Before squeezing, apples should be grated. There is no need to remove the pits before squeezing cherries and plums. When producing wine on a larger scale, they use appropriate presses.
Juice squeezed from fruit should not be left for longer than a few hours, as it could cause improper fermentation; If we don't have everything at hand, such as dishes or boiled water in the required quantity, we can mix the juice with honey in the right proportion (2: 3), such a mixture may remain harmless for a long time. For wine, use boiled, slightly cooled water.
When pouring must, fruit juice mixed with honey, into vessels for fermentation, we mix them in small portions, but thoroughly so that the sweetness dissolves in the entire liquid.
If we want to rinse the pomace with water to use the remaining residues, we can pour it, process it and squeeze it, but these rinses should be considered water, not juice.
Instead of honey, you can use sugar, or both to some extent, then a kilogram of sugar replaces a liter of honey. After all, wines made with just honey are better.
Instead of one juice, you can use several different types of fruit, which will benefit the wine, but in practice this is not always successful because the desired fruit does not ripen at the same time. Here you can use juice mixed with honey and wait for the difference in the ripening time of the fruit.
We do not add pressed yeast to wine because it is abundant in the juice, grated from fruit skins; therefore it is desirable that the fruit intended for wine should be harvested after a few sunny days, as the rain washes away the yeast; anyway, dry fruit is better.
If we intend to season the wine with cultured yeast, we multiply the acquired culture in 1 liter of boiled and cooled must and this amount is enough to season 50 liters of liquid. The reader will learn more about the propagation of yeast cultures when purchasing them. Some fruits produce juice containing too little nitrogen and phosphorus for the normal development of yeast, such as some species of apples and pears, blueberries (blueberries) and raspberries, so this deficiency should be supplemented by adding ammonium salts. The best solution for this is ammonium phosphate (NH;); PO,, or (NH,)HPO;. This salt should be added to 50 grams per 100 liters of liquid (must) intended for fermentation.
It's strange how foreign wines from grapes have killed our desire to make fruit and honey wines. Yet wine with a foreign label often does not have a single drop of wine must.
For the purposes of industry and national trade, it is worth beekeepers paying more attention to the production of wines and mead.
CHAPTER VI
Honey beekeeping experiences.
The beekeeper's research mind has a thousand opportunities to conduct systematic experiments in his living laboratory, which is the apiary. Of course, this research will primarily cover the field of bees' customs and customs, and can be conducted in the manner of "The Wonders of Instinct" by the immortal French country teacher H. Fabre, or the famous "The Life of Bees" by M. Maeterlinck.
Chapter VI of the technical part, the last chapter of my "Work in the apiary", is devoted to discussing several experiences and wonders in my apiary, thus opening a field grateful for the research work of other beekeepers in the Republic of Poland.
Bearing in mind the laws governing bees, presented from a theoretical point of view in "Bees", and from a practical point of view in this work, we can put bees to work for experimental purposes, assumed and defined by us in advance. This will be done by exploiting the bees' natural drives, provided that the experimental idea will be designed in such a way that it will give the bees the illusion of full naturalness.
By doing this, I managed to produce "cylinders" of sewn honey, combs of extraordinary thickness, weighing up to 16 kg, combs with unexpected shapes and surfaces - bas-reliefs, castle ruins, initials.
I am not saying that such "arts" are easy to perform and that the treatments are financially profitable. On the contrary, you sometimes have to spend a lot of effort and effort to achieve your goal. The real goal of these experimental works is only to be able to determine something. principle theoretically known to us, establishing exceptions and deviations. or conditions for exceeding its limits.
It is difficult to encourage beginner beekeepers who do not have a good understanding of beekeeping as a whole and do not have the research skills to make such efforts.
Dig. 152.
Rolls of sewn honey.
For example, a few experiments I have made are given below.
Cylinders (Fig. 153) are two cylindrical slices standing on a common board. Doubled, they can be the core of a column. These rollers were produced in the top of a Warsaw hive and are approximately 15 cm high. The whole thing has the interesting color of a freshly peeled orange. The attached drawings show how to do this job.
The core of these cylindrical patches are appropriately cut pieces of artificial cerumen, bleached in the sun. The heated hose is rolled into a tube and the end of the tube is attached from the outside and inside to a slat, dripping from a lit wax candle (Fig. 153). The cylinder of artificial hose is tightened with a thread. The bees themselves will glue the edges and remove the thread. The freely positioned rollers would finish off the bees at will, giving them a random form; To avoid this and force them to turn, they should be limited externally by an appropriate cross-section and length of zinc sheet pipes. The constraints force the bees to build the circumference of the cylinders evenly. The very center of each roller is equipped with a round stick inserted vertically into the hole in the slat. The board on which the rollers are placed is the length of the upper bar of the frame in a Warsaw hive, of any width, but it is best when it takes up little space, e.g. about 12.2 cm, which is equal to the width of one and a half of the top frame. Each of the restrictive pipes is attached using wires threaded through holes in the sides of the sheet and plank.
We hang the cylinders limited by the sheet metal in an extension above the nest so that they do not reach the surface of the nest frames. Later, after the bees have finished the cylindrical combs, we will cut them off the surface of the nest frames with a beekeeping knife. The rest of the space in the extension is filled with ordinary storage frames.
Dig. 153.
Method of gluing artificial hose.
The bees take out, pour honey and cover the cells closest to the nests in the super, and only gradually move upwards. They will do the same with the given cylinders, but they will shrink a little. The rollers must stay in the extension much longer than ordinary frames and they should be removed when we are absolutely sure that they are tightly covered up to the base. It will take approximately two periods of covering the frames above the stakes. However, the removal should not be delayed too much, because if we took away the cylinders only after they had finished collecting, the bees, unsatisfied with honey, would spoil the lids and the comb and make them cry. You should avoid damaging the rollers at all, because they hang in the hive and will be upside down when removed. Before removing the cylinders after cutting them with a knife, you should wait a few moments, 10-15 minutes, so that the bees can suck the honey from the damaged cells. First, we carefully knock out the sticks placed in the holes in the plank, and then lift the cylinders up. The reversal of the rollers should be quick and neat, with a sudden movement that removes the slat downwards so that the rollers remain horizontal for as short a time as possible. When turning, the center of gravity should be not on the board and the base of the rollers, but on their center. Then we remove the wire, remove the tin pipes without damaging the surface, and expel the bees with smoke. The remaining bees inside the cylinders are expelled by blowing smoke into the holes left by the middle sticks. The finished rollers together with the board weigh 3 kg.
Dig. 154.
Warsaw extension frame with zinc sheet pipes serving to limit the space for the rollers (photo: own).
This experiment clearly proves that bees, to a certain extent, can be guided and bent to the beekeeper's will, and it also confirms the principle that bees build their interiors with great precision, and we also have an example of the extent to which combs can be wavy, and finally, that bees adapt perfectly to the conditions artificially imposed by the working area, because the outer cells of the cylinder will be widened towards the radius of the circle, while the central ones will gradually narrow (Fig. 155).
Another principle is stated in the second experiment - a portrait or landscape made in relief by bees. It may even be a view of your own apiary.
It is known that when bees pour honey into combs, they pull out the honey cells to the limit, leaving a tight passage between the sewn-up combs, 6 mm wide. And what is characteristic, slices built next to each other will have curvatures that closely match each other. So if we place a concave form, e.g. a bas-relief, in front of a comb, the bees will distort it convexly, corresponding to the recesses of the pattern, and the bas-relief will be quite accurate, although a bit rough. For the job to be successful, you need to create a concave form with lines that are not very broken and gentle, so as not to force the bees to make more protruding edges, which they will do in order to secure the structure. The concave form should also not exceed a certain depth in the most prominent places of the future relief, namely the deepest place should not exceed 25 mm, counting from the center of the nodes. Otherwise, the bees will remove additional combs in these cavities, which are naturally undesirable for us.
Dig. 155.
Horizontal section of round patches (fig. incl.).
However, if we wanted to have a more prominent relief, we would have to make a larger recess and divide the work into parts. Such a recess should be made in series, creating two-centimeter thick planes. A negative form of bas-relief arranged in this way would consist of several juxtaposed parts which, when put together, would create a whole image. When giving them to the bees, you should first give them to the first part of the cavity, with its opening blocked off with a board. If the ends of some concave details fell in the plane of this part, appropriately cast distortions would have to be glued to the limiting board. After finishing the first series, you can add the next one; if the bees in the places subject to further drawing clog the cells, they would have to be sewn open.
Dig. 156.
Ruins of the Chęciny Castle taken in 1922 (photo: own).
By adding some of the cavities in the deeper relief, the reader will guess what principle this should be done in the name of, namely, the bees do not know the depth of the filled cell and drag it to the opposite obstacle, unless it is so distant that it would be possible to build a new one. plaster.
When making a bas-relief, you should pay attention to one detail: bees pour mitres into the cells if they are so shallow that their tongue can reach the bottom; so if the cell is shallower than 5 mm, it is insecure in the suture. The conclusion is that the most prominent details of the concave form should not be placed closer to the artificial wax patch as per I0 mm, half of which is taken into account for the space for the bees to pass through, and the rest for the cells.
The task is quite difficult because we have to take into account the second property of bees that may bother us a bit: attaching the surface of the combs to the edge opposite the comb. If they did this, they would not only distort the surface we wanted, but we would also split some cells by blindly tearing the cavity apart. However, you need to know that they do not always do this reinforcement in the same places, so they can sometimes skip it. If you encounter undesirable work, it should be removed radically, so after removing the unnecessary structure, the place where it was added should be cleaned of wax without leaving a trace. Typically the bees will not persist in this area.
Dig. 157.
In harassment - negative of Słowacki's portrait (photo: own).
The concave mold can be cast in plaster from the model directly into the mustache frame; We will later hang it opposite the frame, which is supposed to be a bas-relief. Plaster fed to the hive must be completely dry, odorless, and coated with thick varnish so that it is not chipped by bees. Instead of a concave mold cast in plaster, it is better to use a properly forged zinc sheet.
Thick plaster. By applying the principle we have just guessed about the bees not being aware of the depth of the cells poured with honey, the bees can be directed to build very deep cells. In this way, you can achieve a patch that is ten times thick. Experience has proven the principle and shown that it is possible without extraordinary effort, it is only necessary to gradually remove the adjacent restriction as the patch thickens. You need to remove it gradually, not too much so as not to give the bees space to build a new comb, but just enough to further pull the cells before sewing them up. The best retraction time is when the patch surface comes within 6 mm of the adjacent boundary.
Such a patch can weigh up to 20 kg. It will be a real specimen and proof of the beekeeper's perseverance and cunning.
This last experience is a real learning experience. The slice produced in this way visually indicates the correct upward inclination of the cells, which will run parallel to each other not obliquely, but in an arcuate manner; at a certain distance from the center of the slice, they will reach the ceiling and end there. In place of those finished at the top, new ones will arise at the bottom to go to the ceiling again.
Research so far has not shown the correct angle of inclination of the cells upwards, which do not have an oblique shape, but a vermiform shape, bent more at the outlet than at their base.
For the above experiments to be successful, the trunks must be strong, without any defects, should be tight rather than loose in the hive, and should have sufficient support in the field. In order for the third experiment to be successful, due to the short duration of the benefit in our case, it is necessary to feed the stump constantly from the moment when the bees show their willingness to draw wax in the spring, i.e. before the beginning of the season, around the end of May.
The kind reader who has read my "Bees" and "Work in the Apiary" has become familiar with a certain part of what is necessary for man to have free control over bees. The content provided by me is only the necessary ground on which a beekeeper can build his own knowledge and apiary.
Beekeeping is an extremely interesting branch of natural science. If you want to get to know it thoroughly, you have to work on your own, more than one year old. It is not enough to lick a few pages of one or another book, but you have to intensify your personal wit, sharpen your thoughts, open your eyes to the whole of nature, love it with your whole soul and its secrets, like a great, interesting, wonderful book and try to penetrate it.
A bee is an extremely small atom of this extremely large and mysterious mother nature. Great minds of many scientists have devoted themselves to the study of bees. What they have acquired is not a finished structure. Yes, every wise, sensitive beekeeper has new observations, interesting experiences, other theoretical, practical and important inventions open to him.
In science there can and must be different opinions, theories, assumptions; it is the normal course of events in every branch of knowledge that determines its progress. In practical matters, i.e. in the application of knowledge to life - theoretical science to practical beekeeping, the reader must form a strong opinion, because there is no room in one head for two parallel opinions. When reading other books on beekeeping, let him not take things uncritically, but choose a more certain opinion, in short, let him be able to separate the wheat from the chaff.
A beekeeper, like any thinking person, is capable of making constant progress and expanding his knowledge because he loves his "sweet" profession. However, he should not hide any new information he has acquired under a bushel, but should submit it in simple and clear words to professional beekeeping magazines, for the benefit and beekeeping experience of other beekeepers.
I hope that a beginner beekeeper, after carefully reading this book, will be able to take his first steps in beekeeping without major mistakes and cope with less complex circumstances. If, in addition, the kind reader encourages me to conduct further research on my own, I will be paid handsomely for my efforts.
It is worth emphasizing the need for every beekeeper, especially a beginner, to belong to an associated group of people who work in this branch of the national economy, either in unions, in industry or in trade. Let's remember that only a joint effort can give! we can get huge national results.
END.
LITERATURE.
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Ambrożewicz Józef, Fr. Lithuanian beekeeper. Warsaw 1892.
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Bertrand Ed. Considered an apiary. Apeaguide's calendar. Petrograd 1914.
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Brzósko St. Practical beekeeping. Warsaw 1916.
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Ciesielski T. Dr. Beekeeping, i.e. breeding bees for profit. 2 vol. Lviv 1901.
Dzierzon Jan, Fr. New improved beekeeping. Leszno 1859.
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Kunachowicz AF Promyshlennoye pre-leadership.
Królikowski Janusz, Eng. The oldest Polish book about beekeeping. Zamość.
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Langstroth L. The beetle and the beehive. Petersburg 1913.
Lewicki Kazimierz. Beekeeping. Warsaw 1905.
Lewicki Kazimierz (son). Domestic beekeeping. Warsaw 1920.
Leciejewski Jan, Dr. prof. Bee diseases and how to treat them. Lviv 1918.
Margoński Antoni, Fr. The benefits of bees for agriculture. Warsaw 1925.
Nowiński A. Increasing benefits for bees. Warsaw 1910.
Potekhin Ł. A. Student of the front leadership. Berlin 1922.
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Rórenschew Stefan. 12 months in the apiary, Tarnów.
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Serbinow JL and Pikiel W. 0. Miedonosnyja rastenija kak the basis of pro-MSlennago pre-leadership. S. Peterburg 1910.
Serbinow JL Bee rot and borba with it. St. Petersburg 1910.
Szalkiewicz K. Manual for rational beekeeping. Vilnius 1923.
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Zander Enoch, Dr. prof. Krankheiten und Schadlinge der erwachsenen Bienen. Stuttgart 1921.
Moreover, works quoted in the content of "Pszczół" and "Work in the Apiary".