More Honey From Bees

by C. L. FARRAR

RECENT RESEARCH on the problems of the management of bees has opened up new opportunities for regulating the development of bee colonies regardless of the weather. Formerly good weather throughout the spring was necessary for the development of a colony not only so a variety of plants would produce pollen and nectar, but so the bees could gather these foods for use in raising young bees. We now know how to provide the food required for brood rearing, thus making the colony less dependent upon early sources of pollen and nectar. The main honey plants bloom and produce nectar with fair regularity at a time when the weather is more settled. Successful management demands that colonies be developed for the honey flow rather than on the flow.

Probably less than 10 percent of the available nectar supply is gathered by the 5 1/2 million colonies of bees in the United States. Beekeepers have an opportunity and a challenge to contribute more fully in the development of our agricultural resources by supplying the bees needed for pollination and to make honey available to more people. The pollination of fruit and seed crops will be proportional to the increase in honey production, because both depend upon the number of blossoms visited by the bees.

In the United States the average colony yield of 35 to 40 pounds could easily be raised to 75 to 100 pounds. Man has been the honeybees' worst enemy by his failure to provide adequate food reserves for their overwintering or to supply the needed hive space for the developing colony. The more or less indiscriminate use of insecticides has also caused heavy losses. Few branches of agriculture could withstand the losses experienced by the beekeeping industry and survive. The tremendous reproductive powers of the honeybee have made it possible for the beekeeper to replace his losses in bees, but not his loss of the honey crop.

The opportunity for increasing production may be seen by comparing the 57-pound average yield in Wisconsin for the period from 1938 to 1945 with the maximum yields obtained from 2 classes of colonies operated during the same period by the North Central States Bee Culture Laboratory at Madison, Wis. Single-queen colonies built from 2-pound packages and headed by outstanding queens showed a mean maximum yield of 254 pounds, compared with an over-all average of 109 pounds for 1,227 package colonies. Variations in the productivity of lines of stock were largely responsible for this difference between the best colonies and the over-all average yields. Overwintered colonies managed under a two-queen plan showed a mean maximum yield of 434 pounds, compared with an over-all average of 265 pounds for 261 two-queen colonies.

The available nectar supply in the vicinity of Madison was probably similar to that in Wisconsin as a whole. Furthermore, most beekeepers obtain average yields equal to only one-third those produced by the best colonies in their apiaries. We must conclude that the honey crop is limited more by the condition of the colonies than by the available nectar supply.