THE LITTLE GOLDEN FOLK !
(Page 6 of 10)
March/April 1974
By Bill Benintente
The best cold weather food for a hive of bees, of course, is some of the same honey the workers stored earlier in the year. A normal colony needs about 30-45 pounds of good honey (sugar syrup in a pinch) to make it through the winter successfully. One deep super which holds about 40 pounds when filled-should do the job, but many beekeepers feel that two is a safer number. The other, empty chambers can be painted if they need it and put away in readiness for the next spring's honey flow.
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PAINLESS BEE-HANDLING
With your bees housed and getting into production, you'll need to check on them now and then . . . and you'll soon be wanting to remove some of their surplus store for your own use. Both these jobs are much easier if you have the proper equipment, which is relatively inexpensive and worth buying instead of constructing yourself.
A bee veil costs about $2.00 and is indispensable. Inside one of these mysterious-looking head coverings, you'll feel-if you're old enough-like a kid again, wearing the cardboard-box Captain Video space helmet you made for yourself because there wasn't any of the plastic kind on the market yet. So protected, you can approach the colony with the confidence you need to do any job surely and thoroughly.
This precaution is especially important if you're bearded, as I am. Bees get upset when caught in hair and are likely to retaliate by stinging. (They also become annoyed if you breathe over their backs.)
Your "spaceman" appearance as you approach the hive is increased by the potent bee-queller you wield in your right hand. This weapon-also indispensable-is the smoker. It costs about $5.00 and looks as if it's easily worth three times the price.
To use the smoker, tear strips of burlap or other cloth (wood chips work well too) and light them with a match. Drop the whole works into the smoker's zinc barrel and squeeze the bellows a few times to fire up the fuel and start it smoking. Never overheat the device or let flame shoot out the nozzle: You don't want to burn your little people, just to quiet them.
When the machine is working well, puff a few shots of smoke into the bottom entrance of the hive to drive back the guard bees. This creates a panic in the colony and the inhabitants-thinking that a natural catastrophe is about to take place-gorge themselves on honey and get set to flee, if necessary, to a new nesting site. Once they've filled up this way, they become quite gentle and will never sting unless provoked by gross carelessness.
Next, lift the metal hive cover a little and shoot a puff or two inside to cool out the bees you missed on the first assault. Then remove the top altogether and hang the smoker on the hive or set it on the ground within easy reach (just in case it's needed).
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