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    First Lessons in Beekeeping
    First Lessons in Beekeeping
    First Lessons in Beekeeping
    Ebook151 pages2 hours

    First Lessons in Beekeeping

    By C. P. Dadant

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    This vintage book contains a comprehensive guide to beekeeping, with information on starting a hive, hive management, swarming, harvesting honey, seasonal preparations, and much more. Profusely illustrated and full of invaluable information, this timeless volume is highly recommended for the modern beekeeper, and would make for a worthy addition to collections of allied literature. Contents include: “Beekeeping As An Occupation”, “How The Colony Is Organized”, “The Complete Hive”, “Accessory”, “Equipment”, “Establishing The Colony”, “Spring In the Apiary”, “Summer In The Apiary”, “Fall And Winter Preparation”, “Queen Management”, “Diseases And Enemies”, “Honey Plants”, “Packing”, and “Honey For Market”. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on beekeeping. Originally published in 1917.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateApr 16, 2013
    ISBN9781446546079
    First Lessons in Beekeeping

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      Book preview

      First Lessons in Beekeeping - C. P. Dadant

      Beekeeping as an Occupation

      To Anyone with an inclination toward nature study and the outdoors, beekeeping offers an occupation both fascinating and profitable. Its relation to the flowers which produce nectar is an entering wedge into the great field of botany, itself a wonderfully entrancing study. Our knowledge of the interdependence of bees and the fertilization of fruit, vegetables, and flowers has now become so well established that bees are used extensively in orchards, commercial berry patches and even in commercial greenhouses to ensure the proper development of the flowers and the setting of the fruit. The fact that bees may be kept as a side line on a city roof, in a back yard of a town lot, or on half an acre in the suburbs has resulted in the combination of this most interesting of occupations with flower growing, gardening, and poultry and fruit raising as an avocation in those idle hours which the ambitious person wants to utilize for his benefit, for his health, as well as for his enjoyment.

      Hieroglyphics on ancient tombs and monuments testify to the ancient existence of beekeeping. The bee is deified in Greek mythology and it is a famous subject for the old writers, Columella, Pliny, Aristotle, Homer, and Virgil.

      Honey was the only sweet of the Europeans until Alexander made his invasions of the Near East and brought back the sugar cane. When Julius Caesar conquered Britain he found the aborigines keeping bees, even making their fermented liquors from a mixture of honey and crushed wheat. Until comparatively recent times, beeswax has furnished light for the homes, for the public buildings, and for the churches.

      It is true that until the middle of the last century bees were kept only in a rudimentary fashion, little being known of the natural history of the bee or what went on in the interior of the beehive. Straw skeps, log gums, or rude box-hives housed the bee colonies. Many of them are still used in the backward sections of America and other countries, even today. Recent developments of the movable-frame hive, bee comb foundation and the honey extractor have placed beekeeping as a modern occupation beside any other of the rural or scientific pursuits of the present.

      No particular location is necessary for keeping bees. Bees have a range of flight of two or more miles, which makes it possible to keep a limited number of colonies of bees in cities where they get their forage from flower beds, gardens, and the flowers of clovers and weeds of vacant lots within their flight range. Even the mountainside and the desert usually furnish sufficient nectar from their plants and trees to harbor a small number of colonies in a limited area.

      Nor should the reader believe that beekeeping requires special skill, large capital, or much endurance. Beekeeping can be indulged in to any degree, from a single hive and meagre capital to thousands of hives handled commercially for carload honey production. It is especially suited to the person with a little spare time who needs the outdoors for air, exercise, and health, after days spent in office, church, or school.

      Almost anyone can become a successful beekeeper. Hundreds of women are engaged in keeping bees and many persons find the work so fascinating and so remunerative that they become large commercial beekeepers, making their principal business what was once only a side line.

      Were it not for the ever present fear of bee stings, likely there would be thousands more beekeepers than there are now. Yet to the established beekeeper this is a negligible drawback. He keeps purebred, gentle stock and handles it carefully with the ordinary protection of smoker, bee veil, and sometimes gloves. At times bees are not their gentlest and, if not subdued first, will attack at the least disturbance; for when there is no nectar in the fields bees are naturally less tractable than when they are busy gathering the sweet nectar during fine weather and a good honeyflow.

      There are drawbacks in beekeeping just as there are in any other industry. Weather and moisture affect the nectar flow and the colony growth. The bee has its enemies as does the chicken or the cow. But the problem is no more formidable here than it is anywhere and there is a fascination in the study of the interior of the colony, its makeup, its division of labor and its principle of self-sacrifice for the welfare of the whole colony. The social structure of the bee colony seems to challenge our present system of so-called civilization. Can we or can we not, even with our reason, survive as a political entity as well as have those social insects like the bees?

      THE BEES, THE HIVE, AND THE BEEKEEPER

      How will the beginner get his start with bees? Three ways are open to him: He may get his beehives and equipment from a bee supply firm, prepare them for the bees, then import packages of bees from the South for his beginning. He may purchase full colonies of bees in good condition. He will have an advantage here for the bees will be at less effort in becoming established. Or he may secure box-hives or bee tree logs and do his own transferring into the modern movable-frame hive.

      At present, perhaps most people begin with package bees. This method has the advantage that the beekeeper knows exactly what he is getting for the money he pays. The bees are well bred. The package consists of a young queen, young worker bees, and few drones. They are packed for shipment in a light screen cage and come to your door by express or parcel post, with a minimum of cost for carriage. As they are reared in the South during an early spring, they may be delivered to points in the far North in ample time for the earliest honeyflows. This gives them a full season to establish themselves and perhaps to yield a good crop the first year.

      In times past the purchase of full colonies of bees was preferred. If now one wishes to begin in this manner, the colony should be bought locally, if possible, since the cost of transportation of a full colony of bees by express is considerable. If a thoroughly reliable beekeeper, whose word can be depended upon, is located within driving distance, and if he can be induced to part with a colony or two or more at a fair price, then perhaps this may be as good a way to start as any.

      One runs chances in buying bees in full colonies. The colony may be queenless; the bees are not likely to be of pure stock; they may even be diseased, which to the beginner would be the greatest handicap possible. No doubt thousands of colonies of bees are purchased each year, most of them locally. However, the southern shippers produce and ship hundreds of thousands of packages of bees during one busy season.

      The beginner may be so located that he can obtain with very little cost and trouble bees in log gums or box-hives. For best results these will have to be transferred into movable-frame hives. The change is not insurmountable and offers the means of becoming acquainted more rapidly with the honeybees themselves. While it is a method we would not recommend to anyone who can afford to start otherwise, it is the method which likely will have to be used by beekeepers beginning in those sections which are now so backward that they have known little modern beekeeping yet which have plenty of available bees in box-hives or logs.

      There is yet another way. One may purchase an empty hive with full equipment then await the chance to catch a stray swarm or to purchase one from a neighboring beekeeper.

      The common black bee was formerly prevalent in America, and it still is found where modern beekeeping is not practiced. However, most beekeepers, while recognizing some good qualities in the black bee, prefer one of the other races because of characteristics they possess, such as color, gentleness, quietness, prolificness, and better honey gathering ability.

      The selection of a particular race of bees lies with the beekeeper. The majority of beekeepers favor the Italian race. Others like the qualities of the Caucasians. These are gray bees while the Italians are yellow. Perhaps for the beginner, Italians should be recommended. Other races less well-known in America are Carniolan, Cyprian, and Egyptian.

      What kind of hive do you want? By all means it will be a movable-frame hive. The days of the straw skep, box-hive, and log gum are in the past. Almost any of the beehives advertised in current bee supply catalogs are satisfactory if they are well made. Bees can be handled pleasantly and they can store honey in any size of movable-frame hive. The differences are largely in the amount of manipulation that will be necessary, the likelihood of swarms coming out frequently from some, and the possibility of better wintering in others. The general tendency today, both with the beginner and with the larger beekeeper, is toward the larger hive for the colony.

      Bees may be kept in almost any location, from the crowded city districts to the barren plains. The amount of honey harvested by them will be in proportion to the nectar yielding flowers that they will have within range. In the poorer locations a few colonies may do well where a greater number would find difficulty in making a living.

      A timber range is desirable, for bees gather a large portion of their honey and pollen from trees and shrubs. Many good localities are found near rivers or swamps where abound linden, sumac, maple, willow, cottonwood, tupelo, sourwood, tulip-poplar, gall-berry, and other plants that yield honey and pollen.

      The prospective beekeeper may have an opportunity to locate in the country where the forage will be better, where he can make arrangements with a farmer for an apiary site in exchange for a small fee or a gift of honey.

      Specific location of the beehives should be carefully chosen. A spot not too far from a house is desirable in order that the colonies may have some supervision and that escaping swarms may be apprehended and depredations avoided. The apiary should not be too close to a road, as a matter of precaution. If the bees are on a city lot, the hives should be placed so that the line of flight of the bees will pass far over the heads of any passers-by. A position back

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