Page:Bee-Culture Hopkins 2nd ed revised Dec 1907.pdf/45



Next in magnitude to the losses of bees which result from inattention to disease are those which occur in the spring months through starvation. Few but experienced beekeepers and those who suffer financially from losses realise how readily the food-supply may become exhausted after breeding is in full swing in spring. In my rounds hitherto I have found it a general complaint that numbers of colonies have died off in the spring. The owners did not know the cause, and when starvation was suggested they were quite surprised, as they “had left plenty of food in the hive the previous season,” and it had never occurred to them that the supply might run short.

Given a fair supply of stores in late autumn, when fixing the bees up for winter, a colony will use comparatively little during the winter months, but as soon as breeding begins in the latter part of July or early August the stores are largely drawn upon for feeding the brood, and unless nectar can be gathered to help them out, the stores will rapidly diminish. As a rule willows and other spring forage afford a good supply in fine weather, but the weather is frequently far from fine at that time—generally unsettled, and against the bees securing nectar. Take a case, for example, where the bees have come out of winter quarters with a fair supply of food in the hive, the weather fine, and some nectar is being brought in from the fields. Under these conditions, where there is a good queen, breeding will go ahead very rapidly, and in a short time there will be a big lot of brood to feed, and a large quantity of food needed. If at this time bad weather should set in and last for several days, preventing the bees gathering nectar, probably within a week pretty nearly all the reserve stores within the hive will be used up, and if the bees are not seen to before they arrive at this stage they will probably die of starvation. This is not a fancifully drawn case, but a real practical one, and shows just how such large losses occur in spring.

These remarks apply, but in a vastly less degree, to other seasons of the year.