Chapter I: Preface

This book has been prepared especially to meet the needs of the beginner in bee-keeping. It is not intended to be a complete treatise for the professional apiarist, but rather a handbook for those who would keep bees for happiness and honey, and incidentally for money. It is hoped, too, that it will serve as an introduction to the more extended manuals already in the field.

When we began bee-keeping we found the wide range of information and varying methods given in the manuals confusing; but a little experience taught us that bee-keeping is a simple and delightful business which can be carried on in a modest way without a great amount of special training. After a beginning has been made, skill in managing the bees is gained naturally and inevitably, and interest is then stimulated by the wider outlook which bewilders the novice.

For the sake of simplicity this volume is restricted to knowledge gained in practical experience in a small apiary; and the writer has sought to exclude from it those discussions which, however enlightening to the experienced, are after all but devious digressions from the simple and straight path which the feet of the inexperienced must tread to success in the apiary.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Why Keep Bees 3

II. How to Begin Bee-Keeping 8

III. The Location and the Arrangement of the Apiary 20

IV. The Inhabitants of the Hive 27

V. The Industries of the Hive 50

VI. The Swarming of Bees 64

VII. How to Keep from Keeping Too Many Bees 73

VIII. The Hive and How to Handle It 83

IX. Details Concerning Honey 106

X. Extracted Honey 117

XI. Points About Beeswax 126

XII. Feeding Bees 136

XIII. How to Winter Bees 145

XIV. Rearing and Introducing Queens 156

XV. Robbing in the Apiary 164

XVI. The Enemies and Diseases of Bees 172

XVII. The Anatomy of the Honey-Bee 181

XVIII. Interrelation of Bees and Plants 194

XIX. Bee-Keepers and Bee-Keeping 206

XX. Bee-Hunting 211

Bibliography 215

Index 219

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PLATE I.—Basswood blossom _Frontispiece_

Observation hives Page 2

FACING PAGE

PLATE II.—(_a_) Two flat section-boxes (_b_) Corneil smoker 14

PLATE III.—(_a_) Dixie bee-brush, spur wire-embedder and Van
Deusen wax-tube fastener. (_b_) A super with fences. (_c_) The
Porterbee-escape in a honey-board 15

PLATE IV. Hives well shaded by a tree 26

PLATE V. (_a_) Queen; drone; worker. (_b_) Queen cell. (_c_)
Miller’s queen introducing cage 27

PLATE VI. Head of drone; head of queen; head of worker; ventral
surface of worker showing plates of wax 30

PLATE VII. Legs and antennæ of the honey-bee 31

PLATE VIII. Drone cells in a comb of honey 50

PLATE IX. Side of hive removed showing the bees at work 51

PLATE X. Bees hanging in a curtain secreting wax 62

PLATE XI. Hiving bees; cutting down a swarm 63

PLATE XII. (_a_) Two self-spacing frames. (_b_) An empty super.
(_c_) The Doolittle division board feeder 90

PLATE XIII. Examining the brood-frames 91

PLATE XIV. (_a_) Alley’s queen and drone trap. (_b_) A well
filled section. (_c_) One empty section-holder, and one filled
with section-boxes 106

PLATE XV. One and a half story hive for comb-honey 107

PLATE XVI. Drone and Queen trap; queen mailing and introducing
cage; queen-protector and queen-cage used in queen-rearing, and
bee-escape 110

PLATE XVII. “In apple-blossom time” 111

PLATE XVIII. (_a_) Taking off upper story of hive containing combs
for extracting. (_b_) Extracting-room showing apparatus for
extracting honey 122

PLATE XIX. (_a_) Uncapping comb before extracting the honey.
(_b_) Placing uncapped comb in one of the pockets of the
extractor 123

PLATE XX. (_a_) Drawing honey from extractor.
(_b_) Pouring extracted honey into keg for shipping in bulk 126

PLATE XXI. (_a_) Extracted honey in pails, candied.
(_b_) Extracted honey in glass jars ready for market 127

PLATE XXII. Winter quarters in chaff hives 154

PLATE XXIII. Plum blossoms 155

PLATE XXIV. Sumac in blossom. Blossom of mountain maple 184

PLATE XXV. Fig. 1. Vertical longitudinal section of the body
of a larva of an insect. Fig. 2. Section of the body-wall of
insect. Fig. 3. Head of a bee and its appendages. Fig. 4.
Glands of a honey-bee. Fig. 5. The wax plates 185

PLATE XXVI. (_a_) The reproductive organs of the honey-bee.
(_b_) Fig. 1. The internal anatomy of the honey-bee. Fig. 2.
The respiratory system of the honey-bee 192

PLATE XXVII. An old-fashioned apiary 193

PLATE XXVIII. (_a_) Thorn-apple blossoms.
(_b_) Wild crab-apple blossoms 198

PLATE XXIX. Buckwheat in blossom 199

PLATE XXX. Box-elder, staminate and pistillate flowers 210

PLATE XXXI. Blossoms of black locust 211

HOW TO KEEP BEES