Bee-Keeping for All - A Manual of Honey-Craft

Tickner Edwardes

Description

“Bee-Keeping for All” is a classic guide to keeping bees for profit and pleasure by Tickner Edwardes. It includes complete instructions for setting up and managing a successful apiary, as well as tips and observations from a life-long keeper on how to avoid problems and make a profit. Contents include: “A Bee-Hive And Its Inhabitants”, “First Principles In Bee-Culture”, “About Bee-Hives”, “Practical Hive-Making”, “Correct Position For Brood-Frames”, “Twin Bee-Hives”, “Laying Out The Bee-Garden”, “Garden-Flowers Useful To Bees”, “Planting For Bee-Forage”, “The Honey-House And Its Furniture”, “The Bee-Keeper’s Outfit”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new introduction on bee-keeping.

Sujets

• Maison
• Maison
• Agronomie
• Agronomy for Sustainable Development
• Agriculture
• Engineering
• Technology
• Beekeeping
• Sciences et techniques

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 31 mai 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781473383111
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

BEE-KEEPING FOR ALL
A MANUAL OF HONEY-CRAFT
BY
TICKNER EDWARDES
AUTHOR OF THE LORE OF THE HONEY BEE, ETC.
WITH 40 ILLUSTRATIONS
FOURTH EDITION, REVISED
A TYPICAL BROOD-COMB FROM MODERN FRAME-HIVE
PREFACE TO FOURTH EDITION
THE present revised and amplified Edition of this book, rendered necessary by the continued and ever-increasing demand for it, is further justified by the fact that the Ministry of Agriculture has now definitely undertaken the development of the craft of bee-keeping in this country into a national industry; and there is little doubt that the ranks of bee-keepers will, in the immediate future, receive large accessions, the business of honey-production eventually, I believe, growing into an important rural occupation in the British Isles under the National Mark aegis.
This New Edition of BEE-KEEPING FOR ALL is issued, therefore, in the confident hope that it will not only be found, as heretofore, a reliable guide to the beginner in bee-craft, as well as a source of additional information to those already engaged in the pursuit, but will prove itself of special value to the new National Mark Honey people who, it is pretty safe to predict, will spring up now throughout the length and breadth of the land.
T. E.
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION
A LIVING FROM BEES?
THE past exceptionally good season of 1933, and the present high prices for honey, have naturally attracted a great many people towards bee-keeping as a profitable pursuit, and I am getting a large number of letters asking what are the actual chances of obtaining a livelihood from the craft.
To these I must answer that, except for the very few, I do not advocate bee-keeping as a sole means of subsistence. If you have a small amount of capital and a sufficient income to carry you over the early unproductive period, and if you combine with your honey- and wax-selling the occupations of hive-making and queen-breeding and the supply of stocks and swarms of bees, you can, with experience and business aptitude, make the calling pay, as with every other sound enterprise.
But we cannot all do this. My own position now, as it has always been in the past, is to represent bee-keeping as a profitable side-line, to be engaged in concurrently with other legitimate activities of the small man on the land; and it is only from that point of view that the matter will be dealt with in these pages.
Smallholders, have, first and foremost, their living to get, and are willing to get it in any clean and fairly comfortable way. Bee-keeping offers these conditions as fully, perhaps, as any other country pursuit; and so the wideawake man or woman will naturally add a row of hives to his or her holding.
To show how these hives, few or many, may be made to return a maximum of profit with an expenditure of a minimum of time, trouble, and hard cash, is my sole present business here. I do not wish to discourage the many who have written obviously under the belief that a living can be secured from bee-keeping alone. It can be done, as I have said above, but that does not come under the head of true smallholder policy.
It takes us into the realm of specialism, wherein we are only indirectly concerned. I am out to help the man with a small piece of land, and whose capital consists, in the main, of the capacity to put in about 300 hard-working days in the year upon it, and this book is a practical attempt to show that the poorest, stoniest corner can be rendered as productive as any by putting hives upon it-hives which, except for the few weeks of honey-flow, can be largely left to take care of themselves.
In regard to smallholder bee-keeping, however, one aspect of the matter ought to be taken into consideration here. The neighbourhood of the holding may, or may not, be suitable for honey production. Some districts, especially those near to towns, while being the best for ready sale of general produce, are very poor in bee-flora.
The only sure way to find out is to make experiment by setting up a stall or two, and then seeing how the bees get on.
Fruit-growers, however, should never be without a few hives on their land as near to the trees as possible. Though the hives may even need sugar-feeding in the winter, the work they will do in the early and certain fructification of blossom will amply repay the grower for the small expense and trouble involved.
T. E.
CONTENTS
EARLY CONSIDERATIONS IN BEE-CRAFT
A BEE-HIVE AND ITS INHABITANTS
FIRST PRINCIPLES IN BEE-CULTURE
ABOUT BEE-HIVES
PRACTICAL HIVE-MAKING
CORRECT POSITION FOR BROOD-FRAMES
TWIN BEE-HIVES
LAYING OUT THE BEE-GARDEN
GARDEN FLOWERS USEFUL TO BEES
PLANTING FOR BEE-FORAGE
THE HONEY-HOUSE AND ITS FURNITURE
THE BEE-KEEPER S OUTFIT
THE BEST BEES TO KEEP
HOW TO START BEE-KEEPING
THE YEAR S WORK AMONG THE HIVES
THE TURN OF THE DAYS
WINTER MANAGEMENT
MANAGEMENT IN SPRING
PREPARING FOR THE HONEY-HARVEST
STOCK DIVISION
THE LIFE OF A BROOD-COMB
SWARMING-TIME
ON SUPERING HIVES
THE DRONE QUESTION
WORKING FOR RUN-HONEY
SECTION-HONEY PRODUCTION
WORKING FOR HEATHER-HONEY
PREPARING FOR THE HONEY-SHOW
RE-QUEENING
AUTUMN MANAGEMENT
WINTER CARE OF BEE-APPLIANCES
ON STORING HONEY
HINTS ON WAX-RENDERING AND REFINING
THE USE OF COMB-FOUNDATION
PESTS OF BEE-LIFE
HOW TO MAKE MEAD OR METHEGLIN
THE TRUTH ABOUT BEE-DISEASES
INDEX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
A TYPICAL BROOD-COMB FROM MODERN FRAME HIVE
1. PARTS OF BEE-HIVE
2. THE TICKNER EDWARDES HIVE
3. TICKNER EDWARDES HIVE: REAR VIEW OF BROOD CHAMBER
4. T.E. BROOD-NEST, WITH BACK DOOR, COMB FRAMES AND GLASS DUMMY REMOVED
5. T.E. BROOD-NEST AND DETACHABLE PORCH
6. PLAN OF AN UP-TO-DATE BEE-GARDEN
7. SHELTER DEVICE FOR HIVES
8. A MODEL HONEY-HOUSE
9. HAND CARRYING-BOX FOR COMB-FRAMES
10. A HONEY BARROW
11. A BELLOWS SMOKER
12. A BEE-SKEP
13. A BEE-COAT, ETC.
14. A HANDY TOOL-BOX AND SEAT COMBINED
15. OLD AND NEW TYPES OF QUEEN-EXCLUDER
16. WIRE EXCLUDER
17. METAL-END
18. WOIBLET WIRE EMBEDDER
19. ARTIFICIAL COMB
20. PORTER BEE-ESCAPE BOARD
21. DUTCH STRAW SKEP
22. WATER FOUNTAIN FOR BEES
23. HOW TO FEED CANDY TO BEES
24. REPLACING THE HIVE-ROOF AFTER MANIPULATION
25. SPRING CLEANING TOOLS
26. CORRECT METHOD OF WIRING COMB FRAMES
27. THE BEST FORM OF SECTION-RACK
28. GEARED HONEY EXTRACTOR
29. THE LITTLE WONDER EXTRACTOR
30. A REMEDY FOR SUPERS WHICH DO NOT SIT PROPERLY
31. A DEVICE FOR LIFTING HONEY-RACKS
32. SIMPLE EXTRACTOR FOR SECTIONS
33. TRAVELLING AND INTRODUCING-CAGE FOR QUEEN-BEES
34. OUTFIT FOR DRIVING BEES
35. HOME-MADE FEEDING-STAGE
36. WINTER COVERING FOR THE HIVES
37. SOLAR WAX-EXTRACTOR
38. RENDERING SMALL QUANTITIES OF BEES-WAX
39. DRONE-COMB AND WORKER-COMB
BEE-KEEPING FOR ALL
EARLY CONSIDERATIONS IN BEE-CRAFT
A BEE-HIVE AND ITS INHABITANTS
IN first taking up bee-keeping, there are a few simple facts about the natural-history of the honey-bee which the practical man will require to know.
A normal stock of bees in summer time consists of 40,000 or 50,000 workers who are really sexually undeveloped females, one queen or fully developed female who alone is capable of the reproduction of her species and is, in fact, the mother of the whole colony, and some hundreds of drones, or male bees. The workers carry on all the labour of the hive-the nectar-gathering, comb-building, care and feeding of the young larv , etc. The queen does nothing else but lay eggs; which she will do, in the height of the season, to the tune of 2,000 to 3,000 a day. The drone s usefulness is confined mainly to the work of fertilisation of the young queens. It is possible also that his presence in fairly large numbers in the hive helps to keep up the temperature of the brood-nest at times when most of the workers are out foraging. But this is a debatable point. Normally, drones are present in the hive only from about mid-April to August. At the end of the honey-making season they are driven out of the hive by the workers, and then die off.
The duration of the life of the worker-bee varies from about six weeks in the summer to three or four months in the close season. The last batches of young bees raised in the autumn live in a semi-dormant condition throughout the winter, and persist long enough to raise the first batches born in the spring. The population of a hive is thus constantly changing. The queen, however, will live on from year to year if she be allowed. A queen-bee is fertilised once only in her lifetime by the male. This takes place at the beginning of her mature life, during what is called her mating flight. Thereafter, as far as is known, she remains permanently within the hive attending to her work of egg-production, except at swarming time, when she goes off with the emigrating party, a new queen taking her place in the old hive.
The eggs laid by a fertile mother-bee are of two kinds: the one which has been impregnated by the drone principle, producing the female of the species, the other which has been not so impregnated, resulting in males only. The queen-bee has the power, seemingly, of depositing either kind of egg at will, for the former is almost invariably laid in the small-celled worker-comb, while the latter is just as surely placed in the large-celled drone-comb only. The egg from which the undersized, sex-atrophied worker-bee is evolved is identical with that from which the large-bodied fully developed queen-bee issues. The resulting differences are entirely due to treatment, feeding, and environment. In each case, about three days after the egg is deposited, a tiny, white grub appears; but thereafter, in the case of the worker-bee and drone, the grub receives only a bare minimum of the partially digested and regurgitated food called bee-milk and this only for the early part of its existence; but, in the case of the queen-grub, this chyle-food is administered in abundance, and of specially rich quality throughout the