Age sre
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ALBERL R. MANN
LIBRARY

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CORNELL UNIVERSITY
Langstroth on the hive and the honey-bee
 

 

 

 

& peopled kingdom. -- Shakspeare.

 

@ rule ‘in Nature. teach

he Honey Bees,

So work
Creatures ®t.
‘The art of order
 

Queen Drone Worker

The above are very accurate representations of the queen, the worker,
and the drone. The group of bees in the title page represents the atti-
tude in which the bees surround their queen or mother, as she rests
upon the comb.
LANGSTROTH

a

ON THE

Hive and the Honey-Bee

A

BEE KEEPER’S MANUAL

BY

L. L. LANGSTROTH

 

Printed 1853
THE A. J. ROOT COMPANY, MEDINA, OHIO
Reprinted 1914
Fu
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by
L. L. LANGSTROTH,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.
INTRODUCTION

 

Reprints of old text-books are very unusual things. Few
works of this kind have that honor, while novels and histo-
ries are republished by the million. It takes works like those
of Virgil or Aristotle, or quaint writings like “Isaak Wal-
ton’s Compleat Angler” to interest the later generations.
In the case of Mr. Langstroth’s original “ Hive and Honey-
bee,” the student of apiculture and the booklover are both
interested, and men of these two classes, though few in num-
ber, are worthy of consideration.

Three qualifications have centered the interest upon Mr.
Langstroth: His accuracy of observation, his interesting
diction, and his invention of the most practical hive the world
has ever known.

His accuracy of observation is noticeable to this day by
the student of the honeybee’s habits. Many things that some
of us have just discovered are found in Langstroth. We
again make the mistakes which he has made and corrected.

He was careful not to oppose popular fallacies without

“argument. Read his introduction to the subject of the “ Bee
Moth.” After having stated, as a fact, what was firmly
believed wherever bees were kept, that, “So fatal have been
its ravages (the moth’s) in this country that thousands have
abandoned the cultivation of bees in despair,” he slowly leads
his reader to the truth which he had discovered, that the moth
is harmless in well-kept apiaries; that, “ When a colony has
become hopelessly queenless, then, moth or no moth, its
destruction is certain. Every year, large numbers of hives
are bereft of their queen, most of which are either robbed by
other bees or sacked by the bee-moth, while their owner
imputes the mischief to something else than the real cause.
INTRODUCTION.

He might just as well imagine that carrion birds or worms,
which are devouring a dead horse, were the primary cause of
its untimely end.” This was ane of the most difficult facts
to impress upon the average bee-master, but every year has
better shown the truth of this vigorous statement.

His interesting style and diction make the original book
read like a novel. Mr. Langstroth followed no regular text-
book method, and for that reason many of his statements
are difficult to trace. When revising his book, at his request,
after some 33 years of publication and because his impaired
health prevented him from keeping up the work, we added
some two-fifths new matter and arranged his writings in such
an order that it became easier for the student to find the
information he seeks. But we did this at the expense of the
novellike feature of the work.

The invention of the Langstroth hive, the most practical in
existence, a hive which may be “taken apart like a puppet
show,” has revolutionized beekeeping. The inventions of the
honey-extractor by Hruschka, and of comb foundtaion by
Mehring, the latter rendered practical by A. I. Root, would
have been of but little use without such a hive. The very
faut which a leading apiarist, R. L. Taylor, once found
against it, that it is a “rattle box,” is a proof of its great
convenience in manipulations. Too many new hives, fine
when just emerged from the carpenter’s hands, prove any
thing but “‘ movable ” when oceupied and glued by the bees.

After nearly thirty years of successive revisions and some
twenty different editions, making a much larger book, we
now offer, side by side with it, this reprint of the original
work, as a glorification of its author and an evidence of the
material progress which over sixty years of time and his
original teachings have brought.

Hamilton, Il., 1913. C. P. Dapant.
PREFACE.

TuHIs treatise on the hive and the honeybee is respectfully
submitted by the author to the candid consideration of those
who are interested in the culture of the most useful as well
as wonderful insect in all the range of animated nature.
The information which it contains will be found to be great-
ly in advance of any thing which has yet been presented. to
the English reader; and, as far as facilities for practical.
management are concerned, it is believed to be a very ma-
terial advance over any thing which has hitherto been com-
municated to the apiarian public.

Debarred by the state of his health from the more appro-
priate duties of his office, and compelled to seek an employ-
ment which would call him, as much as possible, into the
open air, the author indulges the hope that the result of his
studies and observations in an important branch of natural
history will be found of service to the community as well as
himself. The satisfaction which he has taken in his re-
searches has been such that he has felt exceedingly desirous
of interesting others in a pursuit which (without any refer-
ence to its pecuniary profits) is capable of exciting the
delight and enthusiasm of all intelligent observers. The
Creator may be seen in all the works of his hands; but in
few more directly than in the wise economy of the honeybee.
iv PREFACE

‘“ What well-appointed commonwealths, where each
Adds to the stock of happiness for all!
Wisdom’s own forums! whose professors teach
Eloquent lessons in their vaulted hall!
Galleries of art! and schools of industry!
Stores of rich fragrance! orchestras of song!
What marvelous seats of hidden alchemy!
How oft, when wandering far and erring long, «
Man might learn truth and virtue from the bee!”
Bowring.

The attention of clergymen is particularly solicited to the
study of this branch of natural history. An intimate ac-
quaintance with the wonders of the beehive, while it would
benefit them in various ways, might lead them to draw
illustrations more from natural objects and the world around
them, and in this way to adapt them better to the compre-
hension and sympathies of their hearers. It was, we know,
the constant practice of our Lord and Master to illustrate
his teachings from the birds of the air, the lilies of the field,
and the common walks of life and pursuits of men. Com-
mon sense, experience, and religion alike dictate that we

should follow his example.
L. L. Lanestroru.
Greenfield, Mass., May 25, 1853.
CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION—CHAPTER I.

Deplorable state of beekeeping. New era anticipated, 13. Huber’s
discoveries and hives. Double hives for protection against extremes of
temperature, 14. Necessary to obtain complete control of the combs.
Taming bees. Hives with movable bars. Their results important, 15.
Beekeeping made profitable and certain. Movable frames for comb. Bees
will work in glass hives exposed to the light. Dzierzon’s discoveries, 16.
Wagner's letter on the merits of Dzierzon’s hive and the movable-comb
hive, 17. Superiority of movable-comb hive, 19. Superiority of Dzier-
zon's over the old mode, 20. Success attending it, 22. Bee journal to
be established. Two of them in Germany. Important facts connected
with bees heretofore discredited, 22. Every thing seen in observing
hives, 23. -

CHAPTER II.

BEES CAPABLE OF DOMESTICATION. Astonishment of persons at their
tameness, 24. Bees intended for the comfort of man. Properties fitting
them for domestication. Bees never attack when filled with honey. Swarm-
ing bees fill their honey-bags ‘and are peaceable, 25. Hiving of bees safe.
Bees can not resist the temptation to fill themselves with sweets, 26.
Manageable by means of sugared water. Special aversion to certain
persons. Tobacco smoke to subdue bees s d_not be used, Motions
about a hive should be slow and gentle, 27.

CHAPTER III.

THE QUEEN BEE. THE DRONE. THE WORKER, 28. Knowledge of
facts relating to them necessary to rear them with profit. Difficult to
reason with some beekeepers. Queen bee the mother of the colony—
described, 29. Importance of queen to the colony. Respect shown her
by the other bees. Disturbance occasioned by her loss. Beekeepers can
not fail to be interested in the habits of bees, 30. Whoever is fond of
his bees is fond of his home. Fertility of queen bees under-estimated, 31.
Fecundation of eggs of the queen bee, 82. Huber vindicated. Francis
Burnens. Huber the prince of apiarians, 33. Dr. Leidy’s curious dis-
sections, 34. Wasps and hornets fertilized like queen bees. Huish’s
inconsistency. Retarded fecundation productive of drones only, 35. Fer-
tile workers produce only drones, 836. Dzierzon’s opinion on this subject.
Wagner's theory, 37. Singular fact in reference to a drone-rearing colo-
ny, 38. Drone-laying queen on dissection, unimpregnated, Dzierzon’s
theory sustained, 39. Dead drone for queen, mistake of bees. Eggs un-
vi CONTENTS.

fecundated produce drones, 40. Fecundated produce workers; theory
therefor, 41, Aphides but once impregnated for a series of generations,
41, Knowledge necessary for success. Queen bee, process of laying.
Eges described, 42. Hatching, Larva, its food, its nursing, Oaps of
breeding and honey cells different, 48, Nymph or pupa. Working. Time
of gestation. Cells contracted by cocoons sometimes become too small.
Queen bed, her mode of development, 44, Drone’s development. Devel-
opment of young bees slow in cool weather or weak swarms, Tempera-
ture above 70 degrees for the production of young. Thin hives, their
insufficiency. Brood combs,: danger of. exposure to low temperature, 45,
Cocoons of drones and workers perfect, Oocoons of queens imperfect,
the cause, 46, Number of eggs dependent on the weather, etc. Super:
numerary eggs, how disposed of, 47, Queen bee, fortility diminishes
after her third year. Dies in her fourth year. Drones, description of.
Their proper office, 48. Destroyed by the bees. When first appear. Nono
in weak hives. Great number of them, 49. Rapid increase ot bees in
tropical climates. How to prevent their over-production, Expelled from
the hive, 50. If not expelled, hive should be examined. Provision to
avoid ‘‘in-and-in-breeding.” Olose breeding enfechles colonies. Working
beer, account of, 51. Number in a hive, 58, All females with imperfect
ovaries. Fertile workers not tolerated where there are queens. Honey
receptacle, 54, Pollen vasket, The sting, Sting of bees, 55. Often lost
in using. Penalty of its loss. Sting:not lost by other insects, 66. Labor
of workers, Age of bees. Bees useful to the last, 57, Cocoons not re-
“moved by the bees, 58, Breeding cells becoming {vo small aro recon-
structed, Old comb shotild be removed, Brood comb not to be changed
every year. Inventors of hives too often men of ‘one idea.” Folly of
large closets for bees, Reason of limited colonies, Mother wasps and hor-
nets only survive winter Queen, process of rearing, 59. Royal celly, 60,
Royal jelly. Its effect on the larva, 62, Swammerdam, 64, Quoen de-
parts when successors are provided for. Queens, artificial rearing, 64.
An interesting experiment, 65. Objections against the Bible illustrated,
66. Huish against Huber, 67. His objections pucrile, Objections to
the Bille ditto, 68, ,
CHAPTER Ty,

Coms, Wax, how made, Mormed of any saccharine substance, THu-
ber’s experiments, 69, High temperature necessary to its composition,
Heat generated in forming. Twenty pounds of honey to form one of wax,
70, Value of empty comb in the new hive. How to free comb from eges
of the moth, Combs having bee-bread of great value, 71. How to empty
comb and replace it in the hive. Artificial comb, 72, Experiment with
wax proposed, Tis results, if successful. Comb made chiefly in the night,
78, Honey and comb made simultancously, Wax a non-conductor of
heat, 74. Some of the brood cells uniform in gize others vary, Form of
cells mathematically perfect. Honeycomb a demonstration of a “ Grent

Firet Oause,” 75,
CONTENTS. vii

CHAPTER V.

PROPOLIS OR BEE GLUE. Whence it is obtained. Huber’s experiments,
77. Its use, 78. Comb varnished with it. The moth deposits her eggs
in it. Propolis difficult for bees to,work. Curious use of it by bees, 79.
Ingenuity of bees admirable, 80.

CHAPTER VI.

POLLEN OR BEE-BREAD. Whence obtained. Its use. Brood can not be
raised without it. Pollen nitrogeneous. Its use discovered by Huber.
Its collection by bees indicates a healthy queen, 81. Experiment showing
the importance of bee-bread to a colony. Not used in making comb.,
Bees prefer it fresh. Surplus in old hives to be used to supply its want
in young hives, 82. Pollen and honey both secured at the same time by:
bees. Mode of gathering, 83. Packing down. Bees gather one kind of
pollen at a time. They aid in the impregnation of plants. History of:
the bee plain proof of the wisdom of the Creator. Bees made for man.
Virgil’s opinion of bees. Rye meal a substitute for pollen, 84. Quantity
used by each colony. Wheat flour a substitute. The improved hive.
facilitates feeding bees with meal. The discovery of a substitute for pollen,
removes an obstacle to the cultivation of honeybees, 85.

CHAPTER VII.

Fifty-four Advantages which ought to be found in an improved hive,
86, 100. Some desirable qualities the movable-comb hive does not pre-
tend to, 100. Is the result of years of study and observation. It has
been tested by experience. Not claimed as a perfect hive, 101. Old-fash-
ioned beekeepers found most profit, ete. Simplest form of hive. Bee cul-
ture where it was fifty years ago. Best hives. New hive is submitted to
the judgment of candid beekeepers, 102. :

CHAPTER VIII.

PROTECTION AGAINST EXTREMES OF HEAT, COLD, AND DAMPNESS.
Many colonies destroyed by extremes of weather. Evils of thin hives.
Bees not torpid in winter. When frozen are killed, 103. Take exercise
to keep warm. Perish if unable to preserve suitable degree of warmth.
Are often starved in the midst of plenty. Eat an extra quantity of food
in thin, cold hives. Muscular exertion occasions waste of muscular fiber,
104, Bees need less food when quiet than when excited. Experiment,
“wintering bees in a dry cellar Protection must generally be given
in open air. None but diseased bees discharge faces in the hive, 105.
Moisture, its injurious effects. Free air needful in cold weather, with
the common hive. Loss by their flying out in cold weather. Protection
against extremes of weather of the very first importance, 106. Honey, our
country favorable to its production. Colonies in forests strong. Reasons
for this, 107. Russian and Polish beekeepers successful. Their mode of
management. Objection of want of air answered. Bees need but little
viii CONTENTS.

air in winter if protected, 108. Protection in reference to the construc-
tion of hives. Double hives preferable to plank, 109. Made warm in
winter by packing. Double hives, inside may be of glass. Advantages of
glass over wood. Advantages of double glass, 110. Disadvantages of
double hivesin spring. Avoided by improved hive, 111. . Covered apiaries
exclude the sun in spring. Reason for discarding them. Sun, its effect
in producing early swarms in thin hives. Protected hives fail for want
of sun. Enclosed apiaries nuisances. Thin hives ought to be given up;
they are expensive in waste of honey and bees, 112. Comparative cheap-
ness of new and old hives. Protector against injurious weather, 113.
Proper location of bees. Preparation for setting hives. Protector should
be open in summer and banked in winter, 114. Cheaper than an apiary.
Summer air of Protector like forest air. In winter uniform and mild.
Bees will not be enticed out in improper weather. Secures their natural
heat. Dead bees, etc., to be removed in winter, 115. Temperature of
the Protector. Importance of the Protector. Its economy in food, 116.

CHAPTER IX.

VENTILATION. Artificial ventilation produced by bees. Purity of air
in the hive, 117. Bad air fatal to bees, eggs, and larve. Bees when dis-
turbed need much air, 118. Dysentery how produced. Post mortem
condition of suffocated bees. Great annoyance of excessive heat, 119.
Bees leave the hive to save the comb. Ventilating instinct wonderful.
Should shame man for his neglect of ventilation, 120. Comparative ex-
pense of ventilation to man and bees, 121. Importance of ventilation to
man, 122. Its neglect induces disease. Plants can not thrive without
free air. The union of warmth and ventilation in winter an important
question. House-builder and stove-maker combine against fresh air
Run-away slave boxed up. Evil qualities of bad air aggravated by heat,
123. Dwellings and public buildings generally deficient in ventilation.
Degeneracy will ensue. Women the greatest sufferers. Necessity of
reform, 124. Public buildings should be required to have plenty of air.
Improved hive, its adaptedness to secure ventilation, 125. Nutt’s hive
too complicated. Ventilation independent of the entrance. Hive may be
entirely closed without incommoding the bees. Ventilators should be
easily removable to be cleansed, 126. Ventilation from above injurious
except when bees are to be moved. Variable size of the entrance adapts
it to all seasons, 127. Ventilators should be closed in spring. Downing
on ventilation (note), 128.

CHAPTER X.

SwARMING AND HIviInG. Bees swarming a beautiful sight. Poetic
description by Evans. Design of swarming, 129. The honeybee unlike
other insects in its colonizing habits. It is chilled by a temperature below
50 degrees. Would perish in winter if not congregated in masses. Ad-
mirable adaptation. Swarming necessary, 130. Circumstances in which
it takes place. June the swarming month. Preparations for swarming.
CONTENTS. ix

Old queen accompanies the first: swarm. No infallible signs of first
swarming. Fickleness of bees about swarming, 181. Indications of
swarming. Hours of swarming. Proceedings within the hive before
swarming. Interesting scene, 132. Bells and frying-pans useless. Neg-
lected bees apt to fly away in swarming. Bees properly cared for seldom
do it. Methods of arresting their flight when started, 133. Conduct of
bees in disagreeable hives. Why bees swarm before selecting a new home.
They rarely cluster without the queen, 134. Interesting experiment, 135.
Scouts to search for new abodes. Scouts sent out before and after
swarming. Bees remain a while after alighting, 136. Ourious incident
stated by Mr. Zollikoffer. Necessity of scouts. Considerations confirmed,
137. Re-population of the hive, 138. Inability of bees to find their hive
when it has been removed. After swarms. Different treatment to the
cells of dead and living queens. Royal larve sometimes protected against
the queens, 139. Anger of the queen at such interference. Second
swarming, its indications, 140. Time. Double swarms. Third swarm.
After swarms seriously reduce the strength of the hive, 141. Wise arrange-
ment, 142. After-swarming avoided by the improved hive. Impregnatiom
of queens. Dangerous for queens to mistake their own hives. Precau-
tions against this. Proper color for hives. Time of laying eggs. None
but worker eggs the first season, 143. Directions for hiving. Hives should.
be painted and well dried. Bees reluctant to enter thin warm hives in
the sun, 144. Management with the improved hives. Drone comibs.
should never be used as guide comb, 145. Pleasure of bees in finding
comb in their new quarters. Bees never voluntarily enter empty hives.
Rubbing the hive with herbs useless. Small trees or bushes in front of
hives. Inexperienced apiarian should wear bee-dress, 146. Moderate dis-~
patch in hiving needful, 147. Process of hiving particularly described, 148.
Old method of hiving should be abandoned. Importance of speedy hiving.
Should be moved as soon as hived. Curious act stated by Dr. Scudamore
(note), 150. How to secure the queen. She does not sting. Hiving be-
fore the bees are ready. Another method of hiving, 151 Natural swarm-
ing profitable. Objections to natural swarming. Common hive gives in-
adequate winter protection. With it, the bees often swarm too much.
With the improved hive this is avoided. Disadvantages of returning
after-swarms, 152. Third objection, inability to strengthen small late
swarms, 153. Evils of feeble stocks. Fourth objection, loss of queen
irreparable. By the new hive her loss is easily supplied. Fifth, common
hives inconvenient when bees do not swarm. This objection removed
by the new hive. Sixth, the ravages of the moth easily prevented by the
improved hive. Seventh, the old queen, when infertile, can not be re-
moved or replaced, 154. Both can be done by the new hive, 155.

CHAPTER XI.

ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. Numerous efforts to dispense with natural
swarming. Difficulties of natural swarming. First, many swarms are
x CONTENTS.

lost, 155. Second, time and labor required. Sabbath labor. 156. Per-
plexities to farmers, 156. Third, large apiaries can not be established, 157.
Fourth, uncertainty of swarming. Disappointments from this source,
158. Efforts to devise a surer method, 159. Columella’s mode of obtain-
ing swarms. Hyginus, 160. Small success which attended those efforts.
Shirach’s discovery. Huber’s directions. Not adapted to general use.
Dividing hives in this country unsuitable, 161. Bees without mature
queens make no preparation to rear workers, 162. Dividing hives to
multiply colonies will not answer. Huber’s hive even inadequate. Com-
mon dividing hives unsuccessful. Multiplying by brood comb in emp-
ty hive vain. Multiplying by removal and substitution useless, 163.
Mortality of bees in working season, 164. Connecting apartments a fail-
ure, 165. Many prefer non-swarming hives. Profitable in honey but
calculated to exterminate the insect. Improved hive good non-swarmer,
if desired, 166. Disadvantages of non-swarming. Queen bee becomes
infertile. Remedied by the use of the improved hive. Practicable mode
of artificial swarming, 167. Bees will welcome to their hives strange
bees that come loaded. Will destroy such as come empty, 168. Forced
swarming requires knowledge of the economy of the bee-hive. Common
hives give no facility for learning the bee’s habits, 170. Equalizing a
divided swarm. Bees in parent hive, if removed, to be confined and
watered, 171. Bees removed will return to their old place. Supplying
bees with water by a straw. Water necessary to prepare food for the
larve, 172. New forced swarms to be returned to the place of the old
one, or removed to a distance. Treatment to wont them to new place in
the apiary, 173. Bees forget their new locations. Objection to forced
swarming in common hives. Forced swarming by the new hives removes
the objection, 174. Mode of forcing swarms by the new hives. Queen
to be searched for. Important that she should be in the right hive, 175.
Convenience of forced swarming in supplying extra queens. Mode of
supplying them, 176. Should be done by daylight and in pleasant weath-
er. Honey-water not to be used, 177. Safety to the operator. Forced
swarming may be performed at mid-day. Advantages of the shape of the
new hive. Huber’s observation on the effect of sudden light in the hive,
178. True solution of the phenomenon. Bees at the top of the hive less
belligerent than those at the bottom Sudden jars to be avoided. Remov-
al of honey-board, 179. Sprinkling with sugar-water. Loosening the
frames. Removing the comb. Bees will adhere to their-comb. Natural
swarming imitated. How to catch the queen, 180. Frames protected
from cold and robbery by bees. Frames returned to the hive. Honey-
cover, how managed. Motions of beekeeper to be gentle. Bees must not
be breathed on. Success in the operation certain. New colonies may be
thus formed in ten minutes, 181. Natural swarming wholly prevented
If attempted by the bees can not succeed. How to remove the wings of
the queen, 182. Precaution against loss of queen by old age. Advan-
tages of this. Certainty and ease of artificial swarming with the new
\

CONTENTS. xi

hive. After-swarms prevented if desired, 183. Large harvests of honey
and after-swarming impracticable... Danger of too rapid increase of
stocks. Importance of understanding his object by the beekeeper, 184.
The matter made plain, 185. Apiarians dissuaded from more than trip-
ling their stocks in a year. Tenfold increase of stocks attainable. Cer-
tain increase, not rapid, most needed, 187. Cautions concerning experi-
ments, 188. Honey, largest yield obtained by doubling colonies. The
process. May be done at swarming time, 190. Bees recognize each other
by smell. Importance of following these directions illustrated. Process
of uniting swarms simplified by the new hive, 191. Very rapid increase
of colonies precarious. Mode of effecting the most rapid increase, 192.
Nucleus system, 193. Can a queen be raised from any egg? 194. Two
sorts of workers, wax workers and nurses. Probable explication of a
difficulty, 195. Experimenting difficult work. Swarming season best
time for artificial swarming. Amusing pedplexity of bees on finding their
hive changed, 196. Perseverance of bees. Interesting incident illustrat-
ing it, 197. Novel and successful mode of forming nuclei, 198.
Mode of managing nuclei. 199. Danger of overfeeding. Increasing
stocks by doubling hives. Important rule for multiplying stocks. How
to direct the strength of a colony to the rearing of young bees, 205.
Proper dimensions of hives. Reasons therefor. Easy construction of.the
improved hive, 208. Precaution of queen bees in their combats, 209.
Reluctance of bees to receive a new queen. Expedient to overcome this.
Queen nursery, 210. Mode of rearing numerous queens, 211. Control of
the comb the soul of good bee-culture. Objection against beekeeping
answered, 212. No ‘royal road” to beekeeping. A prediction, 213.

CHAPTER XII.

ENEMIES OF THE BEES. Bee-moth, its ravages. Defiance against it,
214. Its habits. Known to Virgil. Time of appearance, 215. Noctural
in habits. Their agility. Vigilance of the bees against the moth. Havoc
of sin in the heart, 216. Disgusting effects of the moth worm in a hive,
Wax the food of the moth larve. Making their cocoons, 217. Devices
to escape the bees. Time of development. Habits of the female when
laying eggs, 219. Of the worm when hatched, 219. Our climate favor-
able to the increase of the moth. Moth not a native of America. Honey,
its former plenty, 220. Present depressure of its culture. Old mode of
culture described, 221. Depredations of the moth increased by patent
hives. Aim of patent hives, 222. Sulphur or starvation. Feeble swarms
a nuisance. Notion prevailing in relation to breaking up stocks, 225.
Improved hives valueless without improved system of treatment. Pre-
tended secrets in the management of bees. Strong stocks thrive under
almost any circumstances, 224. Stocks in costly hives, 225. Circum-
stances under which the moth succeeds in a hive, 226. Signs of worms
in a hive. When entrenched difficult to remove, 227. Method of avoiding
their ravages, 228. Combs having moth eggs to be removed and smoked,
xii CONTENTS.

229. Uncovered comb to be removed, 230. Loss of the queen the most.
fruitful occasion of ravages’ by the moth. Experiments on this point, 231.
Attempts to defend a queenless swarm against the moth useless. Strong
queenless colonies destroyed when feeble ones with queens are untouched.
232. Common hives furnish no remedy for the loss of the queen. Colo-
nies without queens will perish, if not destroyed by the moth, Strong
stocks rob queenless ones. Principal reasons of protection, 233. Small
stocks should have small space, 234. Inefficiency of various contrivances.
Useful precautions when using common hives, 235. Destroy the larve
of the moth early. Decoy of a woolen rag. Hollow or split sticks for
traps. If the queen be lost, and worms infest the colony, break it up.
Provision of the improved hives against moths, 236. Moth-traps no help
to careless beekeepers, 237. Incorrigibly careless persons should have
nothing to do with bees. Worms, how removed from an improved hive.
Sweet solutions useful to catch the moths. Interesting remarks of H. K.
Oliver, on the bee-moth. Ravages of mice. Birds, 238. Observations on
the king-bird, 240. Inhumanity and injurious effects of destroying birds,
241. Other enemies of the bee. Precautions against dysentery. Bees
not to be fed on liquid honey late in the season. Foul brood, of the
Germans. Produced by “American Honey,” 242. Peculiar kind of
dysentery, 243.
CHAPTER XIII.

Loss OF THE QUEEN. Queen often lost. Queens of strong hives seldom
perish without providing for successors, Their death commonly occurs
under favorable circumstances. Young queen sometimes matured before
the death of the old one, 244. Superannuated queens incapable of laying
worker eggs. Case of precocious superannuation, 245. Signs that there
is a queen in a hive Signs of queenless hives. Exhortation to wives,
246. Difficult in common hives to decide on the condition of the stock.
Always easy with the movable-comb hive, 247. Bees sometimes refuse
to accept of aid in their queenless state. Parallel in human conduct, 248.
Young bees in such a hive will at once provide for a queen. An appeal
to the young. Hives should be examined early in spring. Destitute
stocks should be united to others having queens. Reasons therefor, 249.
General treatment in early spring. Hives should be cleansed in spring.
Durability and cheapness of hives, 250. Undue regard to mere cheap-
ness, Various causes destructive of queens, 251. Agitation of the bees
on missing their queen, 252. Treatment of swarms that have lost their
queens, 253. Examination of the hive needful. Examination and treat-
ment in the fall, 254. Persons who can not attend to their bees them-
selves may safely entrust their care to others. Business of the apiarian
united with that of the gardener. Experiments with queen bees, 255.

CHAPTER XIV.

UNION oF STOCKS. TRANSFERRING BuEES. STARTING AN APIARY,
Queenless colonies should be broken up, spring and fall. Small colonies
CONTENTS. xii

should be ‘united. Animal heat necessary in a hive. Small swarms in
winter consume much honey. Colonies to be united should stand side by
side, 257. How to effect this. Removal of an apiary in the working
season. To secure the largest quantity of honey from a given number
of stocks, 258. Non-swarming plan, 259. Moderate increase best, 260.
Transferring bees from common to the movable-comb hive. Successful
experiment. Should not be attempted in cold weather. The process of
transfer, 261. Best time, 262. May be done at any season when the
weather is warm, 263. Precaution against robbing, 264. Combs should
be transferred with the bees, 265. Caution on trying new hives, 266.
Thrifty old swarms. Conditions of their thrift. Procuring bees to start
an apiary,, 267. New early swarms best. Signs to guide the inexperienc-
ed buyer. Directions for removing old colonies, 268. For removing new
swarms. To procure honey the first season. Novices should begin in a
small way, 270. Neglected apiary. Superstitions about bees, 271. Cau-
tions to the inexperienced against transferring renewed. Parallel be-
tween bees and covetous men, 272.

CHAPTER XV.

ROBBING. Idleness a great cause, 273. Colonies should be examined
and supplied with food in spring. Appearance of robber bees, 275.
Their suspicious actions. Are real ‘‘ Jerry Sneaks.” Highway robbers,
276. Bee battles. Subjected bees unite with the conquerors. Cautions
against robbery. Importance of guarding against robbery, 277. Efficien-
cy of the movable blocks to this end, 278. Comb with honey not to be
exposed, 279. Curious case of robbery, 281.

CHAPTER XVI.

DIRECTIONS FOR FEEDING. Feeding greatly mismanaged. Condition
of the bees should be ascertained in the spring, 282. They should be
supplied if needy. Many perish from want. Connection between feeding
and breeding in the hive, 288. Caution in feeding necessary. Results
of over feeding. Necessary to feed largely in multiplying stocks, 284.
How to feed weak swarms in spring. Considerations governing the quan-
tity of food, 286. Main object to produce bees, 287. Proper condition
of an apiary at close of honey season. Feeding for winter attended to’
in August. Unsealed honey sours. Sour food is unwholesome to bees.
Striking instance, 288. Spare honey to be apportioned among the stocks.
Swarms with over-stocks of honey do not breed so well. Surplus honey
in spring to be removed, 289. Full frames exchanged for empty ones.
Feeble stocks in fall to be broken up. Profits all come from strong
swarms. Composition of a good bee-feed. Directions for feeding with
the improved hive, 299. Feeding useless when but little comb in the hive,
291. Tcp feeding. Feeder described, 292. Importance of water to bees,
293. Sugar candy a valuable substitute for honey, 294. Summer feed-
ing, 295. Bees with proper care need but little feeding. Quantity of
xiv CONTENTS.

honey necessary to winter a stock. Feeding as a source of profit, 296.
Selling W. I. honey a cheat, 297. Honey not a secretion of the bee.
Evaporation of its water the principal change it undergoes. Folly of
diluting the feed of bees too much. Feeders of cheap honey for market
deceivers or deceived, 299. Artificial liquid honey, 300. Improved maple
sugar, 301. Feeding bees on artificial honey not profitable, 302. Dan-
gerous feeding bees without floats. Their infatuation for liquid sweets,
303. Like that of the inebriate for his cups. Avarice in bees and men,

304.
CHAPTER XVII.

HoNEY. PASTURAGE. OVERSTOCKING. Honey the product of flowers,
305. Honey-dew. Aphides, 306. Qualities of honey, 307. Poisonous
honey. Innoxious by boiling, 308. Preserving honey. Modes of taking
honey from the hive, 309. Objections to glass vessels. Pasteboard boxes
preferred. Honey should be handled carefully, 310. Pattern comb to be
used in the boxes. Honey safely removed, 311. Should not be taken from
the bees in large quantities during honey-harvest. Pasturage. The wil-
low, 312. Sugar maple and other honey-yielding trees. Linden tree as
an ornament, 313. White clover. Recommended by Hon. Frederick -Hol-
brook as a grass crop, 314. Sweet-scented clover. Hybrid clover from
Sweden. Buckwheat, 316. Raspberry. Garden flowers, 817. Over-
stocking. Little danger of it. Beekeepers and Napoleon, 319. No over-
stocking in this country. Letter from Mr. Wagner on the subject, 320.
Flight of bees for food, 322, Advantages of a good hive in saving time
and honey. Energies of bees limited. Bees injured by winds. Protector
saves them from harm, 323. Estimated profits of bee culture. Advice to
the careless, 324. Value of Dzierzon’s system. Adopted by the govern-
ment of Norway. Want of National encouragement to agriculture (note),
325. :

CHAPTER XVIII.

“ANGER OF BEES. REMEDY FOR THEIR STING. BEE-DRESS. INSTINCTS
oF BEES. Gentleness of the bee. Feats of Wildman, 326. Interesting
incident, 327. Discovery of a universal law. Its importance and results,
328. Cross bees diseased. Never necessary to provoke a whole colony
of bees. Danger from bees when provoked, 329, A word to females.
Kindness of bees to' one another. Contrast with some children, 330.
Effects of a sting. The poison, 331. Peculiar odors offensive to bees.
Precautions against animals and human robbers, 332. Sense of smell in
the bee, 333. By this they distinguish their hive companions. Robbers
repelled by odors. Stock united by them, 334. Warning given by bees
before stinging, 335. How to act when assaulted by bees. Remedies for
the sting, 336. Bee-dress, 339. Instincts of bees. Distinction between
instinct in animals and reason in men, 340. Remarkable instance of
sagacity in bees, 341. Facilities afforded by the author’s improved ob-
serving hive, 342. Indebtedness of the author to 8. Wagner, Esq., 343.
ADVERTISEMENT.

.

L. L. LANGSTROTH’S MOVABLE-COMB HIVE.
PATENTED OCTOBER 5, 1852.

Each comb in this hive is attached to a separate, movable
frame, and in less than five minutes they may all be taken
out, without cutting or injuring them, or at all enraging the
bees. Weak stocks may be quickly strengthened by helping
them to honey and maturing brood from stronger ones;
queenless colonies may be rescued from certain ruin by
supplying them with the means of obtaining another queen,
and the ravages of the moth effectually prevented as at any
time the hive may be readily examined and all the worms,
etc., removed from the combs. New colonies may be formed
in less time than is usually required to hive a natural swarm;
or the hive may be used as a non-swarmer or managed on
the common swarming plan. The surplus honey may be
taken from the interior of the hive on the frames or in
upper boxes or glasses in the most convenient, beautiful,
and salable forms. Colonies may be safely transferred from
any other hive to this, at any season of the year, from April
to October, as the brood, combs, honey, and all the contents
of the hive are transferred with them, and securely fastened
in the frames. That the combs can always be removed from
his hive with ease and safety, and that the new system, by
giving the perfect control over all the combs, effects a com-
plete revolution in practical beekeeping, the subscriber pre-
fers to prove rather than assert. Practical apiarians and alb
who wish to purchase rights and hives are invited to visit his
xvi ADVERTISEMENT.

apiary, where combs, honey, and bees will be taken front the
hives; colonies which may be brought to him for that pur-
pose transferred from any old hive; queens and the whole
process of rearing them constantly exhibited; new colonies
formed, and all processes connected with the practical man-
agement of an apiary fully illustrated and explained.

Those who have any considerable number of bees will find
it to their interest to have at least one movable-comb hive
in the apiary, from which they may, in a few minutes,
supply any colony which has lost its queen with the means
of rearing another. :

The hive and right will be furnished on the following
terms. For an individual or farm right, five dollars. This
will entitle the purchaser to use and construct for his own
use on his own premises as many hives as he chooses. The
hives are manufactured by machinery, and can probably be
delivered, freight included, at any railroad station in New
England or New York cheaper than they could be made in
small quantities on the spot. On receipt of a hive, the
purchaser can decide for himself whether he prefers to make
them or to order them of the patentee. For one dollar,
postage paid, the book will be sent free by mail. On receipt
of ten dollars a beautiful hive showing all the combs (with
glass on four sides), will be sent with right, freight paid to
any railroad station in New England or New York; a right
and hive which will accommodate two colonies, with glass
on each side, for twelve dollars; for seven dollars, a right
and a well-made hive that any one can construct who can
handle the simplest tools. In all cases where the hives are
sent out of New England or New York, as the freight will
not be prepaid, a dollar will be deducted from the above

prices. Address
L. L. LANGSTROTH,
Greenfield, Mass.
INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I.

THE present condition of practical beekeeping in this
country is known to be deplorably low. From the great
mass of agriculturists, and others favorably situated for
obtaining honey, it receives not the slightest attention. Not-
withstanding the large number of patent hives which have
been introduced, the ravages of the bee-moth have increased,
and success is becoming more and more precarious. Mul-
titudes have abandoned the pursuit in disgust, while many
of the most experienced. are fast settling down into the con-
vietion that all the so-called “ Improved Hives” are delu-
sions, and that they must return to the simple box or hollow
log, and “ take up” their bees with sulphur, in the old-fash-
ioned way. :

In the present state of public opinion, it requires no little
courage to venture upon the introduction of a new hive and
system of management; but I feel confident that a new era.
in beekeeping has arrived, and invite the attention of all
interested to the reasons for this belief. A perusal of this.
Manual will, I trust, convince them that there is a better
way than any with which they have yet been acquainted.
They will here find many hitherto mysterious points in the
physiology of the honeybee clearly explained, and much
valuable information never before communicated to the
publie.

It is now nearly fifteen years since I first turned my atten-
tion to the cultivation of bees. The state of my health
14 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

having compelled me to live more and more in the open air,
I have devoted a large portion of my time, of late years,
to a careful investigation of their habits, and to a series of
minute and thorough experiments in the construction of
hives, and the best methods of managing them so as to se-
eure the largest practical results.

Very early in my apiarian studies I procured an im-
ported copy of the work of the celebrated Huber, and con-
structed a hive on his plan which furnished me with favora-
. ble opportunities of verifying some of his most valuable dis-
coveries; and I soon found that the prejudices existing
against him were entirely unfounded. Believing that his
discoveries laid the foundation for a more extended and
profitable system of bee-keeping, I began to experiment
with hives of various construction.

The result of all these investigations fell far short of my
expectations. I became, however, most thoroughly con-
vinced that no hives were fit to be used unless they furnish-
ed uncommon protection against extremes of heat and more
especially of coup. I accordingly discarded all thin hives
made of inch stuff, and constructed my hives of doubled
materials, enclosing a “ dead air” space all around.

These hives, although more expensive in the first cost,
proved to be much cheaper in the end than those I had pre-
viously used. The bees wintered remarkably well in them,
and swarmed early and with unusual regularity. My next
step in advance was, while I secured my surplus honey in
the most convenient, beautiful, and salable forms, so to
facilitate the entrance of the bees into the honey-receptacles
as to secure the largest fruits from their labors.

Although I felt confident that my hive possessed some
valuable peculiarities, I still found myself unable to remedy
many of the casualties to which bee-keeping is liable. I
now perceived that no hive could be made to answer my
expectations unless it gave me the complete control of the
combs, so that I might remove any or all of them at pleas-
ure. The use of the Huber hive had convinced me that with
INTRODUCTION. 15

proper precautions the combs might be removed without
enraging the bees, and that these insects were capable of
being domesticated or tamed, to a most surprising degree.
A knowledge of these facts was absolutely necessary to the
further progress of my invention, for without it I should
have regarded a hive designed to allow of the removal of
the combs as too dangerous in use to be of any practical
value. At first I used movable slats or bars placed on rab-
bets in the front and back of the hive. The bees were in-
duced to build their combs upon these bars, and in carrying
them down_ to fasten them to the sides of the hive. By
severing the attachments to the sides, I was able at any
time to remove the combs suspended from the bars. There
was nothing mew in the use of movable bars; the invention
being probably at least a hundred years old; and I had my-
self used such hives on Bevan’s plan, very early in the com-
mencement of my experiments. The chief peculiarity in
my hives, as now constructed, was the facility with which
these bars could be removed without enraging the bees, and.
their combination with my new mode of obtaining the sur-
plus. honey.

With hives of this construction I commenced experiment-
ing on a larger scale than ever, and soon arrived at results.
which proved to be of the very first importance. I found
myself able, if I wished it, to dispense entirely with natural
swarming, and yet to multiply colonies with much greater
rapidity and certainty than by the common methods. I
could, in a short time, strengthen my feeble colonies, and
furnish those which had lost their queen with the means of
obtaining another. If I suspected that any thing was the
matter with a hive, I could ascertain its true condition by
making a thorough examination of every part, and if the
worms had gained a lodgment I could quickly dispossess:
them. In short, I could perform all the operations which
will be explained in this treatise, and I now believed that
bee-keeping could be made Mighly profitable, and as much a
matter of certainty, as any other branch of rural economy.
16 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

I perceived, however, that one thing was yet wanting.
The cutting of the combs from their attachments to the
sides of the hive, in order to remove them, was attended
with much loss of time to myself and to the bees, and in
order to facilitate this operation the construction of my
hive was necessarily complicated. This led me to invent a
method by which the combs were attached to MOVABLE
FRAMES, and suspended in the hives, so as to touch neither
the top, bottom, nor sides. By this device I was able to
remove the combs at pleasure, and if desired I could speedi-
ly transfer them, bees and all, without any cutting, to an-
other hive. I have experimented largely with hives of this
construction, and find that they answer most admirably all
the ends proposed in their invention.

While experimenting in the summer of 1851, with some
observing hives of a peculiar construction, I discovered that
bees could be made to work in glass hives, exposed to the
full light of day. The notice, in a Philadelphia newspaper,
of this discovery, procured me the pleasure of an acquaint-
ance with Rev. Dr. Berg, pastor of a Dutch Reformed church
in that city. From him I first learned that a Prussian eler-
gyman, of the name of Dzierzon (pronounced Tseertsone)
had attracted the attention of crowned heads by his impor-
tant discoveries in the management of bees. Before he
communicated the particulars of these discoveries, J explain-
ed to Dr. Berg my system of management, and showed him
my hive. He expressed the greatest astonishment at the
wonderful similarity in our methods of management, both
of us having carried on our investigations without the
slightest knowledge of each other’s labors. Our hives, he
found to differ in some very important respects. In the
Dzierzon hive, the combs are not attached to movable frames,
but to bars, so that they cannot, without cutting, be removed
from the hive.’ In my hive, which is opened from the top,
any comb may be taken out without at all disturbing the
others; whereas in the Dzierzon hive, which is opened
from one of the ends, it is often necessary to cut and remove
INTRODUCTION. 17

many combs, in order to get access to a particular one; thus
if the tenth comb from the end is to be removed, nine combs
must be first cut and taken out. All this consumes a large’
amount of time. The German hive does not furnish the
surplus honey in a form which would be found most salable
in our markets, or which would admit of safe transportation
in the comb. Notwithstanding these disadvantages, it has
achieved a great triumph in Germany, and given a new im-
pulse to the cultivation of bees.

The following letter from Samuel Wagner, Esq., cashier
of the bank in York, Pennsylvania, will show the results
which have been obtained in Germany by the new system
of management, and his estimate of the superior value of
my hive to those in use there.

Yorx, Pa., Dec. 24, 1852.

Dear Sir,

The Dzierzon theory and the system of bee man-
agement based thereon were originally promulgated hypo-
thetically in the “ Hichstadt Beinen-zeitung” or Bee-journal,
in 1845, and at once arrested my attention. Subsequently,
when in 1848, at the instance of the Prussian government,
the Rev. Mr. Dzierzon published his “ Theory and Practice
of Bee Culture,” I imported a copy, which reached me in
1849 and which I translated prior to January, 1850. Before
the translation was completed I received a visit from my
friend, the Rev. Dr. Berg, of Philadelphia, and in the course
of conversation on beekeeping mentioned to him the
Dzierzon theory and system as one which I regarded as
new and very superior, though I had had no opportunity for
testing it practically. In February following, when in
Philadelphia, I left with him the translation in manuseript—
up to which period I doubt whether any other person in this
country had any knowledge of the Dzierzon theory; except
to Dr. Berg I had never mentioned it to any one, save in
very general terms.

In September, 1851, Dr. Berg again visited York, and
stated to me your investigations, discoveries, and inventions.
18 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

From the account Dr. Berg gave me, I felt assured that you
had devised substantially the same system as that so success-
fully pursued by Mr. Dzierzon; but how far your hive re-
sembled his I was unable to judge from description alone.
I inferred, however, several points of difference. The coin-
cidence as to system, and the principles on which it was
evidently founded, struck me as exceedingly singular and
interesting, because I felt confident that you had no more
knowledge of Mr. Dzierzon and his labors, before Dr. Berg
mentioned him and his book to you, than Mr. Dzierzon had
of you. These circumstances made me very anxious to
examine your hives, and induced me to visit your apiary in
the village of West Philadelphia, last August. In the ab-
sence of the keeper, as I informed you, I took the liberty to
explore the premises thoroughly, opening and inspecting a
number of the hives, and noticing the internal arrangement
of. the parts. The result was, that I came away convinced
that, though your system was based on the same principles
as Dzierzon’s, yet that your hive was almost totally different
from his, in construction and arrangement; that while the
same objects substantially are attained by each, your hive is
more simple, more convenient, and much better adapted for
general introduction and use, since the mode of using it ean
be more easily taught. Of its ultimate and triumphant suc-
‘cess I have no doubt. I sincerely believe that, when it comes
under the notice of Mr. Dzierzon, he will himself prefer it
to his own. It in fact combines all the good properties
which a hive ought to possess, while it is free from the com-
plication, clumsiness, vain whims, and decidedly objectiona-
ble features which characterize most of the inventions which
profess to be at all superior to the simple box, or the com-
mon chamber hive.

You may certainly claim equal credit with Dzierzon for
originality in observation and discovery in the natural his-
tory of the honey bee, and for success in deducing principles
and devising a most valuable system of management from
observed facts. But in invention, as far as neatness, com-
INTRODUCTION. 19

ypactness, and adaptation of means to ends are concerned,
the sturdy German must yield the palm to you. You will
find a case of similar coincidence detailed in the Westmin-
ster Review for October, 1852, page 267, et seq.

I send you herewith some interesting statements respect-
ing Dzierzon, and the estimate in which his system is held
in Germany.

Very truly yours,
SAMUEL WAGNER.

Rey, L. L. Lanestroru.

The following are the statements to which Mr. Wagner
refers:

“ As the best test of the value of Mr. Dzierzon’s system
is the results which have been made to flow from it, a brief
account of its rise and progress may be found interesting.
In 1835 he commenced bee-keeping in the common way,
with 12 colonies—and after various mishaps, which taught
him the defects of the common hives and the old mode of
management, his stock was so reduced that in 1838 he had
virtually to begin anew. At this period he contrived his
improved hive in its ruder form, which gave him the com-
mand over all the combs, and he began to experiment on
the theory which observation and study had enabled him to
devise. Thenceforward his progress was as rapid as his
success was complete and triumphant. Thotigh he met with
frequent reverses—about 70 colonies having been stolen
from him, 60 destroyed by fire, and 24 by a flood—yet
in 1846 his stock had increased to 360 colonies, and he
realized from them that year six thousand pounds of honey, -
besides several hundred weight of wax. At the same time
most of the cultivators in his vicinity who pursued the com-
mon methods had fewer hives than they had when he com-
menced.”

In the year 1848, a fatal pestilence known by the name
of “foul brood” prevailed among his bees, and destroyed
nearly all of his colonies before it could be subdued—only
20 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

about ten having escaped the malady, which attacked alike
the old stocks and his artificial swarms. He estimates his
entire loss that year at over 500 colonies. Nevertheless he
succeeded so well in multiplying by artificial swarms the
few that remained healthy, that in the fall of 1851 his stock
consisted of nearly 400 colonies. He must, therefore, have
multiplied his stocks more than three fold each year.

The highly prosperous condition of his colonies is at-
tested by the Report of the Secretary of the Annual Api-
arian Convention which met in his vicinity last spring. This.
Convention, the fourth which has been held, consisted of
112 experienced and enthusiastic bee-keepers from various.
districts of Germany and neighboring countries, and among
them were some who when they assembled were strong
opposers of his system.

They visited and personally examined the apiaries of
Mr. Dzierzon. The report speaks in the very highest terms.
of his success, and of the manifest superiority of his system
of management. He exhibited and satisfactorily explained.
to his visitors his practice and principles; and they remark-
ed with astonishment the singular docility of his bees and.
the thorough control to which they were subjected. After a
full detail of the proceedings, the Secretary goes on to say:

“Now that I have seen Dzierzon’s method practically
demonstrated, I must admit that it is attended with fewer-
difficulties than I had supposed. With his hive and sys-
tem of management it would seem that bees become at once.
more docile than they are in other cases. I consider his.
system the simplest and best means of elevating bee culture

* to a profitable pursuit, and of spreading it far and wide over
the land—especially as it is peculiarly adapted to districts.
in which bees do not readily and regularly swarm. His.
eminent success in re-establishing his stock after suffering
so heavily from the devastating pestilence—in short, the re-
cuperative power of the system, demonstrates conclusively
that it furnishes the best, perhaps the only means of rein-
stating bee culture to a profitable branch of rural economy..
INTRODUCTION. 21

“ Dzierzon modestly disclaimed the idea of having attained
perfection in his hive. He dwelt rather upon the truth and
importance of his theory and system of management.”

From the Leipzig Illustrated Almanac—Report on Agri-
culture for 1846:

“ Bee culture is no longer regarded as of any importance
in rural economy.”

From the same for 1851 and 1853:

“Since Dzierzon’s system has been made known an en-
tire revolution in bee culture has been produced. A new
era has been created for it, and beekeepers are turning
their attention to it with renewed zeal. The merits of his
discoveries are appreciated by the government, and they
recommend his system as worthy the attention of the teach-
ers of common schools.

“Mr. Dzierzon resides in a poor sandy district of Middle
Silesia, which, according to the common notions of apiarians,
is unfavorable to bee culture. Yet despite of this and of
various mishaps, he has succeeded in realizing nine hundred
dollars as the product of his bees in one season!

By his mode of management, his bees yield, even in the
poorest years, from 10 to 15 per cent on the capital invested,
and where the colonies are produced by the apiarian’s own
skill and labor they cost him only about one-fourth the price
at which they are usually valued. In ordinary seasons the
profit amounts to from 30 to 50 per cent, and in very fa-
vorable seasons from 80 to 100 per cent.”

In communicating these facts to the public, I have several
objects in view. I freely acknowledge that I take an honest
pride in establishing my claims as an independent observer ;
and as having matured by my own discoveries the same
system of bee culture as that which has excited so much
interest in Germany; I desire also to have the testimony of
the translator of Dzierzon to the superior merits of my hive.
Mr. Wagner is extensively known as an able German scholar.
He has taken all the numbers of the Bee Journal, a monthly
periodical which has been published for more than fifteen
22 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

years in Germany, and is probably more familiar with the
state of apiarian culture abroad than any man in this coun-
try.

I am anxious further to show that the great importance
which I attatch to my system of management is amply justi-
fied by the success of those who, while pursuing the same
system with inferior hives, have attained results which, to
common beekeepers, seem almost incredible. Inventors are
very prone to form exaggerated estimates of the value of
their labors; and the American public has been so often
deluded with patent hives, devised by persons ignorant of
the most important principles in the natural history of the
bee, and which have utterly failed to answer their professed
objects, that they are scarcely to be blamed for rejecting
every new hive as unworthy of confidence.

There is now a prospect that a bee journal will before
long be established in this country. Such a publication has
long been needed. Properly conducted, it will have a most
powerful influence in disseminating information, awakening
enthusiasm, and guarding the public against the miserable
impositions to which it has so long been subjected.

Two such journals are now published monthly in Ger-
many, one of which has been in existence for more than
fifteen years, and their wide circulation has made thousands
well acquainted with those principles which must constitute
the foundation of any enlightened and profitable system of
culture.

The truth is that, while many of the principal facts in the
physiology of the honeybee have long been familiar to
scientific observers, it has, unfortunately, happened that
some of the most important have been widely discredited.
In themselves they are so wonderful, and, to those who have
not witnessed them, often so incredible, that it is not at all
strange that they have been rejected as fanciful conceits or
bare-faced inventions.

Many persons have not the slightest idea that every thing
may be seen that takes place in a beehive. But hives have
INTRODUCTION. 23

for many years been in use containing only one large comb,
enclosed on both sides by glass. These hives: are darkened
by shutters, and when opened the queen is. exposed to
observation as well as all the other bees. Within the last
two years I have discovered that, with proper precautions,
colonies can be made to work in observing hives, without
shutters, and exposed continually to the full light of day;
so that observations may be made at all times without in
the least interrupting the ordinary operations of the bees.
By the aid of such hives, some of the most intelligent citi-
zens of Philadelphia have seen in my apiary the queen bee
depositing her eggs in the cells, and constantly surrounded
by an affectionate circle of her devoted children. They have
also witnessed, with astonishment and delight, all the steps
in the mysterious process of raising queens from eggs which
with the ordinary development would have produced only
the common bees. For more than three months there was
not a day in which some of my colonies were not engaged:
in making new queens to supply the place of those taken
from them, and I had the pleasure of exhibiting all the facts
to beekeepers who never before felt willing to credit them.
As all my-hives are So made that each comb can be taken
out and examined at pleasure, those who use them can ob-
tain from them all the information which they need, and are
no longer foreed to take any thing upon trust.

May I be permitted to express the hope that the time is
now at hand when the number of practical observers will
be so multiplied that ignorant and designing men ‘will
neither be able to impose their conceits and falsehoods upon
the public nor be sustained in their attempts to depreciate
the valuable discoveries of those who have devoted years of
observation and experiment to promote the advancement,
of apiarian knowledge? —
CHAPTER II.

THE HONEYBEE CAPABLE OF BEING TAMED OR DOMESTICATED
TO A MOST SURPRISING DEGREE.

Ir the bee had not such a necessary and yet formidable
weapon both of offense and defense, multitudes would be
induced to enter upon its cultivation who aré now afraid to
have any thing to do with it. As the new system of man-
agement which I have devised seems to add to-this inherent
difficulty by taking the greatest possible liberties with so
irascible an insect, I deem it important to show clearly, in
the very outset, how bees may be managed so that all neces-
sary operations may be performed in an apiary without
incurring any serious risk of exciting their anger.

Many persons have been unable to control their expres-
sions of wonder and astonishment on seeing me open hive
after hive in my experimental apiary, in the vicinity of
Philadelphia, removing the combs covered with bees, and
shaking them off in front of the hives; exhibiting the queen,
transferring the bees to another hive, and, in short, dealing
with them as if they were as harmless as so many flies. I
have sometimes been asked if the bees with which I was
experimenting had not been subjected to a long course of
instruetion to prepare them for public exhibition, when in
some cases the very hives which I was opening contained
swarms which had been brought only the day before to my
establishment.

Before entering upon the natural history of the bee I
shall anticipate some principles in its management in order
to prepare my readers to receive, without the doubts which
would otherwise be very natural, the statements in my book,
THE HONEYBEE CAPABLE OF BEING TAMED. 25

and to convince them that almost any one favorably situated
may safely enjoy the pleasure and profit of a pursuit whieh
has been most appropriately styled “the poetry of rural
economy ;” and that, without being made teo familiar with
a sharp little weapon which can most speedily and effectu-
ally convert all the poetry into very sorry prose.

The Creator intended the bee for the comfort of man as
truly as he did the horse or the cow. In the early ages of
the world—indeed, until very recently—honey was almost the
‘only natural sweet; and the promise of “a land flowing
with milk and honey ” had then a significance the full force
of which it is difficult for us to realize. The honeybee was,
therefore, created not merely with the ability to store up its
delicious nectar for its own use, but with certain properties
which fitted it to be domesticated, and to labor for man,
and without which he would no more have been able to
subject it to his control than to make a useful beast of bur-~
den of a lion or a tiger.

One of the peculiarities which constitute the very foun-
dation, not merely of my system of management, but of
the ability of man to domesticate at all so irascible an insect,
has never, to my knowledge, been clearly stated as a great:
and controlling principle. It may be thus expressed:

A honeybee never volunteers an attack nor acts on the
offensive when it is gorged or filled with honey.

The man who first attempted to lodge a swarm of bees in
an artificial hive was doubtless agreeably surprised at the
ease with which he was able to accomplish it; for when the
bees are intending to swarm they fill their honey-bags to
their utmost capacity. This is wisely ordered, that they may
have materials for commencing operations immediately in
their new habitation; that they may not starve if several
stormy days should follow their emigration; and that when
they leave their hives they may he in a suitable condition
to be secured by man.

They issue from their hives in the most peaceable mood
that can well be imagined; and, unless they are abused,

Eas
26 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

allow themselves to be treated with great familiarity. The
hiving of bees by those who understand their nature could
almost always be conducted without the risk of annoyance
if it were not the case that some improvident or unfortunate
ones occasionally come forth without the soothing supply;
and, not being stored with honey, are filled with the gall of
the bitterest hate against all mankind and animal kind in
general, and any one who dares to meddle with them in
particular. Such radicals are always to be dreaded, for they
must. vent their spleen on something, even though they lose
their life in the act.

Suppose the whole colony, on sallying forth, to possess
such a ferocious spirit; no one would ever dare to hive them
unless clad in a coat of mail, at least bee-proof, and not
even then until all the windows of his house were closed, his
domestic animals bestowed in some safe place, and senti-
nels posted at suitable stations to warn all comers to look
out for something almost as much to be dreaded as.a fiery
locomotive in full speed. In short, if the propensity to be
exceedingly good-natured after a hearty meal had not been
given to the bee it could never have been domesticated, and
our honey would still be procured from the clefts of rocks
or the hollow of trees.

A second peculiarity in the nature of the bee, and one of
which I continually avail myself with the greatest success,
may be thus stated:

Bees can not, under any circumstances, resist the tempta-
tion to fill themselves with liquid sweets.

It would be quite as easy for an inveterate miser to look
with indifference upon a golden shower of double eagles
falling at his feet and soliciting his appropriation. If then
we can contrive a way to call their attention to a treat of run-
ning sweets when we wish to perform any operation which
might provoke them, we may be sure they will accept it, and,
under its genial influence, allow us without molestation to
do what we please.
THE HONEYBEE CAPABLE OF BEING TAMED. 27

We must always be particularly careful not to handle
them roughly, for they will never allow themselves to be
pinched or hurt without thrusting out their sting ‘to resent
such an indignity. I always keep a small watering-pot or
sprinkler in my apiary; and whenever I wish to operate
upon a hive, as soon as the cover is taken off and the bees
exposed, I sprinkle them gently with water sweetened with
sugar. They help themselves with the greatest eagerness,
and in a few moments are in a perfectly manageable state.
The truth is, that bees managed on this plan are always glad
to see visitors, and you can not look in upon them too often,
for they expect at every call to receive a sugared treat by
way of a peace-offeririg.

I can superintend a large number of hives, performing
every operation that is necessary for pleasure or profit, and
yet not run the risks of being stung, which must frequently
be incurred in attempting to manage, in the simplest way,
the common hives. Those who are timid may, at first, use
a bee-dress; though they will soon discard every thing of
the kind unless they are of the number of those to whom
the bees have a special aversion. Such unfortunates are
sure to be stung whenever they show themselves in the
vicinity of a beehive, and they will do well to give the bees
a very wide berth.

Apiarians have for many years employed the smoke of
tobaceo for subduing their bees. It deprives them at once
of all disposition to sting, but it ought never to be used for
such a purpose. If the construction of the hives will not
permit the bees to be sprinkled with sugar water, the smoke
of burning paper or rags will answer every purpose, and
the bees will not be likely to resent it; whereas when they
recover from the effect of the tobacco they not unfrequently
remember, and in no very gentle way, the operator who
administered the nauseous dose.

Let all your motions about your hives be gentle and slow.
Accustom your bees to your presence; never crush or injure
them in any operation; acquaint yourself fully with the
28 THE BEEKEEPER'S MANUAL.

principles of management detailed in this treatise, and you
will find that you have but little more reason to dread the
sting of a bee than the horns of your favorite cow or the
heels of your faithful horse.

CHAPTER III.

THE QUEEN, OR MOTHER-BEE, THE DRONES, AND THE WORK-
ERS; WITH VARIOUS HIGHLY IMPORTANT FACTS
IN THEIR NATURAL HISTORY.

Bess can flourish only when associated in large numbers,
as a colony. In a solitary state a single bee is almost’ as
helpless as a new-born child; it is unable to endure even the
ordinary chill of a cool summer night.

If a strong colony of bees is examined a short time before
it swarms, three different kinds of bees will be found in the
hive.

1. A bee of peculiar shape, commonly called the queen.

2. Some hundreds, more or less, of large bees called
drones.

3. Many thousands of a smaller kind called workers, or
common bees, and similar to those which are seen on the
blossoms. A large number of the cells will be found filled
with honey and bee-bread; while vast numbers contain eggs
and immature workers and drones. A few cells of unusual
size are devoted to the rearing of young queens, and are
ordinarily to be found in a perfect condition only in the
swarming season.

The queen-bee is the only perfect female in the hive, and
all the eggs are laid by her. The drones are the males, and
the workers are females, whose ovaries, or “ ege-bags,” are
so imperfectly developed that they are incapable of breed-
PHYSIOLOGY. 29

ing, and which retain the instinct of females only so far as
to give the most devoted attention to feeding and rearing
the brood.

These facts have all been demonstrated repeatedly, and
are as well established as the most common facts in the
breeding of our domestic animals. The knowledge of them
in their most important bearings is absolutely essential to all
who expect to realize large profits from an improved method
of rearing bees. Those who will not acquire the necessary
information, if they keep bees at all should manage them
in the old-fashioned way, which requires the smallest amount
either of knowledge or skill.

I am perfectly aware how difficult it is to reason with a
large class of beekeepers, some of whom have been so often
imposed upon that they have lost all faith in the truth of
any statements which may be made by any one interested
in a patent hive, while others stigmatize all knowledge which
does not square with their own as “ book-knowledge,” and
unworthy the attention of practical men.

If any sueh read, this book, let me remind them again
that all my assertions may be put to the test. So long as
the interior of a hive was to common observers a profund
mystery, ignorant and designing men might assert what they
pleased about what passed in its dark recesses; but now,
when all that takes place in it can, in a few moments, be
exposed to the full light of day, and every one who keeps
bees can see and examine for himself, the man who attempts
to palm upon the community his own coneeits for facts will
speedily earn for himself the character both of a fool and
an impostor.

The queen-bee, or, as she may more properly be called,
the mother bee, is the common mother of the whole colony.
She reigns therefore, most unquestionably, by a divine
right, as every mother is, or ought to be, a queen in her
own family. Her shape is entirely different from that of
the other bees. While she is not nearly so bulky as a drone,
her body is longer, and of a more tapering or sugar-loaf
30 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

form than that of a worker, so that she has somewhat of a
wasplike appearance. Her wings are much shorter in pro-
portion than those of the drone or worker; the under part
of her body is of a golden color, and the upper part darker
than that of the other bees. Her motions are usually slow
and matronly, although she can, when she pleases, move with
astonishing quickness.

No colony can long exist without the presence of this all-
important insect. She is just as necessary to its welfare as
the soul is to the body, for a colony without a queen must
as certainly perish as a body without the spirit hasten to
inevitable decay.

She is treated by the bees as every mother ought to be by
her children, with the most unbounded respect and affection.
A circle of her loving offspring constantly surround her,
testifying, in various ways, their dutiful regard, offering
her honey, from time to time, and always politely getting
out of her way to give her a clear path when she wishes to
move over the combs. If she is taken from them, as soon
as they have ascertained their loss the whole colony is
thrown into a state of the most intense agitation; all the
labors of the hive are at once abandoned; the bees run
wildly over the combs, and frequently the whole of them
rush forth from the hive and exhibit all the appearance of
anxious search for their beloved mother. Not being able
anywhere to find her, they return to their desolate home,
and, by their mournful tones, reveal their deep sense of so
deplorable a calamity. Their note, at such times, more
especially when they first. realize their loss, is of a peculiarly
mournful character; it sounds something like a succession
of wails on the minor key, and can no more be mistaken by
the experienced beekeeper for their ordinary happy hum
than the piteous moanings of a sick child can be confounded
by an anxious mother with its joyous crowings when over-
flowing with health and happiness.

I am perfectly aware that all this will sound to many
much more like romance than sober reality; but I have
PHYSIOLOGY. 31

determined, in writing this book, to state facts, however
wonderful, just as they are, confident that they will, before
long, be universally received, and hoping that the many
wonders in the economy of the honeybee will not only excite
a wider interest in its culture but will lead those who observe
them to adore the wisdom of Him who gave them sith ad-
mirable instincts. I can not refrain from quoting here the
forcible remarks of an English clergyman who appéars. to
bé a very great enthusiast in bee culture. :

“ Every beekeeper, if he have only a soul to appreciate
the works of God, and an intelligence of an inquisitive
order, can not fail to become deeply interested in obsérving
‘the wonderful instincts (instincts akin to reason) of these
admirable creatures, at the same time that he will learn
‘many lessons of practical wisdom from their example. Hav-
ing acquired a knowledge of their habits, not a bee will
buzz in his ear without recalling to him some of these les-
sons, and lelping to make him a wiser and a better man.
It is certain that in all my experience I never yet met with
a keeper of bees who was not a respectable, well-conducted
member of society, and a moral if not a religious man.*
It is evident, on reflection, that this pursuit, if well attended
to, must occupy some considerable share of a man’s time
and thoughts. He must be often about his bees, which will
‘help to counteract the baneful effect ‘of the village inn.
“Whoever is fond of his bees is fond of his home, is an
axiom of irrefragable truth, and one which ought to kindle
in every one’s breast a favorable regard for a pursuit which
has the power to produce so happy an influence. The love
of home is the companion of many other virtues, which, if
not yet developed into actual exercise, are still only dor-
mant, and may be roused into wakeful energy at any mo-
ment.”

The fertility of the queen-bee has been much underesti-

* he author of this work regrets that his experience does not enable
him to speak with such absolute confidence as to the character of all the
beekeepers whom he has known.
32 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

mated by most writers. It is truly astonishing. During
the height of the bréeding season she will often, under
favorable circumstances, lay from two to three thousand
eggs a day! In my observing hives I have seen her lay at
the rate of six eggs a minute! The fecundity of the female
of the white ant is much greater than this, as she will lay
as many as sixty eggs a minute! but then her eggs are
simply extruded from her body, to be carried by the workers
into suitable nurseries, while the queen-bee herself deposits
her eggs in their appropriate cells.

ON THE WAY IN WHICH THE EGGS OF THE QUEEN-BEE ARE
FECUNDATED.

I come now to a subject of great practical importance,
and one which, until quite recently, has been attended with
apparently insuperable difficulties.

It has been noticed that the queen-bee commences laying
in the latter part of winter, or early in spring, and long
before there are any drones or males in the hive. (See
remarks on drones.) In what way are these eggs impreg-
nated? Huber, by a long course of the most indefatigable
observations, threw much light upon the subject. Before
stating his discoveries I must pay my humble tribute of
gratitude and admiration to this wonderful man. It is
mortifying to every scientific naturalist, and, I might add,
to every honest man acquainted with the facts, to hear such
a man as Huber abused by the veriest quacks and impostors,
while others who have appropriated from his labors nearly
all that is of any value in their works, to use the words of
Pope,

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer.

‘Huber, in early manhood, lost the use of his eyes. His
opponents imagine that in stating this fact they have thrown
merited discredit on all his pretended discoveries. But to
make their case still stronger they delight to assert that he
PHYSIOLOGY. 33

saw every thing through the medium of his servant Francis
Burnens, an ignorant peasant. Now, this ignorant peasant
was a man of strong native intellect, possessing that inde-
fatigable energy and enthusiasm which are so indispensable
to make a good observer. He was a noble specimen of a
self-made man, and afterward rose to be the chief magis-
trate in the village where he resided. Huber has paid the
most admirable tribute to his intelligence, fidelity and in-
domitable patience, energy and skill.

It would be difficult to find in any language a better
specimen of the true Baconian or inductive system of rea-
soning than Huber’s work upon bees, and it might be stud-
ied as a model. of the only true way of investigating nature
so as to arrive at reliable results.

Huber was assisted in his investigations, not only by
Burnens, but by his own wife, to whom he was engaged
before the loss of his sight, and who nobly persisted in
marrying him, notwithstanding his misfortune and the
strenuous dissuasions of her friends. They lived for more
than the ordinary term of human life, in'the enjoyment of
uninterrupted domestic happiness, and the amiable natural-
ist scarcely felt, in her assiduous attentions, the loss of his
sight.

Milton is believed by many to have been a better poet
for his blindness; and it is highly probable that Huber was
a better apiarian for the same cause. His active and yet
reflective mind demanded constant employment; and he
found in the study of the habits of the honeybee full scope
for all his powers. All the facts observed, and experiments
tried by his faithful assistant, were daily reported to him,
and many inquiries were stated and suggestions made by
him which would probably have escaped his notice if he
had possessed the use of his eyes.

Few have such a command of both time and money as to
enable them to carry on, for a series of years, on a grand
scale, the most costly experiments. Apiarians owe more to
Huber than to any other person. I have repeatedly verified
34 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

the most important of his observations, and I take the great-_
est delight in acknowledging my obligations to him, and in
holding him up to my countrymen as the prince of apiarians.

My readers will pardon this digression. It would have
been morally impossible for me to write a work on bees
without saying at least as much as this in vindication of,
Huber.

I return to his discoveries on the impregnation of the,
queen-bee. By a long course of experiments most carefully
conducted, he ascertained that, like many other insects, she
is fecundated in the open air, and on the wing, and that
the influence of this lasts for several years, and probably
for life. He could not form any satisfactory conjecture as
to the way in which the eggs which were not yet developed
in her ovaries could be fertilized. Years ago the celebrated
Dr. John Hunter and others supposed that there must be
a permanent receptacle for the male sperm, opening into
the passage for the eggs, called the oviduct. Dzierzon, who
must be regarded as one of the ablest contributors of mod-
ern times to apiarian science, maintains this opinion, and
states that he has found such a receptacle filled with a fluid
resembling the semen of the drones. He nowhere, to my
knowledge, states he ever made microscopic examinations
so as to put the matter on the footing of demonstration.

In January and February of 1852 I submitted several
queen-bees to Dr. Joseph Leidy, of Philadelphia, for a sci-
entific examination. I need hardly say to any naturalist
in this country that Dr. Leidy has obtained the very highest
reputation, both at home and abroad, as a skillful naturalist
and microscopic anatomist. No man in this country or
Europe was more competent to make the investigations that
I desired. He found in making his dissections a small glob-
ular sac, not larger than a grain of mustard seed (about
1-33 of an inch in diameter) communicating with the ovi-
duct, and filled with a whitish fluid, which, when examined
under the microscope, was found to abound in spermatozoa,
or the animaleule, which are the unmistakable characteris-
| PHYSIOLOGY. 35

ties of the seminal fluid. Later in the season the same sub-
stance was compared with some taken from the drones, and
found to be exactly similar to it.

These examinations have settled, on the impregnable basis
of demonstration, the mode in which the eggs of the queen
are vivified. In descending the oviduct to be deposited in
the cells, they pass by the mouth of this seminal sae or
spermatheca, and receive a portion of its fertilizing con-
tents. Small as it is, its contents are sufficient to impreg-
nate hundreds of thousands of eggs. In precisely the same
way, the mother wasps and hornets are fecundated. The
females alone of these insects survive the winter, and they
begin, single-handed, the construction of a nest in which,
at first, only a few eggs are deposited. How could these
eggs hatch if the female which laid them had not been
impregnated the previous season? Dissection proves them
to have a spermatheca similar to that of the queen-bee.

Of all who have written aginst Huber, no one has treated.
him with more unfairness, misrepresentation, and, I might.
almost add, malignity, than Huish. He maintains that the
eggs of the queen are impregnated by the drones after she
has deposited them in the cells, and accounts for the fact:
that brood is produced in the spring, long before the exist-.
ence of any drones in the hive, by asserting that these eggs;
were deposited and impregnated late in the previous season,
and have remained dormant all winter in the hive: and yet
the same writer, while ridiculing the discoveries of Huber,
advises that all mother wasps should be killed in the spring
to prevent them from founding families to commit depreda-
tions upon the bees! It never seems to have occurred to
him that the existence of a permanently impregnated mother
wasp was just as difficult to be accounted for as the exist-
ence of a similarly impregnated queen-bee.

EFFECT OF RETARDED IMPREGNATION ON THE QUEEN-BEE.

I shall now mention a fact in the physiology of the queen
bee more singular than any which has yet been related.
36 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

Huber, while experimenting to ascertain how the queen
was fecundated, confined some of his young queens to their
hives by contracting the entrances so that they were not
able to go in search of the drones until three weeks after
their birth. To his amazement these queens whose impreg-
nation was thus unnaturally retarded never laid any eggs
but such as produced drones!

He tried the experiment again and again, but always with
the same result. Some beekeepers, long before his time,
had observed that all the brood in a hive were occasionally
drones, and, of course, that such colonies rapidly went to
ruin. Before attempting any explanation of this astonish-
ing fact I must call the attention of the reader to another
of the mysteries of the beehive—

FERTILE WORKERS.

It has already been remarked that the workers are proved
by dissection to be females, all of which, under ordinary
cireumstances, are barren. Occasionally some of them ap-
pear to be more fully developed than common, so as to be
‘capable of laymg eggs: these eggs, like those of queens
whose impregnation has been retarded, always produce
drones! Sometimes, when a colony has lost its queen, these
‘drone-laying workers are exalted to her place, and treated
with equal respect and affection by the bees. Huber ascer-
tained that these fertile workers were generally reared in
the neighborhood of the young queen, and he thought that
they received some particles of the peculiar food or jelly
on which the queens are reared. (See Royal Jelly.) He did
not pretend to account for the effect of retarded impregna-
tion, and made no experiments to determine the facts as to
the fecundation of these fertile workers.

Since the publication of Huber’s work, nearly fifty years
ago, no light has been shed upon the mysteries of drone-
laying queens and workers until quite recently. Dzierzon
appears to have been the first to ascertain the truth on this
PHYSIOLOGY. 37

subject; and his discovery must certainly be ranked as un-
folding one of the most astonishing facts in all the range of
animated nature. This fact seems, at first view, so absolute-
ly incredible that I should not dare to mention it if it were
not supported by the most indubitable evidence, and if I
had not (as I have already observed) determined to state
all important and well-ascertained facts, without seeking,
by any concealments, to pander to the prejudices of con-
ceited and often very ignorant beekeepers.

Dzierzon advances the opinion that impregnation is not
needed in order that the eggs of the queen may produce
drones, but that all impregnated eggs produce females,
either workers or queens; and all unimpregnated ones, males
or drones! He states that he found drone-laying queens in
several of his hives, whose wings were so imperfect that they
could not fly, and that, on examination, they proved to be
unfecundated. Hence he concluded that the eggs of the
queen-bee or fertile worker had, from the previous impreg-
nation of the egg which produced them, sufficient vitality
to produce the drone, which is a less highly organized insect,
and one inferior to the queen or workers. It has long been
known that the queen deposits drone eggs in the large or
drone-cells, and worker eggs in the small or worker cells,
and that she makes no mistakes. Dzierzon inferred, there-
fore, that there was some way in which she was able to
decide as to the sex of the egg before it was laid, and that
she must have a control over the mouth of the seminal sac
so as to be able to extrude her eggs, allowing them to receive
or not, just as she pleased, a portion of its fertilizing con-
tents. In this way he thought she determined the sex ac-
cording to the size of the cells in which she laid them. Mr.
Samuel Wagner, of York, Pa., has recently communicated
to me a very original and exceedingly ingenious theory of
his own, which he thinks will account for all the facts with-
out admitting that the queen-bee has any special knowledge
or will on the subject. He supposes that, when she deposits
her eggs in the worker cells, her body is slightly compressed
38 THE BEEKEEPER’'S MANUAL.

by the size of the cells, and that the eggs, as they pass the
spermatheca, receive in this manner its vivifying influence.
On the contrary, when she is egg-laying in drone-cells, this
compression can not take place, the mouth of the sperma-
theca is kept closed, and the eggs are, necessarily, unfec-
undated. This theory may prove to be true, but at present
it‘is encumbered with some difficulties and requires further
investigation before it can be considered as fully estab-
lished.

Leaving then the question whether the queen exercises
any volition in this matter for the present undecided, I shall
state some facts which occurred in the summer of 1852, in
my own apiary, and shall then endeavor to relieve, as far as
possible, this intricate subject from some of the difficulties
which embarrass it.

In the autumn of 1852 my assistant found, in one of my
hives, a young queen, the whole of whose progeny was
‘drones. The colony had been formed by removing part of
‘the combs containing bees, brood, and eggs from another
‘hive. It had only a few combs and but a small number of
‘bees. They raised a new queen in the manner which will
thereafter be particularly described. This queen had laid
a number of eggs in one of the combs, and the young bees
from ‘some of them were already emerging from the cells.
I perceived, at the first glance, that they were drones. As
there were none but worker cells in the hive, they were
reared in them; and, not having space for full development,
they were dwarfed in size, although the bees, in order to
give them more room, had pieced out the cells so as to make
them larger than usual! Size excepted, they appeared as
perfect as any other drones.

I was not only struck with the singularity of finding
drones reared in worker cells, but with the equally singular
faet that a young queen, which at first lays only the eggs of
workers, should be laying drone eggs at all, and at once
conjectured that this was a case of a drone-laying, unim-
pregnated queen, as sufficient time had not elapsed for her
‘\ PHYSIOLOGY. 39

impregnation to be unnaturally retarded. I saw the great
importance of taking all necessary precautions to determine
this point. The queén was removed from the hive, and
carefully examined. Her wings, although they appeared to
be perfect, were so paralyzed that she could not fly. It
seemed probable, therefore, that she had never been able
to leave the hive for impregnation.

To settle the question beyond the possibility of doubt, I
submitted this queen to Dr. Joseph Leidy for microscopic
examination. The following is an extract from his report:
“The ovaries were filled with eggs; the poison-sae was full
of fluid, and I took the whole of it into my mouth; the
poison produced a strong metallic taste, lasting for a consid-
erable time, and at first it was pungent to the tip of the
tongue. The spermatheca was distended with a perfectly
colorless, transparent, viscid liquid, without a trace of sper-
matozoa.” ,

This examination seems perfectly to sustain the theory of
Dzierzon, and to demonstrate that queens do not need to be
impregnated in order to lay the eggs of males.

I must corifess that very considerable doubts rested on
my mind as to the accuracy of Dzierzon’s statements on
this subject, and chiefly because of his having hazarded the
unfortunate conjecture that the place of the poison-bag in
the worker is occupied in the queen by the spermatheca.
Now, this is so completely contrary to fact that it was a
very natural inference that this acute and thoroughly honest
observer made no microscopié dissections of the insects
which he examined. I consider myself peculiarly fortunate
in having enjoyed the benefit of the labors of a naturalist
so celebrated as Dr. Leidy, for microscopic dissections.
The exceeding minuteness of some of the insects which he
has completely figured and described almost passes belief.
’ On examining this same colony a few days later I obtained
the most satisfactory evidence that these drone eggs were
‘laid by the queen which had been removed. No fresh eggs had
been deposited in the cells, and the bees, on missing her,
40 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

had commenced the construction of royal cells, to rear, if
possible, another queen—a thing which they would not have
done if a fertile worker had been present by which the drone
eggs had been laid.

Another very interesting fact proves that all the eggs laid
by this queen were drone eggs. Two of the royal cells were,
in a short time, discontinued, and were found to be empty,
while a third contained a worm which was sealed over the
usual way, to undergo its changes from a worm to a perfect
queen.

I was completely at a loss to account for this, as the bees
having an unimpregnated drone-laying queen ought not to
have had a single female egg from which they could rear
a queen.

At first I imagined that they might have stolen it from
another hive; but when I opened this cell it contained, in-
stead of a queen, a dead drone!

I then remembered that Huber had described the same
mistake on the part: of some of his bees. At the base of
this cell was an extraordinary quantity of the peculiar jelly
or paste which is fed to the young that are to be transform-
ed into queens. The poor bees, in their desperation, appear
to have dosed the unfortunate drone to death, as though
they expected by such liberal feeding to produce some hope-
ful change in his sexual organization!

It appears to me that these facts constitute all the links
in a perfect chain, and demonstrate beyond the possibility of
doubt that unfecundated queens are not only capable of lay-
ing eggs (this would be no more remarkable than the same
occurrence in a hen) but that these eggs are possessed of
sufficient vitality to produce drones. Aristotle, who flour-
ished before the Christian era, had noticed that there was
no difference in appearance between the eggs producing
drones and those producing workers; and he states that
drones only are produced in hives which have no queens;
of course the eggs producing them were laid by fertile
workers. Having now the aid of powerful microscopes,
PHYSIOLOGY. 41

-we are still unable to detect the slightest difference in size
ov appearance in the eggs, and this is precisely what we
should expect if the same egg will produce either a worker
or a drone, according as it is or is not impregnated. The
theory which I propose will, I think, perfectly harmonize
with all the observed facts on this subject.

I believe that after fecundation has been delayed for
about three weeks the mouth of the spermatheca becomes
permanently closed, so that impregnation can no longer be
effected, just as the parts of a flower, after a certain time,
wither and shut up, and the plant is incapable of fructifica-
tion. The fertile drone-laying workers are, in my opinion,
physically incapable of being impregnated. However strange
it may appear, or even improbable, that an unimpregnated
ege can give birth to a living being, or that the sex can be
dependent on impregnation, we are not at liberty to reject
facts because we can not comprehend the reasons for them.
He who allows himself to be guilty of such folly, if he seeks
to maintain his consistency will be plunged, sooner or later,
into the dreary gulf of atheism. Common sense, philosophy,
and religion alike teach us to receive all undoubted facts in
the natural and the spiritual world with becoming reverence ;
assured that, however mysterious to us, they are all most
beautifully harmonious and consistent in the sight of Him
whose “ understanding is infinite.”

There is something analogous to these wonders in the bee
in what takes place in the aphides or green lice which infest
our rose-bushes and other plants. We have the most un-
doubted evidence that a fecundated female gives birth to
other females, and they in turn to others still, all of which,
‘without impregnation, are able to bring forth young, until
at length, after a number of generations, perfect males and
females are produced, and the series start anew!

The unequaled facilities furnished by my hives have
seemed to render it peculiarly incumbent on me to do all in
my power to clear up the difficulties in this intricate and yet
highly important branch of apiarian knowledge. All the
42 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

leading facts in the breeding of bees ought to be as well
known to the beekeeper as the same class of facts in the
rearing of his domestic animals. A few crude and hasty
notions, but half-understood and half digested, will answer
only for the old-fashioned beekeeper who deals in the brim-
stone matches. He who expects to conduct beekeeping on
a safe and profitable system must learn that on this, as on
all other subjects, “ knowledge is power.”

The extraordinary fertility of the queen-bee has already
been noticed. The process of laying has been well described
by the Rev. W. Dunbar, a Scotch apiarian.

“ When the queen is about to lay, she puts her head into
a cell and remains in that position for a second or two, to
ascertain its fitness for the deposit which she is about to
make. She then withdraws her head, and, curving her body
downward,* inserts the lower part of it into the cell: in a
few seconds she turns half round upon herself and with-
draws, leaving an egg behind her. When she lays a consid-
erable number she does it equally on each side of the comb,
those on the one side being as exactly opposite to those on
the other as the relative position of the cells will admit.
The effect of this is to produce the utmost possible concen-
tration and economy of heat for developing the various
changes of the brood!”

Here as at every step in the economy of the bee our minds
are filled with admiration as we witness the perfect adapta-
tion of means to ends. Who can blame the warmest en-
thusiasm of the apiarian in view of a sagacity which seems
scarcely inferior to that of man?

“The eggs of bees,” I quote from the admirable treatise
of Bevan, “are of a lengthened oval shape, with a slight
curvature, and of a bluish-white color. Being besmeared,
at the time of laying, with a glutinous substance,+ they

* In this way she is sure to deposit the egg in the cell she has selected.

+ If ever there lived a genuine naturalist, Swammerdam was the man.
In his History of Insects, published in 1737, he has given a most beau-
tiful drawing of the ovaries of the queen-bee. The sac which he sup-
posed secreted a fluid for sticking the eggs to the base of the cells is the
seminal reservoir, or spermatheca.
PHYSIOLOGY. 43

adhere to the bases of the cells, and remain unchanged in
figure or situation for three or four days; they are then
hatched, the bottom of each cell presenting to view a small
white worm. On its growing so as to touch the opposite
angle of the cell, it coils itself up, to use the language of
Swammerdam, like a dog when going to sleep; and floats
in a whitish transparent fluid which is deposited in the cells
by the nursing-bees, and by which it is probably nourished;
it becomes gradually enlarged in its dimensions till the two
extremities touch one another and form a ring. In this
state it is called a larva or worm. So nicely do the bees
calculate the quantity of food which will be required that
none remains in the cell when it is transformed to a nymph.
It is the opinion of many eminent naturalists that farina
does not constitute the sole food of the larva, but that it
consists of a mixture of farina, honey, and water, partly di-
gested in the stomachs of the nursing-bees.”

“The larva having derived its support in the manner
above described, for four, five, or six days, according to the
season” (the development being retarded in cool weather,
and badly protected hives) “ continues to increase during
that period till it occupies the whole breadth and nearly the
length of the cell. The nursing-bees now seal over the cell
with a light-brown cover, externally more or less convex (the
cap of a drone-cell is more convex than that of a worker)
and thus differing from that of a honey-cell, which is
paler and somewhat concave.” The cap of the brood-cell
appears to be made of a mixture of bee-bread and wax; it
is not air-tight, as it would be if made of wax alone; but
when examined with a microscope it appears to be reticulated
or full of fine holes, through which the enclosed insect can
have air for all necessary purposes. From its texture and
shape it is easily thrust off by the bee when mature, whereas,
if it consisted wholly of wax, the young bee would either
perish for lack of air or be unable to force its way into the
world! Both the material and shape of the lids which seal
up the honey-cells are different, because an entirely different
44 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL,

object was aimed at; they are of pure wax to make them
air-tight and thus to prevent the honey from souring or
eandying in the cells! they are concave or hollowed inward
to give them greater strength to resist the pressure of their
contents!

To return to Bevan. “The larva is no sooner perfectly
inelosed than it begins to line the cell by spinning round
itself, after the manner of the silkworm, a whitish silky
film or cocoon, by which it is encased, as it were, in a pod.
When it has undergone this change it has usually borne the
name of nymph or pupa. The insect has now attained its
full growth, and the large amount of nutriment which it has
taken serves as a store for developing the perfect insect.”

“The working-bee nymph spins its cocoon in thirty-six
hours. After passing about three days in this state of
preparation for a new existence it gradually undergoes so
great. a change as not to wear a vistige of its previous form,
but becomes armed with a firmer mail, and with scales of
a dark-brown hue. On its belly six rings become distin-
guishable, which, by slipping one over another, enables the
bee to shorten its body whenever it has occasion to do so.

“When it has reached the twenty-first day of its existence,
counting from the moment the egg is laid, it comes forth a
perfect winged insect. The cocoon is left behind, and forms
a closely attached and exact lining to the cell in which it was
spun; by this means the breeding cells become smaller and
their partitions stronger, the oftener they change their
tenants, and may become so much diminished in size as not
to admit of the perfect development of full-sized bees.”

“ Such are the respective stages ofthe working bee: Those
of the royal bee are as follows: She passes three days in
the egg and is five a worm; the workers then close her cell,
and she immediately begins spinning her cocoon, which
occupies her twenty-four hours. On the tenth and eleventh
days and a part of the twelfth, as if exhausted by her labor,
she remains in complete repose. Then she passes four days
and a part of the fifth as a nymph. It is on the sixteenth
PHYSIOLOGY. 45

day, therefore, that the perfect state of queen is attained.”
“The drone passes three days in the egg, six and a half as
a worm, and changes into a perfect insect on the twenty-
fourth or twenty-fifth day after the egg is laid.”

“The development of each species likewise proceeds more
slowly when the colonies are weak or the air is cool, and
when the weather is very cold it is entirely suspended. Dr.
Hunter has observed that the eggs, worms; and nymphs all
require a heat above 70 degrees of Fahrenheit for their
evolution.”

In the chapter on protection against extremes of heat and
cold I have dwelt at some length upon the importance of
constructing the hives in such a manner as to enable the
bees to preserve, as far as possible, a uniform temperature
in their tenement. In thin hives exposed to the sun, the
heat is sometimes so great as to destroy the eggs and the
larve, even when the combs escape from being melted;
and the cold is often so severe as to check the development
of the brood, and sometimes to kill it outright.

In such hives, when the temperature out of doors falls
suddenly and severely, the bees at once feel the unfavorable
change; they are obliged in self-defense to huddle together
to keep warm, and thus large portions of the brood comb
are often abandoned, and the brood either destroyed at once
by the cold, or so enfeebled that they never recover from
the shock. Let every beekeeper, in all his operations, re-
member that brood comb must never be exposed to a low
temperature so as to become chilled: the disastrous effects
are almost as certain as when the eggs of a sitting hen are
left for too long a time by the careless mother. The brood-
combs are never safe when taken for any considerable time
from the bees unless the temperature is fully up to summer

‘heat.

“*The young bees break their envelope with their teeth,
and assisted, as soon as they come forth, by the older ones,
proceed to cleanse themselves from the moisture and exuvie

* Bevan.
46 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

with which they were surrounded. Both drories and workers
on ‘emerging from the cell are at first gray, soft, and com-
paratively helpless, so that some time elapses heford they
take wing.”

“ With respect to the cocoons spun by the different larve,
both workers and drones spin complete cocoons, or inclose
themselves on every side; royal larve construct only im-
perfect cocoons, open behind, and enveloping only the head,
thorax, and first ring of the abdomen; and Huber concludes,
without any hesitation, that the final cause of their forming
only incomplete cocoons is that they may thus be exposed
to the mortal sting of the first-hatched queen, whose instinct
leads her instantly to seek ‘the destruction of those who
would soon become her rivals.”

“Tf the royal larvee spun complete cocoons, the stings of
the queens seeking to destroy their rivals might be so en-
tangled in their meshes that they could not be disengaged.
‘Such,’ says Huber, ‘is the instinctive enmity of young
queens to each other that IJ have seen one of them, imme-
diately on its emergence from the cell, rush to those of its
sisters and tear to pieces even the imperfect larve. Hither-
to philosophers have claimed our admiration. of nature for
her care in preserving and multiplying the species. But
from these facts we must now admire her precaution in
exposing certain individuals to a mortal hazard.’”

The cocoon of the royal larva is very much stronger and
coarser than that spun by the drone: or worker, -its texture
considerably resembling that of the silkworm’s. The young
queen does not come forth from‘her' ‘cell ‘until she is quite
mature; and as its great size gives her abundant room to
exercise her wings she is capable of flying as soon as she
quits it. While still in her cell she makes the fluttering and
piping noises with which every observant beekeeper is so
well acquainted.

Some apiarians have supposed that the queen-bee has
the power to regulate the development of eggs in her ovaries,
PHYSIOLOGY, 47

so that few or many are produced, according to the necessi-
ties of the colony. This is evidently a mistake. Her eggs,
like those of the domestic hen, are formed without any voli-
tion of her own, and, when fully developed, must be extrud-
ed. If the weather is unfavorable, or if the colony is too
feeble to maintain sufficient heat, a smaller number of eggs
are developed in her ovaries, just as unfavorable circum-
stances diminish the number of eggs laid by the hen. If
the weather is very cold, egg-laying usually ceases altogeth-
er. In the latitude of Philadelphia I opened one of my
hives on the 5th day of February, and found an abundance
of eggs and brood, although the winter had been an unusu-
ally eold one, and the temperature of the preceding month
very low. The fall of 1852 was a warm one, and eggs and
brood were found in a hive which I examined on the 21st of
October. Powerful stocks in well-protected hives contain
some brood, at least ten months in the year. In warm coun-
tries, bees probably breed every month in the year.

It is highly interesting to see in what way the supernu-
merary eggs of the queen are disposed of. When the num-
ber of workers is too small to take charge of all her eggs,
or when there is a deficiency of bee-bread to nourish the
young (see chapter on Pollen); or when, for any reason,
she judges it not best to deposit them in cells she stands
upon a comb and simply extrudes them from her oviduct,
and the workers devour them as fast as they are laid! This
I have repeatedly witnessed in my observing hives, and
admired the sagacity of the queen in economizing her neces-
sary work after this fashion; instead of laboriously deposit-
ing the eggs in cells where they are not wanted. What a
difference between her wise management and the stupidity of
a hen obstinately persisting to sit upon addled eggs or pieces
of chalk, and often upon nothing at all!

The workers eat up also all the eggs which are dropped
or deposited out of place by the queen. In this way, nothing
goes to waste, and even a tiny egg is turned to some account.
Was there ever a better comment upon the maxim, “ Take
48 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of them-
selves ”’?

Do the workers that appear to be so fond of a tit-bit in
the shape of a newly laid egg ever experience a struggle
between their appetites and the claims of duty? and does it
cost them some self-denial to refrain from making a break-
fast on a fresh-laid egg? It is really very difficult. for one
who has carefully watched the habits of bees to speak of
his little favorites in any other way than as though they
possessed an intelligence almost if not quite akin to reason.

It is well known to every breeder of poultry that the
fertility of a hen decreases with age, until at length she
becomes entirely barren. It is equally certain that the fer-
tility of the queen-bee ordinarily diminishes after she has
entered upon her third year. She sometimes ceases to lay
worker eggs a considerable time before she dies of old age;
the contents of the spermatheca are exhausted; the eggs can
no longer be impregnated, and must, therefore, produce
drones.

The queen-bee usually dies of old age some time in her
fourth year, although instances are on record of some having
survived a year longer. It is highly important to the bee-
keeper who would receive the largest returns from his bees
to be able, as in my hives, to catch the queen and remove
her when she has passed the period of her greatest fertility.
In the sequel, full directions will be given as to the proper
time and mode of effecting it.

Before proceeding further in the natural history of the
queen-bee I shall describe more particularly the other in-
mates of the hive.

THE DRONES, OR MALE BEES.

THE drones are, unquestionably, the male bees. Dissec-
tion proves that they have the appropriate organs of genera-
tion. They are much larger and stouter than either the
queen or workers, although their bodies are not quite so long
as that of the queen. They have no sting with which to de-
fend themselves; no proboscis which is suitable for gather-
SS NU

PHYSIOLOGY. 49

ing honey from the flowers, and no baskets on their thighs
for holding the bee-bread. They are thus physically dis-
qualified for work, even if they were never so well disposed
to it. Their proper offiee is to impregnate the young queens,
and they are usually destroyed by the bees soon after this is
completed.

Dr. Evans, the author of a beautiful poem on bees, thus
appropriately describes them :—

Their short proboscis sips
No luscious nectar from the wild thyme’s lips;
From the lime’s leaf no amber drops they steal,
Nor bear their grooveless thighs the foodful meal:
On other’s toil in pamper’d leisure thrive
The lazy fathers of the industrious hive.

The drones begin to make their appearance in April or
May—earlier or later, according to climate and the forward-
ness of the season and strength of the stock. They require
about twenty-four days for their full development from the
egg. In colonies which are too weak to swarm, none, as a
general rule, are reared; they are not needed; for in such
hives, as no young queens are raised, they would be only
useless consumers.

The number of drones in a hive is often very great,
amounting not merely to hundreds but sometimes to thou-
sands. It seems at first very difficult to understand why
there should be so many, especially since it has been ascer-
tained that a single one will impregnate a queen for life.
But as intercourse always takes place high in the air, the
young queens are obliged to leave the hive for this purpose;
and it is exceedingly important for their safety that they
should be sure of finding one without being compelled to
make frequent excursions. Being larger than a worker,
and less quick on the wing, they are more exposed to be
caught by birds, or blown down and destroyed by sudden
gusts of wind.

In a large apiary a few drones in each hive, or the num-
ber usually found in one, might be amply sufficient. But
it must be borne in mind that, under these circumstances,
50 THE BEEKEEPERS MANUAL.

bees are not in a state of nature. Before they were domes-
ticated, a colony living in a forest often had no neighbors
for miles. Now a good stock in our climate sometimes
sends out three or more swarms, and in the tropical climates,
of which the bee is a native, they increase with astonishing
rapidity. At Sydney, in Australia, a single colony is stated
to have multiplied to 300 in three years. All the new swarms
except the first are led off by a young queen; and as she is
never impregnated until after she has been established as
the head of a separate family it is important that they
should all be accompanied by a goodly number of drones;
and this renders it necessary that a large number should be
produced in the parent hive.

As this necessity no longer exists when the bee is domes-
ticated, the production of so many drones should be discour-
aged. Traps have been invented to destroy them, but it is
much better to save the bees the labor and expense of rear-
ing such a host of useless consumers. This can readily be
done by the use of my hives. The cells in which the drones
are reared are much larger than those appropriated to the
raising of workers. The combs containing them may be
taken out to have their places supplied with worker-cells,
and thus the over-production of drones may easily be pre-
vented. Some colonies contain so much drone comb as to
be nearly worthless.

I have no doubt that some of my readers will object to
this mode of management as interfering with nature; but let
them remember that the bee is not in a state of nature, and
that the same objection might be urged against killing off
the supernumerary males of our domestic animals.

In July or August, soon after the swarming season is
over, the bees expel the drones from the hive. They some-
times sting them, and sometimes gnaw the roots of their
wings, so that, when driven from the hive, they can not
return. If not treated in either of these summary ways,.
they are so persecuted and starved that they soon perish.
The hatred of the bees extends even to the young which are
PHYSIOLOGY. 51

still unhatched. They are mercilessly pulled from the cells,
and destroyed with the rest. How wonderful that instinet
which teaches the bees that there is no longer any occasion
for the services of the drones, and which impels them to
destroy those members of the colony which a short time
before they reared with such devoted attention!

A colony which neglects to expel its drones at the usual
season ought always to be examined. The queen is proba-
bly either diseased or dead. In my hives, such an examina-
tion may be easily made, the true state of the case ascer-
tained, and the proper remedies at once applied. (See
chapter on the Loss of the Queen.)

THE PRODUCTION OF SO MANY DRONES NECESSARY, IN A STATE :
OF NATURE, TO PREVENT DEGENERACY FROM
“IN-AND-IN BREEDING.”

I have often been able, by the reasons previously assigned,
to account for the necessity of such a large number of drones
in a state of nature to the satisfaction of others, but never
fully to my own. I have repeatedly queried why impregna-
tion might not just as well have been effected in the hive as
on the wing, in the open air. Two very obvious and highly
important advantages would have resulted from such an
arrangement. 1. A few dozen drones would have amply
sufficed for the wants of any colony, even if (as in tropical
climates) it swarmed half a dozen tithes or oftener, in the
same season. 2. The young queens would have been ex-
posed to none of those risks which they now incur in leay-
ing the hive for fecundation.

“I was unable to show how the existing arrangement is
best; although I never doubted that there must be a satis-
factory reason for this seeming imperfection. To suppose
otherwise would be highly unphilosophical, since we con-
stantly see, as the circle of our knowledge is enlarged, many
mysteries in nature, hitherto inexplicable, fully cleared up.
“Let me here ask if the disposition which too many students
of nature cherish, to reject some of the doctrines of revealed
52 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

‘religion, is not equally unphilosophical. Neither our igno-
rance of all the facts necessary to their full elucidation, nor
our inability to harmonize these facts in their mutual rela—
tions and dependencies, will justify us in rejecting any truth.
which God has seen fit to reyeal, either in the book of nature-
or in his holy word. The man who would substitute his own
speculations for the divine teachings has embarked, without
rudder or chart, pilot or compass, upon the uncertain ocean:
of theory and conjecture; and unless he turns his prow from.
its fatal course no sun of righteousness will ever brighten
for him the dreary expanse of waters; storms and whirl--
winds will thicken in gloom on his “ voyage of life,” and no.
favoring gales will ever waft his shattered bark to a peace-

-ful haven.

The thoughtful reader will require no apology for the
moralizing strain of many of my remarks, nor blame a.
clergyman if, forgetting sometimes to speak as the mere
naturalist, he endeavors to find

Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in bees, and God in every thing.

To return to the point from which I have digressed, a new
attempt to account for the existence of so many drones. If
a farmer persists in what is called “breeding in and in,’
that is, from the same stock without changing the blood, it
is well known that a rapid degeneracy is the inevitable
consequence. This law extends, so far as we know, to all
animal life, and even man is not exempt from its influence.
Have we any reason to suppose that the bee is an exception?
or that ultimate’ degeneracy would not ensue unless some
provision was made to counteract the tendency to in-and-in
breeding? If fecundation had taken place in the hive, the
queen-bee must of necessity have been impregnated by
drones from a common parent, and the same result must
have taken place in each successive generation until the
whole species would eventually have “run out.” By the
present arrangement, the young females, when they leave
the hive, often find the air swarming with drones, many of
PHYSIOLOGY. 53

which belong to other colonies, and thus, by crossing the
breed, a provision is constantly made to prevent deteriora-
tion. :

Experience has proved not only that it is unnecessary to
impregnation that there should be drones in the colony of
the young queen, but that this may be effected even when
there are no drones in the apiary, and none except at some
considerable distance. Intercourse takes place very high in
the air (perhaps that less risk may be incurred from birds)
and this is the more favorable to the continual crossing of
stocks.

I am strongly persuaded that the decay of many flourishing
stocks, even when managed with great care, is to be attrib-
uted to the fact that they have become enfeebled by “ close
breeding,” and are thus unable to resist the injurious in-
fluences which were comparatively harmless when the bees
were in a state of high physical vigor. I shall, in the chap-
ter on Artificial Swarming, explain in what way, by the use
of my hives, the stock of bees may be easily crossed, when a
cultivator is too remote from other apiaries to depend
upon its being naturally effected.

THE WORKER, OR COMMON BEES.

The number of workers.in a hive varies very much. A
good swarm ought to contain 15,000 or 20,000; and in large
hives, strong colonies which are not reduced by swarming,
frequently number two or three times as many during the
height of the breeding season. We have well-authenticated
instances of stocks much more populous than this. The
Polish hives will hold several bushels, and yet we are in-
formed by Mr. Dohiogost that they swarm regularly, and
that the swarms are so powerful that “they resemble a little
cloud in the air.” I shall hereafter consider how the size of
the hive affects the number of bees that it may be expected
to produce.

The workers (as has been already stated) are all females
whose ovaries are too imperfectly developed to admit of
54 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

their laying eggs. For a long time they were regarded as
neither males nor females, and were called neuters; but
more careful microscopic examinations have enabled us to
‘detect the rudiments of their ovaries, and thus to determine
their sex. The accuracy of these examinations has been
verified by the well-known facts respecting fertile workers.

Riem, a German apiarian, first discovered that workers
sometimes lay eggs. Huber, in the course of his investiga-
tions on this subject, ascertained that such workers were
raised in hives that had lost their queen, and in the vicinity
of the royal cells in which young queens were being reared.
He conjectured that they received accidentally a small por-
tion of the peculiar food of these infant queens, and in this
way he accounted for their reproductive organs being more |
developed than those of the other workers. Workers reared
in such hives are in close proximity to the young queens,
and there is certainly much probability that some of the
royal jelly may be accidentally dropped into their cells;
as in these hives the queen-cells when first commenced are
parallel to the horizon instead of being perpendicular to it,
as they are in other hives. I do not feel confident, however,
that they are not sometimes bred in hives which have not
lost their queen. The kind of eggs laid by these fertile
workers has already been noticed. Such workers are seldom
tolerated in hives containing a fertile, healthy queen, though
instances of this kind have been known to occur. The
worker is much smaller than either the queen or the drone.*
It is furnished with a tongue or proboscis,.of the most
curious and complicated structure, which, when not in use,
is nicely folded under its abdomen; with this it licks or
brushes up the honey, which is thence conveyed to its honey-
bag. This receptacle is not larger than a very small pea, .
and is so perfectly transparent as to appear, when filled,
of the same color with its contents; it is properly the first

* This work being intended chiefly for practical purposes, I have
thought best to use, as little as possible, the technical terms and minute
anatomical description of the scientific entomologist.
PHYSIOLOGY. 55

stomach of the bee, and is surrounded by muscles which
enable the bee to compress it and empty its contents through
her proboscis into the cells. (See chapter on Honey.)

The hinder legs of the worker are furnished with a spoon-
shaped hollow or basket to receive the pollen or bee-bread
which she gathers from the flowers. (See chapter on Pol-
len.) . :

Every worker is armed with a formidable sting, and, when
provoked, makes instant and effectual use of her natural
weapon. The sting, when subjected to microscopic examina-
tion, exhibits a very curious and complicated mechanism.
‘Tt is moved* by museles which, though invisible to the eye,
are yet strong enough to force the sting to the depth of one-
twelfth of an inch, through the thick skin of a man’s hand.
At its root are situated two glands by which the poison is
secreted. These glands, uniting in one duet, eject the venom-
ous liquid along the groove formed by the junction of the
two piercers. There are four barbs on the outside of each
piercer. When the insect is prepared to sting, one of these
plercers, having its point a little longer than the other, first
darts into the flesh, and, being fixed by its foremost beard,
the other strikes in also, and they alternately penetrate
deeper and deeper’, till they acquire a firm hold of the flesh
with their barbed hooks, and then follows the sheath, con-
veying the poison into the wound. The action of the sting,
says Paley, affords an example of the union of chemistry
and mechanism—of chemistry in respect to the venom,
whieh can produce such powerful effects; of mechanism, as
the sting is a compound instrument. The machinery would
have been comparatively-useless had it not been for the
chemical process by which in the insect’s body honey is con-
verted into poison; and, on the other hand, the poison would
have been ineffectual without an instrument to wound, and
a syringe to inject it.”

“Upon examining the edge of a very keen razor by the.
microscope it appears as broad as the back of a pretty thick

* Bevan.
56 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

knife, rough, uneven, and full of notches and furrows, and,
so far from any thing like sharpness, that an instrument as
blunt as this seemed to be would not serve even to cleave
wood. An exceedingly small needle being also examined, it
resembled a rough iron bar out of a smith’s forge. The
sting of a bee viewed through the same instrument showed
evcrywhere a polish amazingly beautiful, without the least
flaw, blemish, or inequality, and ended in a point too fine to
be discerned.” =.

The extremity of the sting being barbed like an arrow,
the bee can withdraw it if the substance into which she darts
it is at all tenacious. In losing her sting she parts with a
portion of her intestines, and, of necessity, soon perishes.

As the loss of the sting is always fatal to the bees, they
pay a dear penalty for the exercise of their patriotic in-
stinets; but they always seem ready (except when they have
taken “a drop too much,” and are gorged witb honey) to
die in defense of their home and treasures; or, as the poet
has expressed it, they

Deem life itself to vengeance well resigned,
Die on the wound, and leave their sting behind.

Hornets, wasps, and other stinging insects, are able to
withdraw their stings from the wound. I have never seen
any attempt to account for the exception in the ease of the
honeybee. But if the Creator intended the bee for the use
of man, as he most certainly did, has he not given it this
peculiarity to make it less formidable, and therefore more
completely subject to human control? Without a sting, it
would have stood no chance of defending its tempting sweets
against a host of greedy depredators; but if it could sting
a number of times it would be much more difficult to bring
it into a state of thorough domestication. A quiver full of
arrows in the hand of a skillful marksman is far more to
be dreaded than a single shaft.

The defense of the colony against enemies, the construc-
tion of the cells, the storing of them with honey and bee-
bread, the rearing of the young, in short, the whole work of
PHYSIOLOGY. 57

the hive, the laying of eggs excepted, is carried on by the
industrious little workers.

There may be gentlemen of leisure in the commonwealth
of bees, but most assuredly there are no such ladies, whether
of high or low degree. The queen herself has her full share
of duties, for it must be admitted that the royal office is no
sinecure when the mother who fills it must superintend
daily the proper deposition of several thousand eggs!

AGE OF BEES.

The queen-bee (as has been already stated) will live
four and sometimes, though very rarely, five years. As the
life of the drones is usually cut short by violence it is not
easy to ascertain its precise limit. Bevan, in some interest-
ing statements on the longevity of bees, estimates it not to
exceed four months. The workers are supposed by him to
live six or seven months. Their age depends, however, very
much upon their greater or less exposure to injurious in-
fluences and severe labors. Those reared in the spring and
early part of summer, and on whom the heaviest labors of
the hive must necessarily devolve, do not appear to live more
than two or three months, while those which are bred at the
close of summer and early in autumn, being able to spend
a large part of their time in repose, attain a much greater
age. It is very evident that “the bee” (to use the words of
a quaint old writer) “is a summer bird,” and that, with the
exception of the queen, none live to be a year old.

Notched and ragged wings, instead of gray hairs and
wrinkled faces, are the signs of old age in the bee, and in-
dieate that its season of toil will soon.be over. They appear
to die rather suddenly, and often spend their last days, and
sometimes even their last hours, in useful labors. Place
yourself before a hive, and see the indefatigable energy of
these aged veterans, toiling along with their heavy burdens,
side by side with their more youthful compeers, and then
say if you can that you have done work enough, and that
58 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

you will give yourself up to slothful indulgence while the
ability for useful labor still remains. Let the cheerful hum
of their industrious old age inspire you with better resolu-
tions, and teach you how much nobler it is to meet death in
the path of duty, striving still, as you “ have opportunity,”
to “do good unto all meri.”

The age which individual members of the community may
attain must not be confounded with that of the colony.
Bees have been known to occupy the same domicile for a
great number of years. I have seen flourishing colonies
which were twenty years old, and the Abbe Della Rocca
speaks of some over forty years old! Such cases have led
to the erroneous opinion that bees are a long-lived race.
But this, as Dr. Evans has observed, is just as wise as if a
stranger, contemplating a populous city, and personally un-
acquainted with its inhabitants should, on paying it a second
visit, many years afterward, and finding it equally populous,
imagine that it was peopled by the same individuals, not one
of whom might then be living.

Like leaves on trees, the race of bees is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground;
Another race the spring or fall supplies;

They droop successive, and successive rise.

The cocoons spun by the larvee are never removed by the
bees; they stick so closely to the sides of the cells that
the knowing bee well understands that the labor of removal
would cost more than it would be worth. In process of
time, the breeding cells become too small for the proper
development of the young. In some cases the bees must
take down and reconstruct the old combs, for if they did
not, the young issuing from them would always be dwarfs;
whereas I once compated with other bees those of a colony
more than fifteen years old, and found no perceptible dif-
ference. That they do not always renew the old combs must
be admitted, as the young from some old hives are often
considerably below the average size. On this account it is
very desirable to be able to remove the old combs ocecasion-
ally, that their place may be supplied with new ones.
PHYSIOLOGY. 59

It is a great mistake to imagine that the brood-combs
ought to be changed every year. In my hives they might,
if it were desirable, be easily changed several times in a
year; but once in five or six years is often enough; oftener
than this requires a needless consumption of honey to re-
place them, besides being for other reasons undesirable, as
the bees are always in winter colder in new comb than in
old. Inventors of hives have too often been most emphati-
cally “men of one idea;” and that one, instead of being a
well-established and important fact in the physiology of the
bee, has frequently (like the necessity for a yearly change of
the brood combs) been merely a conceit, existing nowhere
but in the brain of a visionary projector. This is all harm-
less enough until an effort is made to impose such miserable
crudities upon an ignorant public, either in the shape of a
patented hive, or, worse still, of an unpatented hive, the
pretended right to use: which is fraudulently sold to the
cheated purchaser !

For want of proper knowledge with regard to the age of
bees, huge “bee palaces,” and large closets in garrets or
attics have been constructed, and their proprietors have
vainly imagined that the bees would fill them, however
roomy; for they can see no reason why a colony should not
continue to increase indefinitely, until at length it numbers
its inhabitants by millions or billions! As the bees can never
at one time equal, still less exceed, the number which the
queen is capable of producing in one season, these spacious
dwellings have always an abundance of “spare rooms.” It
seems strange that men can be thus deceived, when often
in their own apiary they have healthy stocks which have not
swarmed for a year or more, and which yet in the spring
are not a whit more populous than those which have regular-
ly parted with vigorous swarms.

It is certain that the Creator has for some wise reason
set a limit to the increase of numbers in a single colony;
and I shall venture to assign what appears to me to have
been one reason for his so doing. Suppose that he had
60 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

given to the bee a length of life as great as that of the
horse or the cow, or had made each queen capable of laying
daily some hundreds of thousands of eggs, or had given
several hundred queens to each hive, then from the very
nature of the ease a colony must have gone on increasing
until it became a scourge rather than a benefit to man. In
the warm climates of which the bee is a native, they would
have established themselves in some cavern or capacious
cleft in the rocks, and would there have quickly become so
powerful as to bid defiance to all attempts to appropriate
the avails of their labors.

It has already been stated that none, except the mother
wasps and hornets, survive the winter. If these insects had
been able, like the bee, to commence the season with the
accumulated strength of a large colony, long before its close
they would have proved a most intolerable nuisance. If, on
the contrary, the queen-bee had been compelled, solitary
and alone, to lay the foundations of a ney commonwealth,
the honey-harvest would have disappeared before she could
have become the parent of a numerous family..

In the laws which regulate the increase of bees as well
as in all other parts of their economy we have the plainest
proofs that the insect was formed for the special service of
the human race.

THE PROCESS OF REARING THE QUEEN MORE PARTICULARLY
DESCRIBED.

If, in the early, part of the season, the population of a
hive becomes uncomfortably crowded, the bees usually make
preparations for swarming. A number of royal cells are
commenced, and they are placed almost always upon those
edges of the combs which are not attached to the sides of the
hive. These cells somewhat resemble a small ground-nut or
pea-nut, and are about an inch deep and one-third of an
inch in diameter. They are very thick, and require a large
quantity of material for their construction, They are sel-
PHYSIOLOGY. 61

dom seen in a perfect state, as the bees nibble them away
after the queen has hatched, leaving only their remains, in
the shape of a very small acorn-cup. While the other cells
open sidewise, these always hang with their mouth down-
ward. Much speculation has arisen as to the reason for this
deviation. Some have conjectured that their peculiar posi-
tion exerted an influence upon the development of the royal
larvee; while others, having ascertained that no injurious
effect was produced by turning them upward, or placing
them in any other position, have considered this deviation
as among the inscrutable mysteries of the beehive. So it
always seemed to me until more careful reflection enabled
me to solve the problem. The queen-cells open downward
simply to save room! The distance between the parallel
ranges of comb being usually less than half an inch, the bees
could not have made the royal cells to open sidewise without
sacrificing the cells opposite to them. In order to economize
space to the very utmost, they put them upon the unoceupied
edges of the comb, as the only place where there is always
plenty of room for such very large cells.

The number of royal cells varies greatly; sometimes there
are only two or three, ordinarily there are five or six, and I
have occasionally seen more than a dozen. They are not all
commenced at once, for the bees do not intend that the
young queens shall all arrive at maturity at the same time.
I do not consider it as fully settled how the eggs are depos-
ited in these cells. In some few instances I have known the
bees to transfer the eggs from common to queen-cells, and
this may be their general method of procedure. I shall
hazard the conjecture that the queen deposits her eggs in
cells on the edges of the comb, in a crowded state of the
hive, and that some of these are afterward enlarged and
changed into royal cells by the workers. Such is the in-
stinctive hatred of the queen to her own kind that it does
not seem to me probable that she is intrusted with even the
initiatory steps for securing a race of successors. That the
eggs: from which the young queens are produced are of
62 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

the same kind with those producing workers has been re-
peatedly demonstrated. On examining the queen-cells while
they are in progress, one of the first things which excites
our notice is the very unsual amount of attention bestowed
upon them by the workers. There is scarcely a second in
which a bee is not peeping into them; and, just as fast as
one is satisfied, another pops its head in to examine if not
to report progress. The importance of their inmates to the
bee-community might easily be inferred from their being the
center of so much attraction.

ROYAL JELLY.

The young queens are supplied with a much larger quan-
tity of food than is allotted to the other larve, so that they
seem almost to float in a thick bed of jelly, and there is
usually a portion of it left unconsumed at the base of the
cells after the insects have arrived at maturity. It is differ-
ent from the food of either drones or workers, and in ap-
pearance resembles a light quince jelly, having a slightly
acid taste. :

I submitted a portion of the royal jelly for analysis to
Dr. Charles M. Wetherill, of Philadelphia. A very interest-
ing account of his examination may be found in the pro-
ceedings of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences
for July, 1852. He speaks of the substance as “truly a
bread-containing albuminous compound.” I hope in the
course of the coming summer to obtain from this able analyt-
ical chemist an analysis of the food of the young drones
and workers. A comparison of its elements with those of
the royal jelly may throw some light on subjects as yet
involved in obscurity.

The effects produced upon the larve by this peculiar food
and method of treatment are very remarkable. For one, I
have never considered it strange that such effects should be
rejected as idle whims by nearly all except those who have
either been eye-witnesses to them or have been well acquaint-
PHYSIOLOGY. 63

ed with the character and opportunities for accurate obser-
vation of those on whose testimony they have received them.
They are not only in themselves most marvelously strange,
but on the face of them so-entirely opposed to all common
analogies, and so very improbable, that many men when
asked to believe them feel almost as though an insult were
offered to their common sense. The most important of these
effects I shall now proceed to enumerate.

1. The peculiar mode in which the worm designed to
_. be reared as a queen is treated causes it to arrive at matu-
lity about one-third earlier than if it had been bred a work-
er. And yet it is to be much more fully developed, and,
~- according to ordinary analogy, ought to have had a slower

growth!

2. Its organs of reproduction are completely developed,
so that it is capable of fulfilling the office of a mother.

3. Its size, shape, and color are all greatly changed. (See
p. 29. Its lower jaws are shorter, its head rounder, and its
legs have neither brushes nor baskets, while its sting is
more curved, and one-third longer than that of a worker.

4. Its instincts are entirely changed. Reared.as a worker
it would have been ready to thrust out its sting upon the
least provocation; whereas now it may be pulled limb from
limb without attempting to sting. As a worker it would

' have treated a queen with the greatest consideration; where-
as now, if placed under a glass with another queen, it rushes
forthwith to mortal combat with its rival. As a ‘worker, it
would frequently have left the hive, either for labor or
exercise. As a queen, after impregnation it never leaves
the hive except to accompany a new swarm.

5. The term of its life is remarkably lengthened. As a
worker, it would have lived not more than six or seven
months at furthest; as a queen it may live seven or eight
times as long! All these wonders rest on the impregnable
basis of complete demonstration, and, instead of being wit-
nessed by only a select few, may now, by the use of my
hive, be familiar sights to any beekeeper who prefers to
64 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

acquaint himself with facts rather than to cavil and sneer
at the labors of others.*

When provision has been made, in the manner described,
for a new race of queens, the old mother always departs
with the first swarm, before her successors have arrived at

maturity.t.
ARTIFICIAL REARING OF QUEENS.

The distress of the bees when they lose their queen has
already been described. If they have the means of supply-
ing her loss, they soon calm down and commence forthwith
the necessary steps for rearing another. The process of
rearing queens artificially to meet some special emergency
is even more wonderful than the natural one, which has
already been described. Its success depends on the bees
having worker-eggs or worms not more than three days old
(if older, the larva has been too far developed as a worker
to admit of any change) the bees nibble away the partitions
of two cells adjoining a third, so as to make one large cell

* Having already spoken of Swammerdam, I shall give a brief extract
from the celebrated Dr. Boerhaave’s memoir of this wonderful naturalist,
which should put to blush, if any thing can, the arrogance of those
superficial observers who are too wise in their own conceit to avail
themselves of the knowledge of others.

“This treatise on bees proved so fatiguing a performance, that Swam-
merdam never afterward recovered even the appearance of his former
health and vigor. He was almost continually engaged by day in making
observations, and as constantly engaged by night in recording them by
drawings and suitable explanations.”

“This being summer work, his daily labor began at six in the morn-
ing, when the sun afforded him light enough to survey such minute
objects; and from that hour till twelve he continued without interrup-
tion, all the while exposed in the open air to the scorching heat of the
sun, bareheaded for fear of intercepting his sight, and his head in a
manner dissolving into sweat under the irresistible ardors of that pow-
erful luminary. And if he desisted at noon, it was only because the
strength of his eyes was too much weakened by the extraordinary afflux
of light and the use of microscope to continue any longer upon such
small objects, though as discernible in the afternoon as they had been
in the forenoon.”

‘Our author, the better to accomplish his vast, unlimited views, often
wished for a year of perpetual heat and light to perfect his inquiries,
with a polar night to reap all the advantages of them by proper drawings
and descriptions.”

{ The formation of swarms will be particularly described in another
chapter.
PHYSIOLOGY. 65

out of the three. They destroy the eggs or worms in two
of these cells, while they place before the occupant of the
third the usual food of the young queens, and build out its
cell so as to give it ample space for development. They do
not confine themselves to the attempt to rear a single queen,
but, to guard against failure, start a considerable number,
although the work on all except a few is usually soon dis-
continued.

In twelve or fourteen days they are in possession of a
new queen, precisely similar to one reared in the natural
way; while the eggs which were laid at the same time in the
adjoining cells, and which have been developed in the usual
way, are nearly a week longer in coming to maturity.

I will give in this connection a description of an interest-
ing experiment:

A large hive which stood at a distance from any other
colony was removed in the morning of a very pleasant day
to a new place, and another hive containing only empty
comb was put upon its stand. Thousands of workers which
were out in the fields, or which left the old hive after its
removal, returned to the familiar spot. It was affecting to
witness their grief and despair: they flew in restless circles
about the place which once contained their happy home,
entered and left the new hive continually, expressing in
various ways their lamentations over their cruel bereave-
ment. Toward evening they ceased to take wing, and
roamed in restless platoons, in and out of the hive, and over
its surface, acting all the time as though in search of some
lost treasure. I now gave them a piece of brood comb, con-
taining worker eggs and worms, taken from a second swarm
which being just established with its young queen, in a new
hive, could have no intention of rearing young queens that
season; therefore it can not be contended that this piece of
comb contained what some are pleased to call “royal eggs.”
What followed the introduction of this brood-comb took
place much quicker than it can be described. The bees
which first touched it raised a peculiar note, and in a mo-
66 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

ment the comb was covered with a dense mass; their restless
motions and mournful noises ceased, and a cheerful hum at
once attested their delight. Despair gave place to hope, as
they recognized in this small piece of comb the means of
deliverance. Suppose a large building filled with thousands
of persons tearing their hair, beating their breasts, and by
piteous cries, as well as frantic gestures, giving vent to their
despair; if now some one should enter this house of mourn-
ing, and by a single word cause all these demonstrations of
agony to give place to smiles and congratulation, the change
could not be more wonderful and instantaneous than that
produced when the bees received the brood-comb!

The Orientals call the honeybee Deburrah, “She that
speaketh.” Would that this little insect might speak, and
in words more eloquent than those of man’s device, to the
multitudes who allow themselves to reject the doctrines of
revealed religion, because, as they assert, they are, on their
face, so utterly improbable that they labor under an a priori
objection strong enough to be fatal to their credibility. Do
not nearly all the steps in the development of a queen from
a worker-egg labor under precisely the same objection? and
have they not, for this very reason, always been regarded
by great numbers of beekeepers as unworthy of credence?
If the favorite argument of infidels and errorists will not
stand the test when applied to the wonders of the beehive,
can it be regarded as entitled to any serious weight when
employed in framing objections against religious truths, and
arrogantly taking to task the infinite Jehovah for what he
has been pleased to do or to teach? Give me the same lati-
tude claimed by such objectors, and I can easily prove that
a man is under no obligation to receive any of the wonders
in the economy of the beehive, although he is himself
an intelligent eye-witness that they are all substantial
verities.

I shall quote, in this connection, from Huish, an English
apiarian of whom I have already spoken, because his ob-
jections to the discoveries of Huber remind me so forcibly
PHYSIOLOGY. 67

of both the spirit and principles of the great majority of
those who object to the doctrines of revealed religion.

“ Tf an individual, with the view of acquiring some knowl-
edge of the natural history of the bee, or of its management,
consult the works of Bagster, Bevan, or any of the periodi-
cals which casually treat upon the subject, will he not rise
from the study of them with his mind surcharged with falsi-
ties and mystification? Will he not discover through the
whole of them a servile acquiescence in the opinions and
discoveries of one man, however at variance they may be
with truth or probability? and if he enter upon the dis-
cussion with his mind free from prejudice, will he not ex-
perience that an outrage has been committed upon his reason
in calling upon him to give assent to positions and principles
which at best are merely assumed, but to which he is called
upon dogmatically to subscribe his acquiescence as the in-
dubitable results of experience, skill, and ability? The
editors of the works above alluded to should boldly and
indignantly have declared that, from their own experience.
in the natural economy of the insect, they were able to pro-
nounce the circumstances as related by Huber to be directly-
impossible, and the whole of them based on fiction and im-
position.”

Let the reader change only a few words in this extract.
For “the natural history of the bee or its management,” let
him write, “the subject of religion;” for “the works of
Bagster, Bevan,” ete., let him put “the works of Moses,
Paul,” ete.; for “ their own experience in the natural econo-
my of the insect,” let him substitute “ their own experience
in the nature of many ;” and for “circumstances as related by
Huber,” let him insert “as related by Luke or John,” and
it will sound almost precisely like a passage from some
infidel author.

I resume the quotation from Huish: “1f we examine the
account which Huber gives of his invention(!) of the royal
jelly, the existence and efficacy of which are fully acquiesced
in by the aforesaid editors, to what other conclusions are we
68 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

necessarily driven than that they are the dupes of a vision-
ary enthusiast whose greatest merit consists in his inventive
powers, no matter how destitute those powers may be of all
affinity with truth or probability? Before, however, these
editors bestowed their unqualified assent on the existence of
this royal jelly, did they stop to put to themselves the fol-
lowing questions? By what kind of bee is it made?*
Whence is it procured? Is it a natural or an elaborated
substance? If natural, from what source is it derived?
If elaborated, in what stomach of the bee is it to be found?
How is it administered? What are its constituent prin-
ciples? Is its existence optional or definite? Whence does
it derive its miraculous power of converting a common egg
into a royal one? Will any of the aforesaid editors publicly
answer these questions? and ought they not to have been
able to answer them before they so unequivocally expressed
their belief in its existence, its powers, and administration ?”

How puerile does all this sound to one who has seen and
tasted the royal jelly! And permit me to add, how equally
unmeaning do the objections of infidels seem to those who
have an experimental acquaintance with the divine hopes
and consolations of the gospel of Christ!

* Suppose that we are unable to give a satisfactory answer to any of
these questions, does our ignorance on these points disprove the fact
of the existence of such a jelly?
CHAPTER IV.
COMB.

Wax is a natural secretion of the bees. It may be called
their oil or fat. If they are gorged with honey, or any
liquid sweet, and remain quietly clustered together, it is
formed in small wax-pouches on their abdomen, and comes
out in the shape of very delicate scales. Soon after a swarm
is hived, the bottom-board will be covered with these scales.

Thus, filtered through yon flutterer’s folded mail,
Clings the cooled wax, and hardens to a scale.
Swift, at the well- known call, the ready train
(For not a buz boon Nature breathes in vain) '
Spring to each falling flake, and bear along
Their glossy burdens to the builder throng.
These with sharp sickle or with sharper tooth,
Pare each excrescence, and each angle smooth,
Till now, in finished pride, two radiant rows
Of snow-white cells one mutual base disclose.
Six shining anels gird each polished round,
The door’s fine rim, with waxen fillet bound, f
While walls so thin, with sister walls combined, pea
Weak in themselves, a sure dependence ae
Evans.

Huber was the first to demonstrate that wax is a natural
secretion of the bee when fed on honey or any saccharine
substance. Most apiarians before his time supposed that it
was made from pollen or bee-bread, either in a erude or
digested state. He confined a new swarm of bees in a hive
placed in a dark and cool room, and on examining them at
the end of five days found several beautiful white combs in
their tenement. These were taken from them, and they were
again confined and supplied with honey and water, and a
second time new combs were constructed. Five times in
succession their combs were removed, and were in each in-
stance replaced, the bees being all the time prevented from
ranging the fields to supply themselves with bee-bread. By
70 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL,

subsequent experiments he proved that sugar answered the
same end with honey.

He then confined a swarm, giving them no honey, but an
abundance of fruit and pollen. They subsisted on the fruit,
but refused to touch the pollen; and no combs were con-
structed, nor any wax scales formed in their pouches. These
experiments are conclusive, and are interesting, not merely
as proving that wax is secreted from honey or saccharine
substances, but because they show in what a thorough man-
ner the experiments of Huber were conducted. Confident
assertions are easily made, requiring only a little breath or
a drop of ink; and the men who deal most in them have
often a profound contempt for observation and experiment.
To establish even a simple truth on the solid foundation of
demonstrated facts often requires the most patient and pro-
tracted toil.

A high temperature is necessary for comb-building, in
order that the wax may be soft enough to be molded into
shape. The very process of its secretion helps to furnish
the amount of heat which is required to work it. This is a
very interesting fact which seems never before to have been
noticed.

Honey or sugar is found to contain by weight about eight
pounds of oxygen to one of carbon and hydrogen, When
changed into wax, the proportions are entirely reversed;
the wax contains only one pound of oxygen to more than
sixteen pounds of hydrogen and carbon. Now, as oxygen
is the grand supporter of animal heat, the consumption of
so large a quantity of it aids in producing the extraordinary
heat which always accompanies comb-building, and which is
necessary to keep the wax in the soft and plastic state
requisite to enable the bees to mold it into such exquisitely
delicate and beautiful shapes! Who ean fail to admire the
wisdom of the Creator in this beautiful instance of adapta-
tion?

The most careful experiments have clearly established the
fact that at least twenty pounds of honey are consumed in
COMB 71

making a single! pound of wax. If any think that ‘this is
incredible, let them bear in mind that wax is an animal oil
secreted from honey, and let them consider how many
pounds of corn or hay they must feed to their stock in order
to have them gain a single pound of fat.

Many apiarians are entirely ignorant of the great value
of empty comb. Suppose the honey to be worth only 15
ets. per lb., and the comb when rendered into wax to be
worth 30 ets. per lb., the bee-master who melts a pound of
comb loses nearly three dollars by the operation, and this,
without estimating the time which the bees have consumed
in building the comb. Unfortunately, in the ordinary hives
but little use can be made of empty comb unless it is new,
and can be put into the surplus honey-boxes; but by the
use of my movable frames every piece of good worker-comb
may be used to the best advantage, as it can be given to the
bees to aid them in their labors.

It has been found very difficult to preserve comb from the
bee-moth when it is taken from the bees. If it contains only
a few of the eggs of this destroyer, these, in due time, will
produce a progeny sufficient to devour it. The comb, if it is
attached to my frames, may be suspended in a box or empty
hive, and thoroughly smoked with sulphur; this will kill any
worms which it may contain. When the weather is warm
enough to hatch the eggs of the moth, this process must be.
repeated a few times at intervals of about a week, so as to
insure the destruction of the worms as they hatch, for the
sulphur does not seem always to destroy the vitality of the
eggs. The combs may now be kept in a tight box or hive
with perfect safety.

Combs containing bee-bread are of great value; and if
given to young colonies, which in spring are frequently
destitute of this article, they will materially assist them in
early breeding.

Honey may be taken from my hives in the frames, and
the covers of the cells sliced off with a sharp knife; the
honey can then be drained out, and the empty combs return-
72 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

ed to be filled again. A strong stock of bees in the height
of the honey-harvest will fill empty combs with wonderful
rapidity. I lay it down as one of my first principles in bee
culture, that no good comb should ever be melted; it should
all be carefully preserved and given to the bees. If it is
new, it may be easily attachéd to the frames or the honey-
receptacles by dipping the edge into melted wax, pressing
it gently until it stiffens, and then allowing it to cool. If
the comb is old, or the pieces large and full of bee-bread, it
will be best to dip them into melted rosin, which, besides
costing much less than wax, will secure a much firmer ad-
hesion. When comb is put into tumblers or other small
vessels, the bees will begin to work upon it sooner if it is
simply erowded in, so as to be held in place by being sup-
ported against the sides. It would seem as though they were
disgusted with such unworkmanlike proceedings, and that
they can not rest until they have taken it into hand and
endeavored to “ make a job of it.”

If the beekeeper in using his choicest honey will be satis-
fied to dispense with looks, and will carefully drain it from
the beautiful comb, he may use all such comb again to great
advantage, not only saving its intrinsic value, but greatly
encouraging his bees to occupy and fill all receptacles in
which a portion of it is put. Bees seem to fancy a good
‘start in life about as well as their more intelligent owners.
To this use all suitable drone comb should be put as soon
as it is removed from the main hive. (See remarks on
Drones.)

Ingenious efforts have been made of late years to con-
struct artificial honeyeombs of porcelain, to be used for
feeding bees. No one, to my knowledge, has ever attempted
to imitate the delicate mechanism of the bee so closely as to
construct artificial combs for the ordinary uses of the hive;
although for a long time I have entertained the idea as very
desirable, and yet as barely possible. I am at present en-
gaged in a course of experiments on this subject, the results
of which, in due time, I shall communicate to the public.
COMB 73

While writing this treatise it has occurred to me that bees
might be induced to use old wax for the construction of their
combs. Very fine parings may be shaved off with glass, and,
if given to the bees under favorable circumstances, it seems
to me very probable that they would use them just as they
do the scales which are formed in their wax-pouches. Let
strong colonies be deprived of some of their combs after the
honey-harvest is over, and supplied abundantly with these
parings of wax. Whether “nature abhors a vacuum” or
not, bees certainly do when it occurs among the combs of
their main hive. They will not use the honey stored up for
winter use to replace the combs taken from them; they can
gather none from the flowers; and I have strong hopes that
the necessity will with bees as well as men prove the mother
of invention, and lead them to use the wax as readily as
they do the substitute offered them for pollen. (See chapter
on Pollen.)

If this conjecture should be verified by actual results, it
would exert a most powerful influence on the cheap and
rapid multiplication of colonies, and would enable the bees
to store up most prodigious quantities of honey. A pound
of beeswax might then be made to store up twenty pounds
of honey, and the gain to the beekeeper would be the differ-
ence in price between the pound of wax and the twenty
pounds of honey which the bees would have consumed in
making the same amount of comb. Strong stocks might thus
during the dull season, when no honey can be procured, be
most profitably employed in building spare comb, to be used
in strengthening feeble stocks, and for a great variety of
purposes. Give me the means of cheaply obtaining large
amounts of comb, and I have almost found the philosopher’s
stone in beekeeping.

The building of comb is carried on with the greatest
activity in the night, while the honey is gathered by day.
Thus no time is lost. If the weather is too forbidding to
allow the bees to go abroad, the combs are very rapidly
constructed, as the labor is carried on both by day and by
74 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

night. On the return of a fair day, the bees gather unusual
quantities of honey, as they have plenty of room for its
storage. Thus it often happens that, by their wise economy
of time, they actually lose nothing, even if confined for
several days to their hive.

How doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour!

The poet might with equal truth have described her as
improving the gloomy days and the dark nights in her
useful labors.

It is an interesting fact, which I do not remember ever to
have seen particularly noticed by any writer, that honey-
gathering and comb-building go on simultaneously; so that
when one stops, the other ceases also. I have repeatedly
observed that, as soon as the honey harvest fails, the bees
intermit their labors in building new comb, even when large
portions of their hive are unfilled. They might enlarge their
combs by using some of their stores; but then they would
ineur the risk of perishing in the winter by starvation.
When honey no longer abounds in the fields, it is wisely
ordered that they should not consume their hoarded treas-
ures in expectation of further supplies which may never
come. I do not believe that any other safe rule could have
been given them; and if honey-gathering were our business,
with all our boasted reason we should be obliged to adopt
the very same course.

Wax is one of the best non-conductors of heat, so that
when it is warmed by the animal heat of the bees it can more
easily be worked than if it parted with its heat too readily.
By this property the combs serve also to keep the bees
warm, and there is not so much risk of the honey candying
in the eells, or the combs cracking with frost. If wax were
a good conduetor of heat, the combs would often be icy cold,
moisture would condense and freeze upon them, and they
would fail to answer the ends for which they are intended.

The size of the cells in which workers are reared never
varies. The same may substantially be said of the drone-
COMB 15

cells, which are very considerably larger; the cells in which
honey is stored often vary exceedingly in depth, while in
diameter they are of all sizes from that of the worker-cells
to that of the drones.

The cells of the bees are found perfectly to answer all
the most refined conditions of a very intricate mathematical
problem. Let it be required to find what shape a given
quantity of matter must take in order to have the greatest
capacity and the greatest strength, requiring at the same
time the least space, and the least labor in its construction.
This problem has been solved by the most refined processes
of the higher mathematics, and the result is the hexagonal
or six-sided cell of the honeybee, with its three four-sided
figures at the base!

The shape of these figures can not be altered, ever so
little, except for the worse. Besides possessing the desirable
qualities already described, they answer as nurseries for
the rearing of the young, and as small air-tight vessels in
which the honey is preserved from souring or candying.
Every prudent housewife who puts up her preserves in
tumblers or small glass jars, and carefully pastes them over
to keep out the air will understand the value of such an
arrangement.

“ There are only three possible figures of the cells,” says
Dr. Reid, “which can make them all equal and similar,
without any useless spaces between them. These are the
equilateral triangle, the square, and the regular hexagon.
It is well known to mathematicians that there is not a fourth
way possible in which a plane may be cut into little spaces
that shall be equal, similar, and regular, without leaving any
interstices.”

An equilateral triangle would have made an unéomfort-
able tenement for an insect with a round body; and a square
would not have been much better. -At first sight a circle
would seem to be the best shape for the development of the
larvee; but such a figure would have caused a needless sacri-
fice of space, materials, and strength; while the honey which
76 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

now adheres so admirably to the many angles or corners of
the six-sided cell would have been much more liable to run
out! I will venture to assign a new reason for the hexago-
nal form. The body of the immature insect as it undergoes
its changes is charged with a superabundance of moisture
which passes off through the reticulated cover which the
bees build over its cell. A hexagon, while it approaches so
nearly the shape of a circle as not to incommode the young
bee, furnishes in its six corners the necessary vacancies for
its more thorough ventilation!

So invariably uniform in size, as well as perfect in other
respects, are the cells in which the workers are bred, that
some mathematicians have proposed their adoption as the
best unit for measures of capacity to serve for universal use.

Can we believe that these little insects unite so many
requisites in the construction of their cells either by chance
or because they are profoundly versed in the most intricate
mathematics? Are we not compelled to acknowledge that
the mathematics must be referred to the Creator, and not to
his puny creature? To an intelligent, candid mind, a piece
of honeycomb is a complete demonstration that there is a
“great first cause;” for on no other supposition can we
account for so complicated a shape, and yet the only one
which can possibly unite so many desirable requisites.

On books deep poring, ye pale sons of toil,
Who waste in studious trance the midnight oil,
Say, can ye emulate with all your rules,
Drawn or from Grecian or from Gothic schools,
This artless frame? Instinct her simple guide,
A heaven-taught insect baffles all your pride.
Not all yon marshalled orbs that ride so high
Proclaim more loud a ‘present Deity
Than the nice symmetry of these small cells,
Where on each angle genuine science dwells.
Evans.
CHAPTER V.
PROPOLIS, OR “ BEE-GLUE.,”

THIS substance is obtained by the bees from the resinous
buds and limbs of trees; and when first gathered it is usually.
of a bright golden color, and is exceedingly sticky. The
different kinds of poplars furnish a rich supply. The bees
bring it on their thighs just as they do bee-bread; and I have
caught them as they were entering with a load, and taken it
from them. It adheres so firmly that it is difficult to remove
it.

“ Huber planted in spring some branches of the wild pop-
lar, before the leaves were developed, and placed them in
pots near his apiary. The bees alighting on them separated
the folds of the largest buds with their forceps, extracted
the varnish in threads, and loaded with it, first one thigh
and then the other; for they convey it like pollen, transfer-
ring it by the first pair of legs to the second, by which it
is lodged in the hollow of the third.” The smell of the
propolis is often precisely similar to that of the resin from
the poplar, and chemical analysis proves the identity of the
two substances. It is frequently gathered from the alder,
horse-chestnut, birch, and willow; and, as some think, from
pines and other trees of the fir kind. I have often known
bees to enter the shops where varnishing was being carried
on, attracted evidently by the smell; and Bevan mentions
the fact of their carrying off a composition of wax and
turpentine from trees to which it had been applied. Dr.
Evans says that he has seen them collect the balsamic var-
nish which coats the young blossom buds of the hollyhock,
and has known them to rest at least ten minutes on the same
78 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

bud, molding the balsam with their fore feet, and transfer-
ring it to the hinder legs, as described by Huber.
With merry hum the willow’s copse they scale,
The fir’s dark pyramid, or poplar pale;
Scoop from the alder’s leaf its oozy flood,
Or strip the chestnut’s resin-coated bud;
Skim the light tear that tips narcissus’s ray,
Or round the hollyhock’s hoar fragrance play.
Soon tempered to their will through eve’s low beam,
And linked in airy bands the viscous stream,
They waft their nut-brown loads exulting home,
That form a fret-work for the future comb;
Caulk every chink where rushing winds may roar,
And seal their circling ramparts to the floor.
Evans.

A mixture of wax and propolis is used by the bees to
strengthen the attachments of the combs to the top and sides
of the hive, and serves most admirably for this purpose, as
it is much more adhesive than wax alone. Jf the combs, as
soon as they are built, are not filled with honey or brood,
they are beautifully varnished with a most delicate coating
of this material, which adds exceedingly to their strength;
but as this natural varnish impairs their delicate whiteness,
they ought not to be allowed to remain in the surplus-honey
receptacles, accessible to the bees, unless when they are
actively engaged in storing them with honey.

The bees make a very liberal use of this substance to fill
up all the crevices about their premises; and as the natural
summer heat of the hive keeps it soft, the bee-moth selects
it as a proper place of deposit for her eggs. For this reason
the hive should be made of sound lumber, entirely free from
cracks, and thoroughly painted on the inside as well as out-
side. When glass is used, there is bo risk that the bee-moth
will find a place in which she can insert her ovipositor and
lay her eggs. The corners of the hive, which the bees always
fill with propolis, should have a melted mixture of three
parts rosin and one part beeswax run into them, which
remains hard during the hottest weather, and bids defiance
to the moth. The inside of the hive may be coated with the
same mixture, put on hot with a brush.

The bees find it difficult to gather the propolis, and equal-
PROPOLIS. 79

ly so to remove from their thighs, and to work so sticky a
material. For this reason it is doubly important to save
them all unnecessary labor in amassing it. To men, time is
money; to bees, it is honey; and all the arrangements of
the hive should be such as to economize it to the very utmost.
Propolis is sometimes put to a very curious use by the

bees. “A snail* having crept into one of M. Reaumur’s
hives early in the morning, after crawling about for some
time, adhered by means of its own slime to one of the glass
panes. The bees, having discovered the snail, surrounded it
and formed a border of propolis round the verge of its shell,
and fastened it so securely to the glass, that it became im-
movable.”

Forever closed the impenetrable door,

It naught avails that in his torpid veins

Year after year life’s loitering spark remains.{

Evans.
“Maraldi, another eminent apiarian, has related a some-

what similar instance. He states that a snail without a
shell, or slug, as it is called, had entered one of his hives;
and that the bees, as soon as they observed it, stung it to
death; after which, being unable to dislodge it, they covered
it all over with an impervious coat of propolis.”

For soon in fearless ire, their wondef lost,
Spring fiercely from the comb the indignant host,
Lay the pierced monster breathless on the ground,
And clap in joy their victor pinions round:
While all in vain concurrent numbers strive,
To heave the slime-girt giant from the hive—
Sure not alone by force instinctive swayed,
But blest with reason’s soul-directing aid,
Alike in man or bee, they haste to pour,.
Thick hard’ning as it falls, the flaky shower;
Embkalmed in shroud of glue the mummy lies;
No worms invade, no foul miasmas rise. a

FVans.

“Tn these cases who can withhold his admiration of the
ingenuity and judgment of the bees? In the first case a

* Bevan.

+ Some very extraordinary instances are related of the protraction of
life in snails. After they had lain in a cabinet above fifteen years, im-
mersing them in water caused them to revive and crawl out of their
shells.
80 THE BEEKEEPER'S MANUAL.

troublesome creature gained admission to the hive, which,
from its unwieldiness, they could not remove, and which,
from the impenetrability of its shell, they could not destroy.
Here, then, their only resource was to deprive it of locomo-
tion, and to obviate putrefaction—both which objects they
accomplished most skillfully and securely—and, as is usual
with these sagacious creatures, at the least possible expense
of labor and materials. They applied their cement where
alone it was required, around the verge of the shell. In the
latter case, to obviate the evil of decay by the total exclusion
of air, they were obliged to be more lavish in the use of their
embalming material, and to case over the “ slime-girt giant ”
so as to guard themselves from his noisome smell. What
means more effectual could human wisdom have devised
under similar circumstances? ”

If in the insect, reason’s twilight ray

Sheds on the darkling mind a doubtful day,

Plain is the steady light her instincts yield,

To point the road o’er life’s unvaried field;

If few these instincts, to the destined goal

With surer course their straitened currents roll.
Evans.
CHAPTER VI.
POLLEN, OR BEE-BREAD.

Tis substance is gathered by the bees from the flowers
or blossoms, and is used for the nourishment of their young.
Repeated experiments have proved that no brood can be
raised in a hive unless the bees are supplied with it. It con-
tains none of the elements of wax, but is rich in what chem-
ists call nitrogenous substances, which are not contained in
honey, and which furnish ample nourishment for the devel-
opment of the growing ‘bee. Dr. Hunter dissected some
immature bees, and found their stomachs to contain farina,
but not a particle of honey.

We are indebted to Huber for the discovery of the use
made by the bees of pollen. That it did not serve as food
for the mature bees was evident from the fact that large
supplies are often found in hives whose inmates have starved
to death. It was this fact which led the old observers to
conclude that it was gathered for the purpose of building
comb. After Huber had demonstrated, that wax is secreted
from an entirely different substance, he was soon led to
conjecture that the bee-bread must be used for the nourish-
ment of the embryo bees. By rigid experiments he proved
the truth of this supposition. Bees were confined to their
hive without any pollen, after being supplied with honey,
eggs, and larve. In a short time the young all perished.
A fresh supply of brood was given to them, with an ample
allowance of pollen, and the development of the larvee then
proceeded in the natural. way.

When a colony is actively engaged in carrying in this
article, it may be taken for granted that they have a fertile
82 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL,

queen and are busy in breeding. On the contrary, if any
colony is not gathering pollen when others are, the queen
is either dead or diseased, and the hive should at once be
examined.

Tn the backward spring of 1852 I had an excellent oppor-
tunity of testing the value of this substance. In one of my
hives was an artificial swarm of the previous year. The hive
was well protected, being double, and the situation was
warm. I opened it on the 5th of February, and, although
the weather, until within a week of that time, had been
unusually cold, I found many of the cells filled with brood.
On the 23d the combs were again examined, and found to
contain neither eggs, brood, nor bee-bread. The bees were
then supplied with bee-bread taken from another hive. The
next day this was found to have been used by them, and a
large number of eggs had been deposited in the cells. When
this supply was exhausted, egg-laying ceased, and was again
renewed when more was furnished them.

During all the time of these experiments the weather was
unpromising; and as the bees were unable to go out for
water, they were supplied at home with this important
article.

Dzierzon is of the opinion that the bees are able to furnish
food for the young, without the presence of pollen in the
hive; although he admits that they can do this for only a
short time, and at a.great expense of vital energy, just as
the strength of an animal nursing its young is rapidly re-
duced when, for want of proper food, the very substance
of its own body, as it were, is converted into milk. My
experiments do not corroborate this theory, but tend to con-
firm the views of Huber, and to show the absolute necessity
of pollen to the development of brood. The same able con-
tributor to apiarian science thinks that pollen is used by the
bees when they are engaged in comb-building; and that,
unless they are well supplied with it, they can not rapidly
secrete wax without severely taxing their strength. But as
all the elements of wax are found in honey, and none of
POLLEN, 83

them in pollen, this opinion does not seem to me to be en-
titled to much weight. That bees can not live upon pollen
without any honey is proved by the fact that large stores of
it are often found in hives whose occupants have died of
starvation; that they can live without it, is equally well
known; but that the full-grown bees make some use of it in
‘connection with honey, for their own nourishment, I believe
to be highly probable.

The bees prefer to gather fresh bee-bread, even when
there are large accumulations of old stores.in the cells.
Hence the great importance of being able to make the sur-
plus of old colonies supply the deficiency of young ones.
(See No. 28, in the chapter on The Advantages which ought
to be Found in an Improved Hive.)

If both honey and pollen can be obtained from the same
flower, then a load of each will be secured by the industrious
insect. Of this any one may convince himself who will dis-
sect a few pollen-gatherers at the time when honey is plenti-
ful. He will generally find their honey-bags full.

The mode of gathering is very interesting. The body of
the bee appears to the naked eye to be covered with fine
hairs; to these, when the bee alights on a flower, the farina
-adheres. With her legs she brushes it off from her body
and packs it in two hollows, or baskets, one on each of her
thighs. These baskets are surrounded by stouter hairs which
hold the load in its place.

When the bee returns with pollen she often makes a sin-
gular dancing or vibratory motion which attracts the atten-
tion of the other bees, which at once nibble away from her
thighs what they want for immediate use; the rest she depos-
its in a cell for future need, where it is carefully packed
down, and often sealed over with wax.

It has been observed that a bee, in gathering pollen, always
confines herself to the same kind of flower on which she
begins, even when that is not so abundant as some others.
Thus if you examine a ball of this substance taken from her
thigh, it is found to be of one uniform color throughout.
84 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL,

The load of one will be yellow, another red, and a third
brown—the color varying according to that of the plant
from which it was obtained. It is probable that the pollen
of different kinds of flowers would not pack so well together.
It is certain that, if they flew from one species to another,
there would be a much greater mixture of different varieties.
than there now is, for they carry on their bodies the pollen
or fertilizing principle, and thus aid most powerfully in the
impregnation of plants.

This is one reason why it is so difficult to preserve pure
the different varieties of the same vegetables whose flowers
are sought by the bee.

He must be blind indeed who will not see at every step
in the natural history of this insect the plainest proofs of
the wisdom of its Creator.

I can not resist the impression that the honeybee ‘was.
made for the special service and instruction of man. At
first the importance of its products, when honey was the
only natural sweet, served most powerfully to attract his.
attention to its curious habits; and now since the cultivation
of the sugar-cane has diminished the relative value of its
luscious sweets, the superior knowledge which has been ob-
tained of its instincts is awakening an increasing enthusiasm
in its cultivation.

Virgil in the fourth book of his Georgics, which is entirely
devoted to bees, speaks of them as having received a direct
emanation from the divine intelligence. And many modern
apiarians are almost disposed to rank the bee for sagacity
as next in the seale of creation to man.

The importance of pollen to the nourishment of the brood
has long been known, and of late successful attempts have
been made to furnish a substitute. The bees in Dzierzon’s
aplary were observed by him early in the spring, before the
time for procuring pollen, to pring rye meal to their hives:
from a neighboring mill. It is now a common practice on
the continent of Europe, where beekeeping is extensively
carried on, to supply the bees in early spring with this arti-'
POLLEN, 85

ele. Shallow troughs are set in front of the apiaries, which
are filled about two inches deep with finely ground, dry, un-
bolted rye meal. Thousands of bees resort eagerly to them
when the weather is favorable, roll themselves in the meal,
and return heavily laden to their hives. In fine mild weather
they labor at this work with astonishing industry, and seem
decidedly to prefer the meal to the old pollen stored in their
combs. By this means the bees are induced to commence
breeding early, and rapidly recruit their numbers. The
feeding is continued till the bees cease to carry away the
meal—that is, until the natural supplies furnish them with
a preferable article. The average consumption of each
colony is about two pounds of meal!

At the last annual apiarian convention in Germany a cul-
tivator recommended wheat flour as an excellent substitute
for pollen. He says that in February, 1852, he used it with
the best results. The bees forsook the honey which had been
set out for them, and engaged actively in carrying in large
quantities of the wheat flour, which was placed about twenty
paces in front of the hives.

The construction of my hives permits the flour to be
placed at once where the bees can take it without being
compelled to waste their time in going out for it, or to suffer
for the want of it when the weather confines them at home.

The discovery of this substitute removes a serious obstacle
to the successful culture of bees. In many districts there is a
great abundance of honey for a few weeks in the season;
and almost any number of colonies which are strong when
the honey harvest commences will, in a good season, lay up
sufficient stores for themselves, and a large surplus for their
owners. In many of these districts, however, the supply of
pollen i is often so insufficient that the new colonies of the
previous year are found destitute of this article in the
spring; and unless the season is early, and the weather un-
usually favorable, the production of brood is most seriously
interfered with. Thus the colony becomes strong too late
to avail itself to the best advantage of the superabundant
86 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

harvest of honey. (See remarks on the importance of hav-
ing strong stocks early in the spring.)

CHAPTER VII.

ON THE ADVANTAGES THAT OUGHT TO BE FOUND IN AN
IMPROVED HIVE.

In this chapter I shall enumerate certain very desirable,
if not necessary, qualities of a good hive. I have neither
the taste nor the time for the invidious work of disparaging
other hives. I prefer inviting the attention of beekeepers.
to the importance of these requisites, some of which, as I
believed, are contained in no hive but my own. -Let them
be most carefully examined; and if they commend them-
selves to the enlightened judgment and good common sense
of cultivators, let them be employed to test the comparative
merits of the various kinds of hives in common use.

1. A good hive should give the apiarian a perfect control
over all the combs, so that any of them may be taken out at
pleasure, and this, without cutting them or enraging the
bees.

This advantage is possessed by no hive in use except my
own; and it forms the very foundation of an improved and
profitable system of bee culture. Unless the combs are at
the entire command of the apiarian, he can have no effectual
control over his bees. They swarm too much or too little,
just as suits themselves, and their owner is almost entirely
dependent upon their caprice.

2. It ought to afford suitable protection against extremes.
of heat and cold, sudden changes of temerature, and the:
injurious effects of dampness.
REQUISITES OF AN IMPROVED HIVE. 87

In winter the interior of the hive should be dry, and not
a particle of frost should ever find admission; and in sum-
mer the bees should not be forced to work to disadvantage
in a pent and almost suffocating heat. (See these points.
discussed in the chapter on Protection.)

3. It should permit all necessary operations to be per-
formed without hurting or killing a single bee.

Most hives are so constructed that it is impossible to man-
age them without at times injuring or destroying some of the
bees. The mere destruction of a few bees would not, except
on the score of humanity, be of much consequence if it did
not very materially increase the difficulty of managing them.
Bees remember injuries done to any of their number, for
some time, and generally find an opportunity to avenge them.

4. It should allow every thing to be done ’that is necessary
in the most extensive management of bees, without incurring
any serious risk of exciting their anger. (See chapter on
the Anger of Bees.)

5. Not a single unnecessary step or motion ought to be
required of a single bee.

The honey harvest, in most locations, is of short continu-
ance; and all the arrangements of the hive should facilitate
to the utmost the work of the busy gatherers. Tall hives,
therefore, and all such as compel them to travel with their
heavy burdens through densely crowded combs are very
objectionable. The bees in my hive, instead of forcing their
way through thick clusters, can easily pass into the surplus-.
honey boxes, not only from any comb in the hive, but with-
out traveling over the combs at all.

6. It should afford suitable facilities for inspecting at all
times the condition of the bees.

When the sides of my hive are of glass, as soon as the
outer cover is elevated the apiarian has a view of the inte-
rior, and can often at a glance determine its condition. If
the hive is of wood, or if he wishes to make a more thorough
examination, in a few minutes every comb may be taken out
and separately inspected. In this way the exact condition
88 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

of every colony may always be easily ascertained, and noth-
ing left, as in the common hives, to mere conjecture. This
is an advantage, the importance of which it would be dif-
ficult to overestimate. (See chapters on the Loss of the
Queen, and on the Bee Moth.)

7. While the hive is of a size adapted to the natural in-
stinets of the bee, it should be capable of being readily
adjusted to the wants of small colonies,

If a small swarm is put into a large hive they will be
unable to concentrate their animal heat so as to work to the
best advantage, and will often become discouraged, and
abandon their hive. If they are put into a small hive its
limited dimensions will not afford them suitable accommoda-
tions for increase. By means of my movable partition my
hive can, in a few moments, be adapted to the wants of any
colony, however small, and can, with equal facility, be en-
larged from time to time, or at once restored to its full
dimensions.

8. It should allow the combs to be removed without any
jarring.

Bees manifest the utmost aversion to any sudden jar; for
it is in this way that their combs are loosened and detached.
However firmly fastened the frames may be in my hive they
can all be loosened in a few moments, without injuring or
exciting the bees.

9. It should allow every good piece of comb to be given
to the bees, instead of being melted into wax. (See chapter
on Comb.)

10. The construction of the hive should induce the bees
to build their combs with great regularity.

A hive which contains a large proportion of irregular
combs can never be expected to prosper. Such comb is only
suitable for storing honey or raising drones. This is one
reason why so many colonies never flourish. A glance will
often show that a hive contains so much drone comb as to
be unfit for the purposes of a stock hive.
REQUISITES OF AN IMPROVED HIVE. 89

11. It should furnish the means of procuring comb to be
used as a guide to the bees, in building regular combs in
empty hives; and to induce them more readily to take pos-
session of the surplus-honey receptacles.

It is well known that the presence of comb will induce
bees to begin work much more readily than they otherwise
would; this is especially the case in glass vessels.

12. It should allow the removal of drone combs from the
hive to prevent the breeding of too many drones. (See
remarks on Drones.)

13. It should enable the apiarian, when the combs become
too old, to remove them and supply their place with new
ones.

No hive can, in this respect, equal, one in which, in a
few moments, any comb can be removed, and the part which
is too old be cut off. The upper part of a comb, which is
generally used for storing honey, will last without renewal
for many years.

14. It ought to furnish the greatest possible security
against the ravages of the bee-moth.

Neither before nor after it is occupied ought there to be
any cracks or ecreviecs in the interior. All such places will
be filled by the bees with propolis or bee-glue—a substance
which is always soft in the summer heat of the hive, and.
which forms a most congenial place of deposit for the eggs
of the moth. If the sides of the hive are of glass, and the
corners are run with a melted mixture, three parts rosin and
one part beeswax, the bees will waste but little time in
gathering propolis, and the bee-moth will find but little
chance for laying her eggs, even if she should succeed in
entering the hive.

My hives are so constructed that, if made of wood, they
may be thoroughly painted inside and outside, without being
so smooth as to annoy the bees; for they travel over the
frames to which the combs are attached, and thus, whether
the inside surface is glass or wood, it is not liable to crack
or warp or absorb moisture after the hive is oceupied by
‘90 THE BEEKEEPER'S MANUAL.

the bees, If the hives are painted inside, it should be done
some time before they are used. If the interior of the
wooden hive is brushed with a very hot mixture of the rosin
and beeswax, the hives may be used immediately.

15. It should furnish some place accessible to the apia-
rian, where the bee-moth can be tempted to deposit her eggs,
and the worms, when full grown, to wind themselves in their
cocoons. (See remarks on the bee-moth.)

16. It should enable the apiarian, if the bee-moth ever
gains the upper hand of the bees, ‘to remove the combs and
expel the worms. (See bee-moth.)

17. The bottom-board should be permanently attached to
the hive; for if this is not done it will be inconvenient to
move the hive when bees are in it, and next to impossible to
prevent the depredations of moths and worms.

Sooner or later there will be crevices between the bottom-
board and the sides of the hive, through which the moths
will gain admission, and under which worms, when fully
grown, will retreat to spin their webs, and to be changed
into moths, to enter in their turn, and lay their eggs. Movy-
able bottom-boards are a great nuisance in the apiary; and
the construction of my hive, which enables me entirely to
dispense with them, will furnish a very great protection
against the bee-moth. There is no place where they can get
in except at the entrance for the bees, and this may be
contracted or enlarged to suit the strength of the colony;
and from its peculiar shape the bees are enabled to defend
it against intruders, with the greatest advantage.

18. The bottom-board should slant toward the entrance,
to assist the bees in carrying out the dead and other useless
substances; to aid them in defending themselves against rob-
bers; to carry off all moisture; and to prevent the rain and
snow from beating into the hive. As a further precaution
against this last evil, the entrance ought to be under a cov-
ered way, which should not at once lead into the interior.

19. The bottom-board should be so constructed that it
may be readily cleared of dead bees in cold weather when
REQUISITES OF AN IMPROVED HIVE. ‘91

the bees are unable to attend to this business themselves.
If suffered to remain, they often become moldy, and in-
jure the health of the colony. If the bees drag them out, as
they will do if the weather moderates, they often fall with
them on the snow, and are so chilled that they never rise
again; for a bee generally retains its hold in flying away
with the dead until both fall to the ground.

20. No part of the interior of the hive should be below
the level of the place of exit.

If this principle is violated the bees must, at great disad-
vantage, drag their dead, and all the refuse of the hive, up
hill. Such hives will often have their bottom-boards covered
with small pieces of comb, bee-bread, and other impurities,
in which the moth delights to lay her eggs, and which fur-
nish her progeny with a most congenial nourishment until
they are able to get access to the combs.

21. It should afford facilities for feeding the bees both
in warm and cold weather.

In this respect my hive has very unusual advantages.
Sixty colonies in warm weather may, in an hour, be fed a
quart each, and yet no feeder be used, and no risk incurred
from robbing bees. (See chapter on Feeding.)

22. It should allow of the easy hiving of a swarm without
injuring any of the bees or risking the destruction of the
queen. (See chapter on Natural Swarming, and Hiving.)

23. It should admit of the safe transportation of the bees
to any distance whatever.

The permanent bottom-board, the firm attachment of the
combs, each to a separate frame, and the facility with which,
in my hive, any amount of air can be given to the bees when
shut up, most admirably adapt it to this purpose. —

24. It should furnish the bees with air when the entrance
is shut; and the ventilation for this purpose ought to be un-
obstructed, even if the hives should be buried in two or three
feet of snow. (See chapter on Protection.)

25. A good hive should furnish facilities for enlarging,
contracting, and closing the entrance, so as to protect the
92 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

bees against robbers and the bee-moth; and when the en-
tranee is altered, the bees ought not to lose valuable time in
searching for it, as they must do in most hives. (See chap-
ters on Ventilation, and on Robbing.)

26. It should give the bees the means of ventilating their
hives without enlarging the entrance too much, so as to ex
pose them to moths and robbers, and to the risk of losing
their brood by a chill in sudden changes of weather. (See
chapter on Ventilation.)

To secure this end the ventilators must not only be inde-
pendent of the entrance, but they must owe their efficiency
mainly to the co-operation of the bees themselves, who thus
have a free admission of air only when they want it. To
depend on the opening and shutting of the ventilators by
the beekeeper is entirely out of the question.

27. It should furnish facilities for admitting at once a
large body of air, so that in winter or early spring, when
the weather is at any time unusually mild, the bees may be
tempted to fly out and discharge their feces. (See chapter
on Protection.)

If such a free admission of air can not be given to hives
which are thoroughly protected against the cold, the bees
may lose a favorable opportunity of emptying themselves,
and thus be more exposed than they otherwise would to
suffer from diseases resulting from too long confinement.
A very free admission of air is also desirable when the
weather is exceedingly hot.

28. It should enable the apiarian to remove the excess
of bee-bread from old stocks.

This article always accumulates in old hives, so that in
the course of time many of the combs are filled with it, thus
unfitting them for the rearing of brood and the reception of
honey. Young stocks, on the other hand, will often be so
deficient in this important article that, in the early part of
the season, breeding will be seriously interfered with. By
means of my movable frames the excess of old colonies may
REQUISITES OF AN IMPROVED HIVE. 93

be made to supply the deficiency of young ones, to the
mutual benefit of both. (See chapter on Pollen.)

29. It should enable the apiarian, when he has removed
the combs from a common hive, to place them with the bees,
brood, honey, and bee-bread, in the improved hive, so that
the bees may be able to attach them in their natural posi-
tions. (See directions for transferring bees from an old
hive.)

30. It should allow of the easy and safe dislodgement of
the bees from the hive.

This requisite is especially important to secure the union
of colonies when it becomes necessary to break up some of
the stocks. (See remarks on The Union of Stocks.)

31. It should allow the heat and odor of the main hive,
as well as the bees themselves, to pass in the freest manner
to the surplus-honey receptacles.

In this respect, all the hives with which I am acquainted
are more or less deficient. The bees are forced to work in
receptacles difficult of access, and in which, especially in
cool nights, they find it impossible to keep up the animal
heat necessary for comb-building. Bees can not, in such
hives, work to advantage in glass tumblers or other small
vessels. One of the most important arrangements of my
hive is that by which the heat ascends into all the receptacles
for storing honey, as naturally and almost as easily as the
warmest air ascends to the top of a heated room.

32. It should permit the surplus honey to be taken away
in the most convenient, beautiful, and salable forms, at any
time, and without any risk of annoyance from the bees.

In my hives it may be taken in tumblers, glass boxes,
wooden boxes, small or large, earthen jars, flower-pots; in
short, in any kind of receptacle which may suit the fancy
or the convenience of the beekeeper. Or all these may be
dispensed with, and the honey may be taken from the inte-
rior of the main hive by removing the frames with loaded
combs and supplying their place with empty ones.
94 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

33. It should admit of the easy removal of all good honey
from the main hive, that its place may be supplied with an
inferior article.

Beekeepers who have but few colonies, and who wish to
secure the largest yield, may remove the loaded combs frora
my hive, slice off the covers of the cells, drain out the honey,
and restore the empty combs, into which, if the season of
gathering is over, they can first pour the cheap foreign
honey for the use of the bees.

34. It should allow, when quantity, not quality, is the ob-
ject, the largest amount of honey to be gathered, so that the
surplus of strong colonies may in the fall be given to those
which have not a sufficient supply.

By surmounting my hive with a box of the same dimen-
sions, the combs may all be transferred to this box, and the
bees, when they commence building, will descend and fill
the lower frames, gradually using the upper box, as the
brood is hatched out, for storing honey. In this way the
largest possible yield of honey may be secured, as the bees
always prefer to continue their work below rather. than
above the main hive, and will never swarm when allowed in
season ample room in this direction. The combs in the
upper box, containing a large amount of bee-bread, and
being of a size adapted to the breeding of workers, will be
all the better for aiding weak colonies.

35. It should compel, when desired, the force of the colo-
ny to be mainly directed to raising young bees; so that
brood may be on hand to form new colonies and strengthen
feeble stocks. (See chapter on Artificial Swarming.)

36. It ought, while well protected from the weather, to
be so constructed that in warm sunny days in early spring,
the influence of the sun may be allowed to penetrate and
warm up the hive so as to encourage early breeding. (See
chapter on Protection.)

37. The hive should be equally well adapted to be used as
a swarmer or non-swarmer.
REQUISITES OF AN IMPROVED HIVE, 95

In my hives bees may be allowed, if their owner chooses,
to swarm just as they do in common hives and be managed
in the usual way. Even on this plan the great protection
against the weather which it affords, and the command over
all the combs, will be found to afford great advantages.
(See Natural Swarming.)

Non-swarming hives managed in the ordinary way are
liable, in spite of all precautions, to swarm very unexpect-
edly, and, if not closely watched, the swarm is lost, and with
it the profit of that season. By having the command of the
combs, the queen in my hives can always be caught and
deprived of her wings; thus she can not go off with a swarm,
and they will not leave without her.

38. It should enable the apiarian, if he allows his bees to
swarm, and wishes to secure surplus honey, to prevent them
from throwing more than one swarm in a season.

Second and third swarms must be returned to the old
stock, if the largest quantities-of surplus honey are to be
realized. It is troublesome to wateh them, deprive them of
their queens, and restore them to the parent hive. They
often issue with new queens again and again, and waste, in
this way, both their own time and that of their keeper.
“ An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” In
my hives, as soon as the first swarm has issued, and been
hived, all the queen-cells except one, in the hive from which
it came, may be cut out, and thus all after-swarming will
very easily and effectually be prevented. (See chapter on
Artificial Swarming, for the use to which these supernu-
merary queens may be put.) When the old stock is left with
but one queen, she runs no risk of being killed or crippled
in a contest with rivals. By such contests a colony is often
left without a queen, or in possession of one which is too
much maimed to be of any service. (See chapter on the
Loss of the Queen.)

39. A good hive should enable the apiarian, if he relies
on natural swarming, and wishes to multiply his colonies as
96 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

fast as possible, to make vigorous stocks of all his small
after-swarms.

Such swarms contain a young queen; and if they can be
judiciously strengthened, usually make the best stock hives.
If hived in a common hive, and left to themselves, unless
very early, or in very favorable seasons, they seldom thrive.
They generally desert their hives, or perish in the winter.
If they are small they can not be made powerful, even by
the most generous feeding. There are too few bees to build
comb, and take care of the eggs which a healthy queen can
lay; and when fed, they are apt to fill with honey the cells
in which young bees ought to be raised, thus making the
kindness of their owner serve only to hasten their destruc-
tion. My hives enable me to supply all such swarms at once
with combs containing bee-bread, honey, and brood almost
mature. They are thus made strong, and flourish as well as
—nay, often better than—the first swarms which have an
old queen whose fertility is generally not so great as that of
a young one. Ps

40. It should enable the apiarian to multiply his colonies
with a certainty and rapidity which are entirely out of the
question if he depends upon natural swarming. (See chap-
ter on Artificial Swarming.)

41. It should enable the apiarian to supply destitute colo-
nies with the means of obtaining a new queen.

Every apiarian would find it, for this reason, if for no
other, to his advantage to possess at least one such hive.
(See chapters on Physiology, and Loss of Queen.)

42. It should enable him to catch the queen, for any pur-
pose, especially to remove an old one whose fertility is im-
paired by age, that her place may be supplied with a young
one. (See chapter on Artificial Swarming.)

43. While a good hive is adapted to the wants of those
who desire to enter upon beekeeping on a large scale, or at
least to manage their colonies on the most improved plans,
it ought to be suited to the wants of those who are too timid,
REQUISITES OF AN IMPROVED HIVE. 97

too ignorant, or for any reason indisposed, to manage them
in any other than the common way.

44. It should enable a single individual to superintend the
colonies of many different persons.

Many would like to keep bees if they could have them
taken care of by those who would undertake their manage-
ment just as a gardener does the gardens and grounds of
his employers. No person can agree to do this with the
common hives. If the bees are allowed to swarm he may
be called in a dozen different directions; and if any accident
such as the loss of a queen happens to the colonies of his
customers, he can apply no remedy. If the bees are in
non-swarming hives, he can not. multiply the stocks when
this is desired. ©

On my plan, gentlemen who desire it may have the plea-
sure of witnessing the industry and sagacity of this wonder-
ful insect, and of gratifying their palates with its delicious
stores, harvested on their own premises, without incurring
either trouble or risk of injury.

45. All the joints of the hive should be watertight, and
there should be no doors or slides which are liable to shrink,
swell, or get out of order.

The importance of this will be sufficiently obvious to any
one who has had the ordinary share of vexatious experience
in the use of such fixtures.

46. It should enable the beekeeper entirely to dispense
with sheds and costly apiaries; as each hive when properly
placed should alike defy heat or cold, rain or snow. (See
chapter on Protection.)

47. It should allow the contents of a hive, bees, combs,
and all, to be taken out, so that any necessary repairs may
be made.

This may be done, with my hives, in a few minutes. “A
stitch in time saves nine.” Hives which can be thoroughly
overhauled and repaired from time to time, if properly at-
tended to will last for generations.
98 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

48. The hive and fixtures should present a neat and at-
tractive appearance, and should admit, when desired, of
being made highly ornamental.

49. The hives ought not to be liable to be blown down in
high winds.

My hives, being very low in proportion to their other
dimensions, it would require almost a hurricane to upset
them.

50. It should enable an apiarian who lives in the neigh-
borbood of human pilferers to lock up the precious contents
of his hives in some cheap, simple, and convenient way.

A couple of padlocks with some cheap fixtures will suffice
to secure a long range of hives.

51. A good hive should be protected against the destruc-
tive ravages of mice in winter.

It seems almost incredible that so puny an animal should
dare to invade a hive of bees; and yet not unfrequently they
slip in when the bees are compelled by the cold to retreat
from the entrance. Having once found admission they build
themselves a nest in their comfortable abode, eat up the
honey, and such bees as are too much chilled to make any
resistance, and fill the premises with such an abominable
stench that on the approach of warm weather the bees often
in a body abandon their desecrated home. As soon as the
cold weather “approaches, all my hives may have their en-
trances either entirely closed, or so contracted that a mouse
can not gain admission.

52. A good hive should have its alighting-board construet-
ed so as to shelter the bees against wind and wet, and thus
to facilitate to the utmost their entrance when they come
home with their heavy burdens.

If this precaution is neglected, much valuable time and
many lives will be sacrificed, as the colony can not be en-
couraged to use to the best advantage the unpromising days
which so often oceur in the working season.

I have succeeded in arranging my alighting-board in such
a manner that the bees are sheltered against wind and wet,
REQUISITES OF AN IMPROVED HIVE. 99

and are able to enter the hive with the least possible loss of
time.

53. A well-constructed hive ought to admit of being shut
up in winter so as to consign the bees to darkness and repose.

Nothing can be more hazardous than to shut up closely
an ill-protected hive. Even if the bees have an abundance
of air, it will not answer to prevent them from flying out if
they are so disposed. As soon as the warmth penetrating
their thin hives tempts them to fly, they crowd to the en-
trance; and if it is shut, multitudes worry themselves to
death in trying to get out, and the whole colony is liable ta
become diseased.

In my hives, as soon as the bees are shut up for winter
they are most effectually protected against all atmospheric
changes, and never desire to leave their hives until the en-
trances are again opened on the return of suitable weather.
Thus they pass the winter in a state of almost absolute re-
pose; they eat much less honey* than when wintered on the
ordinary plan; a much smaller number die in the hives;.
none are lost upon the snow, and they are more healthy, and’
commence breeding much earlier than they do in the common:
hives. As some of the holes in the protector are left open:
in winter, any bee that is diseased and wishes to leave the
hive can do so. Bees when diseased have a strange propen~
sity to leave their hives just as animals when sick seek to,
retreat from their companions; and in summer such bees:
may often be seen forsaking their home to perish on the
ground. If all egress from the hive in winter is prevented,,
the diseased bees will not be able to comply with an instinct:
which urges them “to leave their country for their country’s
good.”

54. It should possess all these requisites without being too
costly for common beekeepers, or too complicated to be con~

* A writer in the New England Farmer for March, 1853, estimates
that the mild winter has been worth in the saving of fodder to the farm~
ers of New Hampshire alone, two and a half million of dollars! By
suitable arrangements, bees even in the very coldest climates can have
all the advantages of a mild winter.
100 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

a
structed by any one who can handle simple tools; and they
should be so combined that the result is a simple hive which
any one can can manage who has ordinary intelligence on the
subject of bees.

I suppose that the very natural conclusion from reading
this long list of desirables would be that no single hive can
combine them all without being exceedingly complicated
and expensive. On the contrary, the simplicity and cheap-
ness with which my hive secures all these results is one of
its most striking peculiarities, the attainment of which
has cost me more study than all the other points besides.
As far as the bees are concerned, they can work in this hive
with even greater facility than in the simple old-fashioned
box, as the frames are left rough by the saw, and thus give
an admirable support to the bees when building their
combs; and they can enter the spare honey-boxes with even
more ease than if they were merely continuations of the main
hive.

There are a few desirables to which my hive makes not
the slightest pretensions. It promises no splendid results to
those who purchase it, and yet are too ignorant or too care-
less to be entrusted with the management of bees. In bee-
keeping, as in other things, a man must first understand his
business, and then proceed on the good old maxim that “the
hand of the diligent maketh rich.”

It possesses no talismanic influence by which it ean con-
vert a bad situation for honey into a good one, nor give the
apiarian an abundant harvest whether the season is produc-
tive or otherwise.

It can not enable the cultivator rapidly to multiply his
stocks, and yet to secure, the same season, surplus honey
from his bees. As well might the breeder of poultry pre-
tend that he can, in the same year, both raise the greatest
number of chickens and sell the largest number of eggs.

Worse than all, it can not furnish the many advantages
enumerated, and yet be made in as little time, or quite as
REQUISITES OF AN IMPROVED HIVE. 101

eheap as a hive which proves in the end to be a very dear
bargain.

I have not constructed my hive in accordance with crude
theories or mere conjectures, and then insisted that the bees
must flourish in such a fanciful contrivance; but I have
studied for many years, most carefully, the nature of the
honeybee, and have diligently compared my observations
with those of writers and practical cultivators who have
spent their lives in extending the sphere of apiarian knowl-
edge; and, as a result, have endeavored to adapt my hive
to the actual wants and habits of the bee, and to remedy
the many difficulties with which I have found its successful
culture to be beset. And, more than this, I have actually
tested by experiments long continued, and on a large scale,
the merits of this hive that I might not deceive both myself
and others, and add another to the many useless contrivances
which have deluded and disgusted a credulous public. I
would, however, most earnestly repudiate all claims to hav~
ing devised a “perfect beehive.” Perfection can belong:
only to the works of the great Creator, to whose omniscient:
eye all causes and effects, with all their relations, were pres-.
ent when he spake, and from nothing formed the universe:
and all its glorious wonders. For man to stamp upon any:
of his own works the label of perfection is to show both his
folly and presumption.

It must be confessed that the culture of bees is at a very
low ebb in our country when thousands can be induced ta
purchase hives which are in most glaring opposition, not
only to the true principles of apiarian knowledge, but often
to the plainest dictates of simple common sense. Such have
been the losses and disappointments of deluded purchasers,
that it is no wonder that they turn from every thing offered
in the shape of a patent beehive as a miserable humbug, if
not a most barefaced cheat.

I do not hesitate to say that those old-fashioned beekeep-
ers, who have most steadily refused to meddle with any
novelties, and who have used hives of the very simplest
102 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

construction, or at least such as are only one remove from
the old straw hive, or wooden box, have, as a general thing,
realized by far the largest profits in the management of bees.
They have lost neither time, money, nor bees in the vain
hope of obtaining any unusual results from hives which, in
the very nature of the case, can secure nothing really in
advance of what can be accomplished by a simple box hive
‘with an upper chamber.

A hive of the simplest possible construction is only a close
imitation of the abode of bees in a state of nature, being a
mere hollow receptacle in which they are protected from
the weather, and where they can lay up their stores.

An improved hive is one which contains, in addition, a
separate apartment in which the bees can be induced to lay
up the surplus portion of their stores for the use of their
owner. Ali the various hives in common use are only mod-
ifications of this latter hive, and, as a general rule, they are
bad exactly in proportion as they depart from it. Not one
of them offers any remedy for the loss of the queen, nor,
indeed, for most of the casualties to which bees are exposed.
They form no reliable basis for any new system of manage-
ment, and hence the cultivation of bees is substantially where
it was fifty years ago, and the apiarian as entirely depend-
ent as ever upon all the whims and caprices of an insect
which may be made completely subject to his control.

No hive which does not furnish a thorough control over
every comb can be considered as any substantial advance
on the simple improved or chamber hive. Of all such hives,
the one which with the least expense gives the greatest
amount of protection and the readiest access to the spare
honey-boxes is the best.

Having thus enumerated the tests to which all hives ought
to be subjected, and by which they should stand or fall, I
submit them to the candid examination of practical, com-
mon-sense beekeepers who have had the largest experience
in the management of bees, and are most conversant with the
evils of the present system, and who are therefore best fitted
PROTECTION, 103

to apply them to an invention which, if I may be pardoned
for using the enthusiastic language of an experienced apia-
rlan on examining its practical workings, “ introduces, not
simply an improvement, but a revolution in beekeeping.”

CHAPTER VIII.

PROTECTION AGAINST EXTREMES OF HEAT AND COLD, SUDDEN
AND SEVERE CHANGES OF TEMPERATURE, AND
DAMPNESS IN THE HIVES.

I specially invite a careful persual of this chapter, as the
subject, though of the very first importance in the manage-
ment of bees, is one to which but little attention has been
given by the majority of cultivators.

In our climate of great and sudden extremes, many colo-.
nies are annually injured or destroyed by undue exposure
to heat or cold. In summer thin hives are often exposed to
the direct heat of the sun, so that the combs melt and the
bees are drowned in their own sweets. Even if they escape
utter ruin, they can not work to advantage in the almost
suffocating heat of their hives.

But in those places where the winters are both long and
severe it is much more difficult to protect the bees from the
cold than from the heat. Bees are not, as some suppose, in
a dormant or torpid condition in winter. It must be re-
membered that they were intended to live in. colonies in win-
ter as well as summer. The wasp, hornet, and other insects
which do not live in families in the winter lay up no stores
for cold weather, and are so organized as to be able to
endure in a torpid state a very low temperature—so low that
it would be certain death to a honeybee, which, when frozen,
is as surely killed as a frozen man.
104 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

As soon as the temperature of the hives falls too low for
their comfort, the bees gather themselves into a more com-
pact body to preserve to the utmost their animal heat; and
if the cold becomes so great that this will not suffice, they
keep up an incessant tremulous motion, accompanied by a
loud humming noise; in other words, they take active ex-
ercise in order to keep warm! If a thermometer is pushed
up among them it will indicate a high temperature, even
when the external atmosphere is many degrees below zero.
When the bees are unable to maintain the necessary amount
of animal heat (an occurrence which is very common with
small eolonies in badly protected hives), then, as a matter
of course, they much perish.

Extreme cold, when of long continuance, very frequently
destroys colonies in thin hives, even when they are strong
both in bees and honey. The inside of such hives is often
filled with frost; and the bees, after eating all the food in the
combs in which they are clustered, are unable to enter the
frosty combs, and thus starve in the midst of plenty. The
unskillful beekeeper who finds an abundance of honey in the
hives can not conjecture the cause of their death.

If the cold merely destroyed feeble colonies, or strong
ones only now and then, it would not be so formidable an
enemy; but every year it causes many of the most flourish-
ing stocks to perish by starvation. The extra quantity of
food which they are compelled to eat in order to keep up
their heat in their miserable hives is often the turning-point
with them between life and death. They starve, when, with
proper protection, they would have had food enough and to
spare.

But some one may say, “ What possible difference can the
kind of hives in which bees are kept make in the quantity
of food which they will consume?” Enough, I would reply,
in some single winters, to pay the difference between a good
hive and a bad one!

I can not move my finger or wink my eye-lids without
some waste of muscle, however small; for it is a well-ascer-
PROTECTION. 105

tained law in our animal economy that all muscular exertion
is attended with a corresponding waste of muscular fiber.
Now, this waste must be supplied by the consumption of
food; and it would be as unreasonable to expect constant
heat from a stove without fresh supplies of fuel as incessant
muscular activity from an insect without a supply of food
proportioned to that activity. If, then, we can contrive any
way to keep our bees in almost perfect quiet during the
winter, we may be certain that they will need much less food
than when they are constantly excited.

In the cold winter of 1851-2, I kept two swarms in a
perfectly dry and dark cellar where the temperature was
remarkably uniform, seldom varying two degrees from 50
degrees of Fahrenheit; and I found that the bees ate very
little honey. The hives were of glass, and the bees, when
examined from time to time, were found clustered in almost
death-like repose. If these bees had been exposed in thin
hives in the open air they would, in all probability, have
eaten four times as much; for whenever the sun shone upon
them, or the atmosphere was unusually warm, they would
have been roused to injurious activity, and the same would
have been the case when the cold was severe. Exposed to
sudden changes and severe cold they would have been in
almost perpetual motion, and must have been compelled to
consume a largely increased quantity of food. In this way
many colonies are annually starved to death, which, if they
had been better protected, would have survived to gladden
their owner with an abundant harvest. This protection, as
a general thing, must be given to them in the open air, for
it is a very rare thing to meet with a cellar which is dry
enough to prevent the combs from moulding and the bees
from becoming diseased.

Bees never, unless diseased, discharge their feces in the
hive; and the want of suitable protection, by exciting undue
activity, and compelling them to eat more freely, causes their
bodies to be greatly distended with accumulated feces. On
the return of warm weather, bees in this condition, being
106 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL,

often too feeble to fly, crawl from their hives and miserably
perish.

I must notice another exceedingly injurious effect of in-
sufficient protection in causing moisture to settle upon the
cold top and sides of the interior of the hive, from whence
it drips upon the bees. In this way many of their number
are chilled and destroyed, and often the whole colony is.
infected with dysentery. Not infrequently large portions
of the combs are covered with mould, and the whole hive
is rendered very offensive.

This dampness, which causes what may be called a rot
among the bees, is one of the worst enemies with which the
apiarian in a cold climate has to contend, as it weakens or
destroys many of his best colonies. No extreme of cold ever
experienced in latitudes where bees flourish can destroy a
strong colony well supplied with honey, except indirectly,
by confining them to empty combs.” They will survive our
coldest winters in thin hives raised on blocks to give a freer
admission of air, or even in suspended hives, without any
bottom-board at all. Indeed, in cold weather a very free
admission of air is necessary in such hives to prevent the
otherwise ruinous effects of frozen moisture; and hence the
common remark that bees require as much or more air in
winter than in summer.

When bees in unsuitable hives are exposed to all the
variations of the external atmosphere they are frequently
tempted to fly abroad if the weather becomes unseasonably
warm, and multitudes are lost on the snow at a season when
no young are bred to replenish their number, and when the-
loss is most injurious to the colony.

From these remarks it will be obvious to the intelligeni
cultivator that protection against extremes of heat and cold’
is a point of the very first importance; and yet this is the
very point which, in proportion to its importance, has been
most overlooked. We have discarded, and very wisely, the
straw hives of our ancestors; but such hives, with all their.
faults, were comparatively warm in winter and cool in sum-
PROTECTION. 107

mer. We have undertaken to keep bees where the cold of
winter and the heat of summer are alike intense, and where:
sudden and severe changes are often fatal to the brood; and’
yet we blindly persist in expecting success under cireum-
stances in which any marked success is well nigh impossible.

That our country is eminently favorable to the production
of honey, can not be doubted. Many of our forests abound
with colonies which are not only able to protect themselves
against all their enemies, the dreaded bee-moth not excepted,
but which often amass prodigious quantities of honey. Nor
are such colonies found merely in new countries. They exist
frequently in the very neighborhood of cultivators whose
hives are weak and impoverished, and who impute to a decay
of the honey resources of the country the inevitable conse-
quences of their own irrational system of management.
It will not be without profit to consider briefly under what
circumstances wild colonies flourish, and how they are pro-
tected against sudden and extreme changes of temperature.

Snugly housed in the hollow of a tree whose thickness
and decayed interior are such admirable materials for ex-
cluding atmospheric changes, the bees in winter are in a
state of almost absolute repose. The entrance to their abode
is generally very small in proportion to the space within;
and let the weather out of doors vary as it may, the inside
temperature is very uniform. These natural hives are dry,
because the moisture finds no cold or icy top or sides on
which to condense, and from which it must drip upon the
bees, destroying their lives or enfeebling their health by
filling the interior of their dwelling with mould and damp-
ness. As they are very quiet they eat but little, and hence
their bodies are not distended and diseased by accumulated
feces. Often they do not stir from their hollows from
November until March or April; and yet they come forth
in the spring strong in numbers and vigorous in health. If.
at any time in the winter season the warmth is so great as to
penetrate.their comfortable abodes, and to tempt them to
fly when they venture out, they find a balmy atmosphere in
"108 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

which they may disport with impunity. In the summer they
* are protected from the heat, not merely by the thickness of
the hollow tree, but by the leafy shade of overarching
branches and the refreshing coolness of a forest home.

_ The Russian and Polish beekeepers, living in a climate
whose winters are much more severe than our own, are
among the largest and most successful cultivators of bees,
many of them numbering their colonies by hundreds, and
some even by thousands!

They have, with great practical sagacity, imitated as
closely as possible the conditions under which bees are found
to flourish so admirably in a state of nature. We are in-
formed by Mr. Dohiogost, a Polish writer, that his country-
men make their hives of the best plank, and never less than
an inch and a half in thickness. The shape is that of an
old-fashioned churn, and the hive is covered on the outside,
halfway down, with twisted rope cordage, to give it greater
protection against extremes of heat and cold. The hives are
placed in a dry situation, directly upon the hard earth, which
is first covered with an inch or two or clean dry sand. Chips
are then heaped up all around them, and covered with earth
banked up in a sloping direction to carry off the rain. The
entrance is at some distance above the bottom, and is a tri-
angle whose sides are only one inch long. In the winter
season this entrance is contracted so that only one bee can
pass at a time. Such a hive, with us, as it does not furnish
the honey in convenient, beautiful, and salable forms, would
not meet the demands of our cultivators. Still, there are
some very important lessons to be learned from it by all who
keep bees in regions of cold winters and hot summers. It
shows the importance which some of the largest apiarians in
the world attach to protection—practical, common-sense
men whose heads have not been turned, as some would ex-
press it, by modern theories and fanciful inventions. They
cultivate their bees almost in a state of nature, and their
experience on what we would term a gigantic scale ought to-
convince even the most incredulous of the folly of pretend-
PROTECTION. 109

ing to keep bees in the miserably thin and unprotected hives
to which we have been accustomed.

But how, it will be asked, can bees live in winter in a hive
so closely shut up as the Polish hive? They do live in such
hives, and prosper, just as they do in hollow trees, with only
one small entrance. It is well known that bees have flourish-
ed when their hives were buried in winter, and under cir-
cumstances in which but a very small amount of air could
possibly gain admission to them, Bees, when kept in a dry
place, in properly protected hives and in a state of almost
perfect repose, need only a small supply of air; and the
objection that those cultivators among us who shut up their
colonies very closely winter are almost sure to lose them is
of no weight, because the majority of our hives are so defi-
cient in protection that, if they are too closely shut up, “ the
breath of the bees,” condensing and freezing upon the inside,
and afterward thawing, causes the combs to mould, and the
bees to become diseased, just as many substances mould and
perish when kept in a close damp cellar.

We are now prepared to discuss the question of protection
in its relation to the construction of hives. We have seen
how it is furnished to the bees in the Polish hives and in the
decayed hollows of trees. If the apiarian chooses, he can
imitate this plan by constructing his hives of very thick
plank; but such hives would be clumsy, and, with us, ex-
pensive. Or he may much more effectually reach the same
end by making his hives double, so as to enclose an air space
all around, which in winter may be filled with charcoal,
plaster of Paris, straw, or any good non-conductor, to enable
the bees to preserve with the least waste their animal heat.
I prefer to pack the air-space with plaster of Paris, as it is
one of the very best non-conductors of heat, being used in
the manufacture of the celebrated Salamander fire-proof
safes. Hives may be constructed in this way, which, without
great expense, may be much better protected than if they
were made of six-inch plank. As the price of glass is very
low, I prefer to construct. the inside of my double hives of
110 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL,

this material. When a number of hives are to be made, as
the lowest-price glass will answer every purpose, I can fur-
nish a given amount of protection cheaper with glass than
wood, while the glass possesses some most decided advan-
tages over any other material. The hives are lighter and
more compact than when made of doubled wood, and can
be more easily moved, while the apiarian can gratify his
rational curiosity, and inspect at all times the condition of
his stocks. The very interest inspired by being able to see
what they are-doing will go far to protect thém from that
indifference and neglect which is so often fatal to their
prosperity. The way in which I make my hives not only
protects the bees against extremes of heat and cold, but it
guards them very effectually against the injurious and often
fatal effects of condensed moisture. By means of my mov-
able frames the combs are prevented from being attached to
the sides, top, or bottom of the hive; they are, in fact, sus-
pended in the air. If, now, the dampness can be prevented
from condensing anywhere over the bees so that it may not
drip upon their combs, and if it can be easily discharged
from the hive wherever it may collect, it can not, under any
circumstances, seriously annoy them. Such are the arrange-
ments in my hives that but very little moisture forms in
them; and all that does is deposited on the sides in prefer-
ence to any other part of the interior, just as it is upon the
colder walls or windows rather than the ceiling of a room.
But as the combs are kept away from the sides, this moisture
can not annoy the bees; nor can it penetrate the glass as it
does unpainted wood or straw, thus causing a more pro-
tracted dampness; it must run down their smooth surfaces
and fall upon the bottom-board, from whenee it can be easily
discharged from the hive. By packing in winter, the neces-
sary amount of protection is secured for the top and sides
of the hive, and the very worst property of glass (its part-
ing so rapidly with heat) is changed into one of the very
best for the purposes of a beehive. I prefer not only to
make the sides of my hive of glass, but of double glass,
PROTECTION. 111

with an air-space of about an inch between the two panes
of glass. The extra cost* of this construction will be amply
repaid by the additional protection given to the bees. It
will be absolutely impossible for any frost ever to penetrate
through this air-space and the packing between the outside
case and the main hive. The combs in such a hive can not
be melted down, even if the hive is exposed to the reflected
and concentrated heat of a blazing sun—the same construc-
tion which secures them against the cold of winter equally
protecting them from the heat of summer. There is one
disadvantage to which all well-protected hives of the ordi-
nary construction are exposed. In the spring of the year it
is exceedingly desirable that the warmth of the sun should
penetrate the hives to encourage the bees in early breeding;
but the very arrangement which protects them from cold
often interferes with this. A beehive is thus like a cellar—
warm in winter and cool in summer; but often unpleasantly
cool in the early spring when the atmosphere out of doors
is warm and delightful. In my hive this difficulty 1s easily
remedied. In the spring, as soon as the bees begin to fly on
warm sunshiny days, the upper part of the outside case is
removed so that the genial heat of the sun can penetrate to
every part of the hive. The cover must be replaced while
the sun is still shining, so that the hives may be shut up
while they are warm. The labor of doing this need occupy
ouly a few minutes daily, and as soon as warm weather
fairly sets in, it may be dispensed with. It may be perform-
ed without any risk by a woman or a boy.

If the hive is of glass it will warm up all the better; and
as the combs are on frames they can not be melted or in-
jured by the heat. It is a serious objection to most covered
apiaries that they do not permit the hives to receive the
genial heat of the sun at a period of the year when, instead

*The cost of the glass for one hive so as to give the air-space all
around, if purchased at the wholesale prices, will not exceed 25 cents.
Where three hives are made in one structure, the glass for the three
will cost less than 50 cents; if double glass is not used, the expense
would be less by one-half.
112 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

of injuring the bees, it exerts a most powerful influence in
developing their brood.

This is one among many reasons why I have discarded
them, and why I prefer to construct my hives in such a
manner that they need no extra covering, but stand exposed
to the full influence of the sun. J Lave known strong colo-
nies which have survived the winter in thin hives to increase
rapidly and swarm early because of the stimulating effect
of the sun; while others, deprived of this influence, in dark
bee-houses and well-protected hives, have sometimes disap-
pointed the hopes of their owners. Although my glass hives
are very beautiful, and most admirably protected, still hives
of doubled wood may often be built to better advantage by
those who construct their own hives, and they can be made
to furnish any desirable amount of protection.

Enclosed apiaries are at best but nuisances. They soon
become lurking-places for spiders and moths; and, after all
the expense wasted on their construction, afford but little
protection against extreme cold.

I have been thus particular on the subject of protection
in order to convince every beekeeper who exercises common
sense that thin hives ought to be given up if either pleasure
or profit is sought from his bees. Such hives an enlightened
apiarian could not be persuaded to purchase, and he would
consider them too expensive in their waste of honey and bees
to be worth accepting, even as a gift. Many strong colonies
which are lodged in badly protected hives often consume in
extra food, in a single hard winter, more than enough to pay
the difference between the first cost of a good hive over a
bad one. In the severe winter of 1851-2, many cultivators
lost nearly all their stocks, and a large part of those which
survived were too much weakened to be able to swarm. And
yet these same miserable hives, after accomplishing the work
of destruction on one generation of bees are reserved to
perform the same office for another. And this some call
economy!
PROTECTION. 113

I am well aware of the question which many of my readers
have for some time been ready to ask me. Can you make one
of your well-protected hives as cheaply as we construct
our common hives? I would remind such questioners that
it is hardly possible to build a well-protected house as cheap-
ly as a barn. And yet by building my hives in solid strue-
tures, three together, I am able to make them for a very
moderate price, and still to give them even better protection
than when they are constructed singly. If they are not built
of doubled materials they can be made for as little money
as any other patent hive, and yet afford much greater pro-
tection, as the combs touch neither the top, bottom, nor sides
of the hive. I recommend, however, a construction which,
although somewhat more costly at first, is yet much cheaper
in the end.

Such is the passion of the American people for cheapness
in the first cost of an article, even at the evident expense of
dearness in the end, that many, I doubt not, will continue
to lodge their bees in thin hives in spite of their conviction
of the folly of so doing, just as many of our shrewdest
Yankees build thin wooden houses in the cold climate of
New England, or plaster their stone or brick ones directly
on the wall, when the extra cost of fuel to warm them far
exceeds the interest on the additional expense which would
be necessary to give them the requisite protection, to say
nothing of the doctor’s bills and fatal diseases which can be
traced often to the dreary barns or damp vaults which they
build and call houses!

PROTECTOR,

I attach very great importance to the way in which I give
the bees effectual protection against extremes of heat and
cold, and sudden changes of temperature, without removing
them from their stands or incurring the expense and disad-
vantages of a covered bee-house. This I accomplish by
means of what I shall call a protector which is constructed
substantially as follows:
114 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

Select a dry and suitable location for the bees, where they
will not be disturbed or prove an annoyance to others. If
possible, let it be in full sight of the sitting-room, so that
they may be seen in case of swarming; and let it face the
southwest, and be well protected from the force of strong
winds. Dig a trench, about two feet deep; its length should
depend upon the number of hives to be accommodated; and
its breadth should be such that, when it is properly walled
up, it should measure-from the outside top of one, wall 1o
another, just sufficient to receive the bottom of the hive. The
walls may be built of refuse brick or stones, and should be
about four feet high from the foundation, the upper six
inches being built of good brick, and the back wall about
two inches higher than the front one, so as to give the bot-
tom-board of the hives the proper slant toward the entrance.
At one end of this protector a wooden chimney should be
built; and if the number of hives is great, there should be
one at each end, admitting air in winter and yet excluding
‘rain and snow. The earth which is thrown out in digging
should be banked up against the walls as high as the good
brick, and in a slope which, when grassed over, may be easily
mowed with a common scythe. The slope on the back
should be more perpendicular than in front so as not to be
in the way when operating upon the hives.

-The bottom may be covered with an inch or two of clean
sand, and in winter with straw. In summer the ends are
left open, so that a free current of air may pass through,
while in winter they are properly banked up; and straw,
evergreen boughs, or any other material, suitable for exclud-
ing frost, may, if necessary, be placed all around the outside
of the protector. Such an arrangement will be found very
cheap when compared with a bee-house or covered apiary,
and may be made both neat and highly ornamental. Jt may
be constructed of wood by those who desire something still
cheaper; and any one who can handle a spade, hammer,
plane, and saw, can make for himself a structure on which
a hundred hives may. stand, at less expense than would be
' PROTECTION. ‘ 115

necessary to build a covered apiary for ten. As the ventila-
tors of the hive open into this protector, the bees are, in
summer, supplied with a cool and refreshing atmosphere,
as closely as possible resembling that which they find in a
forest home; while in winter the external entrances of the
hives may be safely closed, and they will receive a supply
of air remarkably uniform and never much below the freez-
ing-point. As the hives themselves are double, no frost can
penetrate through them, and thus their interior will almost
always be perfectly dry. When the weather suddenly mod-
erates, and bees in the common hives fly out and are lost on
the snow, those arranged in the manner described will. not
know that any change has taken place, but will remain quiet
in their winter quarters unless the weather is so warm that
their owner judges it safe to open the entrances so that the
warmth may penetrate their hives and tempt them to fly, and
discharge their feces. Let it be remembered that the object
of this arrangement is not to warm up the hives by artificial
heat; but merely to enable the bees to retain to the utmost
their own animal heat to secure the advantages set forth in
this chapter on protection. Once or twice during the winter
the blocks which regulate the entrances to my hives should
‘be removed; and as the frames are kept about half an inch
from the bottom-board by means of a stick or wire, all the
dead bees and filth may, in a few moments, be removed;
or as the entrance of the hives by removing the blocks may
be so enlarged as to offer no obstruction to its introduction
or removal, an old newspaper can be kept on the bottom-
board, and drawn out from time to time with all its contents.

A movable board of the same thickness and length with
the bottom-boards of the hive, and about six inches wide,
separates the hives from each other as they stand upon the
protector.

I have made numerous observations upon the temperature
of a protector made substantially on the plan described, and
find that it is wonderfully uniform. The lowest range of the
thermometer during the months of January and February,
116 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

1853, in the protector, was 28 degrees; in the open air, 14
degrees below zero; the highest in the protector, 32 degrees;
in the open air, 56 degrees. It will thus be seen that, while
the thermometer out of doors had a range of 70 degrees, in
the protector it had a range of only 4 degrees. While bees
in common hives during some warm days flew out and per-
ished in large numbers on the snow, the bees over the pro-
tector were perfectly quiet. To this arrangement I attach
an importance second only to my movable frames, and be-
lieve that, combined with doubled hives, it removes the chief
obstacle to the successful cultivation of bees in cold lati-
tudes.* In the coldest regions, where bees can find supplies
in summer they may, during a winter that lasts from No-
vember to May, and during which the mercury congeals, be
kept as comfortable as in climates which seem much more
propitious for their cultivation. The more snow the better,
as it serves more effectually to exclude the cold froni the
protector. However long and dreary the winter, the bees in
their comfortable quarters feel none of its injurious influ-
ences, and actually consume less than those which are kept
where the winters are short, and so mild that the bees are
often tempted to fly, and are in a state of almost continual
excitement. It is in precisely such latitudes, in Poland and
Russia, that bees are kept in the largest numbers and with
the most extraordinary success. In the chapter on Pasturage
I shall show that some of the coldest places in New England
and the Middle States are among the most favored spots for
obtaining the largest supplies of the very purest honey.
Having thoroughly tested the practicability of affording
the bees by my protector complete protection against heat
and cold at a very small expense, and in a way which may
be made highly ornamental, the proper steps will be taken
to secure a patent right for the same, although no extra
charge will be made for this, nor for any other subsequent
improvement to those who purchase the right to use my hive.

* The observations to test the temperature of the protector were made
in Greenfield, Mass., in latitude 42 degrees, 36 minutes.
CHAPTER Ix.
VENTILATION OF THE HIVE.

Ir a populous hive is examined on a warm summer day a
considerable number of bees will be found standing on the
alighting-board with their heads turned toward the entrance,
the extremity of their bodies slightly elevated, and their
wings in such rapid motion that they are almost as indistinct
as the spokes of a wheel in swift rotation on its axis. A
brisk current of air may be felt proceeding from the hive;
and if a small piece of down be suspended by a thread it will
be blown out from one part of the entrance, and drawn in_
at another. What are these bees expecting to accomplish,
that they appear so deeply absorbed in their. fanning occu-
pation while busy numbers are constantly crowding in and
out of the hive? and what is the meaning of this double
eurrent of air? To Huber we owe the first satisfactory
explanation of these’ eirious phenomena. These bees plying
their rapid wirgs in such a singular attitude are performing
the important business of ventilating the hive; and this
doubié current is composed of pure. air rushing in at one
part to supply the place of the foul air foreed out at an-
other. By a series of the most careful and beautiful experi-
ments, Huber ascertained that the air of a crowded hive is
almost if not quite as pure as the atmosphere by which it is
surrounded. Now, as the entrance to such a hive is often
(more especially in a state of nature) very small, the inte-
rior air can not be renewed without resort to some artificial
means. If a lamp is put into a close vessel with only one
small orifice it will soon exhaust all the oxygen and go out.
Tf another small orifice is made, the same result will follow;
118 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

but if by some device a current of air is drawn out from
one, an equal current will force its way into the other, and
the lamp will burn until the oil is exhausted.

It is precisely on this principle of maintaining a double
current by artificial means that the bees ventilate their
crowded habitations. A body of active ventilators stands
inside of the hive as well as outside, all with their heads
turned toward the entrance, and by the rapid fanning of
their wings a current of air is blown briskly out of the hive,
and an equal current drawn in. This important office is one
which requires great physical exertion on the part of those
to whom it is entrusted; and if their proceedings are care-
fully watched it will be found that the exhausted ventilators
are, from time to time, relieved by fresh detachments. If
the interior of the hive will admit of inspection in very hot
weather, large numbers of these ventilators will be found in
regular files in various parts of the hive, all busily engaged
in their laborious employment. If the entrance at any time
ienagigacted, a speedy accession will be made to the num-
bers, th \ingide and outside; and if it is closed entirely,
the heat of the hive aygll quickly increase, the whole colony
eae a rapid vibrationwé,their wings, and in a few
momen ‘drop lifeless from tne combsxfor want of air.

it has been prové@:iijm careful experiments thai, _air

Hewespiration of the mature Bees,

    
   

a e9

OVORE:j
is necessary, not only for fl
but that without it neither the eggs Gimmie hatched. for tlie
larve developed. A fine netting of air-vessels cove the eggs;
and the cells of the larve are sealed over with a cone,
which is full of air-holes. In winter, as has becn stated in
the chaper on Protection, bees, if kept in the dark, and
neither too warm nor too cold, are almost dormant, and seem
to require but a small allowance of air; but even under such
circumstances they can not live entirely without air; and
if they are excited by being exposed to atmospheric changes,
or by being disturbed, a very loud humming may be heard
in the interior of their hives, and they need quite as much
air as in warm weather.
VENTILATION. 119

If at any time, by moving their hives or in any other way,
bees are greatly disturbed it will be unsafe to confine them,
especially in warm weather, unless a very free admission of
air is given to them, and even then the air ought to be ad-
mitted above as well as below the mass of bees, or the ven-
tilators may become clogged with dead bees, and the swarm
may perish, Under close confinement the bees become exces-,
sively heated, and the combs are often melted down. When
bees are confined to a close atmosphere, especially if damp-
ness is added to its injurious influences, they are sure to
become diseased ; and large numbers, if not the whole colony,
perish from dysentery. Is it not under circumstances pre-
cisely similar that cholera and dysentery prove most fatal to
human beings? How often do the filthy, damp, and unven-
tilated abodes of the abject poor become perfect lazar-houses
to their wretched inmates!

I examined last summer the bees of a new swarm which
had been suffocated for want of air, and found their bodies
distended with a yellow and noisome substance, just as
though they had perished from dysentery. A few were still
alive; and, instead of honey, their bodies were filled with
this same disgusting fluid, though the bees had not been shut
up more than two hours.

In a medical point of view I consider these facts as highly
interesting, showing, as they do, under what circumstances,
and how speedily, disease may be produced.

In very hot weather, if thin hives are exposed. to the sun’s
rays the bees are excessively annoyed by the intense heat,
and have recourse to the most powerful ventilation, not
merely to keep the air of the hive pure, but to carry off, as
much as possible, its internal warmth. (They often leave the
interior of the hive, almost in a body, and in thick masses.
cluster on the outside, not simply to escape the close heat
within, but to guard their eatnbs against the danger of being
dissolved.) At such times they are particularly careful not
to cluster on the cozubs containing sealed honey; for as most
of these combs have not been lined with the cocoons of the
120 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL,

larve, they are, for this reason, as well as on account of the
extra amount of wax used for their covers, much more liable
to be melted than the breeding cells.

Apiarians have often noticed the fact that, as a general
thing, the bees leave the honey-cells almost entirely bare as
soon as they have sealed them over; but it seems to have
escaped their observation that, in hot weather, there is often
an absolute necessity for such a course. In cool weather, on
the contrary, the bees may often be found clustered among
the sealed honeycombs, because there is then no danger of
their melting down.

Few things in the range of their wonderful instincts are
so well fitted to impress the mind with their admirable sagac-
ity as the truly scientific device by which these wise little
insects ventilate their dwellings. I was on the point of saying
that it was almost like human reason, when the painful and
mortifying reflection presented itself to my mind that in
respect to ventilation the bee is immensely in advance of the
great mass of those who consider themselves as rational
beings. It has, to be sure, no ability to make an elaborate
analysis of the chemical constituents of the atmosphere, and
to decide how large a proportion of oxygen is essential to
the support of life, and how rapidly the process of breath-
ing converts this important element into a deadly poison.
It has not, like Liebig, been able to demonstrate that God
has set the animal and vegetable world, the one over against
the other, so that the carbonic acid produced by the breath-
ing of the one furnishes the aliment of the other; which, in
turn, gives out its oxygen for the support of animal life;
and that, in this wonderful manner, God has provided that
the atmosphere shall, through all ages, be as pure as when it
first came from his creating hand. But, shame upon us!
that, with all our intelligence, the. most of us live as though
pure air were of little or no importance; while the bee ven-
tilates with a scientific precision and thoroughness that puts
to the blush our criminal neglect.
VENTILATION, 123

To this it may be replied that ventilation in our case can
not be had without considerable expense. Can it be had for
nothing by the industrious bees? These busy insects which
are so indefatigably plying their wings are not engaged in
idle amusement; nor might they, as some would-be utilitarian
may imagine, be better employed in gathering honey, or in

_superintending some other department in the economy of the
hive. They are at great expense of time and labor, supply-
ing the rest of the colony with pure air, so conducive in
every way to their health and prosperity.

I trust that I shall be permitted to digress for a short time
from bees to men, and that the remarks which I shall offer
on the subject of ventilation in human dwellings may make a
deeper impression, in connection with the wise arrangements
of the bee, than they would if presented in the shape of a
mere scientific discussion; and that some who have been in
the habit of considering all air, except in the particular of
temperature, as about alike, may be thoroughly convinced of
their mistake.

Recent statistics prove that consumption and its kindred.
diseases are most fearfully on the increase in the Northern,
and more especially in the New England States; and that
the general mortality of Massachusetts exceeds that of al-~
most every other State in the Union. In these States the
tendency of increasing attention to manufacturing and me-
chanical pursuits is to compel a larger and larger proportion
of the population to lead an indoor life, and to breathe an
atmosphere more or less vitiated, and thus unfit for the full
development of vigorous health. The importance of pure air
can hardly be overestimated; indeed, the quality of the air.
we breathe seems to exert an influence much more powerful,
and hardly less direct, than the mere quality of our food.
Those who, by active exercise in the open air, keep their
lungs saturated, as it were, with the pure element can eat
almost any thing with impunity; while those who breathe
the sorry apology for air which is to be found in so many
habitations, although they may live upon the most nutritious.
122 THE BEEKEEPER’'S MANUAL.

diet, and avoid the least excess, are incessantly troubled with
headache, dyspepsia, and various mental as well as physical
sufferings. Well may such persons, as they witness the
healthy forms and happy faces of so many of the hardy sons
of toil, exclaim with the old Latin poet,

Ob dura messorum illia!

It is with the human family very much as it is with the
vegetable kingdom. Take a plant or tree, and shut it out
from the pure air and the invigorating light, and, though
you may supply it with an abundance’ of water and the very
soil which, by the strictest chemical analysis, is found to
contain all the elements that are essential to its vigorous
growth, it will still be a puny thing, ready to droop if ex-
posed to a summer’s sun, or to be prostrated by the first
visitation of a winter’s blast. Compare now this wretched
abortion with an oak or maple which has grown upon the
comparatively ster:le mountain pasture, and whose branches
in summer are the pleasant resort of the happy songsters,
while under its mighty shade the panting herds drink in a
refreshing coolness. In winter it laughs at the mighty storms
which wildly toss its giant branches in the air, and which
serve only to exercise the limbs of the sturdy tree whose
roots, deep intertwined among its native rocks, enable it to
bid defiance to any thing short of a whirlwind or tornado..

To a population who, for more than two-thirds of the
year, are compelled to breathe an atmosphere heated by
artificial means, the question how can this air be made, at a
moderate expense, to resemble, as far as possible, the purest
ether of the skies is (or, as I should say, ought to be), a
question of the utmost interest. When open fires were used,
there was no lack of pure air, whatever else might have been
deficient. A capacious chimney carried up through its in-
satiable throat immense volumes of air, to be replaced by
the pure element whistling in glee through every crack, crev-
ice, and keyhole. Now the house-builder and stove-maker,
VENTILATION. 123

with but few exceptions*, seem to have joined hands in
waging a most effectual warfare against the unwelcome in-
truder. By labor-saving machinery they contrive to make
the one, the joints of his woodwork, and the other those of
his ironwork, tighter and tighter; and if it were possible for
them to aceomplish fully their manifest design, they would
be able to furnish rooms almost as fatal to life as “ the black
hole of Caleutta.” But in spite of all that they can do the
materials will shrink, and no fuel has yet been found which
will burn without any air, so that sufficient ventilation is
kept up to prevent such deadly occurrences. Still they are
tolerably successful in keeping out the unfriendly element;
and by the use of huge cooking-stoves with towering ovens
and other salamander contrivances the little air that can find
its way in is almost as thoroughly cooked as are the various
delicacies destined for the table.

On reading an account of a run-away slave who was for a
considerable time closely boxed up, a gentleman remarked
that, if the poor fellow had only known that a renewal of
the air was necessary to the support of life, he could not
have lived there an hour without suffocation. I have fre-
quently thought that, if the occupants of the rooms I ‘have
been describing could only know as much, they would be in
almost similar danger.

Bad air, one would think, is bad enough; but when it is
heated and dried to an excessive degree, all its original vile-
ness is stimulated to greater activity, and thus made doubly
injurious by this new element of evil. Not only our private
houses but our churches and school-rooms, our railroad cars,
and all our places of public assemblage, are, to a most la-
mentable degree, either unprovided with any means of ven-
tilation, or, to a great extent, supplied with those which are
so wretchedly deficient that they

Keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope.

*The beautiful open or Franklin stoves, manufactured by Messrs.
Jagger, Treadwell & Perry, of Albany, N. Y., deserve the highest com-
mendation: they economize fuel as well as life and health.
124 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

That ultimate degeneracy must surely follow such entire
disregard of the laws of health can not be doubted; and
those who imagine that the physical stamina of a people can
be undermined, and yet that their intellectual, moral, and
religious health will suffer no eclipse or decay, know very
little of the intimate connection between body and mind
which the Creator has seen fit to establish.

The men may, to a certain extent, resist the injurious in-
fluences of foul air, as their employments usually compel
them to live much more out of doors; but, alas for the poor
women! In the very land where women are treated with
more universal deference and respect than in any other,
and where they so well deserve it, there often no provision
is made to furnish them with that great element of health,
cheerfulness, and beauty, heaven’s pure frésh air.

In southern. climes, where doors and windows may be
safely kept open for a large part of the year, pure air is
cheap enough, and can be obtained without any special
effort; but in northern latitudes, where heated air must be
used for nearly three-quarters of the year, the neglect of
ventilation is fast causing the health and beauty of our
women to disappear. The pallid cheek or the hectic flush,
the angular form and distorted spine, the debilitated ap-
pearance of a large portion of our females, which to a
stranger would seem to indicate that they were just recov-
ering from a long illness, all these indications of the lament-
able absence of physical health, to say nothing of the anx-
ious, care-worn faces and premature wrinkles, proclaim
in sorrowful voices our violation of God’s physical laws,
and the dreadful penalty with which he visits our trans-
gressions.

Our people must, and I have no doubt that eventually
they will, be most thoroughly aroused to the necessity of a
vital reform on this important subject. Open stoves and
cheerful grates and fireplaces will again be in vogue with
the mass of the people unless some better mode of warming
shall be devised, which, at less expense, shall make still more
VENTILATION. 125

ample provision for the constant introduction of fresh air.
Houses will be constructed, which, although more expensive
in the first cost, will be far cheaper in the end; and, by
requiring a much smaller quantity of fuel to warm the air,
will enable us to enjoy the luxury of breathing air which
may be duly tempered, and yet be pure and invigorating.
Air-tight and all other lung-tight stoves will be exploded,
as economizing in fuel only when they allow the smallest
possible change of air, thus squandering health and endan-
gering life. f

The laws very wisely forbid the erection of wooden build-
ings in large cities, and in various ways prescribe such
regulations for the construction of edifices as are deemed to
be essential to the public welfare; and the time can not, I
trust, be very far distant when all public buildings erected
for the accommodation of large numbers will be required by
law to furnish a supply of fresh air in some reasonable
degree adequate to the necessities of those who are to occupy
them.

I shall ask no excuse for the honest warmth of language
which will appear extravagant only to those who can not, or,
rather, will not, see the immense importance of pure air to
the highest enjoyment, not only of physical but of mental
and moral health. The man who shall succeed in convincing
the mass of the people of the truth of the views thus im-
perfectly presented, and whose inventive mind shall devise a
cheap and efficacious way of furnishing a copious supply
of pure air for dwellings and public buildings, our steam-
boats and railroad cars, will be even more of a benefactor
than a Jenner, a Watt, a Fulton, or a Morse.

To return from this lengthy and yet I trust not unprofit-
able digression :

In the ventilation of my hive I have endeavored, as far
as possible, to meet all the necessities of the bees under the
varying circumstances to which they are exposed in our
uncertain climate, whose severe extremes of temperature
126 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

impress most forcibly upon the beekeeper the maxim of the
Mantuan bard,

Utraque vis pariter apibus mettuenda.

“ Extremes of heat or cold alike are hurtful to the bees.”
In order to make artificial ventilation of any use to the great
majority of beekeepers it must be simple, and not as in
Nutt’s hive and many other labored contrivances, so com-
plicated as to require almost as constant supervision as a
hotbed or a greenhouse. The very foundation of any system
of ventilation should be such a construction of the hive that
the bees shall need a change of air only for breathing.

In the chapter on Protection I have explained the con-
struction of my hives and of the protector by which the
bees, being kept warm in winter and cool in summer, do not
require, as in thin hives, a very free introduction of air in
hot weather to keep the combs from softening; or a still
larger supply in winter to prevent them from moulding, and
to dry up the moisture which runs from their icy tops and
sides, and which, if suffered to remain, will often affect the
bees with dysentery, or, as it is sometimes called, “ the rot.”
The intelligent apiarian will perceive that I thus imitate the
natural habitation of the bees in the recesses of a hollow
tree in the forest, where they feel neither the extremes of
heat nor cold, and where, through the efficacy of their ven-
tilating powers, a very small opening admits all the air
which is necessary for respiration.

In the chapter on the Requisitesfor a Good Hive I have
spoken of the importance of furnishing ventilation inde-
pendently of the entrance. By such an arrangement I am
able to improve upon the method which the bees are com-
pelled to adopt in a state of nature. As they have no means
of admitting air by wire cloth, and at the same time effec-
tually excluding all intruders, they are obliged in very hot
weather, and in a very crowded state of their dwellings, to
employ a larger force in the laborious business of ventila-
tion than would otherwise be necessary ; while in winter they
VENTILATION. 127

‘have no means of admitting air which is only moderately
cool. I can keep the entrance so small that only a single
bee can go in at once; or I ean, if circumstances require,
entirely close it, and yet the bees need not suffer from the
want of air. In all ordinary cases the ventilators will admit
a sufficient supply of duly tempered air from the protector,
and the bees can, at any time, increase their efficiency by
their own direct agency, while yet they will, at no time,
admit a strong current of chilly air so as to endanger the
life of the brood. As bees are at all times prone to close
the ventilators with propolis, they must be placed where
they can easily be removed, and cleansed by soaking them
in boiling water. /
As respects ventilation from above as well as from below,
so as to allow a free current of air to pass through the hive,
I am decidedly opposed to it, as in cool and windy weather
such a current often compels the bees to retire from the
brood, which in this way is destroyed by a fatal chill. In
thin hives, ventilation from above may be desirable in win-
ter to carry off the superfluous moisture; but in properly
constructed hives standing over a protector, there is, as has
already been remarked, little or no dampness to be carried
off. The construction of my hives will allow, if at all de-
sirable, of ventilation from above; and I always make use
of it when the bees are to be shut up for any length of time
in order to be moved; as in this case there is always a risk
that the ventilators on the bottom-board may be clogged by
dead bees, and the colony suffocated. As the entrance of
the hive may in a moment be enlarged to any desirable
extent without in the least perplexing the bees, any quantity
of air may be admitted which the necessities of the bees, under
any possible circumstances, may require. It may be made
full 18 inches in length; but as a general rule, in summer,
in a large colony it need not exceed six inches, while in
spring and fall two or three inches will suffice. In winter it
should be entirely closed unless in latitudes so warm that,
even with the protector, the bees can not be kept quiet. The
128 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

beekeeper should never forget that it is almost certain de-
struction to a colony to confine them when they wish to fly
out. The precautions requisite to prevent robbing will be
subsequently deseribed. In northern latitudes, in the months
of April and May I prefer to keep the ventilators entirely
closed, as the air of the protector, at such times, like the air
of a cellar in spring, is uncomfortably cool, and has a
tendency to interfere with breeding.

Note.—Since the remarks on the neglect of ventilation were put in
type, my attention has been called by Hon. M. P. Wilder, of Dorchester,
to an article on the same subject in the November number of the Horti-
eulturist for 1850, from the pen of the lamented Downing. It seems to
have been written shortly after his return from Europe, and when he
must have been most deeply impressed by the woful contrast in point of
physical health between the women of America and Europe. While he
speaks in just and, therefore glowing terms of the virtues of our country-
women, he says: “ But in the signs of physical health and all that con-
stitutes the outward aspect of the men and women of the United States,
our countrymen, and especially countrywomen, compare most unfavor-
ably with all but the absolutely starving classes on the other side of the
Atlantic.’ Close stoves he has most appropriately styled ‘‘ little demons,”
and impure air ‘‘ the favorite poison of America.’’ His article concludes
as follows:

“Pale countrymen and countrywomen, rouse yourselves! Consider
that God has given us an atmosphere of pure health-giving air 45 miles
high, and ventilate your houses.”
CHAPTER X.
NATURAL SWARMING AND HIVING OF SWARMS.

THE swarming of bees has been justly regarded as one
of the most beautiful sights in the whole compass of rural
economy. Although, for reasons which will hereafter be
assigned, I prefer to rely chiefly on artificial means for the
multiplication of colonies, I should be very unwilling to
pass a season without participating, to some extent, in the
pleasing excitement of natural swarming.

Up mounts the chief, and to the cheated eye

Ten thousand shuttles dart along the sky;

As swift through ether rise the rushing ev armns)

Gay dancing to the beam their’ sun-bright forms;

And each thin form, still lingering on the sight,

Trails, as it shoots, a line of silver light.

High poised on buoyant wing, the thoughtful queen,

In gaze attentive, views the varied scene,

And soon her far-fetched ken discerns below

The light laburnum lift her polished brow,

Wave her green leafy ringlets o’er the glade,

And seem to beckon to her friendly shade.

Swift as the falcon’s sweep, the monarch bends

Her flight abrupt; the following host descends.

Round the fine twig, like clustered grapes, they close

In thickening wreaths, and court a short repose.
Evans.

The swarming of bees, by making provision for the con-
stant multiplication of colonies, was undoubtedly intended
both to guard the insect against the possibility of extinction,
and to make its labors in the highest degree useful to man.
The laws of reproduction in those insects which do not live
in regular colonies are such as to secure an ample increase
of numbers. The same is true in the case of hornets, wasps,
and bumblebees which live in colonies only during the warm
weather. In the fall of the year all the males perish, while

the impregnated females retreat into winter quarters and
130 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

remain dormant until the warm weather restores them to
activity, and each one becomes the mother of a new family.

The honeybee differs from all these insects in being
compelled, by the laws of its physical organization, to live
in communities during the.entire year. The balmy breezes
of spring will quickly thaw out the frozen veins of a torpid
wasp; but the bee is incapable of enduring even a moderate
degree of cold: a temperature as low as 50 degrees speedily
chills it, and it would be quite as easy to recall to life the
stiffened corpses in the charnel house of the Convent of the
Great St. Bernard as to restore to animation a frozen bee.
In cool weather they must, therefore, associate in large
numbers, in order to maintain the animal heat which is
necessary to their preservation; and the formation of new
colonies, after the manner of wasps and hornets, is clearly
impossible. If the young queens left the parent stock in
summer, and were able, like the mother-wasps, to lay the
foundations of a new colony, they could not maintain the
warmth requisite for the development of their young, even
if they were able, without any baskets on their thighs, to
gather bee-bread for their support. If all these difficulties
were surmounted, they would still be unable to amass any
treasures for our use, or even to lay up the stores requisite
for their own preservation.

How admirably are all these difficulties obviated by the
present arrangement! Their domicile is well supplied with
all the materials for the rearing of brood; and long before
any of the insects which depend upon the heat of the sun
are able to commence breeding, the bees have added thcu-
sands in the full vigor of youth to their already numerous
population. They are thus able to send off in season colo-
nies sufficiently powerful to take advantage of the honey-
harvest, and provision the new hive against the approach
of winter. From these considerations it is very evident that
swarming, so far from being, as some apiarians have con-
sidered it, a forced or unnatural event, is one which, in a
state of nature, could not possibly be dispensed with.
SWARMING AND HIVING. 131

Let us now inquire under what circumstances it ondieely
takes place.

The time when swarms may be expected depends, of
course, upon climate, season, and the strength of the stocks. .
In the Northern and Middle States, bees seldom swarm be-
fore the latter part of May; and June may be considered as
the great swarming month. The importance of having pow-
erful swarms early in the season will be discussed in another
place.

In the spring, as soon as a hive well filled with comb and
bees becomes too much crowded to accommodate its teeming
population, the bees begin the necessary preparations for
emigration.. A number of royal cells are commenced about
the time that the drones first make their appearance; and
by the time that the young queens arrive at maturity, the
drones are always found in the greatest abundance. The first
swarm is invariably led off by the old queen unless she has
previously died from accident or disease, in which case it is
accompanied by one of the young queens reared to supply
her loss. The old mother leaves soon after the royal cells:
are sealed over, unless delayed by unfavorable weather.
There are no signs from which the apiarian can, with cer-
tainty, predict the issue of a first swarm. I devoted annually
much attention to this point, vainly hoping to discover some
infallible indicatiens of first swarming, until taught by
further reflection that, from the very nature of the case,
there can be no such indications. The bees, from an un-
favorable state of the weather, or the failure of the blossoms
to yield an abundant supply of honey, often change their
minds and refuse to swarm, even after all their preparations
have been completed. Nay, more, they sometimes send out
no new colonies that season, when a sudden change of
weather has interrupted them on the very day when they
were intending to emigrate, and after they had taken a full
supply of honey for their journey.

If on a fair warm day in the swarming season but few
bees leave a strong hive, while other colonies are busily at
132 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

work, we may, unless the weather suddenly prove unfavor-
able, look with great confidence for a swarm. As the old
yueens, which accompany.the first swarm, are heavy with
ges, and fly with considerable difficulty, they are shy of
venturing out except on fair still days. If the weather is.
very sultry, a swarm will sometimes issue as early as 7
Yelock in the morning; but from 10 to 2 is the usual time,
and the majority of swarms come off from 11 to 1. Ocea-
sionally a swarm will venture out as late as 5 p.m. An old
yueen is seldom guilty of such a piece of indiscretion.

I. have in repeated instances witnessed the whole process
of swarming, in my observing hives. On the day fixed for
‘heir departure the queen appears to be very restless, and,
nstead of depositing her eggs in the cells, she travels over
the combs and communicates her agitation to the whole
colony. The emigrating bees fill themselves with honey some
ime before their departure. In one instance I noticed them
aying in their supplies more than two hours before they
eft. A short time before the swarm rises, a few bees may
venerally be seen sporting in the air, with their heads turned
uways to the hive, occasionally flying in and out, as though
hey were impatient for the important event to take place.
At length a very violent agitation commences in the hive:
he bees appear almost frantic, whirling around in a circle
which continually enlarges, like the circles made by a stone
‘hrown into still water, until at last the whole hive is in a
state of the greatest ferment, and the bees rush impetuously
o the entrance and pour forth in one steady stream. Not
t bee looks behind, but each one pushes straight ahead, as
hough flying “ for dear life,” or urged on by some invisible
dower in its headlong career. The queen often does not come
rat until a large number have left, and she is frequently so
1eavy, from the large number of eggs in her ovaries, that
the falls to the ground, incapable of rising with the colony
nto the air.

The bees are very soon aware of her absence, and a most
nteresting scene may now be witnessed. A diligent search
SWARMING AND HIVING. 133

is immediately made for their missing mother; the swarm
scatters in all directions, and I have frequently seen the
leaves of the adjoining trees and bushes almost as thickly
covered with the anxious explorers as they are with drops
of rain after a copious shower. If she can not be found
they return to the old hive, though occasionally they attempt
to enter some other hive or join themselves to another swarm
if any is still unhived.

The ringing of bells and beating’ of kettles and frying-
pans is one of the good old ways more honored by the
breach than the observance. It may answer a very good
purpose in amusing the children, but I believe that, so far
as the bees are concerned, it is all time thrown away, and
that it is not a whit more efficacious than the custom prac-
ticed by some savage tribes who, when the sun is eclipsed,
imagining that it has been swallowed by an enormous drag-.
on, resort to the most frightful noises to compel his snake~
ship to disgorge their favorite luminary. If a swarm has.
selected a new home previous to their departure, no amount.
of noise will ever compel them to alight; but as soon as alk
the bees which compose the emigrating colony have left the
hive they fly in a direct course, or “ bee-line,” to the chosen
spot. I have noticed that, when bees are much neglected
by those who pretend to take care of them, such unceremo-
nious leave-taking is quite common; on the contrary, when
proper attention is bestowed on them it seldom occurs.

It can seldom if ever occur to those who manage their
bees according to my system, as I shall show in the chapter
on Artificial Swarming. If the apiarian perceives that his
swarm, instead of clustering, begins to rise higher and high-
er in the air, and evidently means to depart, not a moment
is to be lost. Instead of empty noises he must resort to
means much more effective to stay their vagrant propen-
sities. Handfuls of dirt cast into the air, or water thrown
among them, will often so disorganize them as to compel
them to alight. Of all devices for stopping them, the most
original one that I have ever heard of is to flash the sun’s
134 THE BEEKEEPER'S MANUAL.

rays among them by the use of a looking-glass! I have
never had oceasion to try it, but the anonymous writer who
recommends it says that he never knew it to fail. If they
are forcibly prevented from eloping, then special care must
be taken or they will be almost sure, soon after hiving, to
leave for their selected home. The queen should be caught
and confined for several days in a way which will be subse-
‘quently described. The same caution must be exercised when
new swarms abandon their hive. If the queen can not be
caught, and there is reason to dread a desertion, the bees
may be carried into the cellar and confined in total dark-
ness until toward sunset of the third day after they swarmed,
being supplied in the mean time with water and honey to
build their combs.

If a colony decides to go, they look upon the hive in which
they are put as only a temporary stopping-place, and sel-
dom trouble themselves to build any comb in it. If the hive
is so constructed as to permit inspection I ean tell by a
glance whether bees are disgusted with their new residence,
and mean before long to clear out. They not only refuse
to work with that energy so characteristic of a new swarm,
but they have a peculiar look which, to the experienced eye,
at once proclaims the fact that they are staying only upon
sufferance. Their very attitude, hanging as they do with a
sort of dogged or supercilious air, as though they hated
even so much as to touch their detested abode, is equivalent
to an open proclamation that they mean to be off. My
numerous experiments in attempting, from the moment of
hiving, to make the bees work in observing hives exposed to
the full light of day, instead of keeping them as I now do
in darkness for several days, have made me quite familiar
with all their graceless, do-nothing proceedings before their
departure. Bees sometimes abandon their hives very early
in the spring or late in summer or fall. They exhibit all the
appearance of natural swarming; but they leave, not because
the population is crowded, but because it is either so small,
or the hive so destitute of supplies, that they are discour-
SWARMING AND HIVING. 135

aged or driven to desperation. I once knew a colony to
_leave the hive under such circumstances on a springlike day
in December! They seem to have a presentiment that they
must perish if they stay, and, instead of awaiting the sure
approach of famine, they sally out to see if something can
not be done to better their condition.

At first sight it seems strange that so provident an insect
should not always select a suitable domicile before venturing
on so important a step as to abandon the old home. Often,
before they are safely housed again, they are exposed to
powerful winds and drenching rains which beat down and
destroy many of their number.

I solve this problem in the economy of the bee in the same
manner that I have solved so many others, by considering:
in what way this arrangement conduces to the advantage of
man.

The honeybee would have been of comparatively little
service to him if, instead of tarrying until he had sufficient
time to establish them in a hive in which to labor for him,
their instinet impelled them to decamp, without any delay,
from the restraints of domestication. In this, as in many
other things, we see that what, on a superficial view, appear-
ed to be a very obvious imperfection, proves on closer ex-
amination to be a special contrivance to answer important
ends.

To return to our new swarm. The queen sometimes alights
first, and sometimes joins the cluster after it has commenced
forming. It is a very rare thing for the bees ever to cluster
unless the queen is with them; and when they do, and yet
afterward disperse, I believe that usually the queen, after.
first rising with them, has been lost by falling into some
spot where she is unnoticed by the bees. In two instances
I performed the following interesting experiment:

Perceiving a hive in the very act of swarming, I contract-

_ed the entrance so as to secure the queen when she made her
appearance. In each case at least one-third of the bees
came out before the queen presented herself to join them.
136 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

When I perceived that the swarm had given up their search
for her, and were beginning to return to the parent hive,
I placed her, with her wings clipped, on the limb of a small
evergreen tree. She crawled to the very top of the limb as if
for the purpose of making herself as conspicuous as possible.
A few bees noticed her, and, instead of alighting, darted
rapidly away. In a few seconds the whole colony were
apprised of her presence, flew in a dense cloud to the spot,
and commenced quietly clustering around her. I have often
noticed the surprising rapidity with which bees communicate
with each other while on the wing. Telegraphic signals are
hardly more instantaneous. (See chapter on the Loss of the
Queen. )

That bees send out scouts to seek a suitable abode, it
seems to me can admit of no serious question. Swarms have
been traced to their new home, either in their flight directly
from their hive or from the place where they have clustered;
and it is evident that, in such instances, they have pursued
the most direct course. Now, such a precision of flight to a
“terra incogmta,” an unknown home, would plainly be im-
possible if some of their number had not previously selected
the spot so as to be competent to act as guides to the rest.
The sight of the bees for distant objects is wonderfully
acute, and, after rising to a sufficient elevation, they can see
the prominent objects in the vicinity of their intended abode,
even although they may be several miles distant. Whether
the bees send out their scouts before or after swarming may
admit of more question. In cases where the colony flies
without alighting, to its new home, they are unquestionably
dispatched before swarming. If this were their usual course,
then we should naturally expect all the colonies to take the
same speedy departure. Or if, for the convenience of the
queen, overfatigued by the excitement of swarming, or for
any other reason, they should see fit to cluster, then we
should expect that only a transient tarrying would be al-
lowed. Instead of this they often remain until the next day,
and instances of a more protracted delay are not unfrequent.
SWARMING AND HIVING. 137

‘The cases which occur, of bees stopping in their flight and
clustering again on any convenient object, are not inconsis-
tent with this view of the subject; for if the weather is hot,
and the sun shines directly upon them, they will often leave
before they have found a suitable habitation; and even when
they are on the way to their new home, the queen being
heavy with eggs, and unaccustomed to fly, is sometimes from
weariness compelled to alight, and her colony clusters
around her. Queens, under such circumstances, sometimes
seem unwilling to entrust themselves again to their wings,
and the poor bees attempt to lay the foundations of their
colony on fence-rails, hay-stacks, or other most unsuitable
places.

I have been informed by Mr. Henry M. Zollickoffer, of
‘Philadelphia, a very intelligent and reliable observer, that
he knew a swarm to settle on a willow tree in that city, in
a lot owned by the Pennsylvania Hospital. It remained
there for some time, and the boys pelted it with stones to
get possession of its comb and honey.

The absolute necessity for scouts or explorers is evident
from all the facts in the case unless we admit that bees have
the faculty of fiying in an air-line to a hollow tree, or some
suitable abode which they have never seen, though they can
not find their hive, if, in their absence, it is moved only a
few rods from its former position.

These obvious considerations are abundantly confirmed
by the repeated instances in which a few bees have been
‘noticed prying very inquisitively into a hole in a hollow tree
or the cornice of a building, and have been succeeded, before
long, by a whole colony. The importance of these remarks
-will be more obvious when I come to discuss the proper
mode of hiving bees.

Having described the common method of procedure pur-
sued by the new swarm, when left without interference to
their natural instincts, it is time to return to the parent stock
from which they emigrated.
138 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

In witnessing the immense number which have abandoned
it, we might naturally suppose that it must be almost en-
tirely depopulated. It is sometimes asserted that, as bees.
swarm in the pleasantest part of the day, the population is
replenished by the return of large numbers of workers that.
were absent in the fields. This, however, can seldom be the
case, as it is rare for many bees to be absent from the hive
at the time of swarming.

To those who limit the fertility of the queen to 200, or
at most 400 eggs per day, the rapid replenishing of the hive
after swarming must ever be a problem incapable of solu-
tion; but to those who have ocular demonstration that she
ean lay from one to three thousand eggs a day, it is no
mystery at-all. A sufficient number of bees is always left
behind to carry on the domestic operations of the hive; and
as the old queen departs only when the population of the
hive is superabundant and when thousands of young bees
are hatching daily, and often 30,000 or more are rapidly
maturing, in a short time the hive is almost as populous as
it was before swarming. Those who assert that the new
colony is composed of young bees which have been forced
to emigrate by the older ones have certainly failed to use
their eyes to much advantage or they would have seen, in
hiving a new swarm, that it is composed of both young and
old—some having wings ragged from hard work, while others
are evidently quite young. After the tumult of swarming
is entirely over, not a bee that did not participate in it seeks
afterward to join the new colony; and not one that did,
seeks to return. What determines somes to go and others
to stay we have no certain means of knowing.

How wonderfully abiding the impression made upon an
insect which in a moment causes it to lose all its strong
affection for the old home in which it was bred, and which
it has entered perhaps hundreds of times; so that, when
established in another hive, though only a few feet distant,
it never afterward pays the slighest attention to its former
abode! Often, when the hive into which the new swarm is
SWARMING AND HIVING. 139

“put is not removed. from the place where the bees were hived
until some have gone to the fields, on their return they fly
for hours in ceaseless circles about the spot where the miss-
ing hive stood. I have often known them to continue the
vain search for their companions until they have, at length,
dropped down from utter exhaustion and perished in close
proximity to their old homes!

It has been already stated that the old queen, if the weath-
er is favorable, generally leaves about the time that the
young queens are sealed over, to be changed into nymphs.
In about eight days more one of these queens hatches; and
the question must now be decided whether any more colonies
are to be sent out that season or not. If the hive is well filled
with bees, and the season in all respects promising, this ques-
tion is generally decided in the affirmative; although colonies
often refuse to swarm more than once when they are very
strong, and when we can assign no reason for such a course;
and they sometimes swarm repeatedly, to the utter ruin of
both the old stock and the after-swarms.

Tf the bees decide to swarm again, the first-hatched queen
is allowed to have her own way. She rushes immediately to
the cells of her sisters, and, as was described in the chapter
on Physiology, stings them to death. From some observa-
tions that I have made, I am inclined to think that the other
bees aid her in this murderous transaction. They certainly
tear open the cradles of the slaughtered innocents, and re-
move them from the cells. Their dead bodies may often be
found on the ground in front of the hive.

When a queen has emerged in the natural way from her
cell, the bees usually nibble away the now useless abode until
only a small acorn cup remains; but when by violence she
has met. with an untimely end they take down entirely the
whole of the cell. By counting these acorn-cups it can al-
ways be ascertained how many young queens have hatched
in a hive.

Before the queens emerge from their cells a fluttering
sound is frequently heard which is caused by the rapid mo-
140 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

tion of the wings, and which must not be confounded with *
the piping notes which will soon be described. If the bees
of the parent stock decide to swarm again, the first-hatched
queen is prevented from killing the others. <A strong guard
is kept over their cells, and as often as she approaches them
with murderous intent she is bitten or otherwise rudely
treated, and given to understand by the most uncourtier-like
demonstrations that she can not, in all ‘things, do just as she
pleases.

When thus repulsed, like men and women who can not
have their own way, she is highly offended and utters an
angry sound, given forth in a quick succession of notes, and
which sounds not unlike the rapid utterance of the words
“peep, peep.” I have frequently, by holding a queen in the
closed hand, caused her to make the same noise. To this
angry note, one or more of the queens still unhatched will
respond in a somewhat hoarser key, just as chicken-cocks,
by crowing, bid defiance to each other. These sounds are
entirely unlike the usual steady hum of the bees, and when
heard are the almost infallible indications that a second
swarm willl soon issue. They are occasionally so loud that
they may be heard at some distance from the hive. _

About a week after first swarming the apiarian should,
early in the morning or at evening, when the bees are still,
place his ear against the hive; and he will, if the queens are
piping, readily recognize their peculiar sounds. If their
notes are not heard at the very latest sixteen days after the
departure of the first swarm, by which time the young
queens are mature, even if the first colony left as soon as
the eggs were deposited in the royal cells, it is an infallible
indication that the first-hatched queen is without rival in the
hive, and that swarming is over, in that stock, for the season.

The second swarm usually issues on the second or third
day after this sound is heard, although I have known them
to delay coming out until the fifth day, in consequence of a
very unfavorable state of the weather. Occasionally the
weather is so unfavorable that the bees permit the oldest
SWARMING AND HIVING. 141

queen to kill the others, and refuse to swarm again. This
is a rare occurrence, as the young queens, unlike the old
ones, do not appear to be very particular about the weather,
and sometimes venture out, not merely when it is cloudy,
but even when rain is falling. On this account, if a very
close watch is not kept they are often lost. As piping
ordinarily commences about eight or nine days after first
swarming, the second swarm generally issues ten or twelve
days after the first. It has been known to issue as early as
the third day after the first, and as late as the seventeenth.
Such eases, however, are of rare occurrence. It frequently
happens, in the agitation of swarming, that several of the
young queens emerge from their cells at the same time, and
accompany the colony. When this is the case the bees often
alight in two or more separate clusters. Young queens, not
having their ovaries burdened with eggs, are much more
quick on the wing than old ones, and fly frequently much
further from the parent stock before they alight, though I
never knew a second swarm to depart to the woods without
clustering at all. After the departure of a second swarm,
the oldest of the remaining queens leaves her cell; and if
another swarm is to be sent forth, piping will still be heard,
and so before the issue of each swarm after the first. I once
had five stocks issue from one swarm, and they all came out
in about two weeks. In warm latitudes more than twice this
number of swarms have been known to issue in one season
from a single stock. The third swarm commonly makes its
appearance on the second or third day after the second
swarm, and the others at intervals of about a day.
After-swarms, or casts (these names are given to all
swarms after the first) reduce very seriously the strength of
the parent stock; for after the departure of the old queen,
no more eggs are deposited in the cells until all swarming is
over. It is a very wise arrangement that the second swarm
does not ordinarily issue until all the eggs left by the first
queen are hatched, and the young fed and sealed over, so
as to require no further care. The departure of the second
142 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

swarm earlier than this would leave too few laborers to
attend to the wants of the young bees. As it is, if the
weather after swarming suddenly becomes chilly, and the
hives are thin and admit too much air, the bees are too much
reduced in numbers to maintain the heat requisite for the
proper development of the brood, and numbers are de-
stroyed.

In the chapter on Artificial Swarming I shall discuss the
effect of too frequent swarming on the profits of the apiary.
If the beekeeper desires to have no casts he can, by the use
of my hives, very easily prevent their issue. As soon as the
first swarm is hived, the parent stock may be opened, and
all the queen-cells except one removed. How much better
this is than to attempt to return the after-swarms to the
parent hive can be appreciated only by one who has thor-
oughly tried both plans. If the apiarian desires the most
rapid multiplication of colonies possible, where natural
swarming is relied on, full directions will be furnished, in
the sequel, for building up all after-swarms, however small,
into vigorous stocks. It will be remembered that both the
parent stock from which the swarm issues, and all the colo-
nies except the first, have a young queen. These queens
never leave the hive for impregnation until after they have
been established as the acknowledged heads of independent
families. They generally go out for this purpose the first
pleasant day after they are thus acknowledged, early in the
afternoon, at which hour the drones are flying in the great-
est numbers. On first leaving their hive they always fly with
their heads turned toward it, and enter and depart often
several times before they finally soar up into the air. Such
precautions on the part of a young queen are highly neces-
sary that she may not mistake her own hive on her return,
and lose her life by attempting to enter that of another
colony.. Mistakes of this kind are frequently made when the
hives stand near, and closely resemble each other, and are
fatal, not only to the queen but to her whole colony. In
the new hive there is no brood at all, and in the old one it
SWARMING AND HIVING. 143

is too far advanced toward maturity to answer for raising
new queens. Such calamities, in my hive, admit of a very
easy remedy as I shall show in the chapter on The Loss of
the Queen.

To guard the young queen against such frequent mistakes
I paint the covered fronts of my hives, with the alighting-
boards, and blocks guarding the entrance, of different colors.
This answers the same purpose as to paint the whole surface
of the boxes, some of one color and some of another. The
only proper color for a hive when exposed to the weather
is a perfect white. Any shade of color will absorb the heat
of the sun so as to warp the woodwork of the hive, besides
exposing the bees to a pent and suffocating heat.

When a young queen leaves the hive for the purpose
above mentioned, the bees, on missing her, are often filled
with alarm and rush from the hive just as though they were
intending to swarm. Their agitation soon calms down, if
she returns to them in safety. I shall give, throngh the
medium of the Latin tongue, some statements which are
important only to the scientific naturalist and entomologist,

Post coitum fueus statim perit. Penis ejectio, ut ego com-
peri, lenem compressionem fuci ventris, consequitur; et
fuecus extemplo similis ulmine tacto, moritur. Dominus
Huber sepe videbat fuci organum post congressum, in cor-
pore femine hesisse. Vidi semel tam firme inherens, ut
nisi disruptione regine ventris, non possim divellere.

The queen commences laying eggs about two days after
impregnation, and for the first season lays none but the
eggs of workers, no males being needed in colonies which
will throw no swarm till another season. It is seldom until
after she has commenced replenishing the cells with eggs
that she is treated with any special attention by the bees;
although if deprived of her before this time they show by
their despair that they thoroughly comprehended her vast
importance to their welfare.

I shall now give such practical directions for the easy
hiving of swarms as will, I trust, greatly facilitate the whole
144 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

operation, not merely to the novice but even to many ex-
perienced beekeepers; and I shall try to make these direc-
tions sufficiently minute to guide those who, having never
seen a swarm hived, are very apt to imagine that the process
must be a formidable one, instead of being, as it usually is
to those who are fond of bees, a most delightful entertain-
ment. Experience in this, as in other things, will speedily
give the requisite skill and confidence; and the ery of “the
bees are swarming!” will soon be hailed with greater plea-
sure than an invitation to the most sumptuous banquet.
The hives for the new swarms should all be in readiness
before the swarming season begins, and should be painted
long enough beforehand to have the paint most thoroughly
dried. The smell of fresh paint is well known to be ex-
ceedingly injurious to human beings, and is such an abomi-
nation to the bees that they will often desert a new hive
sooner than put up with it. If the hives can not be painted
in ample season, then such paints should be used as con-
tain no white lead, and they should be mixed in such a man-
ner as to dry as quickly as possible. Thin hives ought never
to stand in the sun, and then, when heated to an insufferable
degree, be used for a new swarm. Bees often refuse to enter
such hives at all, and at best are very slow in taking pos-
session of them. It should be borne in mind that bees, when
they swarm, are greatly excited and unnaturally heated.
The temperature of the hive, at the moment of swarming,
rises very suddenly and many of the bees are often drenched
with such a profuse perspiration that they are unable to
take wing and join the departing colony. The attempt to
make bees enter a heated hive in a blazing sun is as irration-
al as it would be to try to force a panting crowd of human
beings into the suffocating atmosphere of a close garret.
If bees are to be put in hives through which the heat of the
sun can penetrate, the process should be accomplished in
the shade; or if this can not conveniently be done the hive
should be covered with a sheet, or shaded with leafy boughs.
If a hive with my movable frames is used, these should all
SWARMING AND HIVING. 145

be furnished, or at least every other one, with a small piece
of worker comb attached to the center of the frame with
melted wax or resin. Without such a guide-comb the bees
will almost always work some of the combs out of the true
direction, and this will interfere with their easy removal.
A sheet of comb not larger than five inches square will
answer for all the frames of one hive. If even so small a
piece of comb as this can not be procured, let a thin line
of melted wax be drawn lengthwise over the middle of each
frame, and let the colony be examined on the second day
after hiving, and all the frames which contain irregular
comb be removed. This comb may be cut off, and attached
so as to serve as a proper guide to the bees. The possession
of six frames containing good worker comb, and wrought
with perfect accuracy, may be made by the following device,
to answer a most admirable end: Put them into a hive with
six empty frames; first a frame with comb, then an empty
one. After the bees have had possession of this hive two or
three days, visit them and very politely inform them that
the full frames were intended as a loan and not as a gift;
and that, having served to set them an example how they
should work, you must now have them teach other young
swarms the same useful lesson; and that the new combs
which they have built with such admirable regularity are
beautiful patterns for the empty ones which you must give
them.“ In this way the same combs may be made to answer
for many successive swarms.

Drone combs should never be fastened to the frames as a
guide unless it is desired to have the bees follow the pat-
tern and build large ranges of drone comb to breed a vast
harde of useless consumers. Such comb, if white, may be
used to great advantage in the surplus-honey boxes; if old
and discolored, it should be melted for wax. I am now en-
gaged in a course of experiments which, I hope, will enable
me to dispense with the necessity of guide-combs for my
frames, as they are sometimes difficult to be procured by
those who have just commenced beekeeping. As a general
146 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

thing, however, every one, after a few weeks’ experience,
may have enough and to spare for such purposes. Every
piece of good worker comb, if large enough to be attached
to a frame, should be used both for its intrinsic value and
because bees are so wonderfully pleased when they find such
unexpected treasures in a hive that they will seldom desert
it. A new swarm has been known to take possession of an
old hive without any occupants, but well stored with-comb.
Though dozens of empty hives may be in the apiary, they
never, unless under such circumstances, enter a hive of their
own accord. It might seem as though an instinet impelling
them to do so would have been a most admirable one, and
so, doubtless, it may seem to some that it would have been
much better for man if the earth had only brought forth
spontaneously all things requisite for the support of man
and beast without any necessity for the sweat of the brow.
The first and last frames in my hive are placed about a
quarter of an inch from the ends, and the others just half
an inch apart. When first put in, it will be advisable to
attach them slightly with a very little glue or melted wax
to keep them in their places until they are fastened with
propolis by the bees. The rubbing of hives with various
kinds of herbs or washes has always seemed to me useless
and often positively injurious. There ought always to be
some small trees near the hives, on which the swarms can
cluster, and from which they can be easily gathered. If
there are none, limbs of trees about 6 feet high (evergreens
are best) may be fastened into the ground a few rods in
front of the hives, and they will answer a very good tem-
porary purpose. It will inspire the inexperienced apiarian
with much greater confidence, to remember that almost all
the bees in a swarm have filled themselves with honey before
leaving the parent stock, and are, therefore, in a very peace-
able mood. If he is at all timid, or liable, as some are, to
suffer severely from the sting of a single bee, he should by all
means furnish himself with the protection of a bee-dress.
(See Bee-dress. )
SWARMING AND HIVING. 147

I shall, in another place, give the best remedies for the
relief of a sting. As soon as the bees have quietly clustered
around their queen, preparation should be made to hive
them without any unnecessary delay. The headlong haste
of some apiarians, which, by throwing them into a profuse
perspiration, renders them very liable to be stung, is alto-
gether unnecessary. The very fact that the bees have clus-
tered after leaving the parent stock is almost equivalent to a
certainty that they will not leave for at least one or two
hours. All convenient despatch should be used, however,
lest other colonies issue before the first one is hived, and
attempt to add themselves, as they frequently do, to the first
swarm. The proper course to be pursued in such a case will
be subsequently explained. If my hives are used, the en-
trance on the whole front must be opened so that the bees
may have every chance to enter as rapidly as possible; and
a sheet must be fastened to the alighting-board to keep the
bees from being separated from each other or soiled by
dirt; for a bee thoroughly covered with dust or dirt is almost
sure to perish. Unless the bees cluster at a considerable
distance from the place where they are intended to be per-
manently stationed, the new hive which receives them may
stand on the protector in its proper place, with the sheet
tacked or pinned to the alighting-board, and spread out over
the mound in front of the entrance. If the common hives
are used they must generally be carried to the swarm, and
propped up on the sheet so as to give the bees a free ad-
mission. When the bees alight where they can be easily
reached from the ground, the limb on which they have elus-
tered should, with one hand, be shaken so that they may gen-
tly fall into a basket held under them by the other. If the
basket is sufficiently open to admit the air freely, and not so
open as to allow the bees to get through the sides, it will
answer all the better. The bees should now be carried very
slowly to their new home, and be gently shaken, or poured
out, on the sheet in front of it. If they seem at all reluctant
to enter, take up a few of them in a large spoon (a cup will
148 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL,

answer equally well) and shake them close to the entrance.
As they go in they will fan their wings, and raise a peculiar
note which communicates the joyful news that they have
found a home, to the rest of their companions; and in a
short time the whole swarm will enter, and they are thus.
safely hived without injury to a single bee. When bees are:
once shaken down on the sheet, the great mass of them are-
very unwilling to take wing again; for they are loaded with
honey, and, like heavily armed troops, they desire to march:
slowly and sedately to the place of encampment. If the
sheet hangs in folds, or is not stretched out so as to present:
an uninterrupted surface, they are often greatly confused,.
and take a long time to find the entrance to the hive. If it is.
desired to have them enter sooner than they are sometimes.
inclined to do, they may be gently separated with a feather,.
or leafy twig, when they cluster in bunches on the sheet..
On first shaking them down into the basket, multitudes will
again take wing and multitudes more will be left on the tree;
but they will speedily form a line of communication with.
those on the sheet and enter the hive with them, for many
of them will follow the apiarian as he slowly carries the
basket to the hive.

It sometimes happens that the queen is left on the tree..
Jn this case the bees will either refuse to enter the hive, or,.
if they go in, will speedily come out, and all take wing again
to join their queen. This happens much more frequently
in the case of after-swarms, whose young queens, instead of
exhibiting the gravity of the old matron, are apt to be con-
stantly flying about and frisking in the air. When the bees.
cluster again on the tree, the process of hiving must be re-
tarded.

If the apiarian has a pair of sharp pruning-shears, and.
the limb on which the bees have clustered is of no value, and
so small that it can be cut without jarring them off, this may
be done, and the bees carried on it and then shaken off om
the sheet.
SWARMING AND HIVING. 149

If the bees settle too high to be easily reached, the basket
should be fastened to a pole and raised directly under the
swarm. A quick motion of the basket will cause the mass
of the bees to fall into it, when it may be carried to the hive,
and the bees poured out from it on the sheet.

If the bees alight on the trunk of a tree, or any thing from
which they can not easily be gathered in ‘a basket, place a
leafy bough over them (it may be fasteried with a gimlet),
and if they do not mount it of their own accord, a little
smoke will compel them to do so. If the place is inaccessible,
and this is about the worst case that occurs, they will enter
a basket well shaded by cotton cloth fastened around it, and
elevated so as to rest with its open top sidewise to the mass
of the bees. When small trees, or limbs fastened into the
ground, are placed near the hives, and there are no large
trees near, there will seldom be found any difficulty in hiving
swarms. If two swarms alight together, I advise that they
be put into one hive, and abundant room at once be given
them for storing surplus honey. This can always be readily
done in my hives. Large quantities of honey are generally
obtained from such stocks if the season is favorable and they
have issued early. If it is desired to separate them, place
in each of the hives which is to receive them a comb containing
brood and eggs, from which, in case of necessity, a new
queen may be raised. Shake a portion of the bees in front
of each hive, sprinkling them thoroughly, both before and
after they are shaken out from the basket, so that they will
not take wing to unite again. If possible, secure the queens
so that one may be given to each hive. If this can not be done,
the hives should be examined the next day; and if the two
queens entered the same hive, one will have killed the other,
and the queenless hive will be found building royal cells.
It should be supplied with a sealed queen nearly mature,
taken from anotHer hive, not only to save time but to prevent
them from filling their hive with comb unfit for the rearing
of workers. (See Artificial Swarming.) Of course, this can
not be done with the common hives; and if the apiarian does
150 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

not succeed in getting a queen for each hive, the queenless
one will refuse to stay and will go back to the old stock.
The old-fashioned way of hiving bees, by mounting trees,
cutting and lowering down large limbs (often to the injury
of valuable trees), and placing the hive over the bees, fre-
quently crushing large numbers, and endangering the life of
the queen, should be entirely abandoned. A swarm may be
hived in the proper way with far less risk and trouble, and
in much less time. In large apiaries managed on the swarm-
ing plan, where a number of swarms come out on the same
day, and there is constant danger of their mixing,* the speedy
hiving of swarms is an object of great importance. If the new
hive does not stand where it is to remain for the season, it
should be removed to its permanent stand as soon as the bees.
have entered; for if allowed to remain to be removed in the
evening, or early next morning, the scouts which have left
the cluster in search of a hollow tree will find the bees when
they return, and will often entice them from the hive. There
is the greater danger of this if the bees have remained on the
tree a considerable time before they were hived. J have in-
variably found that swarms which abandon a suitable hive
for the woods have been hived near the spot where they elus-
tered, and allowed to remain to be moved in the evening.
If the bees swarm early in the day they will generally begin
to work in a few hours (or in less time if they have empty
comb), and many more may be lost by returning next day to
the place where they were hived than would be lost by re-

* Dr. Scudamore, an English physician who has written a small tract
on the formation of artificial swarms, says that he once knew ‘‘ as many
as ten swarms go forth at once, and settle and mingle together, forming
literally a monster meeting!’ Instances are on record of a much larger
number of swarms clustering together. A venerable clergyman in west-
ern Massachusetts related to me the following remarkable occurrence: In
the apiary of one of his parishioners, five swarms lit in one mass, AS
there was no hive which would hold them, a very large box was nailed
together, and the bees were hived in it. They were taken up by sulphur
in the fall, when it was perfectly evident that the five swarms had occupied
the same box as independent colonies. Four of them had commenced
their works, each one ‘near a corner, and the fifth one in the middle,
and there was a distinct interval separating the works of the different
colonies. In Cotton's ‘‘ My Bee Book” there is a cut illustrating a hive
in which two colonies had built in the same manner.
SWARMING AND HIVING. 152.

moving them as soon as they have entered; in this latter case
the few that are on the wing will generally be able to find
the hive if it is slowly moved to its permanent stand.

If the apiarian wishes to secure the queen, the bees should
be shaken from the hiving-basket, about a foot from the
entrance to the hive; and if a careful lookout is kept, she will
generally be seen as she passes over the sheet to the entrance.
Care must be taken to brush the bees back from the entrance
when they press forward in such dense masses that the queen
is likely to enter unnoticed. An experienced eye readily
catches a glance of her peculiar form and color. She may
be taken up without danger, as she never stings, unless en-
gaged in combat with another queen. As it will sometimes
happen, even to careful beekeepers, that swarms will come
off when no suitable hives are in readiness to receive them,
I shall show what may be done in such an emergency. Take
any old hive, box, cask, or measure, and hive the bees in it,
placing them with suitable protection against the sun, where
their new hive is to stand; when this is ready they may, by
a quick jerking motion, be easily shaken out on a sheet, and
hived in it, just as though they were shaken from the hiving-
basket. If they are to remain in the temporary hive over
the second day they ought to be shaken out on a sheet, and,
after their comb is taken from them, allowed to enter it
again, or else there will be danger of crushing the queen by
the weight of the comb.

I have endeavored, even at the risk of being tedious, to give-
such specific directions as will qualify the novice to hive a.
swarm of bees under almost any circumstances; for I know
the necessity of such directions and how seldom they are to.
be met with, even in large treatises on beekeeping. Vague-
or imperfect directions always fail just at the moment that.
the inexperienced attempt to put them into practice.

Before leaving this subject I will add to the directions for
hiving already given a method which I have practiced with
good success.

When the situation of the bees does not admit of the bas~
152 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

ket being easily elevated to them, the beekeeper may carry it
with him to the cluster, and then, after shaking the bees into
it, may lower it by a string to an assistant standing below.

That natural swarming may,. with suitable hives, be made
highly profitable, I can not for a moment question. As it is
the most simple and obvious way of multiplying colonies,
and the one which requires the least amount of knowledge
or skill, it will undoubtedly, for many years at least, be the
favorite method with a large number of beekeepers. I have,
therefore, been careful to furnish suitable directions for its
successful practice; and before I discuss the question of arti-
ficial increase I shall show how it may be more profitably
conducted than ever before, many of the most embarrassing
difficulties in the way of its successful management being
readily obviated by the use of my hives.

1. The common hives fail to furnish adequate protection
in winter against cold and those sudden changes to unsea-
sonable warmth by which bees are tempted to come out and
perish in large numbers on the snow; and the colonies are
thus prevented from breeding on a large scale, as early as
they otherwise would. Under such circumstances they can
make no profitable use of the early honey-harvest; and they
will swarm so late, if they swarm at all, as to have but little
opportunity for laying up surplus honey, while often they
do not gather enough even for their own use, and their owner
closes the season by purchasing honey to preserve them from
starvation. The way in which I give the bees that amount
of protection in winter which conduces most powerfully to
early swarming has already been described in the chapter on
Protection.

2. Another serious objection to ail the ordinary swarming
hives is the vexatious fact that, if the bees swarm at all,
they are liable to swarm so often as to destroy the value of
both the parent. stock and-the after-swarms. Experienced
beekeepers obviate this diffieulty by uniting second swarms
so as to make one good colony out of two; and they return
to the parent stock all swarms after the second, and even this
SWARMING AND HIVING. 153:

if the season is far advanced. Such operations consume
much time, and often give much more trouble than they are
worth. -By removing all the queen-cells but one, after the
first swarm has left, second swarming in my hives will al-
ways be prevented; and by removing all but two, provision
may be made for the issue of second swarms, and yet all
after-swarming be prevented. The process of returning
_after-swarms is not only objectionable on account of the
time it requires, having often to be repeated again and again
before one queen is allowed to destroy the others, but it also
causes a large portion of the gathering season to be wasted;
for the bees seem unwilling to work with energy so long as
the pretensions of several rival queens are unsettled.

3. Another very serious objection to natural swarming,
as practiced with the common hives, is the inability of the
apiarian who wishes to multiply his colonies rapidly to aid
his late and small swarms so as to build them up into vigor-
ous stocks. The time and money which are ordinarily spent
upon small colonies are almost always thrown away; by far
the larger portion of them never survive the winter, and the
majority of those that do are so enfeebled as to be of little or
no value. If they escape being robbed by stronger stocks, or
destroyed by the moth, they seldom recruit in season to.
swarm, and very often the feeding must be repeated the
second fall or they will at last perish. I doubt not that many
of my readers will, from their own experience, endorse every
word of these remarks as true to the very letter. All who
have ever attempted to multiply colonies by nursing and
feeding small swarms, on the ordinary plans, have found it
attended with nothing but loss and vexation. The more a
man has of such stocks, the poorer he is; for by their weak-
ness they are constantly tempting his strong swarms to evil
courses, so that at last they prefer to live, as far as they can,
by stealing, rather than by habits of honest industry; and if
the feeble colonies escape being plundered they often become
mere nurseries for raising a plentiful supply of moths to
ravage his whole apiary. a
154 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

I have already shown in what way, by the use of my hives,
the smallest swarms that ever issue may be so managed as
to become powerful stocks. In the same way. the apiarian
can easily strengthen all his colonies which are feeble in
spring.

4. As the loss of the young queens in the parent stock
after it has swarmed, and in the after-swarms, is a very com-
mon occurrence, a hive which, like mine, furnishes the means
of easily remedying this misfortune will greatly promote the
success of those who practice natural swarming. A very
intelligent beekeeper once assured me that he must use at
least one such hive in his apiary for this purpose, even if in
other respects it possessed no superior merits.

5. Bees, as is well known, often refuse to swarm at all,
and most of the swarming hives are so constructed that
proper accommodations for storing honey can not be fur-
nished to the superabundant population. Under such cir-
eumstances they often hang for several months in black
masses on the outside of the hive, and are worse than useless,
as they consume the honey which the others have gathered.
In my hives an abundance of room for storing honey can
always be given them, not all at once, so as to prevent them
from swarming, but by’ degrees, as their necessities require,
so that, if they are indisposed for any reason to swarm,
they may have suitable receptacles easily accessible, and
furnished with guide comb to make them more attractive, in
which to store up any amount of honey that they can possi-
dly collect.

6. In the common hives but little can be done to dislodge
the bee-moth when once it has gained the mastery of the
bees; whereas in mine it can be most effectually rooted out
when it has made a lodgment. (See Remarks on Bee-moth.)

7. In the common hives nothing can be done, except with
great difficulty, to remove the old queen when her fertility
is impaired; whereas in my hives (as will be shown in the
chapter on Artificial Swarming) this can easily be effected,
SWARMING AND HIVING. 155

so that an apiary may constantly contain a stock of young
queens in the full vigor of their repreductive powers.

I trust that these remarks will convince intelligent apia-
rians that I have not spoken boastfully or at random in as-
serting that natural swarming can be carried on with much
greater certainty and success by the use of my hives than in
any other way; and that they will see that many of the most
perplexing embarrassments and mortifying discouragements
under which they have hitherto prosecuted it may be effectu-
ally remedied.

CHAPTER XI.
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING.

THE numerous efforts which have been made for the last
fifty years or more to dispense with natural swarming plain-
ly indicate the anxiety of apiarians to find some better mode
of increasing their colonies.

Although I am able to propagate bees by natural swarm-
ing with a rapidity and certainty unattainable except by the
complete control of all the combs in the hive, still there are
difficulties in this mode of increase, inherent to the system
itself, and therefore entirely incapable of being removed by
any kind of hive. Before describing the various methods
which I employ to increase colonies by artificial means I
shall first enumerate these difficulties in order that each indi-
vidual beekeeper may decide for himself in which way he can
most advantageously propagate his bees.

1. The large number of swarms lost every year is a pow-
erful argument against natural swarming.

An eminent apiarian has estimated that one-fourth of the
best swarms are lost every season! This estimate can hardly
be considered too high if, all who keep bees are taken into
156 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

account. While some beekeepers are so careful that they
seldom lose a swarm, tle majority, either from the grossest
negligence or from necessary hindrances during the swarming
season, are constantly incurring serious losses by the flight
of their bees to the woods. It is next to impossible to pre-
vent such occurrences entirely if bees are allowed to swarm
at all.

2. The great amount of time and labor required by natural
swarming has always been regarded as a decided objection
to this mode of increase.

As soon as the swarming season begins, the apiary must
be closely watched almost every day or some of the new
swarms will be lost. If this business is entrusted to thought-
less children or careless adults, many swarms will be lost by
their neglect. It is very evident that. but few persons who
keep bees can always be on hand to watch them and to hive
the new swarms. But in the height of the swarming season,
if any considerable number of colonies is kept, the apiarian
(to guard against serious losses) should either be always on
the spot himself or have some one who can be entrusted with
the care of his bees. Even the sabbath can not be observed
as a day of rest; and often, instead of being able to go to
the house of God, the beekeeper is compelled to labor among
his bees as hard as on other days, or even harder. That he
is as justifiable in hiving his bees on the sabbath as in taking
care of his stock can admit of no serious doubt; but the very
liability of being called to do so is, with many, a sufficient
objection against apiarian pursuits.

The merchant, mechanic, and professional man are often
so situated that they would take great interest in bees if
they were not deterred from their cultivation by inability to
take care of them during the swarming season; and they are
thus debarred from a pursuit which is intensely fascinating,
not merely to the lover of nature, but to every one possessed
of an inquiring mind. No man who spends some of his lei-
sure hours in stuyding the wonderful habits and instinets of
bees will ever complain that he can find nothing to fill up .
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 157

his time out of the range of his business or the gratification
of his appetites. Bees may be kept with great advantage
even in large cities; and those who are debarred from every
other rural pursuit may still listen to the soothing hum of
the industrious bee, and harvest annually its delicious nectar.

If the apiarian could always be on hand during the swarm-
ing season it would still, in many instances, be exceedingly
inconvenient for him to attend to his bees. How often is the
farmer interrupted in the business of hay-making by the ery
that his bees are swarming! and by the time he has hived
them, perhaps a shower comes up, and his hay is injured
more than his swarm is worth. In this way the keeping of a
few bees, instead of a source of profit, often becomes a
rather expensive luxury; and if a very large stock is kept,
the difficulties and embarrassments are often most seriously
increased. If the weather becomes pleasant after a succes-
sion of days unfavorable for swarming, it often happens
that several swarms rise at once and cluster together, to the
great annoyance of the apiarian; and not unfrequently, in
the noise and confusion, other swarms fly off and are entirely
lost. I have seen the apiarian so perplexed and exhausted
under such circumstances as to b2 almost ready to wish thal
he had never seen a bee.

3. The managing of bees by natural swarming must, in
our country, almost entirely prevent the establishment of
large apiaries.

Even if it were possible in this way to multiply bees with
certainty and rapidity, and without any of the. perplezities
which I have just described, how few persons are so situated
as to be able to give almost the whole of their time in the
busiest part of the year to the management of their bees!
The swarming season is with the farmer the very busiest part
of the whole year; and if he purposes to keep a large num-
ber of swarming-hives he must not only devote nearly the
whole of his time for a number of weeks to their supervision,
but at a season when labor commands the highest price he
will often be compelled to hire additional assistance.
158 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

I have long been convinced that, as a general rule, the
keeping of a few colonies in swarming hives costs more than
they are worth, and that the keeping of a very large number
is entirely out of the question unless with those who are so
situated that they can afford to devote their time, for about
two months every year, almost entirely to their bees. The
number of persons who can afford to do this must be very
small; and I have seldom heard of a beekeeper, in our coun-
try, who has an apiary on a scale extensive enough to make
beekeeping any thing more than a subordinate pursuit.
Multitudes have tried to make it a large and remunerative
business; but hitherto, I believe, they have nearly all been
disappointed in their expectations. In such countries as Po-
land and Russia, where labor is deplorably cheap, it may be
done to great advantage, but never to any considerable extent
in our own.

4. A serious objection to natural swarming is the discour-
aging fact that the bees often refuse to swarm at all, and
the apiarian finds it impossible to multiply his colonies with
any certainty or rapidity, even although he may find himself
in all respects favorably situated for the cultivation of bees,
and may be exceedingly anxious to engage in the business on
a much more extensive scale.

I am acquaifted with many careful beekeepers who have
managed their bees according to the most reliable informa-
tion they could obtain, never destroying any of their colonies,
and endeavoring to multiply them to the best of their ability,
who yet have not as many stocks as they had ten years ago.
Most of them would abandon the pursuit if they looked upon
beekeeping simply in the light of dollars and cents rather
than as a source of pleasant recreation; and some do not
hesitate to say that much more money has been spent by the
mass of those who have used patent hives than they have
ever realized from their bees.

It is a very simple matter to make calculations on paper
which shall seem to point out a road to wealth almost as
flattering as a tour to the gold-mines of Australia or Cali-
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 159

fornia. Only purchase a patent beehive, and if it fulfills all
or even a part of the promises of its sanguine inventor, a
fortune must,,in the course of a few years, be certainly
realized; but such are the disappointments resulting from
the bees refusing often to swarm at all, that, if the hive could
remedy all the other difficulties in the way of beekeeping, it
would still fail to answer the reasonable wishes of the experi-
enced apiarian. If every swarm of bees could be made to
yield a profit of twenty dollars a year, and if the apiarian
could be sure of selling his new swarms at the most extrava-
gant prices, he could not, like the growers of mulberry-trees,
or the breeders of fancy fowls, multiply his stocks so as to
meet the demand, however extensive, but would be entirely
dependent upon the whims and eaprices of his bees; or,
rather, upon the natural laws which control their swarming.

Every practical beekeeper is well aware of the utter un-
certainty of natural swarming. Under no circumstances can
its occurrence be confidently relied upon. While some stocks
swarm regularly and repeatedly, others, strong i in numbers
and rich in stores, although the season may, in all respects,
be propitious, refuse to swarm at all. Such colonies, on |
examination, will often be found to have taken no steps for
raising young queens. In some cases the wings of the-old
mother will be found defective, while in others she is abun-
dantly able to fly, but seems to prefer the riches of the old
hive to the risks attending the formation of a new colony.
It frequently happens, in our uncertain climate, that, when
all the necessary preparations have been made for swarming,
the weather proves unpropitious for so long a time that the
young queens coming to maturity before the old one can
leave are all destroyed. This is a very frequent occurrence,
and under such circumstances swarming is almost certain to
be prevented for that season. The young queens are fre-
quently destroyed, even although the weather is pleasant, in
consequence of some sudden and perhaps only temporary
suspension of the honey-harvest; for bees seldom colonize,
160 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

even if all their preparations are completed, unless the flow-
ers are yielding an abundant supply of honey.

From these and other causes which my limits will not
permit me to notice, it has hitherto been found impossible,
in the uncertain climate of our Northern States, to multiply
colonies very rapidly by natural swarming; and beekeeping,
on this plan, offers very poor inducements to those who are
aware how little has been accomplished, even by the most
enthusiastic, experienced, and energetic apiarians.

The numerous perplexities which have ever attended natu-
ral swarming have for ages directed the attention of practical
cultivators to the importance of devising some more reliable
method of increasing their colonies. Columella, who lived
about the middle of the first century of the Christian Era,
and who wrote twelve books on husbandry (De re Rustica),
has given directions for making artificial colonies. He says,
“You must examine the hive, and view what honeycombs
it has; then afterward from the wax which contains the seeds
of the young bees you must cut away that part wherein the
offspring of the royal brood is animated: for this is easy to
be seen; because at the very end of the wax-works there
appears, as it were, a thimble-like process (somewhat similar
to an acorn) rising higher, and having a wider cavity, than
the rest of the holes, wherein the young bees of vulgar note
are contained.” ;

Hyginus, who flourished before Columella, had evidently
noticed the royal jelly; for he speaks of cells larger than
those of the common bees, “ filled, as it were, with a solid
substance of a red color, out of which the winged king is at
first formed.” This ancieut observer must undoubtedly have
seen the quinee-like jelly, a portion of which is always found
at the base of the royal cells after the queens have emerged.
The ancients generally called the queen a king, although
Aristotle says that some in his time called her the mother.
Swammerdam was the first to prove by dissection that the
queen is a perfect. female, and the only one in the hive, and
that thé drone is the male.
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 161

For reasons which I shall shortly mention, the ancient
methods of artificial increase appear to have met with but
small success. Toward the close of the last century a new
impulse was given to the artificial production of swarms by
the discovery of Schirach, a German clergyman, that bees
are able to rear a queen from worker-brood. For want, how-,
ever, of a more thorough knowledge of some important prin-
ciples in the economy of the bee, these efforts met with slen-,
der encouragement.

Huber, after his splendid discoveries in the physiology of
the bee, perceived at once the importance of multiplying
colonies by some method more reliable than that of natural
swarming. His leaf or book hive consisted of 12 frames,
each an inch and a half in width, any one of which could be
opened at pleasure. He recommends forming artificial
swarms by dividing one of these hives into two parts, adding
to each part six empty. frames. After using a Huber hive
for a number of years I became perfectly convinced that it,
could be made serviceable only by an adroit, experienced, and
fearless apiarian. The bees fasten the frames in such a
manner with their propolis that they can not, except with
extreme care, be opened without jarring the bees and exciting
their anger; nor can they be shut without constant. danger of.
crushing them. Huber nowhere speaks of having multiplied
colonies extensively by such hives; and although they have
been in use more than sixty years they have never been
successfully employed for such a purpose. If Huber had
only contrived a plan for suspending his frames, instead of
folding them together like the leaves of a book, I believe that
the cause of apiarian science would have been fifty years in
advance of what it now is.

Dividing hives of various kinds have been used in this
country.. After giving some of the best of them a thorough
trial, and inventing others which somewhat resembled the
Huber hive, I.found that they could not possibly be made to
answer any valuable end in securing artificial swarms. For.
a long time I felt, that the plan ought. to,succeed, and it was

%
162 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

not until I had made numerous experiments with my hive
substantially as now constructed that I ascertained the pre-
cise causes of failure.

It may be regarded as one of the laws of the beehive, that
bees, when not in possession of a mature queen, seldom
build any comb except such as, being designed merely for
storing honey, is too coarse for the rearing of workers.
Until I became acquainted with the discoveries of Dzierzon
I supposed myself to be the only observer who had noticed
this remarkable fact, and who had been led by it to modify
the whole system of artificial swarming. The perusal of Mr.
Wagner’s manuscript translation of that author showed me
that he had arrived at precisely similar results.

It may seem at first very unaccountable that bees should
go on to fill their hives with comb unfit for breeding when
the young queen will so soon require worker cells for her
eggs; but it must be borne in mind that bees, under such
circumstances, are always in an unnatural state. They are
attempting to rear a new queen in a hive which is only par-
tially filled with comb; whereas, if left to follow their own
instinets, they never construct royal cells except in hives
which are well filled with comb, for it is only in such hives
that they make any preparations for swarming. It must be
confessed that they do not show their ordinary sagacity in
filling a hive with unsuitable comb; but if it were not for a
few instances of this kind of bad management we should,
perhaps, form too exalted an idea of their intelligence, and
should almost fail to notice the marked distinction between
reason in man, and even the most refined instinets of some
of the animals by which he is surrounded.

The determination of bees, when they have no mature
queen, if they build any comb at all, to build such as is suited
only for storing honey, and unfit for breeding, will show at
once the folly of attempting to multiply colonies by the
dividing-hives. Even if the apiarian has been perfectly sue-
cessful in dividing a colony, and the part without a queen
takes the necessary steps to supply her loss, if the bees are

ee
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 163

sufficiently numerous to build a large quantity of new comb
(and they ought to be in order to make the artificial colony
of any value) they will build this comb in such a manner
that it will answer only for storing honey, while they will
use the half of the hive with the old comb for the purposes
of breeding. The next year, if an attempt is made to divide
this hive, one half will contain nearly all the brood and
mature bees, while the other, having most of the honey, in
combs unfit for breeding, the new colony formed from it will
be a complete failure.

Even with a Huber hive, the plan of multiplying colonies
by dividing a full hive into two parts, and adding an empty
half to each, will be attended with serious difficulties. Al-
though some of them may be remedied in consequence of the
hive being constructed so as to divide into many parts, the
very attempt to remedy them, however, will be found to re-
quire a degree of skill and knowledge far in advance of what.
can be expected of the great mass of beekeepers,

The common dividing-hives, separating into two parts, cam
never, under any circumstances, be made of the least practi--
cal value; and the business of multiplying colonies by them:
will be found far more laborious, uncertain, and vexatious,
than to rely on natural swarming. I do not know of a solitary
practical apiarian who, on trial of this system, has not been
compelled to abandon it and allow the bees to swarm from.
his dividing-hives in the old-fashioned way.

Some apiarians have attempted to multiply their colonies:
by putting a piece of brood-comb containing the materials.
for raising a new queen into an empty hive, set in the place.
of a strong stock which has been removed to a new standi
when thousands of its inmates were abroad in the fields..
This method is still worse than the one which has just beem
described. In the dividing-hive, the bees already had a large-
amount of suitable comb for breeding, while in this, having
next to none, they build all their combs until the queen is.
hatched, of a size unsuitable for rearing workers. In the
first case the queenless part of the dividing-hive may have.
164 THE BEEKEEPER'S MANUAL.

had a young queen almost mature, so that the process of
building large combs would be of short continuance; for as
soon as the young queen begins to lay, the bees at once com-
mence building combs adapted to the reception of worker
egos. In some of my attempts to rear artificial swarms by
moving a full stock, as described above, I have had combs
built of enormous size, nearly four inches through! and these
‘monster combs have afterward been pieced out on their
lower edge with worker cells for the accommodation of the
young queen! So uniformly do the bees with an unhatched .
queen build in the way described that I can often tell at a
single glance, by seeing what kind of comb they are building,
that a hive is queenless, or that, having been so, they have
now a fertile young queen. When a new colony is formed,
by dividing the old hive the queenless part has thousands of
cells filled with brood and eggs, and young bees will be
hourly hatching for at least three weeks; and by this time
the young queen will be laying eggs, so that there will be
an interval of not more than three weeks, during which no
accessions will be made to the numbers of the colony. But
when a new swarm is formed by moving, not an egg will be
deposited for nearly three weeks, and not a bee will be hateh-
ed for nearly six weeks; and during all this time the colony
will rapidly decrease, until by the time that the progeny of
the young queen begins to emerge from their cells the num-
ber of bees in the new hive will be so small that it would be
of no value, even if its combs were of the best construction.

Every observing beekeeper must have noticed how rapidly
even a powerful swarm diminishes in number for the first
three weeks after it has been hived. In many cases, before
the young begin to hatch it does not contain one-half its
original number, so very great is the mortality of bees dur-
ing the height of the working season.

I have most thoroughly tested, in the only way in which
it can be practiced in the ordinary hives, this last plan of
artificial swarming, and do not hesitate to say that it does
not possess the very slightest practical value; and as this is
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 165

the method which apiarians have usually tried, it is not
strange that they have almost unanimously pronounced
artificial swarming to be utterly worthless. The experience
of Dzierzon on this point has been the same with my own.

Another method of artificial swarming has been zealously
advocated, which, if it could only be made to answer, would
be, of all conceivable plans, the most effectual; and as it
would require the smallest amount. of labor, experience, or
skill, it would be everywhere practiced. A number of hives
must be put in connection with each other, so as to communi-
cate by holes which allow the bees to travel from any one
apartment to the others. The bees, on this plan, are to colo-
nize themselves, and in time a single swarm will, of its own
accord, multiply so as to form a large number of independ-
ent families, each one possessing its own queens, and all
living in perfect harmony.

This method, so beautiful and fascinating in theory, has
been repeatedly tried with various ingenious modifications,
but in every instance, so far as I know, 1: has proved an
entire failure. It will always be found, if bees are atkuwed
to pass from one hive to another, that they will still, for the
most part, confine their breeding operations to a single

. apartment, if it is of the ordinary size, while the others will
be used chiefly for the storing of honey. This is almost in-
variably the case if the additional room is given by collateral
or side boxes, as the queen seldom enters such apartments
for the purpose of breeding. If the new hive is direetly
below that in which the swarm is first lodged, then if the
connections are suitable the queen will be almost certain to
descend and lay her eggs in the new combs as soon as they
are commenced by the bees; in this case the upper hive is
almost entirely abandoned by her, and the bees store the cells
with honey as fast as the’ brood is hatched, as their instinet
impels them always, ' Gf they: can, to keep their stores of
honey above the breeding‘‘cells. So long as bees have an

abundance of room below their’ main hive they will never
ewarm hnt will nea it in the waw that T have deserihed Tf
166 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

the room is on the sides of their hive, and very accessible,
they seldom swarm; but if it is above them, they frequently
prefer to swarm rather than to take possession of it. But
in none of these cases do they ever, if left to themselves,
form separate and independent colonies.

I am awate that the apiarian, by separating from the
main hive, with a slide, an apartment that contains brood,
and directing to it by some artificial contrivance, a consider-
able number of bees may succeed in rearing an artificial
eolony; but unless all his hives admit of the most thorough
inspection, as he can never know their exact condition he
must always work in the dark, and will be much more likely
to fail than succeed. Success indeed can be possible only
when a skillful apiarian devotes a large portion of his time
to watching and managing his bees so as to compel them to
colonize; and even then it will be very uncertain, so that this
plausible theory, to be reduced to even a most precarious
practice, requires more skill, care, labor, and time than are
necessary to manage the ordinary swarming-hives.

The failure of so many attempts to increase colonies by
‘artificial means, as well in the hands of scientific and ex-
perienced apiarians as under the direction of those who are
almost totally ignorant of the physiology of the bee, has led
many to prefer to use non-swarming hives. In this way very
large harvests of honey are often obtained from a powerful
stock of bees; but it is very evident that, if the increase of
new colonies were entirely discouraged, the insect would
soon be exterminated. To prevent this the advocates of the
non-swarming plan must either have their bees swarm to
some extent, or rely upon those who do.

My hive may be used as a non-swarmer, and may be made
more effectually to prevent swarming than any other with
which J am acquainted; as in the spring (see No. 34, p. 94)
ample accommodations may be given to the bees below their
main works, and when this is seasonably done swarming will
‘never take place.
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 167

There are certain objections, however, which must always
prevent the non-swarming plan from being the most success-
ful mode of managing bees. To say nothing of the loss to the
beekeeper, who has, after some years, only one stock, when if
the natural mode of increase had been allowed he ought to
have a number, it is usually found that, after bees have been
kept in a non-swarming hive for several seasons, they seem
to work with much less vigor than usual. Of this, any one
may convince himself who will compare the industrious
working of a new swarm with that of a much more powerful
stock in a non-swarming hive. The former will work with
such astonishing zeal that, to one unacquainted with the
facts, it would be taken to be by far the more powerful stock.

As the fertility of the queen decreases by age, the disad-
vantages of using non-swarming hives of the ordinary con-
struction will be obvious. This objection to the system can
be remedied in my hive, as the old queen can be easily caught
and removed; but when hives are used in which this can not
be done, the apiary, instead of containing a race of young
queens in the full vigor of their reproductive powers, will
contain many that have passed their prime, and these old
queens may die when there are no eggs in the hive to enable
the bees to replace them, and thus the whole colony will
perish.

If the beekeeper wishes to winter only a certain number
of stocks I will, in another place, show him a way in which
this ean be done so as to obtain more honey from them than
from an equal number kept on the non-swarming plan, while
at the same time they may all be maintained in a state of the
highest health and vigor.

I shall now describe a method of artificial swarming which
may be successfully practiced with almost any hive by those
who have sufficient experience in the management of bees.

About the time that natural swarming may be expected,
a populous hive rich in stores is selected, and what I shall
call a forced swarm is obtained from it by the following
process: Choose that part of a pleasant day, say from 10
168 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

A. M. to 2 P. M., when the largest numbers of bees are abroad
in the fields. If any bees are clustered in front of the hive or
on the bottom-board, puff among them a few whiffs of smoke
from burning rags or paper, so as to force them to go up
among the combs. This can be done with greater ease, if the
hive is elevated, by small wedges, about one quarter of an
inch above the bottom-board. Have an empty hive or box in
readiness, the diameter of which is as nearly as possible the
same with that of the hive from which you intend to drive
the swarm. Lift the hive very gently, and without the slight-
est Jar, from its bottom-board; invert it and carry it in the
same careful manner about a rod from its old stand, as bees
are always much more inclined to be peaceable, when remov-
ed a short distance, than when any operation is performed
on the familiar spot. If the hive is carefully placed on the
ground, upside down, scarcely a single bee will fly out, and
there will be little danger of being stung. Timid and inex-
perienced apiarians will, of course, protect themselves with
a bee-dress, and they may have an assistant to sprinkle the
hive gently with sugar-water as soon as it is inverted. After
placing the hive in an inverted position on the ground, the
empty hive must be put over it, and every crack from which
a bee might escape must be carefully closed with paper or
any convenient material. The upper hive ought to be fur-
nished with two or three slats about an inch and a half wide,
and fastened one third of the distance from the top, so as to
give the bees every opportunity to cluster.

As soon as the apiarian is perfectly sure that the bees can
not escape, he should place an empty hive upon the stand
from which they were removed, so that the multitudes which
return from the fields may enter it instead of dispersing to
other hives where some of them may meet with a very unkind
reception; although as a general rule a bee with a load of
freshly gathered honey, after the extent of his resources is
dscertained, is almost always welcomed by any hive to which
he may carry his treasures; while a poor unfortunate that
ventures to present itself empty and poverty-stricken is
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING, 169

generally at once destroyed! The one meets with as friendly
a reception as a wealthy gentleman who proposes to take up,
his abode in a country village, while the other is as much
an object of dislike as a pauper who is suspected of wishing
to become a parish charge!

To return to our imprisoned bees. Beginning at the top,
or what is now (as the hive is upside down) the bottom,
their hive should be beaten smartly with two small rods on
the front and back, or on the sides to which the combs are
attached, so as to run no risk of loosening them. If the hive
when removed from its stand be put upon a stool or table, or
something not so solid as the ground, the drumming will
cause more motion, and yet be less apt to start any of the
combs. These “ rappings,”’ which certainly are not of a very
“ spiritual ” character, produce, nevertheless, a most decided.
effect upon the bees. Their first impulse is to sally out and.
wreak their vengeance upon those who have thus rudely:
assailed their honied dome; but as soon as they find that they
are shut in, a sudden fear that they are to be driven from
their treasures seems to take possession of them. If the two
hives have glass windows, so that all the operations can be
witnessed, the bees, in a few moments, will be seen most
busily engaged in gorging themselves with honey. During all
this time, the rapping must be continued, and in about five
minutes nearly every bee will have filled itself.to its utmost
capacity, and they are uow prepared for their forced emi-
gration; a prodigious hum is heard, and the bees begin to:
mount into the upper box. In about ten minutes from the
time the rapping began, the mass of the bees with their
queen will have ascended, and will hang clustered, just like
a natural swarm. The box with the expelled bees must now
be gently lifted off, and should be placed upon a bottom-
board with a gauze wire ventilator, so that the bees may be
confined, and yet have plenty of air. A shallow vessel or a
piece of old comb containing water ought to be first placed
on the bottom-board. If no gauze-wire bottom-board As at
170 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

hand, the liive must be wedged up, so as to admit an abun-
dance of air, and be set'in a shady place.

The hive from which the bees were driven must now be
set, without crushing any of the bees, on its old spot, in the
place of the decoy hive, that all the bees which have return-
ed from abroad may enter. Before this change is made,
these bees will be running in and out of the empty hive (see
p. 65; but as soon as the opportunity is given them they
will crowd into their well-known home; and, if there are no
royal cells started, will proceed, almost at once, to construct
them, and the next day they will act as though the forced
swarm had left of its own accord. When the operation is
delayed until about the season for natural swarming, the
hive will contain immature queens if the bees were intending
to swarm, and a new queen will soon take the place of the
old one, just as in natural swarming. If it is performed too
early, and before the drones have made their appearance,
the young queen may not be seasonably impregnated, and
the parent stock will perish.

It will be obvious that this whole process, in order to be
successfully performed, requires a knowledge of the most
important points in the economy of the beehive; indeed, the
same remark may be made of almost any operation, and
those who are willing to remain ignorant of the laws which
regulate the breeding of bees ought not to depart in the least
from the old-fashioned mode of management. All such
deviations will be attended only with a wanton sacrifice of
bees. A man may use the common swarming-hives a whole
lifetime, and yet remain ignorant of the very first principles
in the physiology of the bee unless he gains his information
from other sources; while by the use of my hives any intelli-
gent cultivator may, in a single season, verify for himself
the discoveries which have been made only by the accumulat-
ed toil of many observers for more than two thousand
years. The ease with which apiarians may now, by the
sight of their own eyes, gain a knowledge of all the impor-
tant facts in the economy of the hive, will stimulate them
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 171

most powerfully to study the nature of the bee and thus to
prepare themselves for an enlightened system of manage-
ment.

In giving directions for the creation of forced swarms,
I advise that it be done during the pleasantest part of the
day, when the largest number of bees are foraging abroad.
If the operation is performed when all the bees are at home,
and they are all driven into the empty hive, the old hive will
be so depopulated that many of the young will perish for
want of suitable attention, and the parent stock will be
greatly deteriorated in value. If: only a part of the bees
are expelled, the queen may be left behind, and the whole
operation will be a failure, and at best it will be difficult to
make a suitable division of the bees between the two hives.
Indeed, under any circumstances, this is the most difficult
part of the process, and it often requires no little judgment
to equalize the two colonies.

Some recommend placing the forced swarm on the old
stand, and removing the parent hive with the bees that are
deemed sufficient, to a new place. If this is done, and the
bees have their liberty, so many of them will leave for the
familiar spot that the hive will be almost deserted, and a
very large proportion of,its brood will perish. The bees in
this hive, if it is to be set in a new place, must have water
given to them, and be so shut up as to have an abundance of
air until late in the afternoon of the third day, when the hive
may be opened and they will take wing, almost as though
they were intending to swarm. Some will even then return
to the place where they originally stood, and join the forced
swarm; but the most of them, after hovering in the air for
a short time, will re-enter the hive. During the time that
they have been shut up, thousands of young bees will have
emerged from their cells, and these, knowing no other home,
will aid in taking care of the larve and in ererying’ on the
work of the hive.

Instead of trying to make an equitable division at the
time of driving out the bees, I prefer to expel all that I can,
172 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

and to rely upon the bees returning from their gatherings to
replenish the old stock. If the numbers appears to be too
small I open temporarily the entrance of the hive containing
the forced swarm, and permit as many as I judge best to
come out and enter their old abode. It must here be borne
in mind that bees which are thus ejected from a hive do not,
in all respects, act like a natural swarm, which, having left
the parent stock of its own accord, never seeks, unless it has
lost its queen, to return; whereas many of the forced swarm,
as soon as they leave the hive into which they have been
driven, will return to their former abode. The same is true
of bees which are moved to any distance not far enough to
be beyond the limits of their previous excursions in search
of food. If we could only make our bees when moved, or
forced to swarm, adhere to their hives as faithfully as a
natural swarm, many difficulties which now perplex us would
be at once removed.

Having ascertained that the parent hive contains a suffi-
cient number of bees to carry on operations about sunset,
after the bees are all at home, it may be removed to a new
stand, and the bees, after being supplied with water, must
be shut up according to the directions previously given. If
the hive is so constructed that water can not be conveniently
given them, the following plan I have found to answer most
admirably: Bore a small hole toward the top on the front
side; and, with a straw, water may be injected with scarcely
any trouble. A mouthful once or twice a day will be suffi-
cient. If the bees are confined without water they will not
be able to prepare the food for the larve, and multitudes of
them must necessarily perish.
. The expelled colony must be placed, on the same evening,
precisely where the hive from which they were driven stood,
and have their liberty given to them. The next morning
they will work with as much vigor as though they had
swarmed in the natural way. .

The directions which have here been given for creating
foreed swarms will be found to differ in some important re-
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 173

speets from any which other apiarians have previously fur-
nished. I have already shown that it is difficult to secure
the right number of bees for the parent stock unless it is set
temporarily on its old stand, so as to catch up the returning
bees. The common plam has been to try to leave in it as
‘many bees as are needed, and then to shut it up for a few
days, having placed it in a new spot, while the forced swarm
is immediately replaced so that all the stragglers may be
added to it. If we could always be sure of driving out the
queen, and with her as many bees as we want and no more,
this would undoubtedly be the simplest plan; but, for the
reasons already assigned, it will be found a very precarious
operation.

Some apiarians recommend putting the forced swarm in
a new place in the apiary; but as large numbers of the bees
will be sure, when they go out to work, to return to the
familiar spot, the new colony will often be so seriously de-
populated as to be of but little value. If the apiarian can
remove his forced swarms some two or three miles off, he
may give them their liberty at once, and in the course of a
few weeks he ean, without risk, bring them back to his
aplary.

If he chooses he may allow the parent stock to remain on
the old stand, and confine the forced swarm until about an
hour before sunset of the third day. They must in the mean
time be supplied with both honey and water; and if they
can not be kept cool and quiet, they should be removed into
the cellar until they are placed in their new position. Many
will even then return to the old spot, but not enough to
interfere seriously with their prosperity. If the bees can
not, as in my hives, be kept cool and dark, they will be
excessively uneasy, and may suffer very seriously from so
long confinement; hence the very great importance of nese
them in the cellar,

It may seem strange that bees, when their hive is moved,
or when they are forcibly expelled from it, should not adhere
to the new spot, just as when they laws. swarmed of their
174 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

own accord. In each case, as soon as a bee leaves its new
place it flies with its head turned toward the hive in order
to mark the surrounding objects, that it may be able to
return to the same spot; but when they have not emigrated
of their own accord, many of them seem, when they rise in
the air, or return from work, entirely to forget that their
location has been changed; and they return to the place
where they have lived so long; and if no hive is there, they
often die on the deserted and desolate yet homelike spot.
If, on the contrary, they swarmed.of their own accord, they
seldom, if ever, make such a mistake. It may truly be said
that ,

A bee removed against its will
Is of the same opinion still.

I have been thus minute in describing the whole process
of creating forced swarms, not merely on account of the
importance of the plan in multiplying colonies, but because
the driving or drumming out of bees from a common hive
is employed with great success in a variety of ways which
will be hereafter specified. I doubt not that many beekeep-
ers, on reading this mode of creating colonies, are ready to
object that it not only requires more skill, but more time
and labor, than to allow them to swarm and then to hive
them in the old-fashioned way.

As practiced with ordinary hives, it is undoubtedly liable
to this serious objection; and I would easily, with my basket
hiver, undertake to hive four natural swarms in the time
that it would require to create one forced swarm, to say
nothing of the care which must be bestowed upon the artifi-
cial swarms with their parent stocks, after the driving proc-
ess has been completed. For this reason I do not advise the
beekeeper to force his swarms from the common hives until
he has first ascertained that they are not likely to swarm in
tolerably good season of their own accord, unless he is afraid
that they will come out during his absence, and decamp to
the woods.
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 175

By the aid of my hives this process may be most expedi-
tiously performed. An empty hive, with its frames furnish-
ed with guide-combs, must be in readiness. The cover of the
full hive should be removed, and the bees gently sprinkled
with sugar-water from a watering-pot that discharges a fine
stream. In about two minutes the frames may be taken out,
and the bees, by a quick motion, shaken on a sheet directly
in front of their hive. As fast as a comb is deprived of its
bees it should be set in a proper position in the new hive,
and an empty frame put in its place. Two or three of the
combs containing brood, eggs, ete., should be left in the old
hive, as well to give them greater encouragement as to pre-
vent them from being dissatisfied if their queen should, by
any possibility, be taken from them. In removing the
frames with the bees I always look for the queen; and if I
see her, as I generally do, I return to the hive the frame
which contains her, without shaking off the bees. In that
case I put several of the necessary combs into the new hive,
with all the bees upon them.

In dislodging the bees upon the sheet I do not shake them
all off from the frames, but leave about one quarter of them
on, and put them with the combs into the new hive. I
never knew the queen to be left on a frame after it was
shaken so that the larger portion of the bees would fall off.
As soon as the operation is completed, and the necessary
number of bees have been transferred with their comb to the
new hive, it should be managed according to the directions
previously given, in the case of the old hive from which a
swarm was drummed out.

If in the operation the apiarian does not see the queen,
he must, in the course of the third day, examine the hive
having the larger portion of bees; and if they have com-
menced building royal cells among the combs given to them,
he may be certain that she is in the other hive. The comb
containing the royal cells may then be transferred to that
hive, and the queen searched for and returned with the
combs on which she is found to her proper place. A little
176 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

experience, however, will enable the operator to be sure from
the first that the queen is with the right division.

To most persons it would seem to be of little consequence
in which hive the queen is placed; but if the bees which have
only a few frames of comb are compelled to rear another
they will be sure to fill their hive with comb unfit for breed-
ing purposes, and will also be so long before they can have
additions to their number as to be of but little value.

If many swarms are to be created in this manner, and
the operation is delayed until near swarming time, in some
of them numerous royal cells will be found, so that each
stock which has no queen may have one nearly mature given
to it, and thus much valuable time may be saved.

By making a few forced swarms about a week or ten days
before the time in which the most will be made, the apiarian
may be sure of having an abundance of sealed queens almost
mature, so that every swarm may have one. If he can give
each hive that needs it an unhatched queen, without remov-
ing her from her frame, so much the better; but if he has not
enough frames with sealed queens while some of them con-
tain two or more queens, he must proceed as follows:

With a very sharp knife, carefully cut out a queen-cell
on a piece of comb an inch or more square. Cut a place
in one of the combs of the hive to which this cell is to be
given, just about large enough to receive it in a natural
position; and if it is not secure, put a little melted wax with
a feather, where the edges meet. The bees will soon fasten
it so as to make all right. Unless very great care is used in
transferring these royal cells the enclosed queens will be
destroyed, as their bodies, until they are nearly mature, are
so exceedingly soft that a very slight compression of their
cell often kills them. For this reason I prefer not to remove
them until they are within three or four days of hatching.
As the foreing of a swarm may always be conducted, with
my hives, in such a manner that the apiarian can be sure to
effect a suitable division of the bees, the process may be per-
formed at any time when the sun is above the horizon and
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 197

the weather is not too unpleasant. It ought not to be at-
tempted when the weather is so cool as to endanger the
destruction of the brood by ehill; and never unless when
there is not only sufficient light to enable the apiarian to see
distinctly, but enough for the bees that take wing to see the
hive and direct their flight to its entrance. If hives are
meddled with when it is dark, the bees are always more
irascible; and as they can not see where to fly they will be
constantly alighting upon the person of the beekeeper, who
will be almost sure to receive some stings. I have seldom
attempted night work upon my bees without having occa-'
sion most thoroughly to rue my folly. If the weather is not
too cool, early in the morning, before the bees are stirring,
will be the best time, as there will be less danger of annoy-
ance from robber bees.

If honey-water is used instead of sugar-water in sprin-
kling the bees when the hive is first opened, the smell will be
almost certain to entice maurauders from other hives to at-
tempt to take possession of treasures which do not belong
to them; and when they once commence such a pilfering
course of life they will be very loath to lay it aside. When
the honey harvest is abundant (and this is the very time for
forcing swarms), bees, with proper precautions, are seldom
inclined to rob. I have sometimes found it difficult to induce
them to notice honeyeombs which I wished them to empty,
even when they were placed in an exposed situation. This
subject, however, will be more fully treated in the remarks
on Robbing.

Perhaps some of my readers will hardly be able to con-
vince themselves that bees may be dealt with after the
fashion I have been describing, without becoming greatly
enraged; so far is this from being the case, that, in my op-
erations, I often use neither sugar-water nor bee-dress, al-
though I do not recommend the neglect of such precautions.

The artificial swarm may be created with perfect safety,
even at midday, when thousands of bees are returning to
the hive; for these bees, being laden with honey, never ven-
178 THE BEEKEEPER’'S MANUAL.

ture upon making an attack, while those at home may be
easily pacified.

I find a very great advantage in the peculiar shape of
my hive, which allows the top to be easily removed, and the
sugar-water to be sprinkled upon the bees before they at-
tempt to take wing. If, like the Dzierzon hive, it opened on
the end it would be impossible for me to use the sweetened
water so as to make it run down between all the ranges of
eomb, and I should be forced, as he does, to employ smoke
in all my operations. Huber thus speaks of the pacifie effect

‘produced upon the bees by the use of his leaf hive: “ On
opening the hive no stings are to be dreaded, for one of the
most singular and valuable properties attending my con-
struction is its rendering the bees tractable. I ascribe their
tranquillity to the manner in which they are affected by the
sudden admission of light. They appear rather to testify
fear than anger. Many retire, and, entering the cells, seem
to conceal themselves.” I will admit that Huber has here
fallen into an error which he would not have made had he
used his own eyes. The bees do indeed enter the cells when
the frames are exposed, but not “to conceal themselves ;”
they imagine that their sweets, thus unceremoniously exposed
to the light of day, are to be taken from them, and they fill
themselves to their utmost capacity in order to save all that
they can. I always expect them to appropriate the contents
of the open cells as soon as I remove their frames from the
hive. It is not merely the sudden admission of light, but its
introduction from an unexpected quarter, that seems for the
time to disarm the hostility of the bees. They appear for a
few moments almost as much confounded as we should be if,
without any warning, the roof and ceiling of a house should
suddenly fly off into the air. Before they recover from their
amazement the sweet libation is poured out upon them, and
surprise is quickly converted into pleasure rather than
anger. I believe that, in the working season, almost all the
bees near the top are gorged with honey, and that this is the
reason why opening the hive from above is so easily effected.
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 179

The bees below that are disposed to resent any intrusions
are met in their threatening ascent with an avalanche of
nectar which, “ like a soft answer,” most effectually “ turneth
away wrath.” Who would ever be willing to use the sicken-
ing fumes of the disgusting weed when so much pleasure
instead of pain may be given to his bees? That bees never
seem to be prepared to make an instant assault from the top
of their hive, but only near the entrance, any one may be
convinced of who will put my frames into a suspended hive
with a movable bottom which may be made to drop at plea-
sure. If now, for any purpose, he attempt to meddle with
the combs from below he will find that, unless he uses smoke,
the bees will be almost if not quite unmanageable.

I shall now give some directions which will greatly assist
the apiarian in his operations. He must bear in mind that
nothing irritates bees more than a sudden jar, and that this
must, in all cases, be most carefully avoided. The inside
cover of the hive, or, as I shall term it, the honey-board,
because the surplus-honey receptacles stand upon it, can
never be very firmly attached by the bees. It may always
be readily loosened with a thin knife, or, better still, with an
apotheeary’s spatula, which will be very useful for many
purposes in the apiary. When the honey-board is removed,
its lower surface will be usually covered with bees, and it
should be carefully set on end, so as not to crush them.
There is not the least danger that one of them will offer to
sting, as they are completely bewildered by the sudden in-
troduction of light and their removal from the hive. As
soon as the cover is disposed of, the apiarian should sprinkle
the bees with the sweet solution. This should descend from
the watering-pot in a fine stream, so as not to drench the
bees, and should fall upon the tops of the frames as well as
between the ranges of comb. The bees will at once accept
the proffered treat, and will begin lapping it up as peace-
ably as so many chickens helping themselves to corn. While
they are thus engaged, the frames must be very gently pried
with a stick from their attachments to the rabbets on which
180 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

they rest. This may be done without any jar and without
wounding or enraging a single bee. They may all be loos-
ened preparatory to removing them, in less than a minute.*
By this time the sprinkled bees will have filled themselves;.
or if all have not done so, the grateful intelligence that
sweets have been furnished them will diffuse an unusual good.
nature through all the honied realm. The apiarian should
now remove one of the outside frames, taking hold of its.
two ends which rest upon the rabbets, and carefully lifting
it out without inclining it from its perpendicular position,.
so as not to injure a single bee. The removal of the next
comb, and of all the succeeding ones, will be more easily
effected, as there will be more room to operate to advantage.
If bees were disposed to fly away at once from their combs.
as soon as they were taken out, it ‘would be very difficult to
manage them; but so far are they from doing this that they
adhere to them with most wonderful tenacity. I have some-
times removed all the combs, and arranged them in a con-
tinued line, and the bees have not only refused to leave them
but have stoutly defended them against the thieving propen-
sities of other bees. By shaking off the bees from the combs.
upon a sheet, and securing the queen, I can, on any pleasant
day, exhibit nearly all the appearances of natural swarming.
The bees, as soon as they miss their queen, will rise into the
air, and, by placing her on the twig of a tree, they will soon
‘cluster around her in the manner already described.

_A word as to the manner of catching the queen. I seize
her very gently as I espy her among the bees, and, by taking
care to crush none of them, run not the least risk of being
stung. The queen herself never stings, even if handled ever
so roughly.

In removing the frames from the hive it will be found
very convenient to have a box with suitable rabbets in which
they may be temporarily put and covered over with a piece

*T have often spent more than ten minutes in opening and shutting
a single frame in the Huber hive, and even then have sometimes crushed
some of the bees.
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. . 181

of cotton cloth. They may thus be very easily protected
from the cold and from robbing bees, if they are to be kept
out of the hive for some time; and such a box will be very
convenient to receive frames that are lifted out for examina-
tion. In returning the frames to a hive, care must be taken
not to crush the bees where their ends rest upon the rabbets.
They must be put in slowly, so that a bee, when he feels the
slightest pressure, may have a chance to creep from under
them before he is hurt.

The honey-cover, for convenience, is generally in two
pieces. These can not be laid down on the hive without
danger of killing many bees; they are, therefore, very care-
fully slid on, so that any bees which may be in the way are
pushed before them instead of being crushed. If any bees
are upon such parts of the hive so as to be imprisoned if
the outside cover is closed, it should be left a little open until
they have flown to the entrance of the hive. It can not be
too deeply impressed upon the beekeeper that all his motions
must be slow and gentle, and that the bees must not be in-
jured or breathed upon. If he will carefully follow the di-
rections I have given, he may soon open a hundred hives
and perform any necessary operation upon them without
any bee-dress, and yet with very little risk of being stung.
But I almost despair of being able to convince even the most
experienced apiarians of the ease and safety with which
bees may be managed on my plan, until they have actually
been eye-witnesses of its successful operation.

I can make an artificial colony in the way above described
in ten minutes from the time that I open the hive; and if I
see the queen as quickly as I often do, in not more than five
minutes. Fifteen minutes will be a very liberal allowance of
time to complete the whole work. If I had an apiary of a
hundred colonies, in less than a week, if the weather was
pleasant, I could, without any assistance, easily finish the
business of swarming for the whole season.

But how can the apiarian, if he delays the formation of
artificial swarms until nearly the season for natural swarm-
182 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

ing, be sure that his bees will not swarm in the usual way?
Must he not still be constantly on hand, or run the risk of
losing many of his best swarms?

I come now to the entirely novel plan by which such ob-
jections are completely obviated. If the apiarian decides
that he can most advantageously multiply his colonies by
artificial swarming, he must see that all his fertile queens are
deprived of their wings so as to be unable to lead off new
swarms. As an old queen never leaves the hive except to
accompany a new swarm, the loss of her wings does not in
the least interfere with her usefulness or with the attachment,
of the bees. Occasionally a wingless queen is so bent on
emigrating, that, in spite of her inability to fly, she tries to
go on with a swarm. She has “a will,” but, contrary to the
old maxim, she can find “ no way,” but helplessly falls upon
the ground instead of gaily mounting into the air. If the
bees succeed in finding her they will never desert her, but
cluster directly around her, and may thus be easily secured
by the apiarian. If she is not found, the bees will return
to the parent stock to await the maturity of the young
queens. The apiarian will ordinarily be prepared to form
his artificial colonies before any of these young queens are
hatched. :

‘The following is the best plan for removing the wings
from the queens. Every hive which contains a young queen
ought to be.examined about a week after she has hatched
(see chapter on Loss of the Queen) in order to ascertain that
she has been impregnated and has begun to lay eggs. Some
of the central combs, or those on which the bees are most
thickly clustered, should be first lifted out, for she will al-
most always be found on one of them. The apiarian, when
he has caught her, should remove the wings on one side with
a pair of scissors, taking care not to hurt her. On examin-
ing his hives next season, let him remove one of the two re-
maining wings from the queen. The third season he may
deprive her of her last wing. Bees always have four wings,
a pair on each side. This plan saves him the trouble of
ARTIFIOIAL SWARMING. 183

marking his hives so as to know the age of the queens they
contain.

As the fertility of the queen generally decreases after the
second year, I prefer, just before the drones are destroyed,
to kill all the old queens that have entered their third year.
In this way I guard against some of my stocks becoming
queenless in consequence of the queen dying of old age when
there is no worker brood in the hive, from which they can
rear another; or of having a worthless drone-laying queen
whose impregnation has been retarded. These old queens
are removed at that: period of the year when their colony is
strong in numbers; and as the honey-harvest is by this time
nearly over, their removal is often a positive benefit instead
of a loss. The population is prevented from being over-
crowded at a time when the bees are consumers and not pro-
ducers; and when the young queen, reared in the place of
the old one, matures, she will rapidly fill the cells with eggs,
and raise a large number of bees to take advantage of the
late honey-harvest and to prepare the hive to winter most
advantageously.

The certainty, rapidity, and ease of making artificial
swarms with my hives will be such as to amaze those most
who have had the greatest experience and success in the
management of bees. Instead of weeks wasted in watching
the apiary, in addition to all the other vexations and em-
barrassments which are so often found to attend reliance
on natural swarming, the apiarian will find not only that he
can create all his new colonies in a very short time, but
that he can, if he chooses, entirely prevent the issue of all
after-swarms. In order to do this he ought to examine the
stocks which are raising young queens, in season to cut out
all the queen-cells but one, before the larvee come to matu-
rity. If he gave them a sealed queen nearly mature, they
will raise no others, and no swarming, for that season, will
take place. If the apiarian wishes to do more than to double
his stocks in one season, and is favorably situated for prac-
ticing natural swarming, he can allow the stocks that raise
184 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

young queens to swarm if they will, and he can strengthen
the small swarms by giving to them comb with honey and
maturing brood from other hives. Or he can, after an in-
terval of about three weeks, make one swarm from every
two good ones in his apiary in a way that will soon be de-
seribed.

I do not know that I can find a better place in which to
impress certain highly important principles upon the atten-
tion of the beekeeper. I am afraid that, in spite of all that
I can say, many persons, as soon as they find themselves
able to multiply colonies at pleasure, will so overdo the mat-
ter as to run the risk of losing all their bees. If the apiarian
aims at obtaining a large quantity of honey in any one
season he can not at the furthest more than double the
number of his stocks; nor can he do this unless they are
all strong and the season favorable. The moment that he
aims, in any one season, at a more rapid increase, he must
not only renounce the idea of having any surplus honey, but
must expect to purchase food for the support of his colonies
unless he is willing to see them all perish by starvation. The
time, food, care, and skill required to multiply stocks with
very great rapidity, in our short and uncertain climate, are
so great that not one apiarian in a hundred can expect
to make it profitable; while the great mass of those who
attempt it will be almost sure, at the close of the season, to
find themselves in possession of stocks which have been so
managed as to be of very little value.

Before explaining some other methods of artificial swarm-
ing which I have employed to great advantage, I shall en-
deavor to impress upon the mind of the beekeeper the great
importance of thoroughly understanding, each season, the
precise object at which he is aiming before he enters on the
work of increasing his colonies. If his object is, in any one
season, to get the largest yield of surplus honey he must at
once make up his mind to be content with a very moderate
increase of stocks. If, on the contrary, he desires to multiply
his colonies, say three’or four fold, he must be prepared not
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 185.

only to relinquish the expectation of obtaining any surplus.
honey, if the season should prove unfavorable, but to pur-
chase food for the support of his bees. Rapid multiplication
of colonies and large harvests of surplus honey can not, in
the very nature of things, be secured in our climate in any
one season.

If the number of colonies is to be increased to a great
extent, then the bees in the apiary will be tasked to the
utmost in building new comb as well as in rearing brood.
For these purposes they must consume the supply of honey
which, under other circumstances, they would have stored
up, a part for their own use in the main hive, and the rest
for their owner, in the spare honey-boxes.

To make this matter perfectly plain, let us suppose a
colony to swarm. If the new hive, into which the swarm is
put, holds, as it ought, about a bushel, it will require about
two pounds of wax to fill it with comb, and at least forty
pounds of honey will be used in its manufacture! If the
season is favorable, and the swarm was large and early, they
may gather not only enough to build this comb and to store
it with honey sufficient for their own use, but a number of
pounds in addition for the benefit of their owner. If the
old stock does not swarm again, it will rapidly replenish its.
numbers; and as it has no new comb to build in the main
hive which already contains much honey, it will be able to.
store up a generous allowance in the upper boxes. These.
favorable results are all on the supposition that the season
was ordinarily productive in honey, and that the hive was
so powerful in numbers as to be able to swarm early. If
the season should prove to be very unfavorable, the first
swarm can not be expected to gather more than enough for-
its own use, while the parent stock will yield only a small
return. The profits of the beekeeper, in such an unfortunate.
season, will be mainly in the increase of his stocks. If the.
swarm was late, in consequence of the stock being weak in
spring, the early part of the honey-harvest will pass away,
and the bees will be able to obtain from it hut a small share:
186 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

of honey. During all this time of comparative inactivity the
orchards may present

One boundless blush, one white empurpled shower

Of mingled blossoms,
and tens of thousands of bees from stronger stocks may be
engaged all day in sipping the fragrant sweets, so that
every gale which “fans its odoriferous wings” about their
dwellings dispenses

Native perfumes, and whispers whence they stole

Those balmy spoils.

By the time that the feeble stock is prepared to swarm, if
it swarm at all that season, the honey-harvest is almost over,
and the new colony will seldom be able to gather enough
for its own use, so that, unless fed, it must perish the suc-
ceeding winter. Beekeeping with colonies feeble in the
spring is most emphatically nothing but “ folly and vexation
of spirit.”

I have shown how the beekeeper with a strong stock-hive
which has swarmed early and but once may in a favorable
season realize handsome profits from his bees. If the parent
stock throws a second swarm, then, as a general rule, unless
this swarm was very early, and the honey season good, if
managed on the ordinary plan it will seldom prove of any
value. It will almost always perish in the winter if it does
not desert its hive in the fall, and the family from whieh it
issued will not only gather no surplus honey (unless it was
secured before the first swarm issued) but very often perish
likewise. Thus the inexperienced owner who was so delight-
ed with the rapid inerease of his colonies begins the next
season with no more colonies than he had the year before,
and has very often lost all the time he has bestowed upon his
bees. I can, to be sure, on my plan, prevent the death of
the bees, and can build up all the feeble colonies so as to

.* The scent of the hives, during the height of the gathering season,
ca inform us from what sources the bees have gathered their
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING, 187

make them strong and powerful, but only by giving up all
idea of obtaining a single pound of honey. From the first
swarm I must take combs containing maturing brood to
strengthen my weak swarms; and this first swarm, however
powerful or early, instead. of being able to store its combs
with honey will be constantly tasked in building new combs
to replace those taken away, so that, when the honey-harvest
closes, it will have scarcely any honey, and must be fed to
prevent it from starving. Any man who has sense enough
to be entrusted with bees, can, from these remarks, under-
stand exactly why it is impossible to multiply colonies rap-
idly in any one season, and yet obtain from them large sup-
plies of honey. Even the doubling of stocks in one season
will very often be too rapid an increase if the greatest quan-
tity of spare honey is to be obtained from them; and when
the largest yield of honey is desired, I much prefer to form,
in a way soon to be described, only one new stock from two
old ones. This will give even more from the three than
could have been obtained from the two on the ordinary non-
swarming plan.

I would very strongly dissuade any but experienced apia-
rians from attempting at the furthest to do more than to
triple their stocks in one year. In order to furnish direc-
tions for very rapid multiplication, sufficiently full and ex-
plicit to be of any value to the inexperienced, I should have
to write a book on this one topic; and even then the most of
those who should undertake it would be sure at first to fail.

I have no doubt that, with ten strong stocks of bees in a
good location, in one favorable season, I could so increase
them as to have, on the approach of winter, one hundred
good colonies; but I should expect to feed hundreds of
pounds of honey, to devote nearly all my time to their man-
agement, and to bring to the work the experience of years,
and the wisdom acquired by numerous failures. After all,
what we most need in order to be successful in the cultiva-
tion of bees is a certain rather than a rapid multiplication
of stocks. It would require but a very few years to stock
188 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

our whole country with bees if colonies could only be dou-
bled annually; and an increase of even one-third would,
before long, give us bees enough. This rate of increase I
should always encourage in the swarming season, even if,
in the fall, I reduced my stocks.(see Union of Stocks) to
the spring numbers. In the long run it will keep the colonies
in a much more prosperous condition, and secure from them
the largest yield of honey.

I have never myself hesitated to sacrifice one or more
colonies in order to ascertain a single fact; and it would
require a separate volume quite as large as this to detail the
various experiments which I have made on the subject of
Artificial Swarming. The practical beekeeper, however,
should never for a moment lose sight of the important dis-
tinction between an apiary managed principally for the
purposes of experiment and discovery, and one conducted
almost exclusively with reference to pecuniary profit. Any
beekeeper can easily experiment with my hives; but I would
recommend him to do so at first on a small scale; and, if
profit is his object, to follow the directions furnished in this
treatise until he is sure that he has discovered others which
are preferable. These cautions are given to prevent persons
from incurring serious losses and disappointments, if they
use hives which, if they are not on their guard, may tempt
them into rash and unprofitable courses by allowing so easily
of all manner of experiments. Let the practical apiarian
remember that, the less he disturbs the stocks on which he
relies for surplus honey, the better. After they are properly
lodged in their new hive they ought by all means to be allowed
to carry on their labors without any interruption. The ob-
ject of giving the control over every comb in the hive is not
to enable him to be incessantly taking them in and out, and
subjecting the bees to all sorts of annoyances. Unless he is
conducting a course of experiments, such interference will
be almost as silly as the conduct of children who pull up the
seeds which they have planted, to see whether they have
sprouted or how much they have grown. If, after these
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING, 189

cautions, any still choose to disregard them, the blame of
their losses will fall, not upon the hive, but upon their own
management.

Let me not for a moment be understood as wishing to
discourage investigation, or to intimate that perfection has
been so nearly attained that no more important discoveries
remain to be made. On the contrary, I should be glad to
learn that many who have the time and means are disposed
to use the facilities furnished by hives which give the control
of each comb to experiment on a large scale; and I hope that
every intelligent beekeeper who follows my plans will ex-
periment at least on a small scale. In this way we may soon
expect to see more satisfactorily elucidated some points in
the natural history of the bee which are still involved in
doubt.

Having deseribed the way in which forced swarms are
made, both in common hives and in my own, when the apia-
rian wishes in one season merely to double his colonies, I
shall now show in what way he can secure the largest yield
of honey by forming only one new colony from two old ones.

Early in the season, before the bees fly out, or, better still,
after they ceased to fly in the previous fall, the two hives
from which the new colony is to be formed should be placed
near each other, unless they are already not more than a foot
apart. When the time for forming the artificial colony has
arrived, these hives should be removed from their stand and
the bees driven from them, precisely in the manner already
described. If all the bees are at home I sometimes shut up
the hives on their stand and drum long enough to cause the
bees to fill themselves before the hive is removed. Timid
apiarians may find some advantage in this course, as the bees
will all be quiet after they are well drummed, and the hive
may then be removed with greater safety. In five minutes I
can in this way reduce any swarm to a peaceable condition.
After the forced swarms are secured, the removed hives are
replaced in order to catch up all the returning bees, and the
foreed swarms must be shut up until toward sunset, unless
190 : THE BEEKEEPER’'S MANUAL.

it is judged best to keep the entrances temporarily open, so
as to secure the return of a sufficient number of bees to the
parent stocks. The old stocks are now moved to a new place,
and managed according to the previous directions. If nei-
ther of the expelled swarms was driven into the hive intend-
ed for the new colony, then the proper hive must be placed,
as nearly as possible, in the center of the space previously
occupied by the original colonies. One of the swarms must
now be shaken out upon a sheet in front of this hive, which
should be elevated so as to enable the bees to enter it readily.
As soon as they are shaken out, they should be gently sprin-
kled with sugar-water scented with peppermint or any other
fragrant odor. Diligent search must now be made for the
queen; and, if found, she should be carefully removed and
given to the hive to which she belongs. If the queen of the
first swarm has been found, the second colony may be shaken
out and sprinkled in the same way, and allowed to enter
without any further trouble. Ifthe queen of the first colony
was not found, then that of the second one must be sought
for; if neither can be found (though this, after a little ex-
perience, will very seldom happen) one of the queens will
soon kill the other and reign over the united family. The
next day the doubled colony will be found working with
amazing vigor; and it will not only fill its main hive, but
will, in any ordinary season, gather large quantities of sur-
plus honey besides.

The apiarian who relies upon natural swarming can double
his new colonies if they issue at the same time, by hiving
‘them together; or if this can not be done he may hive them
in separate hives, and-then, toward evening, set one hive on
a sheet and shake down the bees from the other so that they
can enter and join the first. It may be safely done, even if
several days have elapsed before the second colony swarms;
although in this case I prefer, after turning up their hive,
to sprinkle the oldest swarm with scented sugar-water, and
then to give the new swarm the same treatment. I have
doubled natural swarms in this way repeatedly, and: have
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 191

never, when they were early, failed to secure from them a
large quantity of honey. In sprinkling bees, let the operator
remember that they are not to be drenched, or almost drown-
ed, as in this case they will require a long time to enter the
hive. Bees seem to recognize each other by the sense of
smell; and when they are made to have the same odor they
will always mingle peaceably. This is the reason why I use
a few drops of peppermint in the sugar-water.

If one of the queens of the forced swarms can be returned
to her own colony it will, of course, save them the time which
would otherwise be lost is raising another. I do not know
that I can better illustrate the importance of the inexperi-
enced apiarian following carefully my directions than by
supposing him to return the queen to the colony to which
she does not belong. Now, I can easily imagine that some
beekeeper may do so, conceiving that I am foolishly precise
in my directions, and that the queen might be just as well
given to one hive as to the other. But if this is done before
at least 24 hours have elapsed since they were deprived of
their own, she will almost certainly be destroyed. The bees
do not sting a queen to death, but have a curious mode of
crowding or knotting around her so that she is soon smoth-
ered; and while thus imprisoned she will often make the
same piping note which has already been described. In all
this treatise I have constanly aimed to give no directions
which are not important; and while I utterly repudiate the
notion that these directions may not be modified and im-
proved, I am quite certain that this can not be done by any
but those who have had considerable experience in the man-
agement of bees.

The formation of one new swarm from two old colonies
may, of course, be very much simplified by the use of my
hives. The two old hives are first opened and sprinkled,
and the bees taken from them and put into the new hive in
the same way in which the process was conducted when only
one colony was expelled some brood comb being given to the
united family. There will be no difficulty in righly propor-
192 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL,

tioning the bees. One queen may always be caught and pre-
served, and the operation may be performed at any time
when the sun is above the horizon. I have no doubt that
those who have a strong stock of bees, and who are anxious
to realize the largest profits in honey, will find this mode of
increase by far the simplest and best. If judiciously prac-
ticed they will find that their colonies may always be kept
powerful, and that they may be managed with very great
economy of time and labor. As apiarians may be so situated
as to wish to increase their bees quite rapidly, I shall give
such methods as from numerous experiments, many of them’
conducted on a large seale, I have found to be the best. I
wish it, however, to be most distinctly understood that I do
not consider very rapid multiplication as likely to succeed,
except in the hands of skillful apiarians; and under ordinary
circumstances it requires too much time, care, and honey to
be of very great practical value. Its chief merit consists in
the short time which it requires to build up an apiary. After
trying my mode of management for a few seasons a beekeep-
er may find out that he is in all respects favorably situated
for taking care of a large stock of bees. Suppose him to
have acquired both skill and confidence, and that he has ten
powerful colonies. If he is willing to do without surplus
honey for one season, and the honey-harvest should be very
productive, he may without feeding, and without very much
labor, safely increase his ten .colonies to thirty. If he
chooses to feed largely he may possibly end the season with
fifty or sixty, or even more; but he will probably end it in
such a manner as most thoroughly to disgust him with his
folly, and to teach him that in beekeeping, as well as in other
things, “ Haste makes waste.”

On the supposition that, by the time the fruit-trees are in
blossom, the apiarian has, in hives of my construction, ten
powerful colonies, let him select four of the strongest, and
make from each a forced swarm. He will now have four
queenless colonies which will at once proceed to supply them-
selves with a young queen. In about ten days he may make
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 193

from his other six stocks six more forced swarms. He will
probably find, in making these, many sealed queens, if he
has delayed the operation until about swarming time, so that
he may give to each of the six stocks from which he has
expelled a swarm the means of soon obtaining another. If
he has not enough for this purpose he must take the required
number from the four stocks which are raising young queens,
the exact condition of which ought to have been previously
ascertained. Some of these stocks will be found to contain
a large number of queen-cells. Huber, in one of his experi-
ments, found twenty-four in one hive, and even a larger
number has sometimes been reared by a single colony. As
the apiarian will always have many more queens than are
wanted, he ought to select those combs which contain a sealed
queen, so as to secure, say, about fifteen combs, each of
which has one or more queens. If necessary he can cut out
some of the cells, and adjust them in the manner previously
described. Each comb containing a sealed queen must be
put, with all the bees adhering to it, into an empty hive; and
by a divider, or movable partition, they must be confined to
about one quarter of the hive. Water should be given to
them, and honey, if none is contained in the comb. I always
prefer to select a comb which contains a large number of
workers almost mature, and some of which are just begin-
ning to hatch, so that, even if a considerable number of the
bees should return to the parent stock after their liberty is
given them, there will still be a sufficient number hatched to
attend to the young, and especially to watch over the matur-
ing queens. If the comb contains a large number of bees
just emerging from their cells I prefer to confine them only
one day; otherwise I keep them shut up until about an hour
before sunset of the third day. The hives containing the
small colonies ought, if they are not well protected by being
made double, to be set where they are thoroughly sheltered
from the intense heat of the sun; and the ventilators should
give them an abundance of air. They should also be closed
in such a manner as to keep the interior in entire darkness,
194 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

so that the bees may not become too uneasy during their
confinement. I accomplish this by shutting up their en-
trance and replacing their front board, just as though I were
intending to put them into winter quarters.

These small colonies I shall call nuclei, and the system of
forming stocks from them my nucleus system; and before
I describe this system more particularly I shall show other
ways in which the nuclei can be formed. If the. apiariaa
chooses he can take a frame containing bees just ready to
mature, and eges and young worms, all of the worker kind,
together with the old bees which cluster on it, and shut them
up in the manner previously described, even if he has no
sealed queen to give them. If all things are favorable they
will set about raising a queen in a few hours. I once took
not more than a teacupful of bees and confined them with a
small piece of brood comb in a dark place, and found that,
in about an hour’s time, they had begun to enlarge some of
the cells to raise a new queen! If the apiarian has sealed
queens on hand they ought by all means to be given to the
nuclei in order to save all the time possible.

I sometimes make these nuclei as follows. The suitable
comb with bees, ete., is taken from a stock hive and set in an
empty one, made to stand partly in the place of the old hive,
which, of course, must previously be moved a little on one
side. In this way I am able to direct a considerable number
of the bees from the old stock to my nucleus, and the neces-
sity of shutting it up is done away with. If the bees from
the old stock do not enter the small one in sufficient numbers
I sometimes close their hive, so that the returning bees can
find no other place to enter. My object is not to catch up a
large number of bees. For reasons previously assigned I
do not want enough to build new comb, but only enough to
adhere to the removed comb, and raise a new queen from
the brood, or develop the sealed one which has been given
them. A short time after one nucleus has in this way been
formed, another may be made by moving the old hive again,
and so a third or fourth, if so many are wanted. This plan
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 195

requires considerable skill and experience to secure the right
number of bees without getting too many.

If bees are to be made to enter a new hive by removing
the old one from its stand, it will always be very desirable
not only to have the new one contain a piece of comb, but
a considerable number of bees clustered on that comb. I
repeatedly found my bees, after entering the hive, refuse to
have any thing to do with the brood-comb, and for a long
time I was unable to conjecture the cause until I ascertained
that they were dissatisfied with its deserted appearance, and
that, by taking the precaution to have it well covered with
bees, I seldom failed to reconcile them to my system of
forced colonization. I can usually tell in less than two min-
utes whether the operation will succeed or not. If the re-
turning bees are content, they will, however much agitated
at first, soon begin to join the cluster on the comb; while if
they are dissatisfied they will abandon the hive, and nearly
all the bees that were originally on the comb will leave with
them. They seem capricious in this matter, and are some-
times so very self-willed that they refuse to have any thing
to do with the brood-comb, when I can see no good reason
why they should be so rebellious.

I shall here state some conjectures which have occurred to
me on this subject. Is it absolutely certain that bees can
raise a queen from any egg or young larva which would
produce a worker? Or if this is possible, is it certain that
any kind of workers can accomplish this? Huber ascertain-
ed to his own satisfaction that there were two kinds of work-
ers in a hive. He thus describes them:

“ One of these is, in general, destined for the elaboration
of wax, and its size is considerably enlarged when full of
honey; the other immediately imparts what it has collected
to its companions, its abdomen undergoes no sensible change,
or it retains only the honey necessary for its own subsistence.
The particular function of the bees of this kind is to take
eare of the young, for they are not charged with provision-
196 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

ing the hive. In opposition to the wax workers, we shall
eall them small bees or nurses.”

“ Although the external difference be inconsiderable, this
is not an imaginary distinction. Anatomical observations
prove that the capacity of the stomach is not the same—
‘experiments have ascertained that one of the species can not
‘fulfill all the functions shared among the workers of a hive.
We painted those of each class with different colors, in order
‘to study their proceedings; and these were not interchanged.
In another experiment, after supplying a hive deprived of
a queen with brood and pollen we saw the small bees quickly
occupied in nutrition of the larva, while those of the wax-
working class neglected them. Small bees also produce wax,.
but in a very inferior quantity to what is elaborated by the
real wax workers.”

Now, if these statements can be relied upon (and thus far
I have nearly always found Huber’s statements, wherever
I had an opportunity to test them, to be most wonderfully
reliable), then it may be that, when bees refuse to cluster
on the brood-comb and proceed at once to rear a new queen,
it is because they find that some of the conditions necessary
for success are wanting. Hither there may not be a sufficient
number of wax-workers to enlarge the cells, or a sufficient
number of nurses to take charge of the larve; or it may be
that the cells contain only young wax-workers which can not
be developed into queens, or only young nurses, which may
be in the same predicament,

If any of my readers imagine that the work of carefully
experimenting in order to establish facts upon the solid basis
of complete demonstration is an easy work, let them attempt
now to prove or disprove the truth of any or all of my con-
jectures upon this single topic. They will probably find the
task more difficult than to blot over whole quires and reams
of paper with careless assertions.

All operations of any kind which interfere in the very
least with the natural mode of forming colonies are best
performed in the swarming season, or at least at a time
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 197

when the bees are breeding freely, and are able to bring in
large stores of honey from the fields. At other times they
are very precarious, and, unless under the management of
persons who have great experience, they will in most cases
end in nothing but vexatious losses and disappointments.
It is amusing to see how bees act when they find, on
their return from foraging abroad, that their hive has been
moved and another put in its place. If the new hive is pre-
cisely similar to their own in size and outward appearance,
they enter it as though all was right; but in a few moments
they rush out in violent agitation, imagining that they have
made a. prodigious mistake and have entered the wrong
place. They now take wing again in order to correct their
blunder, but find, to their increasing surprise, that they had
previously directed their flight to the familiar spot; again
they enter, and again they tumble out, in bewildered crowds,
until at length, if they can find the means of raising a new
queen, or one is already there, they seem to make up their
minds that if this is not home it not. only looks like it but
stands just where their home ought to be, and is at all events
the only home they are likely to get. No doubt they often
feel that a very hard bargain has been imposed upon them,
but they seem generally determined to make the best of it.
There is one trait in the character of bees for which I feel
not merely admiration but the most profound respect. Such
is their indomitable energy and perseverance that, under cir-
cumstances apparently the most despairing, they will still
labor to the utmost to retrieve their losses and sustain the
sinking state. So long as they have a queen, or any prospect.
of raising one, they struggle most vigorously against im-
pending ruin, and never give up unless their condition is
absolutely desperate. In one of my observing hives I once
had a colony of bees, the whole of which might have been
spread out on my two hands, busy at work in raising a new
queen from a small piece of brood-comb. For two long weeks
they adhered with unfailing perseverance and industry to
their forlorn hope. until at last one of the two queens which
198 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

they raised came forth and destroyed the other while still in
her cell. The bees had now dwindled away to less than half
their original number, and the new queen had wings so im-
perfect that she was unable to fly. I watched their proceed-
ings with great interest. They actually paid very unusual
attention to this crippled queen, and treated her more as they
are wont to treat a fertile one. In the course of a week
there were not more than a dozen left in the hive, and in a
few days more I missed the queen and saw only a few dis-
consolate wretches crawling over the deserted comb. Shame
upon the faint-hearted and cowardly of our own race who,
if overtaken by calamity, instead of nobly breasting the dark
waters of affliction and manfully buffeting with their tumul-
tuous waves, meanly resign themselves to their ignoble fate,
and sink and perish where they might have lived and tri-
umphed; and double shame upon those who thus “ faint- in
the day of adversity,” when, living in a Christian land, they
might, if they would only receive the word of God, and open
the eye of faith, behold a bow of promise spanning the still
stormy clouds, and hear a voice bidding them, like the great
apostle of the Gentiles, learn not merely to “rejoice in hope
of the glory of God,” but to “ glory in tribulations also.”

I have been informed by Mr. Wagner that Dzierzon has
recently devised a plan of forming nuclei substantially the
same as my own. His book,however, contemplates having two
apiaries, three or four miles apart, and his plans for multi-
plying colonies, as there deseribed, were based upon the
supposition that the apiarian will have two such establish-
ments. Such an arrangement would no doubt very greatly
facilitate many operations. Our forced swarms might all
be removed from the apiary where they were formed, to the.
other, and our nuclei treated in the same way, and there
would be no necessity for confining the bees after their re-
moval. There are, however, weighty objections to such an
arrangement which will prevent it, at least for some time,
from being extensively adopted. The labor of removing
the bees backward and forward is a serious objection to the
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 199

whole plan; and in addition to this the necessity of having
a skillful apiarian at each establishment puts its adoption
out of the question with most persons who keep bees. It
might answer, however, if two beekeepers, sufficiently far
apart, would enter into partnership and manage their bees
as a joint concern. Dzierzon’s new plan of creating nuclei
is as follows: Toward evening remove a piece of brood-comb,
with eggs and bees just hatching, and put it, with a sufficient
numbers of mature bees, into an empty hive. There must be
enough to keep the brood from being chilled over night. If
tke operation is performed so late that the bees are not dis-
posed to take wing and leave the hive, by morning a suffi-
cient number will have hatched to supply the place of those
which may abandon the nucleus. In my numerous experi-
ments last summer in the formation of artificial swarms I
tried this plan and found that it answered a good purpose.
The chief objection to it is the difficulty often of selecting
the suitable kind of comb if the operation is delayed until
late in the afternoon. I prefer, therefore, to perform it
when the sun is an hour or two high, and to confine the bees
until dark. If there are not a sufficient number of bees on
the comb I shake off some from another frame directly into
the hive, and shut them all up, giving them a supply of
water. Sealed queens, if possible, should be used in all
these operations.

I shall now give a novel mode of creating nuclei, which I
have devised, and which I find to be attended with great
success. Hive a new swarm in the usual manner, in an old
box, and as soon as the bees have entered it shut them up
and earry them down into the cellar. About an hour before
sunset take combs suitable to form as many nuclei as you
judge best, say five or six, or even eight or ten if the swarm
was large and you need as many. Bring up the new swarm
and shake it out upon a sheet, sprinkling it gently with
sugar-water. With a large tumbler or saucer, scoop up,
without hurting any of the bees, a pint or more of them, and
place them before the mouth of one of the hives containing
200 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

a brood-comb. Repeat the process until each nucleus has,
say, a quart of bees. If you see the queen you may give the
hive in which you put her three or four times as many bees
as any other; and the next day it may be strengthened with
a few combs containing brood just ready to mature. If you
did not find her at the time of forming the nuclei, when you
afterward examine them the one which contains her may be
properly reinforced with bees and comb so as to enable it
to work to the best advantage.

If this plan of forming nuclei were attempted earlier in
the afternoon it would be difficult to prevent the bees from
communicating on the wing, and all going to the hive which
contained their queen. If, however, the bees when first
shaken out of the temporary hive are so thoroughly sprin-
kled-as not to be able to take wing and unite together, this -
mode of forming colonies may be practiced at any hour of
the day; and an experienced apiarian may prefer to do it
as soon as he has fairly hived the new swarm. When the
bees are shaken out in front of a hive which has a sealed
queen, or eggs from which they can raise one, having a whole
night in which to accustom themselves to their new situation,
they will be found tlie next day to adhere to the place where
they were put, with as much tenacity as a natural swarm
does to their new hive. How wonderful that the act of
swarming should so thoroughly impress upon the bees an
absolute indisposition to return to the parent stock! If this
were a fixed and invariable unwillingness, a sort of blind
unreasoning instinct, it would not be so surprising; but we
have already seen that, in case the bees lose their queen, they
return in a very short time to the stock from which they
issued! If the nuclei formed in the manner just described
found in their new hive no means of obtaining a queen they
would all return next morning to the parent stock.

When the apiarian can obtain a natural swarm from any
other apiary it may be divided into nuclei in the same way;
and even a forced swarm, if brought from a distance, will
answer equally well. If the apiarian wishes to form colo-
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING, 201

nies earlier than the season of natural swarming, and can
not conveniently obtain a forced swarm from an apiary at
least a mile distant he may, before the bees begin to fly out
in the spring, transport one of his stocks to a neighbor’s and
force from it a swarm at the desired time. Even if it is
moved not more than half a mile off, the operation will be
almost sure to succeed. Of all modes of forming nuclei, this,
I believe, will be found to be the neatest, simplest, and best.

Having thus described the various ways in which I have
successfully formed my nuclei I shall now show how they
may be built up into powerful stocks. It will be very ob-
vious that, on the ordinary plan of management, they would
be absolutely worthless, even if it were possible to form them
with the common hives. If they were not fed they would be
unable to collect the means of building new comb, and would
gradually dwindle away just as third or fourth swarms
which issue late in the season; nor could they be saved even
by the most generous feeding, as they would only use their
supplies to fill up the little comb they had; so that, when
the queen was ready to lay, there would be no empty cells
to receive her eggs, and too few bees to build any, even if
they had all the honey that they required. Such small colo-
nies must gradually waste away unless they can be speedily
and effectually supplied with the requisite number of bees,
and this can be done only by hives which give the control of
all the combs. With such hives I can speedily build up my
nuclei (provided I have not formed too many) to the
strength necessary to make them powerful stocks. The hives
containing them ought, if possible, to stand at some distance
from other hives, say two or three feet; and if this can not
conveniently be done they should in some way be so distin-
guished from the adjoining hives that the young queens,
when they are hatched and go out to seek the drones, will
not be liable to lose their lives by entering a wrong hive on
their return. A small leafy twig fastened on the alighting-
board of such hives, when they stand near to others, will be
almost sure to prevent such a catastrophe. If they stand

re
202 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

near to each other, some may be marked in this way, and
others with a piece of colored cloth. (See page 143.) To
guard them against robbers, etc., the entrances to these nu-
clei should be contracted so that only a few bees can enter
at onee. Those which were confined should be examined the
day after their liberty is given to them; the others, the day
after they were formed, when, if they were not supplied
with a sealed queen, they will be found actively engaged in
constructing royal cells. A new range of comb should now
be given to each one, and it should contain no old bees, but
brood rapidly maturing, and, if possible, eggs and worms
only a few days old.

This new addition of strength will greatly encourage the
nuclei, and give them the means of starting young queens,
if they have not succeeded in doing so with the first comb.
I have frequently found that, for some cause which I have
not yet ascertained, they often start a large number of
queen-cells, which in a few days are all discontinued and
untenanted. The second attempt seldom fails. Does prac-
tice in this thing make them more expert? But I will simply
state the fact, referring to my conjectures on page 195, and
remarking that, when they make a second attempt, they
seem frequently disposed to start a much larger number than
they otherwise would have done. In two or three days after
giving them the first piece of comb I give them another, if
their queen is nearly mature, and I now let them alone until
she ought to be depositing eggs in the hive. I then give
them, at intervals of a few days, two or three combs more,
and they will now be sufficiently powerful in bees to gather
large quantities of honey and fill the empty part of their
hive. The young queen is supplying with thousands of
worker-eggs the cells from which the brood has emerged,
and also the new ones built by the bees, and the new colony
will soon be one of the best stock hives in the apiary. If
some of the full frames are moved and empty ones placed
between.them, as soon as the bees begin to build powerfully
there need be no guide-combs on the empty frames, and still
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 203

the work will be executed with the most beautiful regularity.
But what, in the mean time, is the condition of the hives.
from which we are taking so many brood-combs for the
proper development of our nuclei? are they not weakened
so much as to become quite enfeebled? I come now to the
very turning-point of the whole nucleus system. If due
judgment has not been used, and the sanguine beekeeper has
endeavored to multiply his colonies too rapidly, a most
grievous disappointment awaits him. Either his nuclei can
not be strengthened at the right time, or this can be done-
only by impoverishing the old stocks, and the result of the
whole operation will be a most decided failure; and if he is
in the vicinity of sugar-houses, confectioneries, or other
tempting places of bee resort, he will find the population of
his colonies very seriously diminished, and will have to break
up the most of the nuclei which he had formed, and ineur
the danger of losing nearly the whole of his stock. I lay it
down as a fundamental principle in my nucleus system that.
the old stocks must never be so much weakened by the re-
moval of brood-comb and bees that they are not able to keep:
their numbers sufficiently strong to refill rapidly all the
vacancies among their combs. If the apiarian attempts to
multiply his stocks so rapidly that this can not be done, I
will ensure him ample cause to repent at leisure of his folly.
If, however, the attempt at very rapid multiplication is made
only by those who are favorably situated, and who have skill
in the management of bees, a very large gain may be made
in the number of stocks, and they may all be strong and
flourishing.

If a strong stock of bees in a hive of moderate size which
admits of thorough inspection is examined at the height of
the honey-harvest, nearly all the cells will often be found
filled with brood, honey, or bee-bread. The great laying of
the queen, according.to some writers, is now over—not, how-
ever, as they erroneously imagine, because her fertility has
decreased, but merely because there is not room in the hive
for all her eggs. She may often be seen restlessly traversing
204 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

ihe combs, seeking in vain for empty cells, until, finding
none, she is compelled to extrude her eggs only to be de-
voured by the bees. (See p. 47.) If some of the full combs
are removed, and empty ones substituted in. their place, she
will speedily fill them, laying at the rate of two or three
thousand a day! When my strong stocks are from time to
time deprived of one or two combs, if honey can easily be
procured* the bees proceed at once to replace them, and the
queen commences laying in the new combs as soon as the
eells are fairly started. If the combs are not removed too
fast, and care is taken not to deprive the stock of so much
brood that the bees can not keep up a vigorous population,
a queen in a hive so managed will lay her eggs in cells to be
nurtured by the bees instead of being eaten up; and thus, in
the course of the season, she may become the mother of three
or four times as many bees as are reared in a hive under
other circumstances. By careful management, brood enough
may, in this way, be taken from a single hive to build up a
large number of nuclei. Toward the close of the season,
however, as such a hive has been constantly tasked in build-
ing comb and feeding young bees, almost all its honey will
have been used for these purposes; and, although it may be
very populous, unless it is liberally fed it will be sure to
perish. Since the discovery that unbolted rye flour will
answer so admirably as a substitute for pollen, we can sup-
ply the bees not only with honey, when none can be obtained
from the blossoms, but with an abundance of bee-bread when
pollen is scarce. As I am writing this chapter (March 29,
1853) my bees are zealously engaged in taking the flour
from some old combs in front of their hives, and they can
be seen most beautifully moulding the little pellets on their
thighs. By my movable combs J can give them the flour at
once in their hives, as it can easily be rubbed into an empty
comb. The importance of Dzierzon’s discovery of a substi-
tute for pollen can hardly be overestimated. If he had done
nothing more for the cause of apiarian science, no true-

* If they can not obtain it, the apiarian must himself furnish it.
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 205

hearted beekeeper would ever allow his name to be forgot-
ten.

In the chapter on Feeding I shall give more specific direc-
tions as to the way in which the cultivator must feed his bees
when he aims at increasing as rapidly as possible the number
of his stocks. Unless this work is done with great judgment
he will find often that, the more he feeds, the less bees he
has in his hives, the cells being all occupied with honey in-
stead of brood. Such is the passion of bees for storing away
honey, that large supplies of it will always most seriously
interfere with breeding, unless the bees are sufficiently nu-
merous to build new comb in which the queen can find room
for her eggs.

I have no doubt that some who have but little experience
in the management of bees are ready to imagine that they
could easily strike out a simpler and better way of increas-
ing the number of colonies. For instance, let a full hive
have half its comb and bees put into an empty hive, and the
work of doubling is, without further trouble, effectually
accomplished. But what will the queenless hive do under
such cireumstances? Why, build, of course, queen-cells,
and rear another. But what kind of comb will they fill their
hives with before the young queen begins to breed? Of that,
perhaps, you had never thought. Let me now lay down the
only safe rule for all who engage in the multiplication of
artificial swarms. Never, under any circumstances, take so
much comb and brood from your stock as seriously to reduce
their numbers. This should be to the apiarian as “ the law
of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not.”

Suppose that I divide a populous stock, about swarming
season, into four or five colonies; the strong probability is
that not one of them, if left to itself, will be strong enough
to survive the winter. If fed in the ordinary way, and yet
not supplied with combs and bees, their ruin will often be
only accelerated. If, on the contrary, I had taken, from
time to time, combs sufficient to form three or four nuclei,
and had strengthened the new colonies in such a way as not
206 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

to draw too severely upon the resources of the parent stock,
I might expect to see them all, in due time, strong and flour-
ishing.

In the spring of the year, if I desire to determine the
strength of a colony principally to raising young bees, I can
easily effect it by the following plan: A box is made, of the
same inside dimensions as the lower hive, into which the
combs and bees of a full hive can be transferred as soon as
the bees are gathering honey enough to build new combs.
This box is now set over the old hive, which contains its
complement of frames with guide-combs, or, better still, with
empty combs. As soon as the bees begin to build, they take.
possession of the lower hive, through which they go in and
out, and the queen descends with them in order to lay her
eggs in the lower combs. As soon as the old apartment
becomes pretty well filled, a large number of comhs with
maturing bees may be taken from the upper one; and when
the hive below is full, they may all be safely removed. If
none of the upper combs are removed they will be filled with
honey as soon as the brood is hatched; and as they will eon-
tain large stores of bee-bread they will answer admirably
for replenishing stocks which have an insufficient supply.
In no other way,-so far as I know, can so much honey be
secured; and if quantity, not quality, is aimed at, or if the
test of quality is its fitness for the use of the bees, I would
recommend this mode as superior to any other. If two
swarms are hived together, or a very powerful stock is
lodged in a hive, so that at once they can have access to the
upper apartment, an extraordinary quantity of honey can
be secured, and of a very excellent quality. As soon as the
bees have raised one generation of young in the combs of
the upper box, or, rather, in a part of them, they will use it
chiefly for storing honey, and all that it contains may be
taken from them. In flavor it will be found to be nearly
as good as honey stored in what is called “ virgin comb.”
‘In the chapter on the Requisites of a Good Hive I have
said that in size it should be adapted to the natural instinets
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 207

of the bee, and yet admit of enlarging or contracting, accord-
ing to the wants of the colony placed in it. I never use a
hive the main apartment of which holds less than a Winches-
ter bushel. If small colonies are placed in such a hive it
must be temporarily partitioned off to suit the size of its
inmates; for if bees have too much room given to them they
can not concentrate their animal heat, and are so much dis-
couraged that they often abandon their hive. I am aware
that many judicious apiarians recommend hives of much
smaller dimensions, and I shall now give my reasons for
using one so large. If a hive is too small, then in the spring
the combs are soon filled with honey, bee-bread, and brood;
and the surprising fertility of the queen can be turned to
no efficient account. If the honey-harvest in any year is
deficiént, such a colony is very apt to perish in the succeed-
ing winter; whereas in a large hive the honey stored up in
a fruitful season is a reserve supply in time of need. In
very large hives I have seen large accumulations of honey
which have been untouched for years, while on the same
stands stocks of about the same age in small hives have
perished by starvation. A good early swarm in any situa-
tion at all favorable will fill, the first season, a hive that
holds a bushel; and if there is any location in which they
can not do this, a doubled swarm should be put into the hive,
or beekeeping may, as far as profit is concerned, be aban-
doned. But it may be objected that, if the swarm was not
sufficiently strong to fill their hive, the bees often suffer from
the cold in winter, and become too much reduced in numbers
to build early and rapidly in the ensuing spring. This is
undoubtedly true, and hence the great importance of putting
a generous allowance of bees into a hive at the first start,
unless, as on my plan, the requisite strength can be given to
them at a subsequent period. The hive, if large, should be
all the more carefully protected from extremes of cold in
order to give the bees an opportunity of developing their
natural powers of reproduction to the best advantage.
208 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

In such a hive the queen will be able to breed almost every
month in the year, even in the coldest climates where bees
flourish. and on ‘the return of spring thousands of young
bees will be found in it which could not have been bred in a
small or badly protected hive. The Polish hives described
by Mr. Dohiogost have already been referred to. Some of
these hold about three bushels, and yet the bees swarm from
them with great regularity, and the swarms are often of
immense size. These hives are admirably protected, and, at
the time of hiving, at least four times the number of bees
are lodged in them that are ordinarily put into one of our
hives. The queen-bee, in such a hive, has ample room to lay
her three thousand eggs or more, daily; and a prodigious
colony is raised which often stores enormous supplies of
honey. As all the frames in my hives are of the same di-
mensions, the size of the hive may be conveniently varied
to suit the views of different beekeepers; for they may be
large or small, according to the number of frames designed
to be used. I hope, before long, to experiment with hives
as large again as those that I now use; or, rather, with such
as, by containing an upper box, may be made to accommo-
date twice as many bees. This whole subject of the proper
size of hives certainly needs to be taken entirely out of the
region of- conjecture, and to be put upon the basis of careful
observations. Unquestionably the size will require, in some
respects, to be modified by the more or less favorable char-
acter of the country for beekeeping; but I am satisfied that
small hives will be found of but little profit, and that large
ones, unless well stocked with bees from the first, and thor-
oughly protected, will often fail to answer any good end.
If I should find on further experiment that the very large
hives of which I have spoken are better, my hives are at
present so constructed that, without any alteration of exist-
ing parts, they can easily be supplied with the required addi-
tions. I have already mentioned that I sometimes build my
hives three in one structure in order to save expense in their
construction. I do not, however, wish to be considered as
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 209

recommending such hives as the best for general use. For
some purposes a single hive is unquestionably the best, as it
can be easily moved by one person; and this will many times
be found to be a point of great importance. The double
hives, or two in one, are for most purposes decidedly the best
as well as the cheapest. I have quite recently contrived a
plan of constructing my wooden hives in such a manner as
to give them very great-protection against extremes of heat
and cold, while at the same time they can be easily and
cheaply made by any one who can handle the simplest me-
chanical tools.

It has been previously stated that the queen bee can not
be induced to sting by any kind of treatment however se-
vere. The reason of this strange unwillingness to use her
natural and powerful weapon will be obvious when we con-
sider how indispensable the preservation of her life is to the
very existence of the colony, and that her single sting, the
loss of which would be her death, could avail but little for
their defense in case of attack. She never uses her weapon
except when engaged in mortal combat with another queen.
As soon as the two rivals come together, they clinch at once
with every demonstration of the most vindictive hatred.
Why, then, are not both of them often destroyed? and why
are not hives in the swarming season almost certain to be-
come queenless? We can never sufficiently admire the pro-
vision so simple and yet so effectual by which such a calam-
ity is prevented. The queen-bee never stings unless she has
such an advantage in the combat that she can curve her body
under that of her rival in such a manner as to inflict a
deadly wound without any risk of being stung herself!
The moment that the position of the two combatants is such
that neither has the advantage, and that both are liable to
perish, they not only refuse to sting, but disengage them-
selves and suspend their conflict for a short time. If it were
not for this peculiarity of instinct, such combats would very

‘often terminate in the death of both the parties, and the
race of bees would be in danger of becoming extinct.
210 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

The unwillingness of a swarm of bees which has been
deprived of its queen to receive another until after some time
has elapsed, must always be borne in mind by those who
have any thing to do with making artificial swarms. About
24 hours must elapse before it will be safe to introduce a
strange mother into a queenless hive; and even then, if she
is not fertile, she will run a great risk of being destroyed.
To prevent such losses I adopt the German plan of confining
the queen in what they call a queen-cage. A hole about as
large as a thimble may be gouged out of a block, and covered
over with wire gauze or any other kind of perforated cover
so that, when the queen is put in, the bees can not enter to
destroy her. Before long they will cultivate an acquaintance
by thrusting their antenne through to her; so that, when she
is liberated the next day, they will gladly adopt her in place
of the one they have lost. Ifa hole large enough for her to
‘ereep out is closed with wax they will gnaw the wax away
and liberate her themselves from her confinement. Queens
that seem bent on departing to the woods may be confined in
the same way until the colony has given up all thoughts of
forsaking its hive. A small pasteboard box with suitable
holes, or a wooden match-box thoroughly scalded, I have
found to answer a very good purpose.

I shall here describe what may be called a queen-nursery
which I have contrived to aid those who are engaged in the
rapid multiplication of colonies by artificial means. A solid
block about an inch and a quarter thick is substituted for
one of my frames; holes, about one and a half inches in
diameter, are bored through it, and covered on both sides
with gauze wire slides; the wire ought to be such as will
allow a common bee to pass through, but should be too small
to permit a queen to do the same. Any kind of perforated
cover may be made to answer the same purpose as the gauze
wire. If a number of sealed queens are on hand, and there
is danger that some may hatch and destroy the others before
the apiarian can make use of them in forming artificial
swarms, he thay very carefully ent out the combs containing
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 211

them and place them each in a separate cradle. The bees,
having access to them, will give them proper attention, and,.
as soon as they are hatched, will supply them with food, and
thus they will always be on hand for use. when they are
needed. This nursery must, of course, be established in a
hive which has no mature queen, or it will quickly be trans-
formed into a slaughter-house by the bees, I have not yet
tested this plan so thoroughly as to be certain that it will
succeed ; and I know so well the immense difference between
theoretical conjectures and practical results that I consider
nothing in the bee line, nor, indeed, in any other line, as
established until it has been submitted to the most rigorous
demonstrations, and has triumphantly passed from the mere
regions of the brain to those of actual fact. A theory on
any subject may seem so plausible as almost to amount to a
positive demonstration, and yet, when put to the working
test, it is often found to be encumbered by some unforeseen
difficulty which speedily convinces even its sanguine projector
that it has no practical value. Nine things out of ten may
work to a charm, and yet the tenth may be so connected with
the other nine that its failure renders their success of no
account. When I first used this nursery I did not give the
bees access to it, and I found that the queens were not
properly developed, and died in their cells. Perhaps they
did not receive sufficient warmth, or were not treated in some
other important respects as they would have been if left
under the care of the bees. In the multiplicity of my experi-
ments I did not repeat this one under a sufficient variety of
circumstances to ascertain the precise cause of failure; nor
have I as yet tried whether it will answer perfectly by ad-
mitting the bees to the queen-cells.

Last spring I made one queen supply several hives with
eggs so as to keep them strong in numbers while they were
constantly engaged in rearing a large number of spare
queens. Two hives, which I shall call A and B, were de-
prived, at intervals of a week, each of its queen, in order
to induce them to raise a number of young sealed queens for
212 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

the use of the apiary.* As soon as the queens in A were of
an age suitable to be removed I took them away and gave
the colony a fertile queen from another hive, C. As soon
as she had laid a large number of eggs in the empty cells.
I removed the queen-cells, now sealed over, from B, and gave
them the loan of this fertile mother until she had performed
the same necessary office for them. By this time the queen-
cells in C were sealed over. These were now removed and
the queen restored. She had thus made one circuit, and laid.
a very large number of eggs in the two hives which were
first deprived of their queens. After allowing her to replen-.
ish her own hive with eggs I sent her out again on her per-
ambulating mission, and by this new device was able to get
an extraordinary number of young queens from the three
hives, and at the same time to preserve their numbers from
seriously diminishing. Two queens may in this way be made
in six hives to furnish alf the supernumerary queens which.
will be wanted in quite a large apiary.

It will be perfectly obvious to every intelligent and in-
genious apiarian that the perfect control of the comb is the.
soul of an entirely new system of practical management,
and that it may be modified to suit the wants of all who wish.
to cultivate bees. Even the advocate of the old-fashioned
plan of killing the bees can, with one of my hives, destroy
his faithful laborers by shaking them into a tub of water,
almost if not quite as speedily as by setting them over a sul-
phur-pit; while after the work of death is accomplished his
honey will be free from disgusting fumes, and all the labor
of cutting it out of the hive may be dispensed with. 7

I am now prepared to answer an objection which doubtless
has been present in the minds of many all the time that they
have been reading the various processes on which I rely for
the multiplication of colonies. A very large number of
persons who keep bees, or who wish to keep them, are so
much afraid of them that they object entirely even to natural

* The queens taken from such hives may be advantageously used in
forming artificial colonies.
ARTIFICIAL SWARMING. 213

swarming, because they are in danger of being stung in the
process of hiving the bees. How are such persons to manage
bees on my plan, which seems like bearding a lion in its very
den? The truth is that some persons are so very timid, or
suffer so dreadfully from the sting of a bee, that they are
every way disqualified from having any thing to do with
them, and ought either to have no bees upon their premises
or to entrust the care of them to some suitable person. By
managing bees according to the directions furnished in this
treatise, almost any one can learn, by using a bee-dress, to
superintend them with very little risk; while those who are
favorites with them may dispense entirely with any protec-
tion. I find, in short, that the risk of being stung is really
diminished by the use of my hives, although it will be hard
to convince those who have not seen them in use that this
can be so.

There is still another class who either keep bees or can
be induced to keep them, and who are anxiously inquiring
for some new hive or new plan by which, with little or no
trouble, they may reap copious harvests of the precious
nectar. This is emphatically the class to seize hold of every
new device, and waste their time and money to fill the coffers
of the ignorant or unprincipled. There never will be a
“royal road” to profitable beekeeping. If there is any
branch of rural economy which more than all others demands
care and experience for its profitable management, it is the
keeping of bees; and those who have a painful consciousness
that the disposition to put off and neglect was, so to speak,
born in them, and has never been got out of them, will do
well to let bees alone unless they hope, by the study of their
systematic industry, to reform evil habits which are well
nigh incurable.

While I feel very sanguine that my system of management
will be used extensively and very advantageously by careful
and skillful apiarians, I know too much of the world to
expect that it will, with the masses, very speedily supersede
other methods, even if it were so absolutely perfect as to
214 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL,

admit of no possible improvement. I hope, however, that I
may, without being charged with presumption, be permitted
to put on record the prediction that movable frames will,
in due season, be almost universally employed, and this
whether bees are allowed to swarm naturally or are increased
by artificial means, or are kept in hives in which they are
not expected to swarm at all. -

Note.—The very day on which I first contrived the plan, so perfectly
simple, and yet so efficacious, of gaining the control of the combs by
these frames, I not only foresaw all the consequences which would follow

. their adoption, but wrote as follows, in my bee journal: ‘‘ The use of
these frames will, I am persuaded, give a new impulse to the easy and
profitable management of bees; and will render the making of artificial
swarms an easy operation.”

CHAPTER XII.

THE BEE-MOTH AND OTHER ENEMIES OF BEES;
DISEASES OF BEES,

Or all the numerous enemies of the honeybee, the bee-moth
(Tinea mellonella) in climates of hot summers is by far the
most to be dreaded. So widespread and fatal have been its
ravages in this country that thousands have abandoned the
cultivation of bees in despair; and in districts which once
produced abundant supplies of the purest honey, beekeeping
has gradually dwindled down into a very insignificant pur-
suit. Contrivances almost without number have been devised
to defend the bees against this invidious foe, but still it con-
tinues its desolating inroads, almost unchecked, laughing as
it were to scorn all the so-called “ moth-proof” hives and
turning many of the ingenious fixtures designed to entrap
or exclude it into actual aids and comforts in its nefarious
designs,

I should feel but little confidence in being able to reinstate
beekeeping in our country into a certain and profitable pur-
ENEMIES OF BEES. 215

suit if I could not show the apiarian in what way he can
safely bid defiance to the pestiferous assaults of this his
most implacable enemy. I have patiently studied its habits
for years, and I am at length able to announce a system of
management. founded upon the peculiar construction of my
hives which will enable the careful beekeeper to protect his
colonies against the monster. The careful beekeeper, I say;
for to pretend that the careless one can by any contrivance
effect this is ‘a snare and a delusion;” and no well-informed
man, unless he is steeped to the very lips in fraud and im-
posture will ever claim to accomplish any thing of the kind.
The bee-moth infects our apiaries just as weeds take posses-
sion of a fertile soil, and the negligent beekeeper will find
a moth-proof hive when the sluggard finds a weed-proof
soil; and I suspect not until a consummation so devoutly
wished for by the slothful has arrived. Before explaining
the means upon which I rely to circumvent the moth I will
first give a brief description of its habits.

Swammerdam, toward the close of the seventeenth cen-
tury, gave a very accurate description of this insect, which
was then called by the very expressive name of the “ bee-
wolf.” He has furnished good drawings of it in all its
changes, from the worm to the perfect moth, together with
the peculiar webs or galleries which it constructs and from
which the name of Tinea galleria, or gallery moth, has been
given to it by some entomologists. He failed, however, to
discriminate between the male and female, which, because
they differ so much in size and appearance, he supposed to
be two different species of the wax-moth. It seems to have
been a great pest in his time; and even Virgil speaks of the
“ dirum tines genus,” the dreadful offspring of the moth—
that is, the worm. This destroyer usually makes its appear-
ance about the hives in April or May—the time of its coming
depending upon the warmth of the climate or the forward-
ness of the.season. It is seldom seen on the wing (unless
startled from its lurking-place about the hive) until toward
dark, and is, evidently, chiefly nocturnal in its habits. In
216 THE BEEKEEPER'S MANUAL.

dark cloudy days, however, I have noticed it on the wing
long before sunset; and if several such days follow in suc-
cession, the female, oppressed with the urgent necessity of
laying her eggs, may be seen endeavoring to gain admission
to the hives. The female is much larger than the male, and
“her color is deeper and more inclining to a darkish gray,
with small spots or blackish streaks on the interior edge of
her upper wings.” The color of the male inclines more to a
light gray. They might easily be mistaken for different
species of moths. These insects are surprisingly agile, both
on foot and on the wing. The motions of a bee are very
slow in comparison. “ They are,” says Reaumur, “ the most
nimble-footed creatures that J know.” “If the approach to
the apiary* be observed of a moonlight evening, the moths
will be found flying or running round the hives, watching
an opportunity to enter, while the bees that have to guard
the entrances against their intrusion will be seen acting as
vigilant sentinels, performing continual rounds near this
important post, extending their antenne to the utmost, and
moving them to the right and left alternately. Woe to the
unfortunate moth that comes within their reach!” “It is
curious,” says Huber, “to observe how artfully the moth
knows how to profit to the disadvantage of the bees, which
require much light for seeing objects, and the precautions
taken by the latter in reconnoitering and expelling so dan-
gerous an enemy.”

The entrance of the moth into a hive, and the ravages
committed by her progeny, forcibly remind one of the sad
havoe which sin often makes of character and happiness
when it finds admission into the human heart and is allowed
to prey unchecked upon all its most precious treasures; and
he who would not be so enslaved by its powers as to lose all
his spiritual life and prosperity must be constantly on the
defensive, and ever on the “ watch” against its fatal intru-°
sions.

* Bevan.
ENEMIES OF BEES. 21T

Only some tiny eggs are deposited by the moth, and
they give birth to a very delicate, innocent-looking worm;
but let these apparently insignificant creatures once “ get the
upper hand” and all the fragrance of the honied dome is
soon corrupted by their abominable stench. Every thing
beautiful and useful is ruthlessly destroyed; the hum of
happy industry is stilled, and at last nothing is left in the
desecrated hive but a set of ravenous, half-famished worms,
knotting and writhing around each other in most loathsome
convolutions.

Wax is the proper aliment of the larve of the bee-moth;
and upon this seemingly indigestible substance they thrive
and fatten. When obliged to steal their living as best they
can among a powerful stock of bees they are exposed, during
their growth, to many perils, and seldom fare well enough to
reach their natural size; but if they are rioting at pleasure
among the full combs of a feeble and discouraged population
they often attain a size and corpulency truly astonishing.
If the beekeeper wishes to see their innate capabilities fully
developed, let him rear a lot for himself among some old
combs; and if prizes were offered for fat and full-grown
worms he might easily obtain one. In the course of a few
weeks the larva, like that of the silk-worm, stops eating,
and begins to think of a suitable place for encasing itself im
its silky shroud. In hives where they reign uncontrolled this
is a work of but little difficulty; almost any place will answer
their purpose, and they often pile their cocoons one on top
of another, or join them in long rows together; but in hives,
strongly guarded by healthy bees this is a matter not very
easily accomplished; and many a worm while it is cautiously:
prying about to see where it can find some snug place in
which to ensconce itself is caught by the nape of the neck
and very unceremoniously served with an instant writ of
ejection from the hive. If a hive is thoroughly made, of
sound materials, and has no cracks or crevices under which
the worm can retreat, it is obliged to leave the interior in
search of such a place, and it runs a most dangerous gauntlet
218 THE BEEKEEPER'S MANUAL.

as it passes, for this purpose, through the ranks of its en-
raged foes. Even in the worm state, however, its motions
are exceedingly quick. It can crawl backward or forward,
and as well one way as another; it can twist around on itself,
curl up almost into a knot, and flatten itself out like a pan-
cake! in short, it is full of stratagems and cunning devices.
If obliged to leave the hive it gets under any board or econ-
cealed crack, spins its cocoon, and patiently awaits its trans-
formation. In most of the common hives it is under no
necessity of leaving its birthplace for this purpose. It is
almost certain to find a crack or flaw into which it can creep,
or a small space between the bottom-board and the edges of
the hive which rest upon it. A very small crevice will an-
swer all its purposes. It enters by flattening itself out
almost as much as though it had passed under a roller; and
as soon as it is safe from the bees it speedily begins to give
its cramped tenement the requisite proportions. It is utterly
amazing how an insect apparently so feeble can do this;
but it will often gnaw for itself a cavity, even in solid wood,
and thus enlarge its retreat until it has ample room for
making its cocoon! The time when it will break forth into
a winged insect depends entirely upon the degree of heat to
which it is exposed. I have had them spin their cocoons and
hatch in a temperature of about 70 degrees in ten or eleven
days, and I have known them to spin so late in the fall that
they remained all winter undeveloped, and did not emerge
until the warm weather of the ensuing spring.

If they are hatched in the hive they leave it in order to
attend to the business of impregnation. In the moth state
they do not actually attack the hives to plunder them of
food, although they have a “‘ sweet tooth ” in their head, and
are easily attracted by the odor of liquid sweets. The male,
having no special business in the hive, usually keeps himself
at a safe distance from the bees; but the female, impelled by
an irresistible instinct, seeks admission, in order to deposit
her eggs where her offspring may gain the readiest access to
their natural food. She carefully explores all the cracks
ENEMIES OF BEES. 219

and crevices about the bottom-board; and if she finds a suit-
able place under them she lays her eggs among the parings
of the combs and other refuse matter which has fallen from
the hive. If she enters a feeble or discouraged stock, where
she can act her own pleasure, she will lay her eggs among the
combs. In a hive where she is too closely watched to effect
this she will insert them in the corners, into the soft propolis,
or in any place where there are small pieces of wax and bee-
bread which have fallen upon the bottom-board, and which
will furnish a temporary place of concealment for her prog-
eny, and also the requisite nourishment, until they have
strength and enterprise enough to reach the main combs of
the hive and fortify themselves there. “ As soon as hatched,”
the worm encloses itself in a case of white silk which it spins
around its body. At first it is like a mere thread, but grad-
ually inereases in size, and, during its growth, feeds upon the
cells around it, for which purpose it has only to put forth
its head and find its wants supplied. It devours its food
with great avidity, and consequently increases so much in
bulk that its gallery soon becomes too short and narrow, and
the creature is obliged to thrust itself forward and lengthen
the gallery, as well to obtain more room as to procure an
additional supply of food. Its augumented size exposing it
to attacks from surrounding foes, the wary insect fortifies
its new abode with additional strength and thickness by
blending with the filaments of its silken covering a mixture
of wax and its own excrement, for the external barrier of a
new gallery, the interior and partitions of which are lined
with a smooth surface of white silk which admits the occa-
sional movements of the insect without injury to its delicate
(?) texture. In performing these operations the insect might
be expected to meet with opposition from the bees, and to be
gradually rendered more assailable as it is advanced in age.
It never, however, exposes any part but its head and neck,
both of which are covered with stout helmets or scales im-

* Bevan.
220 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

penetrable to the sting of a bee, as is the composition of the
galleries that surround it.” As soon as it has reached its
full growth it seeks in the manner previously described a
secure place for undergoing its changes into a winged insect.

Before describing the way in which I protect my hives
from this deadly pest I shall first show why the bee-moth
has so wonderfully increased in numbers in this country, and
how the use of patent hives has so powerfully contributed
to encourage its ravages. -It ought to be borne in mind that
our climate is altogether more propitious to its rapid in-
crease than that of Great Britain. Our intensely hot sum-
mers develop most rapidly and powerfully insect life; and
those parts of our country where the heat is most protracted
and intense have, as a general thing, suffered most from the
devastations of the bee-moth.

The bee is not a native of the American continent; it was
first brought here by colonists from Great Britain, and was
called by the Indians the white man’s fly. With the bee was
introduced its natural enemy, created for the special pur-
pose, not of destroying the insect on whose industry it
thrives, and whose extermination would be fatal to the moth
itself, but that it might gain its livelihood as best it could in
this busy world. Finding itself in a country whose climate
is exceedingly propitious to its rapid inerease, it has multi-
plied and increased a thousand fold, until now there is hard-
ly a spot where the bees inhabit which is not infested by this
powerful enemy.

I have often listened to the glowing accounts of the vast
supplies of honey obtained by the first settlers from their
bees. Fifty years ago the markets in our large cities were
much more abundantly supplied than they now are, and it
was no uncommon thing to see exposed for sale large wash-
tubs filled with the most beautiful honey. Various reasons
have been assigned for the present depressed state of apia-
rian pursuits. Some imagine that newly settled countries
are most favorable for the labors of the bee; others, that we
have overstocked our farms so that the bees can not find a
ENEMIES OF BEES. 221

sufficient supply of food. That neither of these reasons will
account for the change I shall prove more at length in my
remarks on honey, and when I diseuss the question of over-
stocking a district with bees. Others lay all the blame upon
the bee-moth, and others still upon our departure from the
good old-fashioned way of managing bees. That the bee-
moth has multiplied most astonishingly, is undoubtedly true.
In many districts it so superabounds that the man who
should expect to manage his bees with as little care as his
father and grandfather bestowed upon them, and yet realize
as large profits, would find himself most woefully mistaken.
The old beekeeper often never looked at his bees after the
swarming season until the time came for appropriating their
spoils. He then carefully “hefted ” all his hives so as to be
able to judge as well as he could how much honey they con-
tained. All which were found to be too light to survive the
winter he at once condemned; and if any were deficient in
bees, or for any other reason appeared to be of doubtful
promise, they were, in like manner, sentenced to the sulphur-
pit. A certain number of those containing the largest sup-
plies of honey were also treated in the same summary way,
while the requisite number of the very best were reserved to
replenish his stock another season. If the same system pre-
cisely were now followed, a number of colonies would still
perish annually through the increased devastations of the
moth.

The change which has taken place in the circumstances of
the beekeeper may be illustrated by supposing that, when
the country was first settled, weeds were almost unknown.
The farmer plants his corn, and then lets it alone; and as
there are no weeds to molest it, at the end of the season he
harvests a fair crop. Suppose, however, that in process of
time the weeds begin to spread more and more, until at last
this farmer’s son or grandson finds that they entirely choke
his corn, and that he can not, in the old way, obtain a re-
munerative crop. Now listen to him, as he gravely informs
you that he can not tell how it is, but corn with him has all
222 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

“yun out.” He manages it precisely as his father and
grandfather always mauaged theirs, but somehow the pestif-
erous weeds will spring up, and he has next to no erop.
Perhaps you can hardly conceive of such transparent igno-
rance and stupidity; but it would be difficult to show that it
would be one whit greater than that of a large number who
keep bees in places where the bee-moth abounds, and who
yet imagine that those plans which answered perfectly well
fifty or a hundred years ago, when moths were scarce, will
answer just as well now.

If, however, the old plan had been rigidly adhered to, the
ravages of the bee-moth would never have been so great as
they now are. The introduction of patent hives has contrib-
uted most powerfully to fill the land with the devouring
pest. I am perfectly aware that this is a bold assertion, and
that it may, at first sight, appear to be very uncourteous, if
not unjust, to the many intelligent and ingenious apiarians
who have devoted much time and spent large sums of money
in perfecting hives designed to enable the beekeeper to con-
tend most successfully against his worst enemy. As I do
not wish to treat such persons with even the appearance of
disrespect, I shall endeavor to show just how the use of the
hives which they have devised has contributed to undermine
the prosperity of the bees. Many of these hives have valu-
able properties; and if they were always used in strict ac-
cordance with the enlightened directions of those who have
invented them they would undoubtedly be real and substan-
tial improvements over the old box or straw hive, and would
greatly aid the beekeeper in his contest with the moth. The
great difficulty is that none of them are able to give him the
facilities which alone can make him victorious. No hive, as
I shall soon show, can ever do this which does not give the
complete and easy control of all the combs.

I do not know of a single improved hive which does not
aim at entirely doing away with the old-fashioned plan of
killing the bees. Such a practice is denounced as being al-
most as cruel and silly as to kill a hen for the sake of obtain-
ENEMIES OF BEES. 223

ing her feathers or a few of her eggs. Now, if the apiarian
can be furnished with suitable instructions, and such as he
will pratice, for managing his bees so as to avoid this neces-
sity, then I admit the full force of all the objections which
have been urged against it. I have never read the beautiful
verses of the poet Thomson without feeling all their force:

Ah, see, where robbed and murdéred in that pit
Lies the still heaving hive! at evening snatched,
Beneath the cloud of guilt-concealing night,

And fixed o’er sulphur! while, not dreaming ill,
The happy people, in their waxen cells,

Sat tending public.cares;

Sudden, the dark, oppressive steam ascends,
And, used to milder scents, the tender race,

By thousands, tumble from their honied dome
Into a gulf of blue sulphureous flame.

The plain matter of fact, however, is that in our country
as many bees, if not more, die of starvation in their hives as
ever were killed by the fumes of sulphur. Commend me
rather to the humanity of the old-fashioned beekeeper who
put to a speedy and therefore merciful death the poor bees
which are now by millions tortured by slow starvation among
their empty combs! At the present time (April, 1853) I
am almost daily hearing of swarms which have perished in
this way during the last winter; and I know of only one
person who was merciful enough to kill his weak stocks
rather than suffer them to die so cruel a death.

If the use of the common patent hives could only keep the
stocks strong in numbers, and if the beekeepers would always
see that they were well supplied with honey, then I admit
that to kill the bees would be both cruel and unnecessary.
Such, however, are the discouragements and losses necessa-
rily attending the use of any hive which does not give the
control of the combs that there will be few who do not
continually find that some of their stocks are too feeble to
be worth the labor and expense of attempting to preserve
them over winter. How many colonies are annually win-
tered which are not only of no value to their owner, but are
positive nuisances in his apiary, being so feeble in the spring
that they are speedily overcome by the moth, and answer
224 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANDAL,

only to breed a horde of destroyers to ravage the rest of his
apiary! The time spent upon them is often as absolutely
wasted as the time devoted to a sick animal incurably dis-
eased, and which can never be of any service, while, by
nursing it along, its owner incurs the risk of infecting his
whole stock with its deadly taint. If, on the score of kind-
ness, he should shut it up and let it starve to death, few of
us, I imagine, would care to cultivate a very intimate ac-
quaintance with one so extremely original in the exhibition
of his humanity!

Ever since the introduction of patent hives the notion has
almost universally prevailed that stocks must not, under
any circumstances, be voluntarily broken up; and hence,
instead of apiaries filled in the spring with strong and
healthy stocks of bees, easily able to protect themselves
against the bee-moth and all other enemies, we have multi-
tudes of colonies which, if they had been kept on purpose
to furnish food for the worms, could scarcely have answered
a more valuable end in encouraging their increase. The sim-
ple truth is, that improved hives, without an improved sys-
tem of management, have done on the whole more harm than
good; in no country have they been so extensively used as in
our own, and nowhere else has the moth so completely gained
the ascendency. Just so far as they have discouraged bee-
keepers from the old plan of killing off all their weak
swarms in the fall, just so far have they extended “ aid and
comfort ” to the moth, and made the condition of the bee-
keeper worse than it was before. That some of them might
be managed so as, in all ordinary cases, to give the bees
complete protection against their scourge, I do not for a
moment question; but that they can not, from the very
nature of the case, answer fully in all emergencies the ends
for which they were designed I shall endeavor to prove and
not to assert.

The kind of hives of which I have been speaking are such
as have been devised by intelligent and honest men, prac-
tically acquainted with the management of bees; as for many
ENEMIES OF BEES. 225

of the hives which have been introduced, they not only afford
the apiarian no assistance against the inroads of the bee-
moth, but they are so constructed as positively to aid it in
its nefarious designs. The more they are used, the worse the
poor bees are off; just as, the more a man uses the lying
nostrums of the brazen-faced quack, the further he finds
himself from health and vigor.

I once met with an intelligent man who told me that he
had paid a considerable sum to a person who professed to
be in possession of many valuable secrets in the management
of bees, and who promised, among other things, to impart to
him an infallible remedy against the bee-moth. On the re-
ceipt of the money he very gravely told him that the secret
of keeping the moth out of the hive was to keep the bees
strong and vigorous! A truer declaration he could not have
made; but I believe that the beekeeper felt, notwithstanding,
that he had been imposed upon as outrageously as a poor
man would be who, after paying a quack a large sum of
money for an infallible life-preserving secret, should be
turned off with the truism that the secret of living forever
was to keep well!

There is not an intelligent, observing apiarian who has
been in the habit of carefully examining the operations of,
bees, not only in his own apiary, but wherever he could find
them, who has not seen strong stocks flourishing . under
almost any conceivable circumstances. They may be seen, in
hives of the most miserable construction, unpainted and un-
protected, sometimes with large open cracks and. clefts, ex-
tending down their sides, and yet laughing to. defiance, hte
bee-moth and all other adverse influences.

Almost any thing hollow in which the bees can establish
themselves, and where they have once succeeded in becoming
strong, will often be successfully tenanted by them for.a
series of years. To see such hives, as they sometimes may
be seen, in possession of persons both ignorant and careless,,
and who hardly know a bee-moth from any other. kind of.
moth, may at first sight well shake the confidence of .the
226 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

inquirer in the necessity or value of any particular preca:-
tions to preserve his hives from the devastations of the moi.

After looking at these powerful stocks in what may be
called log-cabin hives, let us examine some in the most costly
hives which have ever been constructed—in what have been
called real “ bee-palaces ;” and we shall often find them weak
and impoverished, infested and almost devoured by the
worms. Their owner, with books in hand, and all the newest
devices and appliances in the apiarian line, finds himself
unable to protect his bees against their enemies, or to
account for the reason why some hives seem, like the children
of the poor, almost to thrive upon ill-treatment and neglect,
while others, like the offspring of the rich and powerful, are
feeble and diseased, almost in exact proportion to the means
used to guard them against noxious influences, and to minis-
ter most lavishly to all their wants.

I once used to be much surprised to hear so many beekeep-
ers speak of having “ good luck” or “bad luck ” with their
bees; but really, as bees are generally managed, success or
failure does seem to depend almost entirely upon what tle
ignorant or superstitious are wont to call “ luck.”

I shall now try to do what I have never yet seen satisfac-
torily done by any writer on bees; viz., show exactly under
what circumstances the bee-moth sueceeds in establishing
itself in a hive, thus explaining why some stocks flourish in
spite of all neglect, while others, in the common hives, fall
a prey to the moth, let their owner be as careful as he will.
I shall finally show how in suitable hives, with proper pre-
cautions, it may always be kept from seriously annoying
the bees.

It often happens, when a large number of stocks are kept,
that in spite of all precautions some of them are found in
the spring so greatly reduced in numbers that, if left to
themselves, they are in danger of falling a prey to the de-
vouring moth. Bees, when in feeble colonies, seem often to
lose a portion of their wonted vigilance; and as they have a
large quantity of empty comb which they can not guard,
ENEMIES OF BEES. 227

even if they would, the moth enters the hive and deposits
a large number of eggs; and thus before the bees have be-
come sufficiently numerous to protect themselves the combs
are filled with worms, and the destruction of the colony
speedily follows. The ignorant or careless beekeeper is in-
formed of the ravages which are going on in such a hive
only when its ruin is fully completed, and a cloud of winged
pests issues from it to destroy, if they can, the rest of his
stocks. But how, it may be asked, can it be ascertained that
a hive is seriously infested with the all-devouring worms?
The aspect of the bees, so discouraged and forlorn, proclaims
at once that there is trouble of some kind within. If the
hive be slightly elevated, the bottom-board will be found
covered with pieces of bee-bread, etc., mixed with the excre-
ment of the worms, which looks almost exactly like fine
grains of powder. As the bees in spring clean out their
combs and prepare the cells for the reception of brood, their
Lottom-board will often be so covered with parings of comb
and with small pieces of bee-bread that the hive may appear
to be in danger of being destroyed by the worms. If, how-
ever, none of the black excrement is perceived, the refuse on
the bottom-board, like the shavings in a carpenter’s shop, are
proofs of industry and not the signs of approaching ruin.
It is highly important, however, to keep the bottom-boards
clean ; and if a piece of zine be slipt in (or even an old news-
paper) by removing and cleansing it from time to time the
bees will be greatly assisted in their operations. As soon as
the hive is well filled with bees, this need no longer be done.

Even the most careful and experienced apiarian will find,
too often, that, although he is perfectly well aware of the
plague that is reigning within, his knowledge can be turned
to no good account, the interior of the hive being almost as
inaccessible as the interior of the human body. The way in
which I manage, in such cases, is as follows:

Having ascertained in the spring, as soon as the bees begin
to fly out, that a colony, although feeble, has a fertile queen,
I take the precaution at once to give it the strength which
228 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

is indispensable, not merely to its safety, but to its ability
for any kind of successful labor.

As a certain number of bees are needed in a hive, in order
as well to warm and hatch the thousands of eggs which a
healthy queen can lay as to feed and properly develop the
lJarve after they are hatched, I know that a feeble colony
must remain feeble for a long time unless they can at once
be supplied with a considerable accession of numbers. Even
if there were no moths in existence to trouble such a hive, it
would not be able to rear a large number of bees until after
the best of the honey-harvest had passed away; and then it
would become powerful only that its increasing numbers
might devour the food which the others had previously stored
in the cells. If the small colony has a considerable number
of bees, and is able to cover and warm at least one comb in
addition to those containing brood which they already have,
I take from one of my strong stocks a frame containing some
three or four thousand or more young bees which are sealed
over in their cells and are just ready to emerge. These bees
which require no food, and need nothing but warmth to
develop them, will, in a few days, hatch in the new hive to
which they are given, and thus the requisite number of
workers, in the full vigor and energy of youth, will be fur-
nished to the hive; and the discouraged queen, finding at
once a suitable number of experienced nurses* to take charge
of her eggs, deposits them in the proper cells, instead of
simply extruding them, to be devoured by the bees. While
bees often attack full-grown strangers which are introduced
into their hive, they never fail to receive gladly all the brood
comb that we choose to give them. If they are sufficiently
numerous they will always cherish it, and in warm weather
they will protect it, even if it is laid against the outside of
their hive. If the bees in the weak stock are too much
reduced in numbers to be able to cover the brood-comb taken
from another hive, I give them this comb with all the old

_ ™A bee, a few days after it is hatched, is as fully competent for all
its duties as it-ever will be at any subsequent period of its life.
ENEMIES OF BEES. 229

bees that are clustered upon it, and shut up the hive, after
supplying them with water, until two or three days have
passed away. By this time most of the strange bees will
have formed an inviolable attachment to their new home;
and even if a portion of them should return to the parent
hive, a large number of the maturing young will have hatch-
ed to supply their desertion. A little sugar-water scented
with peppermint may be used to sprinkle the bees at the
time that the comb is introduced, although I have never yet
found that they had the least disposition to quarrel with each
other. The original settlers are only too glad to receive such
a valuable accession to their scanty numbers, and the ex-
patriated bees are too much confounded with their unex-
pected emigration to feel any desire for making a disturb-
ance. If a sufficient increase of numbers has not been fur-
nished by one range of comb, the operation may, in the
course of a few days, be repeated. Instead of leaving the
colony to the discouraging feeling that they are m a large,
empty, and desolate house, a divider should be run down into
the hive, and they should be confined to a space which they
are able to warm and defend, and the rest of the hive, until
they need additional room, should be carefully shut up
against all intruders. If this operation is judiciously per-
formed, the bees will be powerful in numbers long before the
weather is warm enough to develop the bee-moth, and they
will thus be most effectually protected from the hateful pest.
A very simple change in the organization of the bee-moth
would have rendered it almost if not quite impossible to.
protect the bees from its ravages. If it had been so con-
stituted as to require but a very small amount of heat for
its full development it would have become very numerous.
early in the spring, and might then have easily entered the.
hives and deposited its eggs among the combs, without any
let or hindrance; for at this season, not only do the bees at
night maintain no guard at the entrance of their hive, but
there are large portions of their comb bare of bees, and, of
course, entirely unprotected. How does every fact in the
230 THE BEEKEEPER'S MANUAL,

history of the bee, when properly investigated, point with
unerring certainty to the power, wisdom, and goodness of
Him who made it!

If there is reason to apprehend that the combs which are
not occupied with brood contain any of the eggs of the moth,
these combs may be removed and thoroughly smoked with
the fumes of burning sulphur; and then, in a few days, after
they have been exposed to the fresh air, they may be re-
turned to the hive. I hope I may be pardoned for feeling
not the slightest pity for the unfortunate progeny of the
moth thus unceremoniously destroyed.

Bees, as is well known to every experienced beekeeper,
frequently swarm so often as to expose themselves to great
danger of being destroyed by the moth. After the departure
of the after-swarms, the parent colony often contains too
few bees to cover and protect their comb from the insidious
attacks of their wily enemy. As a number of weeks must
elapse before the brood of the young queen is mature, the
colony, for a considerable time, at the season when the moths
are very numerous, are constantly diminishing in numbers,
and before they can begin to replenish the exhausted hive the
destroyer has made a fatal lodgment.

In my hives such calamities are easily prevented. If ar-
tificial inerease is relied upon for the multiplication of colo-
nies, it can be so conducted as to give the moth next to no
chance to fortify itself in the hive. No colony is ever allow-
ed to have more room than it needs or more combs than it
can cover and protect; and the entrance to the hive may be
contracted, if necessary, so that only a single bee can go in
and out at a time, and yet the bees will have, from the ven-
tilators, as much air as they require..

If natural swarming is allowed, after-swarms may be
prevented from issuing by cutting out all the queen-cells but
one, soon after the first swarm leaves the hive; or if it is
desired to have as fast an increase of stocks as can possibly
be obtained from natural swarming, then, instead of leaving
the combs in the parent hive to be attacked by the moth, a
ENEMIES OF BEES. 231

certain portion of them may be taken out when swarming is
over, and given to the second and third swarms so as to aid
in building them up into strong stocks.

But I have not yet spoken of the most fruitful cause of
the desolating ravages of the bee-moth. If a colony has lost
tts queen, and this loss can not be supplied, it must, as a
matter of course, fall a sacrifice to the bee-moth; and I do
not hesitate to assert that by far the larger proportion of
colonies which are destroyed by it are destroyed under pre-
cisely such circumstances! Let this be remembered by all
who have any thing to do with bees, and let them understand
that, unless a remedy for the loss of the queen can be pro-
vided, they must constantly expect to see some of their best
colonies hopelessly ruined. The crafty moth, after all, is
not so much to blame as we are apt to imagine; for a colony,
once deprived of its queen, and possessing no means of se-

- curing another, would certainly perish, even if never attack-
ed by so deadly an enemy, just as the body of an animal,
when deprived of life, will speedily go to decay, even if it
is not at once devoured by ravenous swarms of filthy flies
and worms.

In order to ascertain all the important points connected
with the habits of the bee-moth, I have purposely deprived
colonies in some of my observing hives of their queen, and
have thus reduced them to a state of despair that I might
closely watch all their proceedings. I have invariably found
that in this state they have made little or no resistance to the
entrance of the bee-moth, but have allowed her to deposit
her eggs just where she pleased. The worms, after hatching,
have always appeared to be even more at home than the poor
dispirited bees themselves, and have grown and thrived in
the most luxurious manner. In some instances, these colo-
nies, so far from losing all spirit to resent other intrusions,
were positively the most vindictive set of bees in my whole
apiary. One especially, assaulted everybody that came near
it, and, when reduced in numbers to a mere handful, seemed
as ready for fight as ever.
232 THE BEEKEEPER’'S MANUAL.

How utterly useless, then, for defending a queenless colo-
ny against the moth, are all the traps and other devices.
which have been of late years so much relied upon! Ifa
single female gains admission she will lay eggs enough to.
destroy in a short time the strongest colony that ever existed
if once it has lost its queen and has no means of procuring
another. But not only do the bees of a hive which is hope-
lessly queenless make little or no opposition to the entrance
of the bee-moth and to the ravages of the worms, but by
their forlorn condition they positively invite the attacks of
their destroyers. The moth seems to have an instinctive
knowledge of the condition of such a hive, and no art of
man can ever keep her out. She will pass by other colonies
to get at the queenless one, for she seems to know that there
she will find all the conditions that are necessary to the
proper development of her young. There are many myste-
ries in the insect world which we have not yet solved; nor can
we tell just how the moth arrives at so correct a knowledge
of the condition of the queenless hives in the apiary. That
such hives very seldom maintain a guard about the entrance
is certain; and that they do not fill the air with the pleasant
voice of happy industry is equally certain; for even to our
dull ears the difference between the hum of the prosperous
hive and the unhappy note of the despairing one is sufficient-
ly obvious. May it not be even more obvious to the acute
senses of the provident mother seeking a proper place for
the development of her young?

The unerring sagacity of the moth closely resembles that
peculiar instinct by which the vulture and other birds that
prey upon carrion are able to single out a diseased animal
from the herd, which they follow with their dismal croak-
ings, hovering over its head, or sitting in ill-omened flocks
on the surrounding trees, watching it as its life ebbs away,
and stretching out their filthy and naked necks, and opening
and snapping their bloodthirsty beaks that they may be all
ready to tear out its eyes just glazing in death, and banquet
upon its flesh still warm with the blood of life! Let any
ENEMIES OF BEES. 233

fatal accident befall an animal, and how soon will you see
them, first from one quarter of the heavens and then from
another, speeding their eager flight to their destined prey,
when, only a short time before, not a single one could be
seen or heard!

I have repeatedly seen powerful colonies speedily devour-
ed by the worms because of the loss of their queen, when
they have stood side by side with feeble colonies which, being
in possession of a queen, have been left untouched !

That the common hives furnish no available remedy for
the loss of the queen is well known; indeed, the owner can
not, in many eases, be sure that his bees are queenless until
their destruction is certain, while not unfrequently, after
keeping bees for many years, he does not even so much as
believe that there is such a thing as a queen-bee!

In the chapter on the Loss of the Queen I shall show in
what way this loss can be ascertained, and ordinarily rem-
edied, and thus the bees be protected from that calamity
which, more than all others, exposes them to destruction.
When a colony has become hopelessly queenless, then, moth
or no moth, its destruction is absolutely certain. Even if the
bees retained their wonted industry in gathering stores, and
their usual energy in defending themselves against all their
enemies, their ruin could be delayed only a short time. In
a few months they would all die a natural death; and, there
being none to replace them, the hive would be utterly depop-
ulated. Occasionally such instances occur in which the bees
have died, and large stores of honey have been found un-
touched in their hives. This, however, but seldom happens;
for they rarely escape from the assaults of other colonies,
even if, after the death of their queen, they do not fall a
prey to the bee-moth. A motherless hive is almost always
assaulted by stronger stocks, which seem to have an instine-
tive knowledge of its orphanage, and hasten at once to take
possession of its spoils. (See Remarks on Robbing.) If it
escape the Scylla of these pitiless plunderers, it is soon
dashed upon a more merciless Charybdis when the miscreant
234 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL

moths have ascertained its destitution. Every year large
numbers of hives are bereft of their queen; and every yea:
the ‘most of such hives are either robbed by other bees c1
sacked by the bee-moth, or first robbed and afterward sach-
ed, while their owner imputes all the mischief that is done to
something else than the real cause. He might just as well
imagine that the birds or the carrion worms which are de-
vouring his dead horse were actually the primary cause of
its untimely end. How often we see the same kind of mniis-
take made by those who impute the deeay of a tree to the ©
insects which are banqueting upon its withering foliage,
when often these insects are there because the disease of the
tree has both furnished them with their proper aliment and
deprived the plant of the vigor necessary to enable it to
resist their attack!

The beekeeper can easily gather from these remarks the
means upon which I most rely to protect my colonies from
the bee-moth. Knowing that strong stocks supplied with
a fertile queen are always able to take care of themselves in
almost any kind of hive, I am careful to keep them in the
state which is practically found to be one of such security.
If they are weak they must be properly strengthened, and -
confined to only as much space as they can warm and de-
fend; and if they are queenless they must be supplied with
the means of repairing their loss; or if that can not be done
they should at once be broken up (see Remarks on Queen-
lessness, and Union of Stocks), and added to other stocks.

It can not be too deeply impressed upon the mind of the
beekeeper that a small colony ought always to be confined
to a small space, if we wish the bees to work with the great-
est energy, and to offer the stoutest resistance to their nu-
merous enemies. Bees do most unquestionably “abhor a
vacuum,” if it is one which they can neither fill, warm, nor
defend. Let the prudent bee-master only keep his stocks
strong, and they will do more to defend themselves against
all intruders than he can possibly do for them, even if he
spends his whole time in watching and assisting them.
ENEMIES OF BEES, 235

It is hardly necessary, after the preceding remarks, to say
much upon the various contrivances to which so many resort
as a safeguard against the bee-moth. The idea that gauze-
wire doors, to be shut daily at dusk, and opened again at
morning, can exclude the moth, will not weigh much with
one who has seen them flying and seeking admission, espe-
cially in dull weather, long before the bees have given over
their work for the day. Even if the moth could be excluded
by such a contrivance it would require, on the part of those
who rely upon it, a regularity almost akin to that of the
heavenly bodies in their courses—a regularity so systematic,
in short, as either to be impossible or likely to be attained.
but by very few.

An exceedingly ingenious contrivance, to say the least, to
remedy the necessity for such close supervision, is that by
which the movable doors of all the hives are governed by a
long lever in the shape of a hen-roost, so that the hives may
all be closed seasonably and regularly by the crowing and
cackling tribe when they go to bed at night, and opened at.
once when they fly from their perch to greet the merry morn.
Alas, that so much ingenuity should be all in vain! Chick-
ens are often sleepy, and wish to retire some time before the
bees feel that they have completed their full day’s work, and
some of them are so much opposed to early: rising, either
from ill health or downright laziness, that they sit moping’
on their roost long after the cheerful sun has purpled the
glowing east. Even if this device were perfectly successful,
it could not save from ruin a colony which has lost its queen.
The truth is, that almost all the contrivances upon which we
are instructed to rely are just about equivalent to the lock
carefully put upon the stable door after the horse has been
stolen; or to attempt to prevent corruption from fastening
upon the body of an animal after the breath of life has
for ever departed.

Are there then no precautions to which we may resort,
except by using hives which give the control over every
comb? Certainly there are, and I shall now deseribe thenn
236 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANDAL.

in such a manner as to aid all who find themselves annoyed
by the inroads of the bee-moth.

Let the prudent bee-master be deeply impressed with the
very great importance of destroying early in the season the
larve of the bee-moth. “ Prevention is,” at all times, “ better
than cure.” <A single pair of worms that are permitted to
undergo their changes into the winged insect may give birth
to some hundreds which, before the close of the season, may
fill the apiary with thousands of their kind. The destruction
of a single worm early in the spring may thus be more effica-
cious than that of hundreds at a later period. If the com-
mon hives are used, these worms must be sought for in their
hiding-places, under the edges of the hive; or the hive may
be propped up on the two ends with strips of wood about
three-eighths of an inch thick, and a piece of old woolen rag
put between the bottom-board and the back of the hive.
Into this warm hiding-place the full-grown worm will retreat
to spin its cocoon, and it may then be very easily caught and
effectually dealt with. Hollow sticks or split joints of cane
may be set under the hives so as to elevate them, or may be
laid on the bottom-board; and if they have a few small
openings through which the bees can not enter, the worms
will take possession of them, and may be easily destroyed.
Only provide some hollow, inaccessible to the bees, but com-
municating with the hive, and easily accessible to the worms
when they want to spin, and to yourself when you want
them, and if the bees are in good health, so that they will
not permit the worms to spin among the combs, you can with
ease entrap nearly all of them. If the hive has lost its
queen, and the worms have gained possession of it, you can
do nothing for it better than to break it up as soon as possi-
ble unless you prefer to reserve it as a moth-trap to devas-
tate your whole apiary.

I make use of blocks of a peculiar construction in order
both to entrap the worms and to exclude the moth from my
hives. The only place where the moth can enter is just
where the bees are going in and out, and this passage may
ENEMIES OF BEES. 237

be contracted so as to suit the size of the colony. The very
shape of it is such that, if the moth attempts to force an
entrance, she is obliged to travel over a space which is con-
tinually narrowing, and, of course, is more and more easily
defended by the bees. My traps are slightly elevated, so
that the heat and odor of the hive pass under them and come
out through small openings into which the moth can enter,
but which do not admit her into the hive. These openings
which are so much like the crevices between the common
hives and their bottom-boards, the moth will enter rather
than attempt to force her way through the guards, and,
finding here the nibblings and parings of comb and bee-
bread in which her young can flourish, she deposits her eggs
in a place where they may be reached and destroyed. All
this is on the supposition that the hive has a healthy queen,
and that the bees are confined to a space which they can warm
and defend. If there are no guards and no resistance, or
at best but a very feeble one, she will not rest in any outer
chamber, but will penetrate to the very heart of the citadel,
and there deposits her seeds of mischief. These same blocks
have also grooves which communicate with the interior of the
hives, and which appear to the prowling worm in search of
a comfortable nest just the very best possible place, so warm
and snug and secure, in which to spin its web and “ bide its
time.” When the hand of the bee-master lights upon it,
doubtless it has reason to feel that it has been caught in its
own craftiness.

If asked how much will such contrivances help the careless
bee-man, I answer, not one iota; nay, they will positively
furnish him greater facilities for destroying his bees.
Worms will spin and hatch, and moths will lay their eggs,
under the blocks, and he will never remove them; thus in-
stead of traps he will have most beautiful devices for giving
more effectual aid and comfort to his enemies. Such per-
sons, if they ever attempt to keep bees on my plans, should
use only my smooth blocks, which will enable them to control
at will the size of the entrance to the hives, and which are
238 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

exceedingly important in aiding the bees to defend them-
selves against moths and robbers, and all enemies which seek
admission to their castle.

Let me, however, strongly advise the thoroughly and in-
corrigibly careless to have nothing to do with bees, either
on my plan of management or any other; for they will find
their time and money almost certainly thrown away unless
their mishaps open their eyes to the secret of their failure
in other things as well as in beekeeping.

If I find that the worms by any means have got the upper
hand in one of my hives I take out the combs, shake off the
bees, route out the worms, and restore the combs again to
the bees. If there is reason to fear that they contain eggs
and small worms I smoke them thoroughly with sulphur and
air them well before they are returned. Such operations,
however, will very seldom be required. Shallow vessels con-
taining sweetened water, placed on the hives after sunset,
will often entrap many of the moths. Pans of milk are
recommended by some as useful for this purpose. So fond
are the moths of something sweet that I have caught them
sticking fast to pieces of moist sugar-candy.

I can not deny myself the pleasure of making an extract
from an article* from the pen of that accomplished scholar
and well-known enthusiast in bee culture, Henry K. Oliver,
Esq. ‘“ We add a few words respecting the enemies of bees.
The mouse, the toad, the ant, the stouter spiders, the wasp,
the death-head moth (Sphinx atropos), and all the varieties
of gallinaceous birds, have, each and all, a ‘ sweet tooth,’ and
like very well a dinner of raw bee. But the ravages of these
are but a baby bite to the destruction caused by the bee-moth
(Tinea mellonella). These nimble-footed little mischievous
vermin may be seen on any evening from early May to Octo-
ber fluttering about the apiary, or running about the hives
at a speed to outstrip the swiftest bee, and endeavoring to
effect an entrance into the doorway, for it is within the hive

* Report on bees to the Essex County Agricultural Society, 1851.
ENEMIES OF BEES. 239

that their instinct teaches them they must deposit their eggs.
You can hardly find them by day, for they are cunning, and
secrete themselves. ‘They love darkness rather than light,
because their deeds are evil.’ They are a paltry-looking, in-
significant little gray-haired pestilent race of wax-and-honey
eating and bee-destroying rascals that have baffled all con-
trivances that ingenuity has devised to conquer or destroy
them.” ‘

“Your committee would be very glad indeed to be able to
suggest any effectual means by which to assist the honeybee
and its friends against the inroads of this, its bitterest and
most successful foe, whose desolating ravages are more la-
mented and more despondingly referred to than those of any
other enemy. Various contrivances have been announced,
but none have proved efficacious to any full extent, and we
are compelled to say that there really is no security except
in a very full, healthy, and vigorous stock of bees, and in a
very close and well-made hive, the door of which is of such
dimensions of length and height that the nightly guards can
effectually protect it—not too long a door, nor too high.
If too long, the bees can not easily guard it; and if too high,
the moth will get in over the heads of the guards. If the
guards catch one of them her life is not worth insuring. But
if the moths in any numbers effect a lodgment in the hive,
then the hive is not worth insuring. They immediately com-
mence laying their eggs, from which comes, in a few days, a
brownish-white caterpillar which encloses itself, all but its
head, in a silken cocoon. This head, covered with an im-
penetrable coat of scaly mail, which bids defiance to the bees,
is thrust forward, just outside of the silken enclosure, and
the gluttonous pest eats all before it, wax, pollen, and ex-
uvie, until ruin to the stock is inevitable. As says the
prophet Joel, speaking of the ravages of the locust, ‘ The
land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them
a desolate wilderness.’ Look out, brethren bee-lovers, and
have your hives of the best unshaky, unknotty stock, with
close-fitting joints, and well covered with three or four coats
240 THE BEEKEEPER'S MANUAL.

of paint. He who shall be successful in devising the means
of ridding the bee world of this destructive and merciless
pest will richly deserve to be crowned ‘ King Bee’ in per-
petuity, to be entitled to a never-fading wreath of budding
honey-flowers from sweetly ‘breathing fields, all murmuring
with bees, to be privileged to use, during his natural life,
‘night tapers from their waxen thighs,’ best wax candles
(two to the pound), to have an annual offering from every
beemaster of ten pounds each of very best virgin honey, and
to a bodyguard, for protection against all foes, of thrice ten
thousand workers, all armed and equipped as Nature’s law
directs. Who shall have these high honors? ”

It might seem highly presumptuous for me, at this early
date, to lay claim to them; but I beg leave to enroll myself
among the list of honorable candidates, and I cheerfully
submit my pretentions to the suffrages of all intelligent
keepers of bees.

In the chapter on Requisites I have spoken of the ravages
of the mouse, and have there described the way in which my
hives are guarded against its intrusion. That some kinds
of birds are fond of bees, every apiarian knows to his- cost;
still, I can not advise that any should, on this account, be
destroyed. It has been stated to me by an intelligent ob-
server that the king-bird, which devours them by scores,
confines himself always, in the season of drones, to those fat
and lazy gentlemen of leisure. I fear, however, that this,
as the children say, “is too good news to be true,” and that
not only the industrious portion of the busy community fall
a prey to his fatal snap, but that the luxurious gourmand
can distinguish perfectly well between an empty bee in
search of food and one which is returning full laden to its
fragrant home, and whose honey-bag sweetens the delicious
tit-bit as the crushed unfortunate, already sugared, glides
daintily down his voracious maw! Still, I have never yet
been willing to destroy a bird because of its fondness for
bees; and I advise all lovers of bees to have nothing to do
with such foolish practices. Unless we can check among our
DISEASES OF BEES. “41

people the stupid as well as inhuman custom of destroying
so wantonly, on any pretense, and often on none at all, the
insectivorous birds, we shall soon not only be deprived of
their aerial melody among the leafy branches, but shall
lament over the ever increasing horde of destructive insects
which ravage our fields and desolate our orchards, and from
whose successful inroads nothing but the birds can ever
protect us. Think of it, ye who can enjoy no music made by
these winged choristers of. the skies, except that of their
agonizing screams as they fall before your well-aimed weap-
ons, and flutter out their innocent lives before your heartless
gaze! Drive away as fast and as far as you please from
your cruel premises all the little birds that you can destroy,
and then find, if you can, those who will sympathize with
you when the caterpillars weave their destroying webs over
your leafless trees, and insects of all kinds riot in glee upon
your blasted harvests! I hope that such a healthy public
opinion will soon prevail that the man or boy who is armed
with a gun to shoot the little birds will be scouted from all
humane and civilized society, and, if he should be caught
about such contemptible business, will be too much ashamed
even to look an honest man in the face. I shall close what
I have to say about the birds with the following beautiful
translation of an old Greek poet’s address to the swallow:

Attic maiden, honey-fed,

Chirping warbler, bear’ st away
Thou the busy buzzing bee

To thy callow brood a prey?
Warbler, thou a warbler seize?

Winged one, with lovely soft wings,
Guest thyself, by summer brought,

Yellow guest whom summer brings,

Wilt not quickly let it drop?

‘Tis not fair, indeed ’tis wrong,
That the ceaseless warbler should

Die by mouth of ceaseless song.

; Merivale’s Translation.

I have not the space to speak at length of the other ene-
mies of the honied race; nor, indeed, is it at all necessary.

If the apiarian only succeeds in keeping his stocks strong
they will be their own best protectors; and if he does not
242 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

succeed in this they would be of little value, even if they had
no enemies ever vigilant to watch for their halting. Nations
which are both rich and feeble invite attack, as well as unfit
themselves for vigorous resistance. Just so with the com-
monwealth of bees. Unless amply guarded by thousands
ready to die in its defense, it is ever liable to fall a prey to
some one of its many enemies, which are all agreed in this
one opinion, at least, that stolen honey is much more sweet
than the slow accumulations of patient industry.

In the chapters on Protection and Ventilation I have
spoken of the fatal effects of dysentery. This disease can
always be prevented by proper caution on the part of the
beekeeper. Let him be careful not to feed his bees, late in
the season, on liquid honey (see chapter on Feeding), and
let him keep them in dry and thoroughly protected hives.
Jf his situation is at all damp, and there is danger that water
will settle under his protector, let him build it entirely above
around; otherwise it may be as bad as a damp eellar, and
incomparably worse than nothing at all.

There is one disease, called by the Germans “ foul brood,”
‘of which I know nothing by my own observation, but which
is, of all others, the most fatal in its effects. The brood
appear to die in the cells after they are sealed over by the
bees, and the stench from their decaying bodies infects the
hive and seems to paralyze the bees. This disease is, in two
instances, attributed by Dzierzon to feeding bees on “ Amer-
ican honey,” or, as we call it, southern honey, which is
brought from Cuba and other West India islands. That
such honey is not ordinarily poisonous is well known. Prob-
ably that used by him was taken from diseased colonies. It
is well known that, if any honey or combs are taken from a
hive in which this pestilence is raging, it will most surely
infect the colonies to which they may be given. No foreign
honey ought, therefore, to be extensively used until its qual-
ity has been thoroughly tested. The extreme violence of this
disease may be inferred from the fact that Dzierzon in one
season lost by it between four and five hundred colonies!
ENEMIES OF BEES. 243

As at present advised, if my colonies were attacked by it I
would burn up the bees, combs, honey, frames, and all, from
every diseased hive; and then thoroughly scald and smoke
with sulphur all such hives, and replenish them with bees
from a healthy stock.

There is a peculiar kind of dysentery which does not seem
to affect a whole colony, but confines its ravages to a small
number of bees. In the early stages of this disease, those
attacked are excessively irritable and will attempt to sting
any one who comes near the hives. If dissected, their stom-
achs are found to be already discolored by the disease. In
the latter stages of this complaint they not only lose all their
irascibility, but seem very stupid, and may often be seen
crawling upon the ground unable to fly. Their abdomens
are now unnaturally swollen, and of a much lighter color
than usual, owing to their being filled with a yellow matter
exceedingly offensive to the smell. I have not yet ascertain-
ed the cause of this disease.
CHAPTER XIII.
LOSS OF THE QUEEN.

TuHat the queen of a hive is often lost, and that the ruin
of the whole colony soon follows unless such a loss is sea-.
sonably remedied, are facis which ought to be well known
to every observing beekeeper.

Some queens appear to die of old age or Snes and at
a time when there are no worker-eggs nor larve of a suitable
age to enable the bees to supply their loss. It is evident,.
however, that no very large proportion of the queens which
perish are lost under such circumstances. Either the bees
are aware of the approaching end of their aged mother, and
take seasonable precautions to rear a successor, or else she-
dies very suddenly, so as to leave behind her some brood of a
suitable age. It is seldom that a queen in a hive that is
strong in numbers and stores dies either at a period of the
year when there is no brood from which another can be
reared, or when there are no drones to impregnate the one
reared in her place. In speaking of the age of bees, it has
already been stated that queens commonly die in their fourth
year, while none of the workers live to be a year old. Not
only is the queen much longer-lived than the other bees, but
she seems to be possessed of greater tenacity of life, so that,
when any disease overtakes the colony, she is usually among
the last to perish. By a most admirable provision, their
death ordinarily takes place under circumstances the most
favorable to the bereaved family. If it were otherwise, the-
number of colonies which would annually perish would be
very much greater than it now is; for as a number of super-
annuated queens must die every year, many, or even most
of them, might die at a season when their loss would neces-
LOSS OF THE QUEEN. 245

sarily involve the ruin of their whole colony. In non-swarm-
ing hives I have found cells in which queens were reared,
not to lead out a new swarm, but to supply the place of the
old one which had died in the hive. There are a few well-
authenticated instances in which a young queen has been
matured before the death of the old one, but after she had
become quite aged and infirm. Still, there are cases where
old queens die, either so suddenly as to leave no young brood
behind them, or at a season when there are not drones to
impregnate the young queens.

That queens occasionally live to such an age as to become
incapable of laying worker eggs is now a well-established
fact. The seminal reservoir sometimes becomes exhausted
before the queen dies of old age; and as it is never replen-
ished (see p. 44) she can lay only unimpregnated eggs, or
such as produce drones instead of workers. This is an
additional confirmation of the theory first propounded by
Dzierzon. I am indebted to Mr. Wagner for the following
facts: “In the Bienenzeitung for August, 1852, Count
Stosch gives us the case of a colony examined by himself,
with the aid of an experienced apiarian, on the 14th of April
previous. The worker brood was then found to be healthy.
In May following, the bees worked industriously and built
new comb. Soon afterward they ceased to build, and ap-
peared dispirited; and when, in the beginning of June, he
examined the colony again, he found plenty of drone brood
in worker-cells! The queen appeared weak and languid.
He confined her in a queen-cage, and left her in the hive.
The bees clustered around the cage; but next morning the
queen was found to be dead. Here we seem to have the
commencement, progress, and termination of superannua-
tion, all in the space of five or six weeks.”

In the spring of the year, as soon as the bees begin to fly,
if their motions are carefully watched the apiarian may, even
in the common hives, generally ascertain from their actions
whether they are in possession of a fertile queen. If they
are seen to bring in bee-bread with great eagerness, it fol-
246 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

lows, as a matter of course, that they have brood and are
anxious to obtain fresh food for its nourishment. If any
hive does not industriously gather pollen, or accept the rye
flour upon which the others are feasting, then there is an
almost absolute certainty either that it has not a queen, or
that she is not fertile, or that the hive is seriously infested
with worms, or that it is on the very verge of starvation.
An experienced eye will decide upon the queenlessness (to
use the German term) of a hive from the restless appearance
of the bees. At this period of the year when they first realize
the magnitude of their loss, and before they have become in
a manner either reconciled to it, or indifferent to their fate,
they roam in an inquiring manner in and out of the hive,
and over its outside as well as inside, and plainly manifest
that something calamitous has befallen them. Often those
that return from the fields, instead of entering the hive with
that dispatchful haste so characteristic of a bee returning
well stored to a prosperous home, linger about the entrance
with an idle and very dissatisfied appearance, and the colony
is restless long after the other stocks are quiet. Their home,
like that of the man who is cursed rather than blessed in his
domestic relations, is a melancholy place; and they enter it
only with reluctant and slow-moving steps!

If I could address a friendly word of advice to every
married woman I would say, “ Do all that you can to make
your husband’s home a place of attraction. When absent
from it, let his heart glow at the very thought of returning
to its dear enjoyments; and let his countenance involuntarily
put on a more cheerful look, and his joy-quickened steps
proclaim, as he is approaching, that he feels in his “ heart
of hearts” that “there is no place like home.” Let her
whom he has chosen as a wife and companion be the happy
and honored queen in his cheerful habitation; let her be the
center and soul about which his best affections shall ever
revolve. I know that there are brutes in the guise of men
upon whom all the winning attractions of a prudent, virtu-
LOSS OF THE QUEEN. 247

ous wife make little or no impression. Alas that it should
be so! but who can tell how many, even of the most hopeless
cases, have been saved for two worlds by a union with a
virtuous woman in whose “ tongue was the law of kindness,”
and of whom it could be said, “the heart of her husband
doth safely trust in her,” for “she will do him good and
not evil all the days of her life? ”

Said a man of large experience, “I scarcely know a
woman who has an intemperate husband who did not either
marry a man whose habits were already bad, or who did not
driye her husband to evil courses (often when such a calam-
itous result was the furthest possible from her thoughts or
wishes) by making him feel that he had no happy home.”
Think of it, ye who find that home is not full of dear de-
lights, as well to yourselves as to your affectionate hus-.
bands! Try how much virtue there may be in winning
words and happy smiles, and the cheerful discharge of
household duties, and prove the utmost possible efficacy of
love and faith and prayer before those words of fearful
agony are extorted from your despairing lips,

Anywhere, anywhere

Out of the world;
when, amid tears and sighs of inexpressible agony, you set-
tle down into the heartbreaking conviction that you can have
no home until you have passed into that habitation not
fashioned by human hands nor inhabitated my human,
hearts!

Is there any husband who can resist all the sweet attrac-.
tions of a lovely wife? who does not set a priceless value
upon the very gem of his life?

If such there be, go mark him well;

High though his titles, proud his fame,

Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,

The wretch, concentered in self,

Living, shall forfeit fair renown,

And, doubly dying, shall go down

To the vile dust from whence he sprung,

Unwept, unhonored, and unsung. sits
eott.
248 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

I trust my readers, remembering my profession, will par-
don this long digression to which I felt myself irresistibly
impelled.

When the bees commence their work in the spring they
give, as previously stated, reliable evidence either that all is
well or that ruin lurks within. In the common hives, how-
ever, it is not always easy to decide upon their real condi-
tion. The queenless ones do not in all cases disclose their
misfortune any more than all unhappy husbands or wives
see fit to proclaim the full extent of their domestie wretched-
ness. There is a vast amount of seeming, even in the little
world of the beehive. One great advantage in my mode of
construction is that I am never obliged to leave any thing to
vague conjecture; but I can, in a few moments, open the in-
terior, and know precisely what is the real condition of the
bees.

On one occasion I found that a colony which had been
queenless for a considerable time utterly refused to raise
another, and devoured all the eggs which were given to them
for that purpose! This colony was afterward supplied with
an unimpregnated queen; but they refused to accept her,
and attempted at once to smother her to death. I then gave
them a fertile queen, but she met with no better treatment.
Facts of a similar kind have been noticed by other observers.
Thus it seems that bees may not only become reconciled, as
it were, to living without a mother, but may pass into such
an unnatural state as not only to decline to provide them-
selves with another, but actually to refuse to accept one by
whose agency they might be rescued from impending ruin.
Before expressing too much astonishment at such foolish
conduct, let us seriously inquire if it has not often an exact
parallel in our obstinate rejection of the provisions which
God has made in the gospel for our moral and religious
welfare.

If a colony which refuses to rear another queen has a
range of comb given to it containing maturing brood, these
poor motherless innocents, as soon as they are able to work,
LOSS OF THE QUEEN. 249

perceive their loss and will proceed at once, if they have the
means, to supply it. They have not yet grown so hardened
by habit to unnatural and ruinous courses as not to feel that
something absolutely indispensable to their safety is want-
ing in their hive. = *

A word to the young who may read this treatise. Al-
though enjoined to remember your Creator in the days of
your youth, you are constantly tempted to neglect your
religious duties, and to procrastinate their performance
until some more convenient season. Like the old bees in a
hive without a queen, that seek only their present enjoyment,
forgetful of the ruin which must surely overtake them, so
you may find that, when manhood and old age arrive, you
will have even less disposition to love and serve the Lord
than you now have. The fetters which bind you to sinful
habits will have strengthened with years until you find both
the inclination and ability to break them continually de~
creasing.

In the spring, as soon as the weather becomes sufficiently
pleasant, I carefully examine all the hives which do not pre-
sent the most unmistakable evidences of health and vigor.
If a queen is wanting I at once, if the colony is small,
break it up, and add the bees to another stock. If, however,
the colony should be very large, I sometimes join to it one
of my small stocks which has a healthy queen. It may be
asked, Why not supply the queenless stock with the means of
raising another? Simply because there would be no drones
to impregnate her in season; and the whole operation would,
therefore, result in an entire failure. Why not endeavor,
then, to preserve it until the season for drones approaches,
and then give it a queen? Because it is in danger of being
robbed or destroyed by the moth, while the bees, if added toa
another stock, can do me far more service than they could
if left to idleness in their old hive. It must be remembered
that I am not like the beekeepers on the old plan, extremely
anxious to save every colony, however feeble; as I can, at
the proper season, form as many as I want, and with far
250 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

less trouble and expense than are required to make any
thing out of such discouraged stocks.

If any of my colonies are found to be feeble in the spring,
but yet in possession of a healthy queen, I help them to
combs containing maturing brood, in the manner already
described. In short, I ascertain, at the opening of the sea-
son, the exact condition of all my stock, and apply such
remedies as I find to be needed—giving, to some, maturing
brood; to others honey, and breaking up all whose condition
appears to admit of no remedy. If, however, the bees have
not been multiplied too rapidly, and proper care was taken
to winter none but strong stocks, they will need but little
assistance in the spring; and nearly all of them will show
indubitable signs of health and vigor.

I strongly recommend every prudent beekeeper who uses
my hives to give them all a most thorough overhauling and
cleansing soon after the bees begin to work in the spring.
The bees of any stock may, with their combs, etc., all be
transferred in a few minutes to a clean hive; and their hive,
after being thoroughly cleansed, may be used for another
transferred stock; and in this way, with one spare hive,
the bees may all be lodged in habitations from which every
speck of dirt has been removed. They will thus have hives
which can by no possibility harbor any of the eggs or larve
of the moth, and which may be made perfectly free from
the least smell of must or mould or any thing offensive to
the delicate senses of the bees. In making this thorough
cleansing of all the hives, the apiarian will necessarily gain
an exact knowledge of the true condition of each stock, and
will know which have spare honey, and which require food
—in short, which are in need of help in any respect, and
which have the requisite strength to lend a helping hand to
others. If any hive needs repairing, it may be put into per-
feet order before it is used again. Hives managed in this
fashion, if the roofs and outside covers are occasionally
painted anew, will last for generations, and will be found,
on the score of cheapness, preferable, in the long run, to
LOSS OF THE QUEEN. 251

any other kind. But I ought to beg pardon of the genius
of American cheapness who so kindly presides over the
making of most of our manufactures, and under whose
shrewd tuition we are fast beginning to believe that cheap-
ness in the first cost of an article is the main point to which
our attention should be directed!

Let us, to be sure, save all that we can in the cost of con-
struction by the greatest economy in the use of materials;
let us compel every minute to yield the greatest possible
practical result by the employment of the most skillful
workmen and the most ingenious machinery; but do let us
learn that slighting an article, so as to get up a mere sham
having all, the appearance of reality, with none of the sub-
stance, is the poorest possible kind of pretended economy,
to say nothing of the tendency of such a system to encourage
in all the pursuits of life the narrow and selfish policy of
doing nothing thoroughly, but every thing with reference
to mere outside show or the urgent necessities of the present
moment.

We have yet to describe under what circumstances by
far the larger proportion of hives become queenless. After
the first swarm has gone out with the old mother, then both
the parent stock and all the subsequent swarms will have
each a young queen which must always leave the hive in
order to be impregnated. It sometimes happens that, the
wings of the young female are, from her birth, so imperfect
that she either refuses to sally out or is unable to return to
the hive if she ventures abroad. In either case the old stock
must, if left to its own resources, speedily perish. Queens,
in their contests with each other, are sometimes so much
crippled as to unfit them for flight, and sometimes tney are
disabled by the rude treatment of the bees which insist on
driving them away from the royal cells. The great major-
ity, however, of queens which are lost perish when they
leave the hive in search of the drones. Their extra size and
slower flight make them a most tempting prey to the birds,
ever on the watch in the vicinity of the hives; and many
252 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

in this way perish. Others are destroyed by sudden gusts
of wind which dash them against some hard object, or
blow them into the water; for queens are by no means ex-
empt from the misfortunes common to the humblest of their
race. Very frequently, in spite of all their caution in no-
ticing the position and appearance of their habitation before
they left it, they make a fatal mistake on their return, and
are imprisoned and destroyed as they attempt to enter the
wrong hive. The precautions which should be used to pre-
vent such a calamity have been already described. If these
are neglected, those who build their hives of uniform size
and appearance will find themselves losing many more
queens than the person who uses the old-fashioned boxes,
hardly any two of which look just alike.

The bees seem to me to have, as it were, an instinctive
perception of the dangers which await their new queen when
she makes her excursion in search of the drones, and often
gather around her and confine her as though they could not
bear to have her leave. I have repeatedly noticed them do-
ing this, although I can not affirm with positive certainty
why they doit. They are usually excessively agitated when
the queen leaves, and often exhibit all the appearance of
swarming, If the queen of an old stock is lost in this way
her colony will gradually dwindle away. If the queen of
an after-swarm fails to return, the bees very speedily come
to nothing if they remain in the hive; as a general rule,
however, they soon leave and attempt to add themselves to
other colonies.

It would be highly interesting to ascertain in what way
the bees become informed of the loss of their queen. When
she is taken from them under such circumstances as to ex-
cite the whole colony, then we can easily see how they find
out that she is gone; for when greatly excited they always
seek first to assure themselves of her safety, just as a tender
mother in time of danger forgets herself in her anxiety for
her helpless children. If, however, the queen is carefully
removed, so that the colony is not disturbed, it is sometimes
LOSS OF THE QUEEN. 253

a day or even more before they realize their loss. How do
they first become aware of it? Perhaps some dutiful bee
feels that it is a long time since it has seen its mother, and,
anxious to embrace her, makes diligent search for her
through the hive! The intelligence that she can not any-
where be found is soon noised abroad, and the whole com-
munity are at once alarmed. At such times, instead of calm-
ly conversing by merely touching each other’s antenne they
may be seen violently striking, as it were, their antennz
together, and by the most impassioned demonstrations man-
ifesting their agony and despair. I once removed a queen
in such a manner as to cause the bees to take wing and fill
the air in search of her. She was returned in a few minutes,
and yet, on examining the colony two days later, I found
that they had actually commenced the building of royal cells
in order to raise another! The queen was unhurt and the
cells were not tenanted. Was this work begun by some
that refused for a long time to believe the others when told
that she was safe? Or was it begun from the apprehension
that she might again be removed?

Every colony which has a new queen should be watched
in order that the apiarian may be seasonably apprised of
her loss. The restless conduct of the bees on the evening of
the day that she fails to return will at once inform the ex-
perienced bee-master of the accident which has befallen his
hive. If the bees can not be supplied with another queen,
or with the means of raising one, if an old swarm it must
be broken up and the bees added to another stock; if a new
swarm it must always be broken up unless it can be supplied
with a queen nearly mature, or else they will build combs
unfit for the rearing of workers. By the use of my movable-
comb hives all these operations can be easily performed.
If any hives have lost their young queen they may be sup-
plied, either with the means of raising another or with
sealed queens from other hives, or (if the plan is found to
answer) with mature ones from the “ nursery.”

As a matter of precaution I generally give to all my stocks
254 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

that are raising young queens, or which have unimpregnated
ones, a range of comb containing brood and eggs, so that
they may, in case of any accident to their queen, proceed at
once to supply their loss. In this way I prevent them from
being so dissatisfied as to leave the hive.

About a week after the young queens have hatched I ex-
amine all the hives which contain them, lifting out usually
some of the largest combs and those which ought to contain
brood. If I find a comb which has eggs or larve I am
satisfied that they have a fertile queen, and shut up the hive,
unless I wish to find her in order to deprive her of her wings
(see p. 182). I can thus often satisfy myself in one or two
minutes. If no brood is found I suspect that the queen has
been lost, or that she has some defect which has prevented
her from leaving the hive. If the brood-combs which I put
into the hive contain any newly formed royal cells, I know,
without any further examination, that the queen has been
lost. If the weather has been unfavorable, or the colony is
quite weak, the young queen is sometimes not impregnated
as early as usual, and an allowance of a few days must be
made on this account. If the weather is favorable, and the
colony is a good one, the queen usually leaves the day after
she finds herself mistress of a family. In about two days
more she begins to lay her eggs. By waiting about a week
before the examination is made, ample allowance, in most
cases, is made.

Early in the month of September I examine carefully all
my hives so as to see that in every respect they are in suit-
able condition for wintering. If any need feeding (see chap-
ter on Feeding) they are fed at this time. If any have
more vacant room than they ought to have, I partition off
that part of the hive which they do not need. I always
expect to find some brood in every healthy hive at this time;
and if in any hive I find none, and ascertain that it is queen-
less, I either at once break it up or if it is strong in numbers
supply it with a queen by adding to it some feebler stock.
If bees, however, are properly attended to at the season
LOSS OF THE QUEEN. 255

when their young queens are impregnated it will be a very
rare occurrence to find a queenless colony in the fall.

The practical beekeeper without further directions will
readily perceive how any operation which, in the common
hives, is performed with difficulty if it can be performed at
all is reduced to simplicity and certainty by the control of
the combs. If, however, beekeepers will be negligent and
ignorant, no hive can possibly make them very successful.
If they belong to the fraternity of “no eyes,” who have
kept bees all their lives, and do not know that there is a
queen, they will probably derive no special pleasure from
being compelled to believe what they have always derided
as humbug or book-knowledge; although I have seen some
beekeepers very intelligent on most matters who never seem
to have learned the first rudiments in the natural history of
the bee. Those who can not or will not learn for themselves,
or who have not the leisure or disposition to manage their
own bees, may yet with my hives entrust their care to suit-
able persons who may, at the proper time, attend to all their
wants. Practical gardeners may find the management of
bees for their employers to be quite a lucrative part of their °
profession. With but little extra labor and with great cer-
tainty they may, from time to time, do all that the prosper-
ity of the bees requires, carefully overhauling them in the
spring, making new colonies at the suitable period, if any
are wanted, giving them their surplus-honey receptacles,
and removing them when full; and, on the approach of
winter, putting all the colonies into proper condition to re-
sist its rigors. The business of the practical apiarian and
that of the gardener seem very naturally to go together;
and one great advantage of my hive and mode of manage-
ment is the ease with which they may be successfully united.

Some apiarians, after all that has been said, may still
have doubts whether the young queens leave the hive for
impregnation, or may think that the old ones occasionally
leave, even when they do not go out to lead a swarm. Such
persons may, if they choose, easily convince themselves by
256 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

the following experiments of the accuracy of my statements.
About a week after hiving a second swarm, or after the birth
of a young queen in a hive, and after she has begun to lay
eggs, open the hive and remove her; carry her a few rods
in front of the apiary, and let her fly. She will at once enter
her own hive and thus show that she has previously left it.
If, however, an old queen is removed a short time after
hiving the swarm, she will not be able to distinguish her
own hive from.any other, and will thus show that she has
not left it since the swarm was hived. If this experiment
is performed upon an old queen, in a hive in which she was
put the year before, when unimpregnated, the same result
will follow; for as she never left it after that event, she
will have lost all recollection of its relative position in the
apiary. The first of these experiments has been suggested
by Dzierzon. ;
CHAPTER XIV.

UNION OF STOCKS; TRANSFERRING BEES FROM THE COMMON
HIVE; STARTING AN APIARY,

FREQUENTLY allusions have been made to the importance,
for various reasons, of breaking up stocks and uniting them
to other families in the apiary. Colonies which, in the early
spring, are found to be queenless ought at once to be man-
aged in this way; for even if not speedily destroyed by their
enemies they are only consumers’ of the stores which they
gathered in their happier days. The same treatment should
also be extended to all that, in the fall, are found to be in
a similar condition.

As small colonies, even though possessed of a healthy
queen, are never able to winter as advantageously as large
ones, the bees from several such colonies ought to be put
together to enable them, by keeping up the necessary sup-
ply of heat, to survive the winter on a smaller supply of
food. A certain quantity of animal heat must be maintain-
ed by bees in order to live at all; and if their numbers are
too small, they can keep it up only by eating more than
they would otherwise require. A small swarm will thus
not unfrequently consume as much honey as one containing
two or three times as many bees. These are facts which have
been most thoroughly tested on a very large scale. If a
hundred persons are required to occupy, with comfort, a
church that is capable of accommodating a thousand, as
much fuel (or even more) will be required to warm the
small number as the large one.

If the stocks which are to be wintered are in the common
hives, the condemned ones must be drummed out of their
old encampment, sprinkled with sugar-water scented with
258 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

peppermint, or some other pleasant odor, and added to the
others (see p. 190). The colonies which are to be united
ought, if possible, to stand side by side some time before
this process is attempted. This can almost always be effect-
ed by a little management, for while it would not be safe to
move a colony all at once, even a few yards to the right or
left of the line of flight in which the bees sally out to the
fields (especially if other hives are near), they may be mov-
ed a slight distance one day, and a little more the next, and
so on, until we have them at last in the desired place.

As persons may sometimes be obliged to move their apia-
ries during the working season, I will here describe the way
by which I was able to accomplish such a removal so as to
benefit instead of injuring my bees. Selecting a pleasant
day I moved, early in the morning, a portion of my very best
stocks. A considerable number of bees from these colonies
returned in the course of the day to the familiar spot. After
flying about for some time in search of their hives (if the
weather had been chilly many of them would have perished)
they at length entered those standing next to their old
homes. More of the strongest were removed on the next
pleasant day; and this process was repeated till at last only
one hive was left in the old apiary. This was then removed,
and only a few bees returned to the old spot. I thus lost no
more bees in moving a number of hives than I should have
lost in moving one; and I conducted the process in such a
way as to strengthen some of my feeble stocks, instead of
very seriously diminishing their scanty numbers. I have
known the most serious losses to result from the removal of
an apiary conducted in the manner in which a change of
location is usually made.

The process of uniting colonies in my hive is exceedingly
simple. The combs may, after the two colonies are sprin-
kled, be at once lifted out from the one which is to be brok-
ken up, and put with all the bees upon them directly into
the other hive. If the apiarian judges it best to save any of
his very small colonies he ean confine them to one-half or
UNION OF STOCKS, 259

one-third of the central part of the hive, and fill the two
empty ends with straw, shavings, or any good non-conductor.
Any one of my frames can, in a few minutes, by having
tacked to it a thin piece of board or pasteboard, or even an
old newspaper, be fashioned into a divider which will an-
swer all practical purposes; and if it is stuffed with cotton
waste, etc., it will keep the bees uncommonly warm. If a
very small colony is to be preserved over winter, the queen
must be confined in the fall in a queen-cage to prevent the
colony from deserting the hive.

I shall now show how the beekeeper who wishes to keep
only a given number of stocks may do so, and yet secure
from that number the largest quantity of surplus honey.

If. his bees are kept in non-swarming hives he may un-
doubtedly reap a bounteous harvest from the avails of their
industry. I do not, however, recommend this mode of bee-
keeping as the best; still there are many so situated that it
may be far best for them. Such persons, by using my hives,
can pursue the non-swarming plan to the best advantage.
They can, by taking off the wings of their queens, be sure
that their colonies will not suddenly leave them—a casualty
to which all other non-swarming hives are sometimes liable;
and by taking away the honey in small quantities they will
always give the bees plenty of spare room for storage, and
yet avoid discouraging them, as is so often done when large
boxes are taken from them. (See chapter on Honey.)

By removing from time to time the old queens, the colo-
nies can be kept in possession of queens at the height of
their fertility, and in this way a very serious objection to
the non-swarming (or, as it is frequently called, the stori-
fying) system may be avoided. If at any time new colonies
are wanted they may be made in the manner already de-
scribed. In districts where the honey harvest is of very
short continuance, the non-swarming plan may be found
io yield the largest quantity of honey; and in case the sea-
son should prove unfavorable for the gathering of honey it
will usually seeure the largest returns from a given number
260 THE BEEKEBEPER’S MANUAL.

of stocks. I therefore prefer to keep a considerable number
of my colonies on the storifying plan, and am confident of
securing from them a good yield of honey, even in the most
unfavorable seasons. If beekeepers will pursue the same
system they will not only be on the safe side, but will be
able to determine which method it will be best for them to
adopt in order to make the most from their bees. As a
general rule, the apiarian who increases the number of his
colonies one-third in a season, making one very powerful
swarm from two (see p. 189), will have more surplus honey
from the three than he could have obtained from the two,
to say nothing of the value of his new swarms. If, at the
approach of winter, he wishes to reduce his stocks down to
the spring number, he may unite them in the manner de-
scribed, appropriating all the good honey of those which
he breaks up, and saving all their empty comb for the new
colonies of the next season. The bees in the doubled stock
will winter most admirably; will consume but little honey
in proportion to their numbers, and will be in most excel-
lent condition when the spring opens. It must not, however,
be forgotten that, although they eat comparatively little in
‘the winter, they must be well supplied in the spring, as they
‘will then have a very large number of mouths to feed, to
say nothing of the thousands of young bees bred in the hive.
If any old-fashioned beekeeper wishes, he can thus pursue
the old plan, with only this modification: that he preserves
the lives of the bees in the hives which he wishes to take up;
secures his honey without fumes of sulphur, and saves the
empty comb to make it worth nearly ten times as much to
himself as it would be if melted into wax. Let no humane
beekeeper ever feel that there is the slightest necessity for
so managing his bees as to make the comparison of Shake-
Speare always apposite:

When like the bee, toiling from every flower

The virtuous sweets;

Our thighs packed with wax, our mouths with honey,

We bring it to the hive; and, like the Lees,
Are murdered for our pains.
TRANSFERRING BEES. 261

While I am an advocate for breaking up all stocks which
can not be wintered advantageously, I never advise that a
single bee should be killed. Self-interest and humanity
alike forbid the unnecessary sacrifice.

TRANSFERRING BEES FROM THE COMMON HIVE TO THE
MOVABLE-COMB HIVE.

The construction of my hive is such as to permit me to
transfer bees from the common hives during all the season
that the weather is warm enough to: permit them to fly, and
yet to be able to guarantee that they will receive no serious
damage by the change.

On the 10th of November, 1852, in the latitude of north-
ern Massachusetts, I transferred a colony which wintered
in good health, and which now, May, 1853, promises to. make
an excellent stock. The day was warm; but after the opera-
tion was completed, the weather suddenly became cold; and
as the bees were not able to leave the hive in order to obtain
the water necessary for repairing their comb they were
supplied with that indispensable article. They went to work
very busily, and in a short time mended up their combs and
attached them firmly to the frames.

The transfer may be made of any healthy colony; and if
they are strong in numbers, and the hive is well provisioned,
and the weather is not too cool when the operation is at-
tempted, they will scarcely feel the change. If the weather
should be too chilly it will be found almost impossible to
make a colony leave its old hive; and if the combs are cut
out, and the bees removed upon them, large numbers of them
will take wing, and, becoming chilled, will be unable to join
their companions, and so will perish. ,

The process of transferring bees to my hives is performed
as follows: Let the old hive be shut up and well drummed ;*
and the bees, if possible, be driven into an upper box. If
they will not leave the hive of their own accord they will

* Instead of using sticks, I much prefer to make the drumming with
the open palms of my hands.
262 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

fill themselves; and when it is ascertained that they are de-
termined, if they can help it, not to be tenants at will, the
upper box must be removed and the bees gently sprinkled,
so that they may be sure to have nothing done to them on an
empty stomach. If possible, an end of the old box parallel
with the combs must be pried off so that they may be easily
eut out. An old hive or box should stand upon a sheet in
place of the removed stock; and as fast as a comb is eut out-
the bees should be shaken from it, upon the sheet. A wing
or any thing soft will often be of service in brushing off the
bees. Remember that they must not be hurt. If the weather
is so pleasant that many bees from other hives are on the
wing, great care must be taken to prevent them from rob-
bing. As fast, therefore, as the bees are shaken from the
combs, these should be put into an empty hive or box and
covered with a cloth, or set in some place where they will
not be disturbed. As soon as all the combs have been
removed, the apiarian should proceed to select and ar-
range them for his new hive. If the transfer is made late
in the season, care must be taken, of course, to give the bees
combs containing a generous allowance of honey for their
winter supplies, together with such combs as have brood or
are best fitted for the rearing of workers. All coarse combs
except such as contain the honey which they need should be
rejected. Lay a frame upon a piece of comb, and mark it
‘so as to be able to cut it a trifle larger, so that it will just
crowd into the frame, to remain in its place until the bees
have time to attach it. If the size of the combs is such that
some of them can not be cut so as to fit, then cut them to
the best advantage, and, after putting them into the frames,
wind some thread around the upper and lower slats of the
frame so as to hold the combs in their place until the bees
ean fasten them. If, however, any of the combs which do
not fit have no honey in them they may be fastened very
easily by dipping their upper edges into melted rosin. When
the requisite number of combs are put into the frames they
should be placed in the new hive, and slightly fastened on
TRANSFERRING BEES. 263

the rabbeis with a mere touch of paste, so as to hold them
firmly in their places. This will be the more necessary if
the transfer is made so late in the season that the bees can
not obtain the propolis necessary to fasten them themselves.

As soon as the hive is thus prepared, let the temporary
box into which the bees have been driven be removed and
their new home put in its place. Shake out now the bees
- from the box, upon a sheet in front of this hive, and the
work is done. Bees, brood, honey, bee-bread, empty combs,
and all, have been nicely moved, and without any more
serious loss than is often incurred by any other moving
family which has to mourn over some broken crockery or
othér damage done in the necessary work of establishing
themselves ina new home. If this operation is performed
at a season of the year when there is much brood in the hive,
and when the weather is cool, care must be taken not to
expose the brood so that it may become fatally chilled.

The best time for performing it is late in the fall when
there is but little brood in the hive, or about ten days after
the voluntary or forced departure of a first swarm from
the old stock. By this time the brood left’ by the old queen
will all be sealed over, and old enough to bear exposure,
especially as the weather at swarming time is usually quite
warm. A temperature not lower than 70 degrees will do
them no harm; for if-exposed to such a ane they
will hatch, even if taken from the bees.

I have spoken of the best time for performing this opera-
tion. It may be done at any season of the year when the
bees can fly without any danger of being chilled; and I
should not be afraid to attempt it in mid-winter if the
weather is as warm as it sometimes is. Let me here ear-
nestly caution all who keep bees against meddling with them
when ‘the weather is cool. Irreparable mischief is often
done to them at such times. They are tempted to fly, and
thus perish from the cold, and frequently they become so
much excited that they can not’ retain their feeces, but void
them among the combs. If nothing worse ensues they are
264 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL,

disturbed when they ought to be in almost deathlike repose,
and are thus tempted to eat a much larger quantity of food
than they would otherwise have needed. Let the apiarian
remember that not a single unnecessary motion should be
required of a single bee; for all this, to say nothing else,
involves a foolish waste of food. (See p. 104.)

In all operations involving the transferring of bees it is
exceedingly desirable that the new hives to which they are
transferred be put, as nearly as possible, where the old ones
stood. If other colonies are in immediate proximity the
bees may be tempted to enter the wrong hives if their posi-
tion is changed only a little. They are almost sure to do
this if the others resemble more closely than the new one their
former habitation. It will be often advisable to transport
to the distance of one or two miles the stocks which are to
be transferred, so that the operation may be performed to
the best advantage. In a few weeks they may be brought
back to the apiary. In hiving swarms and transferring
stocks care must be taken to prevent the bees from getting
mired with those of other colonies. If this precaution is
neglected many bees will be lost by joining other stocks,
where they may be kindly welcomed, or may at once be put
to death. It is exceedingly difficult to tell beforehand what
kind of reception strange bees will meet -with from a colony
which they attempt to join. In the working season they are
much more likely to be well received than at any other time,
especially if they come loaded with honey. Still, new
swarms full of honey, that attempt to enter other hives, are
often killed at once. If a colony which has an unimpreg-
nated queen seeks to unite with another which has a fertile
one, then almost as a matter of course they are destroyed.
If by moving their hive, or in any other way, bees are made
to enter a hive containing an unimpregnated queen, they
will often destroy her if they came from a family which
was in possession of a fertile one. If any thing of this kind
is ever attempted, the queen ought first to be confined in a
queen-cage. If, while attempting a transfer of the bees to
TRANSFERRING BEES. 265

a new hive, I am apprehensive of robbers attacking the
combs, or am pressed for want of time, I put only such
combs as contain brood into the frames, and set the others
in a safe place. The bees are now at once allowed to enter
their new hive, and the other combs are given to them at a
more convenient time. The whole process of transferal need
not occupy more than an hour, and in some cases it can be
done in fifteen minutes. If the weather is hot, the combs
must not be exposed at all to the heat of the sun.

Until I had tested the feasibility of transferring bees from
the old hives by means of my frames I felt strongly opposed
to any attempt to dislodge them from their previous habi-
tation. If they are transferred in the usual way it must
be done when the combs are filled with brood; for if delayed
until late in the season they will have no time to lay in a
store of provision against the winter. Who can look with-
out disgust upon the wanton destruction of thousands of
their young, and the silly waste of comb, which can be re-
placed only by the consumption of large quantities of hon-
ey? In the great majority of such cases the transfer, unless
made about the swarming season, and previous to the issue
of the first swarm, will be an entire failure; and if made
before, at best: only one colony is obtained, instead of the
two which are secured on my plan. I never advise the trans-
fer of a colony into any hive unless their combs can be
transferred with them, nor do I advise any except practical
apiarians to’attempt to transfer them even to my hives.
But what if a colony is so old that its combs can breed only
dwarfs? When I find such a colony I shall think it worth
while to give specific directions as to how it should be man-
aged. The truth is, that of all the many mistakes and im-
positions which have disgusted multitudes with the very
sound of “ patented hive,” none has been more fatal than
the notion that an old colony of bees could not be expected
to prosper. Thousands of the very best stocks have been
wantonly sacrificed to this chimera; and so long as beekeep-
ers, instead of studying the habits of the bee, prefer to listen
266 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

to the interested statements of ignorant or enthusiastic or
fraudulent persons, thousands more will suffer the same
fate. As to old stocks, the prejudice against them is just
as foolish as the silly notions of some who imagine that a
woman is growing old long before she has reached her prime.
Many a man of mature years who has married a girl or a
child, instead of a woman, has often had both time enough
and cause enough to lament his folly.

It can not be too strongly urged upon all who keep bees,
either for love or for money, to be exceedingly cautious in
trying any new hive or new system of management. If you
are ever so well satisfied that it will answer all your expec-
tations, enter upon it at first on only a small scale; then,
if it fulfills all its promises, or if you can make it do so, you
may safely adopt it; at all events, you will not have to
mourn over large sums of money spent for nothing, and
numerous powerful colonies entirely destroyed. “Let well
enough alone” should, to a great extent, be the motto of
every prudent beekeeper. There is, however, a golden mean
between that obstinate and stupid conservatism which tries
nothing new, and, of course, learns nothing new, and that
craving after mere novelty, and that rash experimenting
on an extravagant scale which is so characteristic of a large
portion of our American people. It would be difficult to
find a better maxim than that which is ascribed to David
Crockett: “ Be sure you’re right, then go ahead.”

What old beekeeper has not had abundant proof that
stocks eight or ten years old, or even older, are often among
the very best in his whole apiary, always healthy, and
swarming with almost unfailing regularity! I have seen
sich hives, which, for more than fifteen years, have scarcel;
failed, a single season, to throw a powerful swarm. I have
one now ten years old, in admirable condition, which, a few
years ago, swarmed three times, and the first swarm sent
off a colony the same season. All these swarms were so early
that they gathered ample supplies of honey and wintered
without any assistance.
STARTING AN APIARY. 267

I have already spoken of old stocks flourishing for a long
term of years in hives of the roughest possible construction ;
and I shall now in addition to my previous remarks assign
a new reason for such unusual prosperity. Without a single
exception I have found one or both of two things to be true
of every such hive. Either it was a very large hive, or else,
if not of unusual size, it contained a large quantity of work-
er comb. No hive which does not contain a good allowance
of regular comb of a size adapted to the rearing of workers
can ever, in the nature of things, prove a valuable stock
hive. Many hives are so full of drone combs that they
breed a cloud of useless consumers, instead of the thousands.
of industrious bees which ought to have occupied their places.
in the combs. It frequently happens that, when bees are
put into a new hive, the honey-harvest is at its height; and
the bees, finding it difficult to build worker comb fast enough
to hold their gatherings, are tempted to construct long
ranges of drone comb to receive their stores. In this way
a hive often contains so small an allowance of worker-comb:
that it can never flourish, as the bees refuse to pull down
and build over any of their old combs. All this can be
easily remedied by the use of the movable-comb hive.

PROCURING BEES TO START AN APIARY.

A person ignorant of bees must depend in a very great
measure on the honesty of those from whom he purchases.
them. Many stocks are not worth accepting as a gift. Like
a horse or cow incurably diseased they will only prove a bill
of vexatious expense. If an inexperienced person wishes
to commence beekeeping I advise him by all means to pur-
chase a new swarm of bees. It ought to be a large and
early one. Second swarms and all late and small first
swarms ought never to be purchased by one who has had
no experience in apiarian pursuits. They are very apt, in.
such hands, to prove a failure. If all beekeepers were of
that exemplary class of whom the Country Curate speaks
268 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

(see p. 31) it would be perfectly safe to order a swarm of
any one keeping a stock of bees. This, however, is so far
from being true that some offer for sale old stocks which
are worthless, or impose, on the ignorant, small first swarms
and second and even third swarms as prime swarms worth
the very highest market price. If the novice purchases an
old stock he will have the perplexities of swarming, ete., the
first season, and before he has obtained any experience.
As it may, however, be sometimes advisable that this be done,
unless he makes his purchase of a man known to be honest
he should select his stock himself at a period of the day
when the bees in early spring are busily engaged in plying
their labors. He should purchase a colony which is very
actively engaged in carrying in bee-bread, and which, from
the large number going in and out, undoubtedly contains a
vigorous population. The hive should be removed at an
hour when the bees are all at home. It may be gently in-
verted and a coarse towel placed over it, and then tacked
fast when the bees are shut in. Have a steady horse; and
before you start be very sure that it is impossible for ‘any
bees to get out. Place the hive on some straw, in a wagon
that has easy springs, and the bees will have plenty of air,
and the combs, from the inverted position of the hive, will
not be so liable to be jarred loose. Never purchase a hive
which contains much comb just built; for it will be next
to impossible to move it in warm weather, without loosen-
ing the new combs. If a new swarm is purchased it may be
brought home as follows: Furnish the person on whose
premises it is to be hived with a box holding, at the very
least, a cubic foot of clear contents. Let the bottom-board
of this temporary hive be clamped on both ends, the clamps
being about two inches wider than the thickness of the
board, so that, when the hive is set on the bottom-board, it
will slip in between the upper projections of the clamps,
and be kept an inch from the ground by the lower ones, so
that air may pass under it. There should be a hole in the
bottom-board, about four inches in diameter, and two of
STARTING AN APIARY. 269

the same size in the opposite sides of the box, covered with
wire gauze, so that the bees may have an abundance of air
when they are shut up. Three parallel strips, an inch and
a half wide, should be nailed about one-third of the way
from the top of the temporary hive, at equal distances apart,
so that the bees may have every opportunity to cluster. A
few pieces of old comb, fastened strongly in the top with
melted rosin, will make the bees like it all the better. A
handle made of a strip of leather should be nailed on the
top. Let the bees be hived in this box, and kept well shaded.
At evening, or very early next morning, the temporary hive
which was propped up when the bees were put into it may
be shut close to its bottom-board, and a few screws put into
the upper projection of the clamps so as to run through
into the ends of the box. In such a box, bees may be safely
transported almost any reasonable distance, care being taken
not to handle them roughly, and never to keep them in the
sun nor in any place where they have not sufficient air. If
the box is too small, or sufficient ventilators are not put in,
or if the bees are exposed to too much heat, they will be sure
to suffocate. If the swarm is unusually large, and the weath-
er excessively warm, they ought to be moved at night. ‘Un-
less great care is taken in moving bees in very hot weather
they will be almost sure to perish; therefore always be cer-
tain that they have an abundance of air. If they appear
to be suffering for want of it, especially if they begin to
fall down from the cluster, and to lie in heaps on the bot-
tom-board, they should immediately be carried into a field
or any convenient place, and at once be allowed to fly. In
such a case they can not be safely moved again until toward
night. This will never be necessary if the box is large
enough and suitably ventilated.

I have frequently made a box for transporting new
swarms out of an old tea-chest. When a new swarm is
brought in this way to its intended home the bottom-board
may be unscrewed and the bees transferred at once to the
new hive (see p. 151). In some cases it may be advisable
270 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

to send away the new hive. In this case, if one of my hives
is used the spare honey-board should be serewed down and
all the holes carefully stopped except two or three which
ought to have some ventilators tacked over them. The frames
should be fastened with a little paste so that they will not
start from their place; and after the bees are hived, the
blocks which close the entrance should be screwed down to
their place, keeping them, however, a trifle less than an
eighth of an inch from the entrance, so as to give the bees
all the dir they need. I very much prefer sending a box for
the bees. One person can easily carry two such boxes, each
with a swarm of bees; and if he chooses to fasten them to
two poles, or to a very large hoop, he may carry four or
even more.

If the apiarian wishes to be sure the first season of getting
some honey from his bees he will do well to procure two
good swarms and put them both into one hive. (See p. 190.)
To those who do not object to the extra expense, I strongly
recommend this course. Not infrequently they will, in a
good season, obtain in spare honey from their doubled
‘swarm an ample equivalent for its increased cost. At all
events, such a powerful swarm lays the foundation of a
flourishing stock which seldom fails to answer all the reason-
able expectations of its owner. If the apiary is commenced
with swarms of the current season, and they have an abun-
dance of spare room in the upper boxes, there will be no
swarming that season, and the beginner will have ample
time to make himself familiar with his bees before being
called to hive new swarms or to multiply colonies by artifi-
cial means.

Let no inexperienced person commence beekeeping: on a
large scale. Very few who do.so find it to their advantage,
and the most of them not only meet with heavy losses but
abandon the pursuit in disgust. ‘By the use of my hives
the beekeeper can easily multiply very rapidly the number
of his colonies as soon as he finds not merely that money
can be made by keeping bees, but that he can make it. While
STARTING AN APIARY. 271

I am certain that more money can be made by a careful and
experienced beekeeper in a good situation, from a given sum
invested in an apiary than from the same money invested
in any other branch of rural economy, I am equally certain
that there is none in which a careless or inexperienced per-
son would be more sure to find his outlay result in an almost
entire loss. An apiary neglected or mismanaged is far worse
than a farm overgrown with weeds or exhausted by ignorant
tillage; for the land is still there, and may, by prudent man-
agement, soon be made again to blossom like the rose; but
the bees, when once destroyed, can never be brought back to
life unless the poetie fables of the Mantuan Bard can be
accepted as the legitimate results of actual experience, and
swarms of bees, instead of clouds of filthy flies, can once
more be obtained from the carcasses of decaying animals!
I have seen an old medical work in which Virgil’s method of
obtaining colonies of bees from the putrid body of a cow
slain for this special purpose is not only credited but mi-
nutely described.

A large book would hardly suffice to set forth all the
superstitions connected with bees. I will refer to one which
is very common, and which has often made a deep impres-
sion upon many minds. When any member of a family
dies the bees are believed to be aware of what has happened,
and the hives are by some dressed in mourning to pacify
(heir sorrowing occupants! Some persons imagine that, if
this‘is not done, the bees will never afterward prosper;
while others assert that the bees often take their loss so
much to heart as to alight upon the coffin whenever it is ex-
posed! An intelligent clergyman, on reading the sheets of
this work, stated to me that he had always refused to credit
this latter fact until present at a funeral where the bees
gathered in such large numbers upon the coffin, as soon as
it was brought out from the house, as to excite considerable
alarm. Some years after this occurrence, being engaged
in varnishing a table, and finding that the bees came and lit
upon it, he was convinced that the love of varnish (see p.
272 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

77) instead of sorrow or respect for the dead was the occa-
sion of their gathering around the coffin. How many super-
stitions in which often intelligent persons most firmly
confide might, if all the facts were known, be as easily ex-
plained. ,

Before closing this chapter I must again strongly caution
all inexperienced beekeepers against attempting to transfer
colonies from an old hive. I am determined that, if any find
they have made a wanton sacrifice of their bees, they shall
not impute their loss to my directions. If they persist in
making the attempt, let them by all means either do it at
break of day, before the bees of other hives will be induced
to commence robbing, or, better still, let them do it not only
early in the morning, but let them carry the hive on which
they intend to operate to a very considerable distance from
the vicinity of the other hives, and entirely out of sight of
the apiary. I prefer myself this last plan, as I then run
no risk of attracting other bees to steal the honey and ac-
quire mischievous habits.

The beekeeper is very often reminded by the actions of
his bees of some of the worst traits in poor human nature.
When a man begins to sink under misfortunes, how many
are ready not simply to abandon him, but to pounce upon
him like greedy harpies, dragging, if they can, the very bed
from under his wife and helpless children, and appropriat-
ing all which, by any kind of maneuvering, they can possibly
transfer to their already overgrown coffers! With much
the same spirit (more pardonable, to be sure, in an insect)
the bees from other hives will gather around the one which
is being broken up, and, while the disconsolate owners are
lamenting over their ruined prospects, will, with all imagin-
able rapacity and glee, bear off every drop which they can
possibly seize.
CHAPTER XV.
ROBBING.

BEES are exceedingly prone to rob each other; and unless
suitable precautions are used to prevent it, the apiarian will
often have cause to mourn over the ruin of some of his most
promising stocks. The moment a departure is made from
the old-fashioned mode of managing bees, the liability to
such misfortunes is increased unless all operations are per-
formed by careful and well-informed persons.

Before describing the precautions which I successfuily
employ to guard my colonies from robbing each other or
from being robbed by bees from a strange apiary, I shall
first explain under what circumstances they are ordinarily
disposed to plunder each other. Idleness is with bees, as
well as with men, a most fruitful mother of mischief. Hence
it is almost always when they are doing nothing in the fields
that they are tempted to increase their stores by dishonest
courses. Bees are, however, much more excusable than the
lazy rogues of the human family; for the bees are idle, not
because they are indisposed to work, but because they can
find nothing to do. Unless there is some gross mismanage-
ment on the part of their owner they seldom attempt to live
upon stolen sweets when they have ample opportunity to
reap the abundant harvests of honest industry. In this
chapter I shall be obliged, however much against my will,
to acknowledge that some branches of morals in my little
friends need very close watching, and that they too often
make the lowest sort of distinction between “mine and
thine.” Still-I feel bound to show that, when thus overcome
with temptation, it is almost always under circumstances in
which their careless owner is by far the most to blame.
271 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

Tn the spring, as soon as the bees are able to fly abroad,
“innatus urget amor habendi,” as Virgil has expressed it;
that is, they begin to feel the force of an innate love of
honey-getting. They can find nothing in the fields, and they
begin at once to see if they can not appropriate the spoils
of some weaker hive. They are often impelled to this by
the pressure of immediate want or the salutary dread of
approaching famine; but truth obliges me to confess that
not unfrequently some of the strongest stocks, which have
more than they would be able to consume, even if they gath-
ered nothing more for a whole year, are the most anxious to
prey upon the meager possessions of some feeble colony—
just like some rich men who have more money than they
can ever use, and, urged on by the insatiable love of gain,
“ oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fa-
therless,” and spin on all sides their crafty webs to entrap
their poorer neighbors who seldom escape from their toils
until every dollar has been extracted from them, and, as
far as their worldly goods are concerned, they resemble the
skins and skeletons which line the nest of some voracious old
spider.

When I have seen some powerful hive of the kind just
described condemned by its owner in the fall to the sulphur-
pit, or deprived unexpectedly of its queen, its stores plun-
dered, and its combs eaten up by the worms, I have often
thought of the threatenings which God has denouneed
against those who make dishonest gains “ their hope, and
say unto the fine gold, Thou art my confidence.”

In order to prevent colonies from attempting to rob, I
always examine them in the spring to ascertain that they
have honey and are in possession of a fertile queen. If they
need food they are supplied with it (see chapter on Feed-
ing); and if they are feeble or queenless, they are managed
according to the directions previously given. Bees seem to
have an instinctive perception of the weakness of a colony,
and, like the bee-moth, they are almost certain to attack such
stocks, especially when they have no queen. Hence I can
ROBBING. 275

almost always tell that a colony is queenless by seeing rob-
bers constantly attempting to force an entrance into it.

It requires some knowledge of the habits of bees to tell
from their motions whether they are flying about a strange
hive with some evil intent or whether they belong to the
hive before which they are hovering. A little experience,
however, will soon enable us to discriminate between the
honest inhabitants of a hive and the robbers which so often
mingle themselves among the crowd. There is an unmis-
takable air of roguery about a thieving bee which, to the
observing apiarian, proclaims the nature of his calling just
as truly as the appearance of a pickpocket in a crowd en-
ables the experienced police officer to distinguish him from
the honest folks on whom he intends to exercise his skill.

There is a certain sneaking look about a rogue of a bee,
almost indescribable and yet perfectly obvious. It does
not alight on the hive, and boldly enter at once like an
honest bee which is carrying home its load. If they could
only assume such an appearance of transparent honesty they
would often be allowed by the unsuspecting doorkeepers to
enter unquestioned to see all the sights within, and to help
themselves to the very fat of the land. But there is a sort
of nervous haste and guilty agitation in all their movements;
they never alight boldly upon the entrance board nor face
the guards which watch the passage to the hive. They know
too well that, if caught and overhauled by these trusty
guardians of the hive, their lives would hardly be worth
insuring; hence their anxiety to glide in without touching
one of the sentinels. If detected, as they have no password
to give (having a strange smell) they are very speedily dealt
with according to their just deserts. If they can only effect
a secret entrance, those within take it for granted that all
is right, and seldom subject them to a close examination.

Sometimes bees which have lost their way are mistaken
by the inexperienced for robbers. There is, however, a most
marked distinction between the conduct of the two. The
arrant rogue when caught atttempts with might and main
276 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

to pull away from his executioners, while the poor bewilder-
ed unfortunate shrinks into the smallest compass, like a
cowed dog, and submits to whatever fate his captors may see
fit to award him.

The class of dishonest bees which I have been describing
may be termed the “Jerry Sneaks” of their profession;
and after they have followed it for some time they lose all
disposition for honest pursuits and assume a hang-dog sort
of look which is very peculiar. Constantly employed in
creeping into small holes, and daubing themselves with hon-.
ey, they often lose all the bright feathers and silky plumes
which once so beautifully adorned their bodies, and assume
a smooth and almost black appearance, just as the hat of
the thievish loafer acquires a “seedy ” aspect, and his gar-
ments a shining and threadbare look. Dzierzon is of opinion
that the black bees which Huber describes as being so bitter-
ly persecuted by the rest are nothing more than these thiev-
ing bees. I call them old convicts dressed in prison gar-
ments, and incurably given up to dishonest pursuits.

Bees sometimes act the part of highway robbers. Some
half dozen or more of them will waylay and attack a poor
bumblebee which is returning with a sac full of honey to
his nest, like an honest trader jogging home with a well-
filled purse. They seize the poor bee and give him at once
to understand that they must have the earnings of his in-
dustry. They do not slay him. Oh, no! they are much too
selfish to endanger their own precious persons; and even if
they could kill him without losing their weapons they would
still be unable to extract his sweets from the deep recesses
of his honey-bag; they therefore begin to bite and tease him,
after the most approved fashion, all the time singing in his
ears, “not your money,” but, “your honey or your life;”
until, utterly discouraged, he delivers up his purse by dis-
gorging his honey from its capacious receptacle. The grace-
less creatures ery “ hands off,” and release him at once, while
they lick up his spoils and earry it off to their home.
ROBBING. 277

The remark is frequently made that, were rogues to spend
half as much time and ingenuity in gaining an honest living
as they do in seeking to impose upon their fellow-men, their
efforts would often be crowned with abundant success. Just
so of many a dishonest bee. If it only knew its true inter-
ests it would be safely roving the smiling fields in search of
honey instead of longing for a tempting and yet dangerous
taste of forbidden sweets.

Bees sometimes carry on their depredations on a more
magnificent scale. Having ascertained the weakness of
some neighboring colony through the sly intrusions of those
who have entered the hive to spy out all “the nakedness of
the land,” they prepare themselves for war in the shape of
a pitched battle. The well-armed warriors sally out by
thousands to attack the feeble hive against which they have
so unjustly declared a remorseless warfare. A furious onset
is at once made, and the ground in front of the assaulted
hive is soon covered with the dead and dying bodies of in-
numerable victims. Sometimes the baffled invaders are com-
pelled to sound a retreat; too often, however, as in human
contests, right proves but a feeble barrier against superior
might; the citadel is stormed, and the work of rapine and
pillage forthwith begins. And yet, after all, matters are
not nearly as bad as at first they seem to be. The conquered
bees, perceiving that there is no hope for them in main-
taining the unequal struggle, submit themselves to the pleas-
ure of the victors; nay, more—they aid them in carrying off
their own stores, and are immediately incorporated into the
triumphant nation! The poor mother, however, is left be-
hind in her deserted home, some few of her children which
are faithful to the last remaining with her, to perish by her
side amid the sad ruins of their once happy home!

If the beekeeper is unwilling to have his bees so demor-
alized that their value will be seriously diminished, he will
be exceedingly careful to do all that he possibly can to
prevent them from robbing each other. He will see that all
queenless colonies are seasonably broken up in the spring,
278 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

and all weak ones strengthened, and confined to a space
which they can warm and defend. If once his bees get a
taste of forbidden sweets they will seldom stop until they
have tested the strength of every stock and destroyed all
that they possibly can. Even if the colonies are able to
defend themselves, many bees wil] be lost in these encounters,
and a large waste of time will invariably follow; for bees,
whether engaged in attempting to rob or in battling against
the robbery of-others, are, to a very great extent, cut off both
from the disposition and the ability to engage in useful
labors. They are like nations that are impoverished by
mutual assaults on each other, or in which the apprehension
of war exerts a most blighting influence upon every branch
of peaceful industry.

I place very great reliance on the movable blocks which
guard the entrance to my hive to assist colonies in defend-
ing themselves against robbing bees as well as the prowling
bee-moth. These blocks are triangular in shape, and enable
the apiarian to enlarge or contract the entrance to the hive
at pleasure. In the spring the entrance is kept open only
about two inches; and if the colony is feeble, not more than
half an inch. If there is any sign of robbers being about,
the small colonies have their entrances closed, so that only
a single bee can go in an out at once. As the bottom-board
slants forward the entrance is onan inclined plane, and the
bees which defend it have a very great advantage over those
which attack them—the same, in short, that the inhabitants
of a besieged fortress would have in defending a passway
similarly constructed. As only one bee can enter at a time,
he is sure to be overhauled if he attempts ever so slyly to
slip in. His credentials are roughly demanded; and as he
ean produce none he is at once delivered over to the execu-
tioners. If an attempt is made to gain admission by force,
then, as soon as a bee gets in, he finds hundreds if not thou.
sands standing in battle array, and he meets with a recep-
tion altogether too warm for his comfort. I have sometimes
stopped robbing, even after it had proceeded so far that the
ROBBING. 279

assaulted bees had ceased to offer any successful resistance,
by putting my blocks before the entrance and permitting
only a single bee to enter at once. The dispirited colony
have at once recovered heart, and have battled so stoutly and
successfully as to beat off their assailants.

When bees are engaged in robbing a hive they will often
continue their depredations to as late an hour as possible,
and not unfrequently some of them return home so late
with their ill-gotten spoils that they can not find the entrance
to their own hive. Like the wicked man who “ deviseth
mischief on his bed, and setteth himself in a way that is not
good,” they are all night long meditating new violence, and
with the very first peep of light they sally out to complete
their unlawful doings.

Sometimes the apiarian may be in doubt whether a colony
is being robbed or not, and may mistake the busy numbers
that arrive and depart for the honest laborers of the hive;
but let him look into the matter a little more closely and he’
will soon ascertain the true state of the case. The bees that
enter, instead of being heavily laden, with bodies hanging
down, unwieldy in their flight and slow in all their move-
ments, are almost as hungry-looking as Pharaoh’s lean kine,
while those that come out show by their burly looks that,
like aldermen who have dined at the expense of the city,
they are filled to their utmost capacity.

If the apiarian wishes to guard his bees against the fatal
propensity to plunder each other he must be exceedingly
careful not to have any combs filled with honey unnecessa-
rily exposed. An ignorant or careless person attempting to
multiply colonies on my plan will be almost sure to tempt
his bees to rob each other. If he leaves any of the combs
which he removes so that strange bees find them they will,
after once getting a taste of the honey, fly to any hive upon
which he begins to operate and attempt to appropriate a
part of its contents. (See p. 271.) I have already stated
that, when they can find an abundance of food in the fields,
bees are seldom inclined to rob; for this reason, with proper
280 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANDAL.

precautions, it is not difficult to perform all the operations
which are necessary on wy plan of management at the prop-
er season without any danger of demoralizing the bees. If,
however, they are attempted. when honey can not be obtained
they should be performed with extreme caution, and early
in the morning or late in the evening; or, if possible, on a
day when the bees are not flying out from their hives. I
have sometimes seen the most powerful colonies in an apiary
either robbed and destroyed or very greatly reduced in num-
bers by the gross carelessness or ignorance of their owner.
He neglects to examine his hives at the proper season, and
the bees begin to rob a weak or queenless stock. As soon
as they are at the very height of their nefarious operations
he attempts to interfere with their proceedings either by
shutting up the hive or by moving it to a new place. The
air is now filled with greedy and disappointed bees, and,
rather than fail in obtaining the expected treasures, they
assail with almost frantic desperation some of the neighbor-
ing stocks. In this way the most powerful colonies are
sometimes utterly ruined; or, if they escape, thousands of
bees are slain in defending their treasures, and thousands
more of the assailants meet with the same untimely end.

If the apiarian perceives that one of his colonies is being
robbed, he should at once contract the entrance so that only
a single bee can get in at a time; and if the robbers still
persist in entering he must close it entirely. In a few min-
utes the outside of the hive will be black with the greedy
cormorants, and they will not abandon it until they have
explored every crevice and attempted to force themselves
through even the smallest openings. Before they assail a
neighboring colony they should be sprinkled with cold water,
and then, instead of feeling courage for new crimes, they
will be glad to escape, thoroughly drenched, to their proper
homes. Unless the bees that are shut up can, as in my hives,
have an abundanee of air, it will be necessary to carry them
at once into a dark and cool place. Early next morning the
condition of the hive should be examined and the proper
ROBBING. 281

remedies, if it is weak or queenless, should be applied; or
if its condition is past remedy, it should at once be broken
up and the bees united to another stock.

I have been credibly informed of an exceedingly curious
kind of robbing among bees. Two colonies, both in good
condition, seemed determined to appropriate each other’s
labors. Neither made any resistance to the entrance of the
plundering bees; but each seemed too busily intent upon its
own dishonest gains to notice* that the work of subtraction
kept pace with that of addition. An intelligent apiarian
stated to me this singular fact as oceurring in his own apia-
ry. This is a very near approximation to the story of the
Kilkenny cats. Alas that there should be so much of equally
short-sighted policy among human beings—individuals, com-
munities, and nations seeking often to thrive by attempting
to prey upon the labors of others instead of doing all that
they can, by industry and enterprise, to add to the common
stock! I have never, in my own experience, met with an
instance of such silly pilfering as the one described; but I
have occasionally known bees to be carrying on their labors
while others were stealing more than the occupants of the
hive were gathering, without their being aware of it.

* The bees in each colony had probably contracted the same smell, and
could not distinguish friends from foes.
CHAPTER XVI

DIRECTIONS FOR FEEDING BEES.

Few things in the practical department of the apiary are
more important and yet more shamefully neglected or
grossly mismanaged than the feeding of bees. In order to
make this subject as clear as possible I shall begin with the
spring examination of the hives and furnish suitable dires-
tions for feeding during the whole season in which it ought
to be attempted. In the movable-comb hives the exact con-
dition of the bees with regard to stores may be easily ascer-
tained as soon as the weather is warm enough to lift out the
frames. In the common hives. this ean sometimes be ascer-
tained from the glass sides; but often no reliable informa-
tion can be obtained. Even if the weight of the hive is
known, this will be no sure criterion of the quantity of honey
it contains. The comb in old hives is often very thick, and,
of course, unusually heavy; while vast stores of useless bee-
bread have frequently been accumulated which entirely de-
ceive the apiarian who attempts to judge of the resources
of a hive from its weight alone. On my system of bee cul-
ture, such an injurious surplus of bee-bread is easily pre-
vented. (See p. 92.)

If the beekeeper ascertains or even suspects, in the spring,
that his bees have not sufficient food he must at once supply
them with what they need. Bees, at this season of the year,
consume a large quantity of honey. They are stimulated to
great activity by the returning warmth, and are, therefore,
compelled to eat much more than when they were almost
dormant among their combs. In addition to this extra de-
mand they are now engaged in rearing thousands of young,
and all these require a liberal supply of food. Owing to the
FEEDING. 283

inexcusable neglect of many beekeepers, thousands of
swarms perish annually after the spring has opened, and
when they might have been saved with but little trouble or
expense. Such abominable neglect is incomparably more
eruel than the old method of taking up the bees with sul-
phur; and those who are guilty of it are either too ignorant
or too careless to have any thing to do with the management
of bees. What would be thought of a farmer’s skill in ‘his
business who should negelct to provide for the wants of his
cattle and allow them to drop down lifeless in their stalls
or in his barn-yard when the fields, in a few weeks, will be
clothed again with the green mantle of delightful spring?
If any farmer should do this, when food might easily be
purchased, and should then, while engaged in the work of
skinning the skeleton carcasses of his neglected herd, pre-
tend that he could not afford to furnish, for a few weeks,
the food which would have kept them alive, he would not be
a whit more stupid than the beekeeper attempting to justify
himself on the score of economy while engaged in melting
down the combs of a hive starved to death after the spring
has fairly opened! Let such a person blush at the pretense
that he could not afford to feed his bees the few pounds of
sugar or honey which would have saved their lives and en-
abled them to repay him tenfold for his prudent care.

I always feed my bees a little, even if I know that they
have enough and to spare. There seems to be an intimate
connection between the getting of honey and the rapid in-
crease of breeding in a hive; and the taste of something
sweet, however small, to be added to their hoards, exerts a
very stimulating effect upon the bees. A few spoonfuls a
day will be gratefully received, and will be worth much more
to a stock of bees in the spring than at any other time.

By judicious early feeding, a whole apiary may be not
only encouraged to breed much faster than they otherwise
would have done, but they will be inspired with unusual
vigor and enterprise, and will afterward increase their
stores with unusual rapidity. Great caution must be exer-
284 - THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

cised in supplying bees at this time with food, both to pre-
vent them from being tempted to rob each other or to fill up
with honey the cells which ought to be supplied with brood.
Only a small allowance should be given to them, and this
from time to time, unless they are destitute of supplies; and
as soon as they begin to gather from the fields the feeding
should be discontinued. Feeding, intended merely to en-
courage the bees, and to promote early breeding, may be
done in the open air. No greater mistake can be made than
to feed largely at this season of the year. The bees take,
to be sure, all that they can, and stow it up in their cells;
but what is the consequence? The honey which has been
fed to them fills up their brood-combs, and the increase of
population is most seriously interfered with; so that often,
when stocks which have not been overfed are prepared not
only to fill all the store combs in their main hive, but to take
speedy possession of the spare honey-boxes, a colony im-
prudently fed is too small in numbers to gather even as
much as the one which was not fed at all! The inexperienc-
ed apiarian has thus often made a worse use of his honey
than he would have done if he had actually thrown it away!
while all the time he is deluding himself with the vain ex-
pectation of reaping some wonderful profits from what he
considers an improved mode of managing bees.

Such conduet in its results appears to me very much like
the noxious influences under which too many of the children
of the rich are so fatally reared. With every want gratified,
pampered, and fed to the very full, how often do we see
them disappoint all the fond expectations of parents and
friends, their money proving only a curse, while, not unfre-
quently beggared in purse and bankrupt in character, they
prematurely sink to an ignoble or dishonored grave. Think
of it, ye who are slaving in the service of Mammon, that ye
may leave to your sons the overgrown wealth which usually
proves a legacy of withering curses while you neglect to
train them up in those habits of stern morality and steady
industry and noble self-reliance, without which the wealth
FEEDING. 285

of Croesus would be but a despicable portion! Think of it,
as you contrast its results in the bitter experience of thou-’
sands with the happier influences under which so many of
our noblest men in church and state have been nurtured and
developed, and then pursue your sordid policy if you can.
“ There is that withholdeth ” from good objects “ more than’
is meet, and it tendeth to poverty ;” yes, to poverty of Chris-
tian virtue and manliness, and of those “ treasures’ which
we are all entreated by God himself to “lay up” in the
storehouse of heaven. Call your narrow-mindedness and
gross deficiencies in Christian liberality nothing more than
a natural love of your children, and an earnest desire to
provide for your own household. Little fear there may be
that you will ever incur the charge of being “ worse than an
infidel ” on this point; but lay not on this account any flat-
tering unction to your souls; look within, and see if the base
idolatry of gold has not more to do with your whole course
of thinking and acting than any love of wife or children,
relatives or friends!

Another sermon! does some one exclaim? Would, then,
that it might be to some of my readers a sermon indeed—
“a word fitly spoken,” “like apples of gold in pictures of
silver.”

The prudent apiarian will always regard the feeding of
bees, except the little given to them by way of encourage-
ment, as an evil to be submitted to only when absolutely
necessary, and will very much prefer to obtain his supplies
from what Shakespeare has so beautifully termed the
“merry pillage” of the blooming fields than from the more
costly stores of the neighboring grocery. If not engaged in
the rapid increase of stocks, he will seldom see a season so
unfavorable as to be obliged to purchase any food for his
bees unless he chooses to buy a cheaper article to replace the
ehoice honey of which he has deprived them. Just as soon
as the apiarian begins to multiply his stocks with very great
rapidity he must caleulate upon feeding great quantities of
honey to his bees. Before he attempts this on a large seale,
286 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

let me once more give him a friendly caution, and, if possi-
ble, persuade him to try very rapid multiplication with only
a few of his stocks. In this way he may experiment to his
heart’s content without running the risk of seriously injur-
ing his whole apiary, and he may not only gain the skill and
experience which will enable him subsequently to conduct
a rapid increase on a large scale, but may learn whether he
is so situated that he can profitably devote to it the time and
money which it will inevitably require.

Before giving directions for feeding bees when a rapid
inerease of colonies is aimed at I shall first show in what
manner the beekeeper may feed his weak swarms in the

_spring. If they are in common hives, a small quantity of
liquid honey may at once be poured among the combs in
which the bees are clustered. This may be done by pouring
it into the holes leading to the spare honey-boxes; but a
much better way is to invert the hives and pour in about a
teacupful at once. The apiarian can then see just where to
pour it; he need not fear that the bees will be hurt by it,
any more than a child will be either hurt-or displeased by
the sweets which adhere to its hands and face as it feasts
upon a generous allowance of the best sugar candy. When
the bees have taken up all that has been poured upon them
the hive may be replaced and the operation repeated in a
few days. The oftener it is done, the better it will suit them.
If the weather is sufficiently warm to allow the bees to fly
without being chilled, the food may be put in some old conibs
or in a feeder, and set in a sunny place a rod or more from
their hives. If placed too near, the bees may be tempted
to rob each other. With my hives I can pour the honey into
some empty comb, and then put the frame containing it
directly into the hive; or I can set the feeder or honey in
the comb in the hive near the frames which contain the bees.

I have already stated (see p. 201) that, unless a colony
can be supplied with a sufficient number of bees, it can not
be aided by giving it food. If the bees are not numerous
enough to take charge of the eggs which the queen can lay,
FEEDING. 287

or at least of a large number of them, they can seldom,
unless they have a tropical season before them, increase
rapidly enough to be of any value. If they are numerous
enough to raise a great many young bees, but too few to
build new comb, they must be fed very moderately or they
will be sure to fill up their brood-comb with honey instead
of devoting themselves to the rapid increase of their num-
bers. If the apiarian has plenty of empty worker comb
which he ean give them, he ought to supply them quite spar-
ingly with honey, even when they are considerably numerous,
in order to have them breed as fast as possible—not so spar-
ingly, however, as to prevent them from storing up any
honey in sealed cells, or they will not be encouraged to
breed as fast as they otherwise would. If he has no spare
comb, and the hive is populous enough to build new comb,
it must be supplied moderately and by all means regularly
with the means of doing this—the object being to have comb-
building and breeding go together, so as mutually to aid each
other. If the feeding is not regular, so as to resemble the
natural supplies when honey is obtained from the blossoms,
the bees will not use the food given to them in building new
comb, but chiefly in filling up all the cells previously built.
If honey can be obtained regularly, and in sufficient quanti-
ties from the blossoms, the small colonies or nuclei will need
no feeding until the failure of the natural supplies.

Tn all these operations the main object should be to make
every thing bend to the most rapid production of brood.
Give me the bees and I can easily show how they may be
fed so as to make strong and prosperous stocks; whereas
if the bees are wanting, every thing else will be in vain;
just as a land where there are many stout hands and cour-
ageous hearts, although comparatively barren, will in due
time be made to “bud and blossom as the rose,” while a
second Eden, if inhabited by a scanty and discouraged pop-
ulation, must speedily be overgrown with briars and thorns.

Tf strong stocks are deprived of a portion of their combs,
288 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

so that they can not from natural sources at once begin to
refill all vacancies they too must be fed.

I have probably said enough to show the inexperienced
that the rapid multiplication of colonies is not a very simple
matter, and that they will do well not to attempt it on a
large scale. By the time the honey harvest ordinarily closes,
all the colonies in the apiaries of all except the skillful ought
to be both strong in numbers and in stores; at least the
aggregate resources of the colonies should be such that, when
an equal division is made among them, there will be enough
for them all. This may ordinarily be effected, and yet the
number of the colonies be tripled in one season; and in
situations where buckwheat is extensively cultivated, a con-
siderable quantity of surplus honey may even then be fre-
quently obtained from the bees. Early in the month of
September, or, better still, by the middle of August, if the
colonies are sufficiently strong in numbers I advise that, if
feeding is necessary to winter the bees, it should be thor-
oughly attended to. If delayed later than this in the latitude
of our Northern States, the bees may not have sufficient time
to seal over the honey fed to them, and will be ahnost sure
to suffer from dysentery during the ensuing winter. Un-
sealed honey almost always, in cool weather, attracts mois-
ture, and sours in the combs; and if the bees are compelled
to feed upon it they are very liable to become diseased. This
is the reason why bees when fed with liquid honey late in
the fall or during the winter are almost sure to suffer from
disease. A very interesting fact confirming these views as
to the danger resulting from the use of sour food has come
under my notice this spring. A colony of bees were fed for
some time with suitable food, and appeared to be in perfect
health, flying in and out with great animation. Their owner
on one oceasion, before leaving for the day, gave them some
molasses which was so sour that it could not be used in the
family. On returning at evening he was informed that the
bees had been dropping their filth over every thing in the
vicinity of the hive. On examining them next day they were
FEEDING. 289

all found dead on the bottom-board and among the combs!
The acid food had acted upon them as a violent cathartic,
and had brought on a complaint of which they all died in
less than 24 hours. The hive was found to contain an ample
allowance of honey and bee-bread.

If the apiarian, on examining the condition of his stocks,
finds that some have more than they need, and others not
enough his most prudent course will be to make an equitable
division of the honey among his different stocks. This may
seem to be a very agrarian sort of procedure, and yet it will
answer perfectly well in the management of bees. Those
that were helped will not spend the next season in idleness,
relying upon the same sort of aid; nor will those that
were relieved of their surplus stores remember the deprivation
and limit the extent of their gatherings to a bare compe-
tency. With men, most unquestionably, such an annual
division, unless they were perfect, would derange the whole
course of affairs, and speedily impoverish any community
in which it might be attempted. I always prefer to take
away a considerable quantity of honey from my stocks which
have too generous a supply, and to replace it with empty
combs suitable for the rearing of workers, as I find that,
when bees have too much honey in the fall, they do not
ordinarily breed as fast in the ensuing spring as they other-
wise would. A portion of this honey should be carefully
put away in the frames and kept in a close box, safe against
all intruders, and where it will not be exposed to frost, so
that, if any colonies in the spring are found to be in want
of food, they may easily be supplied.

In tite spring examination, if any colonies o too much
honey a portion of it ought by all means to be taken away.
Such a deprivation, if judiciously performed, will always
stimulate them to increased activity. Every strong stock,
as soon as it can gather enough honey to construct comb,
ought to have one or two combs which contain no brood
removed, and their places supplied with empty frames, in
order that they may be induced to exert themselves to the
290 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

utmost. An empty frame inserted between full ones will
be replenished with comb very speedily, and often the combs
removed will be so much clear gain. If at any time there
is a sudden supply of honey, and the bees are reluctant to
enter the boxes, or it is not probable that the supply will
continue long enough to enable them to fill them, the removal
of some of the combs from the main hive so as to have
empty ones filled will often be highly advantageous.

If in the fall of the year the beekeeper finds that some
of his colonies need feeding; and if they are not populous
enough to make good stock hives in the ensuing spring, then,
instead of wasting time and money on them, he should at
once break them up (see p. 288). They will seldom pay
for the labor bestowed on them, and the bees will be much
more serviceable if added to other stocks. The apiarian
can not be too deeply impressed with the important truth
that his profits in beekeeping will all come from his strong
stocks, and that, if he can not manage so as to have such
colonies early, he had better let beekeeping alone.

If liquid honey is fed to bees, it should always (see p.
288) be given to them seasonably, so that they may seal it
over before the approach of cold weather. West India honey
has for many years been used to very good advantage as
a bee-feed. It should never be used in its raw state, as it
is often filled with impurities, and is very liable to sour or
candy in the cells, but should be mixed with about two parts
of good white sugar to three of honey and one of water, and
brought to the boiling-point. As soon as it begins to boil;
it should be set to cool, and all the impurities will rise to the
top and may be skimmed off. If it is found to be too thick,
a little more water may be added to it. It ought, however,
never to be made thinner than the natural consistence of
good honey. Such a mixture will cost, for a small quantity,
about seven cents a pound, and will probably be found the .
cheapest liquid food which can be given to bees. Brown
sugar may be used with the honey, but the food will not be
so good.
FEEDING. 291

If one of my hives is used, the beekeeper may feed his
bees at the proper season without using any feeder at all,
or, rather, he may use the bottom-board of the hive as a
feeder. On this plan the bees should be fed at evening so
as to run no risk of their robbing each other. The hive
which is to be fed should have the front edge of its bottom-
board elevated on a block so as to slant backward, and the
honey should be poured into a small tin gutter inserted at
the entrance. One such will answer for a whole apiary, and
may be made by bending up the edges of any old piece of
tin. As the frames in my hive are kept about half an inch
above the bottom-board, which is water-tight, the honey runs
under them, and is as safe as in a dish, while the bees stand
on the bottom of the frames and help themselves. The
quantity poured in should, of course, depend upon the size
and necessities of the colony. No more ought to be given
at one time than the bees can take up during the night, and
the entrance to the hive ought always to be kept very small
during the process of feeding, to prevent robber bees from
getting in. A good colony will easily take up a quart. It
is desirable to get through the feeding as rapidly as possi-
ble, as the bees are excited during the whole process, and
consume more than they otherwise would, to say nothing
of the demand made upon the time of the apiarian, by feed-
ing in small quantities. If the bees can not, in favorable
weather, dispose of at least a pint at one time, the colony
must be too small to make it worth while to feed them if
they are in hives by which they can be readily united to
stronger stocks.

If the bees have not a good allowance of comb it will not,
as a general rule, pay to feed them. This will be obvious
to any one who reflects that at least 20 pounds of honey are
required to elaborate one pound of wax. I know that this
estimate may to some appear enormous; but it is given as
the result of very accurate experiments instituted on a large
scale to determine this very point. The Country Curate
says, “ Having driven the population of four stocks, on the
292 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

5th of August, and united them together, I fed them with
about 50 pounds of a mixture of sugar, honey, salt, and beer
for about five weeks. At that time the box was only 16
pounds heavier than when the bees were put into it.” He
then makes an estimate that at least 25 pounds of the mix-
ture were consumed in making about half a pound of wax!
No one who has ever tried it will undertake to feed bees
for profit when they are destitute of both comb and honey.

If the weather is cool when bees are fed, it will generally
be necessary to resort to top feeding. For this my hive is
admirably adapted. A feeder may be put over one of the
holes in the honey-board directly over the mass of the bees
into which the heat of the hive naturally arises, and where
the bees can get at their food without any risk of being
chilled. This is always the best place for a feeder, as the
smell of the food is not so likely to attract the notice of rob-
bing bees.

I shall here describe the way in which a feeder can at
small expense be made to answer admirably every purpose.
Take any wooden box which will hold, say, at least one
quart. Make it honey-tight by pouring into the joints the
melted mixture (see p. 99) and brush the whole interior
with the mixture so that the honey may not soak into the
wood. Make a float of thin wood, filled with quarter-inch
holes, with clamps nailed on the lower sides to prevent
warping, and to keep the float from settling to the bottom
of the box, so as to stick fast. It should have ample play
so that it may settle as fast as the bees consume the honey.
Tacks on the clamps will always be sure to prevent sticking.
Before you waste any time in making small holes for fear
the bees will be drowned in the large ones, try a float made
as directed. In one corner of the box, fasten with the melted
mixture a thin strip of wood about one inch wide. Let it
project above the top of the box about an inch, and be kept
about half an inch from the bottom. This answers as a
spout for pouring the honey into the feeder, and, when not
in use, it should be stopped up. Have for the lid of the
FEEDING. 293

box a piece of glass with the corner cut off next the spout,
so as to cover the feeder and keep the bees in, and at the
same time allow the beekeeper to see when they have con-
sumed all their food. The feeder is now complete with one
important exception. It has as yet no way of admitting
the bees. On the outside corners of one of the ends, glue or
tack two strips, inch and a half wide, extending down to
the bottom of the box, and half an inch from the top.
Fasten over them a piece of thin board (pasteboard will an-
swer). You have now a shallow passage without top or
bottom, outside of your feeder. Give it a top of any kind.
Cut out just below the level of this top a passage into the
feeder for the bees. It is now complete, and, when properly
placed over any hole on the top of the hive, will admit the
bees from the hive, into the shallow passage which has no
bottom, and through this into the feeder. Such a feeder
will not only be cheap, but it might almost be made by a
child, and yet it will answer every purpose most admirably.
If you have no wooden box that will answer, a feeder may be
made of pasteboard, and if brushed with the melted mixture
it will be honey-tight. By packing cotton or wool around it,
it might be used in most hives, even in the dead of winter.
Bees, however, ought never to need feeding in winter; and
if they do, it will always be unsafe at this season to feed
them with liquid honey.

I ought here to speak of the importance of water to the
bees. It is absolutely indispensable when they are building
comb or raising brood. In the early spring they take advan-
tage of the first warm weather to bring it to their hives, and
they may be seen busily drinking around pumps, drains,
and other moist places. As they are not noticed frequenting
such spots much, except in the early part of the season,
many suppose that they need water only at this period.
This is a great mistake, for they need it and must have it
during the whole breeding season. But as soon as the grass
starts, and the trees are covered with leaves, they prefer
to sip the dew from them. If a few cold days come on after
294 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL

the bees have commenced breeding, so as to prevent them
from going abroad for water, a very serious check will be
given to their operations. Even when it is not so cold as to
prevent their leaving the hive, many become so chilled in
their search for water that they are not able to return.

Every wise beekeeper will see that his bees have an abun-
dant supply of water. If he has not some warm and sunny
spot where they can safely obtain it he will furnish them
with shallow wooden troughs or vessels filled with pebbles,
from which they can drink without risk of drowning, and
where they will be sheltered from cold winds, and warmed
by the genial rays of the sun. I believe that the reason why
bees very much prefer the impure water of barn-yards and
drains is not because they find any medicinal quality in it,
but because, as it is near their hives, and warm, they can
fill themselves without being fatally chilled.

I have used water-feeders of the same construction with
my honey-feeders, with great success. The bees are able
to enter them at all times, as they are filled with the warm
air of the hive, and thus breeding goes on without interrup-
tion, and the lives of many bees are saved.

The same end may be obtained by pouring daily a few
tablespoonfuls of water into the hive through one of the
holes leading to the spare honey-boxes. As soon as the
weather becomes warm, and the bees can supply themselves
from the dew on the grass and leaves, it will not be worth
while to give them water in their hives.

When supplied with water in their hives I advise that
enough honey or sugar be added to it to make it tolerably
sweet. They will take it with greater relish, and it will
stimulate them more powerfully to the raising of brood.

I come now to mention a substitute for liquid honey, the
value of which has been extensively and thoroughly tested
in Germany, and which I have used with great advantage.
It was not discovered by Dzierzon, although he speaks of its
excellence in the most decided terms. The article to which
I refer is plain sugar candy, or, as it is often called, barley
FEEDING. 295

eandy. It has been ascertained that about four pounds of
this will sustain a colony during the winter when they have
scarcely any honey in their hive. If it is placed where
they can get access to it without being chilled, they will
cluster upon it, and gradually eat it up. It not only goes
further than double the quantity of liquid honey which
could be bought for the same money, but is found to agree
with the bees perfectly; while the liquid honey is almost sure
to sour in the unsealed cells, and expose them to dangerous
and often fatal attacks of dysentery. I have sometimes, in
the old-fashioned box hives, pushed sticks of candy between
the ranges of comb, and have found it even then to answer
a good purpose. In any hive which has surplus-honey
boxes, the candy may be put into a small box, which, after
being covered thoroughly with cotton or wool, may have
another box put over it, the outside of which may be also
covered. Unless great precautions are used, the boxes will
be so cold that the bees will not be able to enter them in
winter, and may thus perish in immediate proximity to
abundant stores.

In my hives the candy may be laid on the top of the
frames in the shallow chamber between the frames and the
honey-board. It will here, if the honey-board is covered with
straw, be always accessible to the bees, even in the coldest
weather. J sometimes put it directly into a frame, and con-
fine it with a piece of twine or fine wire.

I have made a very convenient use of sugar candy as a
bee-feed in the summer when I wished to give small colonies
a little food, and yet not to be at the trouble to use a feeder
or incur the risk of their being robbed by putting it where
strange bees might be attracted by the scent. A small stick
of candy, slid in on the bottom-board, under the frames,
answers admirably for such a purpose. If a little liquid
food must be used in warm weather I advise that it be the
best white sugar dissolved in water. This makes an admir-
able food, costs but little more than brown sugar, and has
296 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

no smell to tempt robbers to try to gain an entrance into
the hive.

If the apiarian is skillful, and attends to his bees at the
proper time, they will rarely need much feeding. If he
manages them in such a manner that this is frequently and
extensively needed, I can assure him, if he has not. already
found it out to his sorrow, that his bees will be nothing but
a bill of cost and vexation.

The question how much honey a colony of bees needs
in order to carry them safely through the perils of winter is
one to which it is impossible to give an answer which will
be definite under all cireumstances. Very much will depend
upon the hive in which they are kept, and the forwardness
of the ensuing spring (see chapter on Protection). It is
often absolutely impossible in the common hives to form
any reliable estimate as to the quantity of honey which they
contain, for the combs are often so heavy with bee-bread as
entirely to deceive even the most experienced beekeeper.

I should always wish to leave at least 20 lbs. of honey
in a hive; and as I can examine each comb I am never ata
loss to know how mueh a colony has. If I have the least
apprehension that their supplies may fail, I prefer to put
a few pounds of sugar candy where they can easily get
access to it in case of need. In my hive the careful beekeep-
er may not only know the exact extent of the resources of
each hive in the fall, but he may, very early in the spring,
ascertain precisely how much honey is still on hand, and
whether his bees need feeding in order to preserve their lives.
It is a shameful fact that a large number of colonies perish
after they have begun to fly out, and when they might easily
have been saved in any kind of hive.

FEEDING TO MAKE A PROFIT BY SELLING THE HONEY STORED
UP BY THE BEES.

For many years apiarians have attempted to make the
feeding of bees on a large scale profitable to their owners.
All such attempts, however, must, from the very nature of
FEEDING. 297

the case, meet with very limited success. If large quantities
of cheap West India honey are fed to the bees in the fall
they are induced to fill their hives to such an extent that, in
the spring, the queen does not find the necessary accommoda-
tions for breeding. If they are largely fed in the spring
the case is still worse. (See p. 286.) It must, therefore, be
obvious that the feeding of cheap honey can be made profit-
able only where it serves as a substitute for an equal quan-
tity of choice honey taken from the bees. In the latter part
of the summer the apiarian may take away from the main
hive some of the combs which contain the best honey and
replace them with combs into which he has poured the cheap-
er article; or if he has no spare combs on hand he may slice
off the covers of the cells, drain out the honey, fill the empty
combs with West India honey, and return them to the bees,
giving them at the same time the additional food which they
need to elaborate wax to seal them over. If he attempts to
take away their full combs, and gives them honey in order
to enable them, first, to replace their combs, and then to
fill them, the operation (see p. 292) will result in a loss
instead of a gain.

I am aware that, for a number of years, persons have
attempted to derive a profit from supplying the markets of
some of our large cities with an article professing to be the
best of honey, but which has been nothing more than the
cheap West India honey fed-to the bees and stored up by
them in new comb. In the city of Philadelphia large quan-
tities of such honey have been sold at the highest prices,
and perhaps at some profit to the persons who have fed it
to their bees. Within the last two years, however, the article
has become so well known that it can hardly be sold at any
price, as those who purchase honey, instead of paying 25
cents per pound for West India honey in the comb, much
prefer to buy it (if they want it at all) for 6 or 7 cents ina
liquid state! It must be perfectly obvious that, to sell a
cheap and ill-flavored article at a high price, under the pre- ‘
298 THE BEEKEEPER’'S MANUAL.

tense that it is a superior article, is nothing less than down-
right cheating.

I am perfectly well aware that many persons imagine
that if any thing sweet is fed to bees they will quickly trans-
mute it into the purest nectar. There is, however, no more
truth in such a conceit than there would be in that of a man
who supposed that he had found the veritable philosopher’s
stone, and that he was able to change all our copper and
silver coins into the purest gold! Bees, to be sure, can make
white and beautiful comb from almost any kind of sweet;
and why? Because wax is a natural secretion of the bee
(see p. 69) and can be made from any sweet, just as fat.
can be put upon the ribs of an ox by any kind of nourish-
ing food.

“But,” some of my readers may ask, “do you mean to
assert that bees do not secrete honey out of the raw material
which they gather, or which is furnished to them, just as
cows secrete milk from grass and hay?” I certainly do
mean to assert that they can do nothing of the kind; and no
intelligent man who has carefully studied their habits will
for a moment venture to affirm that they can, unless, for the
sake of “ filthy lucre,” he is attempting to deceive an unwary
community. What beekeeper does not know, or; rather,
ought not to know, that the quality of honey depends en-
tirely upon the sources from whence it is gathered, and that
the different kinds of honey can easily be distinguished by
any one who is a judge of the article.

Apple-blossom honey, white-clover honey, buckwheat hon-
ey, and all the different kinds of honey, each has its own
peculiar flavor; and it is utterly amazing how any sensible
man, acquainted with bees, can be so deluded as to imagine
any thing to the contrary. But as this is a matter of great
practical importance, let us examine it more closely.

When bees are engaged in rapidly storing up honey in
their combs they may be seen, as soon as they return from
the fields or from the feeding-boxes, putting their heads at
once into the cells and disgorging the contents of their
FEEDING. 29u

“ honey-bags.” Now, that the contents of their sacs under-
go no change at all during the short time that they remain.
in them, I will not absolutely affirm, because I have endeav-
-ored, through this whole treatise, never to assert positively
when I had not positive evidence for so doing; but that they
can undergo but a very slight change must be evident from
the fact that, when thus stored up, the different kinds of
honey or sugar can be almost if not quite as readily distin-
guished as before they were fed to the bees. The only per-
ceptible change which they appear to undergo in the cells.
is to have the large quantity of water evaporated from them
which is added from thoughtlessness or from the vain ex-
pectation that it will be just so much water sold for honey
to the defrauded purchaser! This evaporation of the water
from the honey by the-heat of the hive is about the only
marked change that it appears to undergo from its natural
state in the nectaries of the blossoms; and it is exceedingly
interesting to see how unwilling bees are to seal up honey
until it is reduced to such a consistency that there is no dan-
ger of its souring in the cells. They are as careful as to the
quality of their nectar as the good lady of the house is to
have the syrup of her preserves boiled down to a suitable
thickness to keep them sweet.

Let all who, for any purpose whatever, feed bees, keep:
-bis fact in mind, and never add to the food which they give
them more water than is absolutely necessary. To do so is
a piece of as great stupidity as to pour a barrel of water
into the sugar-pans for every barrel of sap from the maples
or juice from the canes. If a strong colony is set upon a
platform scale it will be found on a pleasant day, during
the height of the honey harvest, to gain a number of pounds;
if examined again early next morning it will be found to
have lost considerably during the night. This is owing to
the evaporation of the water from the freshly gathered hon-
ey, and it may often be seen running down in quite a stream:
from the bottom-board.
300 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

Those who feed cheap honey to sell it in the market at a
high advance over its first cost are either deceivers or de-
ceived. If any of my readers have been deceived by the
plausible representations of ignorant or unprincipled men,
I trust they will be able from these remarks to see exactly
how they have been deceived, and they will no longer persist
in an adulteration the profits of which can never be great,
and the morality of which can never be defended. A man
who offers for sale inferior honey or sugar which he ealls
honey, and which he is able to sell because it is stored in
white comb, to those who would never purchase it if they
knew what it was, or once had a taste of it, is not a whit
more honest, if he understands the nature of the article in
which he deals, than a person engaged in counterfeiting the
current coin of the realm; for poor honey in white comb
is no less a fraud than eagles or dollars—golden, to be sure,
on their honest exteriors, but containing a baser metal with-
in! “The Golden Age” of beekeeping, in which inferior
honey can be quickly transmuted into such balmy spoils as
are gathered by the bees of Hybla, has not yet dawned upon
us; or at least only in the fairy visions of the poet who saw

A golden hive, on a golden bank,
Where golden bees, by alchemical prank,
Gathered gold instead of honey.

If a pound of West India honey costs about 6 cents, and
the bees use, as they will, about one pound to make the
comb in which it is stored, it costs the producer at least 12
cents a pound; and if to this he adds, say, 5 cents more for
extra time and labor in feeding, then his inferior honey costs
him at least as much as the market price of the very best
honey on the spot where it is produced! If the beekeeper
allows his bees to make what they will from the blossoms,
and then begins to feed after he has harvested the produce
from the natural supplies, the advance over the first cost
will hardly pay for the trouble, even if it were fair to palm
off such inferior honey as a first-rate article. If, however,
bees are fed on this food very largely in the latter part of
FEEDING. 301

summer they will fill up their hive with it before they put
it into the spare honey-boxes, and the production of brood
will often be most seriously interfered with at a season of
the year when it is important to have the hives well stocked
with bees that they may winter to the best advantage:

If apiarians are anxious to have large quantities of choice
honey, let them manage their bees so as to have powerful
stocks in the early spring, and they will then be able to have
heavy purses and light, consciences in the bargain. I shall
now show how liquid honey, exceedingly beautiful to the eye
and tempting to the taste, may be made to great advantage.

Dissolve two pounds of the purest white sugar in as much
hot water as will be just necessary to reduce it to a syrup.
Take one pound of the nicest white-clover honey (any other
light-colored honey of good flavor will answer), and after
warming it add it to the sugar syrup and stir the contents,
When cool this compound will be pronounced, even by the
best judges of honey, to be one of the most luscious articles
which they ever tasted, and will be, by almost every one,
preferred to the unmixed honey. Refined loaf sugar is a
perfectly pure and inodorous sweet; and one pound of hon-
ey will communicate the honey flavor, in high perfection.
to twice that quantity of sugar, while the new article will
be destitute of that smarting taste which honey alone so
often has, and will be often found to agree perfectly with
those who can not eat the clear honey with impunity. If
those engaged in the manufacture of artificial honey never
brought any thing worse than this to the market, the pur-
chasers would have no reason to complain. As, however,
the compound can be furnished much cheaper than the pure
honey, many may prefer to purchase the materials and mix
them themselves. If desired, any kind of flavor may be given
to the manufactured article. Thus it may be made to resem-
ble in fragrance the classic honey of Mount Hymettus by
adding to it the fine aroma of the lemon balm or wild thyme;
or it may have the flavor of the orange-groves, or the delicate
fragrance of beds of roses washed with dew.
302 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

I have recently ascertained that, if two pounds of the best
refined sugar be added to one of common maple sugar, the
compound will be a light-colored article retaining perfectly
the maple taste, and yet far superior to the common maple
sugar. After making this discovery I learned that a large
part of the very nicest maple sugar is made in this way.

Attempts have been made to feed to bees, to be stored in
the honey-boxes, a mixture of the whitest honey and loaf
sugar; but the result shows a loss rather than a gain. The
mixture, before it is fed, will cost about 10 cents per pound.
At the very furthest, not more than half of what is fed can
be secured in the comb, for it requires about one pound of
honey to manufacture comb enough to hold a pound of
honey. The actual cost of the honey in the comb will, there-
fore, be at least 20 cents per pound; and the pure white-
clover honey can be bought for less than that. Those who
desire to have something exceedingly beautiful to the eye
and delicate to the taste, at a season when the bees are not
storing up honey from the blossoms, and in situations where
the natural supply is of an inferior quality, if they do not
regard expense, can place upon their tables something which
will be pronounced by the best judges a little superior to
any thing they ever tasted before.

I have repeatedly spoken of the great care which is neces-
sary to prevent bees from getting a taste of forbidden
sweets, so as to be tempted to engage in dishonest courses.
The experienced apiarian will fully appreciate the necessity
of these cautions; and the inexperienced, if they neglect
them, will be taught a lesson that they will not soon forget.
Let it be remembered that the bee was intended to gather its
sweets from the nectaries of flowers—to use the exquisitely
beautiful language of him whose wonderful writings supply
us on almost every subject with the richest thoughts and
happiest illustrations, they were crealed to

Make boot upon the Summer's velvet buds,

Which pillage they with merry march bring home

To the tent royal of their emperor:

Who, busied in his majesty, surveys

The singing masons, building roofs of gold.— Shakespeare,
FEEDING. 303

When thus engaged, the bees work in perfect accordance
with their natural instinets, and seem to have little or no dis-
position to meddle with property that does not belong to
them. If, however, their incautious owner tempts them with
liquid food, especially at times when they can obtain nothing
from the blossoms, they seem to be so infatuated with such
easy gatherings as to lose all discretion, and they will perish
by thousands if the vessels which contain the food are not
furnished with floats on which they can stand and help them-
selves in safety.

The fly was intended to feed, not upon blossoms, but
upon food in which, without care, it could easily be drown-
ed; and hence it alights most cautiously on the edge of any
vessel containing liquid food, and warily helps itself; while
the poor bee, without any caution, plunges right in and
speedily perishes. The sad fate of their unfortunate com-
panions does not in the least deter others who approach the
tempting lure; but they madly alight on the bodies of the
dying and dead, to share the same miserable end! No one
can understand the full extent of their infatuation until
after seeing a confectioner’s shop assailed by thousands and
tens of thousands of hungry bees. I have seen thousands
strained out from the syrups in which they had perished;
thousands more alighting even upon the boiling sweets; the
floors covered and windows darkened with bees, some craw]-
ing, others flying, and others still so completely daubed as
to be able neither to crawl nor fly; not one bee in ten able
to carry home its ill-gotten spoils, and yet the air filled with
new hosts of thoughtless comers.

It will be for the interest of all engaged in the manufac-
ture of candy and syrups to fit gauze-wire windows and
doors to their premises, and thus save themselves from con-
stant loss and annoyance; for if only one bee in a hundred
escapes with his load, the confectioner will be subjected in
the course of the season to serious loss. I once furnished
such an establishment, after the bees had commenced their
depredations, with such protection; and when they found
304 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

themselves excluded they lit on the wire by thousands, and
farily squealed with vexation and disappointment as they
tried to force a passage through the meshes. At last, as
they were daring enough to descend the chimney, reeking
with sweet odors, even although the most who attempted it
fell with scorched wings into the fire, it became necessary
to put wire gauze over the top of the chimney also!

How often, as I have seen thousands of bees in such places
destroyed, and thousands more deprived of all ability to fly,
and hopelessly struggling in the deluding sweets, and yet
thousands more blindly hovering over them, all unmindful
of their danger, and apparently eager to share the same
destruction—how often has the spectacle of their infatua-
tion seemed to me to be an exact picture of the woeful de-
lusion of those who surrender themselves to the fatal in-
fluences of the intoxicating cup! Even although they see
the miserable victims of this degrading vice falling all
around them into premature and dishonored graves, they
still press on, madly trampling, as it were, over their dead
and dying bodies, that they too may sink into the same abyss
of agonies, and that their sun may also go down in darkness
and hopeless gloom. Even although they know that the next
eup may send them, with all their sins upon their heads, to
the dread tribunal of their God, that cup of bitter sorrows
and untold degradation they will drain even to its most
loathsome dregs.

The avaricious bee that despised the slow process of ex-
tracting. nectar from “every opening flower,” and plunged
recklessly into the tempting sweets, has ample time to bewail
its folly. Even if it has not paid the forfeit of its life, but
has been able to obtain its fill, it returns home with all its
beautiful plumage sullied and besmeared, and with a woe-
begone look and sorrowful note in marked contrast with the
bright hues and merry sounds with which the industrious
bee returns from its happy rovings amid “the budding
honey-flowers and sweetly breathing fields.”
FEEDING. 305

Just so has many a pilgrim from the golden shores of
California and Australia returned, enfeebled in body and
mind, bankrupt often in character and happiness, if not in
purse, and unfitted in every way for the calm and sober
pursuits of common industry, while thousands—yes, and
tens of thousands too—shall never more behold their once
happy homes. Bibles and Sabbaths, altars and firesides,
parents and friends, wife and children, how often have all
these been wantonly abandoned in the accursed greed for
gain by those who might have been happy and prosperous
at home, and who wandered from its sacred precincts only
because they were determined to make the possession of
wealth the chief object of life, but whose bones now lie amid
the coral reefs of the ocean or moulder in the howling wastes
of the “overland passage,” just as the bones of the nn-
believing Israelites whitened the sands of the desert. Of
those who have reached the “land of golden promise,” how
many have died in despair, or, worse still, are living so .
besotted by vice, so lost to all power of virtuous resolutions,
that they shall never more see the happy homes from which
they so thoughtlessly wandered, never more to hear the soft
accents of loving friends, never more worship God in a
peaceful sanctuary, nor ever again behold an opened Bibie!

Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold,
Molten, graven, hammered, and rolled;
Heavy to get and light to hold;
Hoarded, bartered, bought, and _ sold,
Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled:
Spurned by the young but hugged by the old
To the very verge of the churchyard mold;
Price of many a crime untold;
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Good or bad a thousandfold!

How wide its agencies vary—
To save—to ruin—to curse—to bless—
As even its minted coins express,

Now stamped with the image of Good Queen Bess,
And now of a Bloody Mary! Hood.
CHAPTER XVII.

HONEY ; PASTURAGE; OVERSTOCKING.

In the chapter on Feeding it has already been stated that
honey is not a natural secretion of the bee, but a substance
obtained from the nectaries of the blossoms; it is not, there-
fore, made, but merely gathered by the bees. The truth is
well expressed in the lines so familiar to most of us from
our childhood :

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!

Bees not only gather honey from the blossoms, but often
obtain it in large quantities from what have been called
honey-dews—“ a term applied to those sweet clammy drops
that glitter on the foliage of many trees in hot weather.”
Two different opinions have been zealously advocated as to
the origin of honey-dews. By some they are considered a
natural exudation- from the leaves of trees; a perspiration,
as it were, occasioned often by ill health, though sometimes
a provision to enable the plants to resist the fervent heats
to which they are exposed. Others insist that this sweet
substance is discharged from the bodies of those aphides or
small lice which infest the leaves of so many plants. Un-
questionably they are produced in both ways.

Messrs. Kirby and Spence, in their interesting work on
entomology, have given a description of the kinds of honey-
dew furnished by the aphides.

“The loves of the ants and the aphides have long been
celebrated; and that there is a connection between them,
you may, at any time in the proper season, convince your-
self; for you will always find the former very busy on those
trees and plants on which the latter abound; and if you
HONEY. 307

examine more closely you will discover that the object of
the ants in thus attending upon the aphides is to obtain
the saccharine fluid secreted by them, which may well be
denominated their milk. This fluid, which is scarcely in-
ferior to honey in sweetness, issues in limpid drops from the
abdomen of these insects, not only by the ordinary passage,
but also by two setiform tubes placed, one on each side, just
above it. Their sucker, being inserted in the tender bark,
is without intermission employed in absorbing the sap,
which, after it has passed through their system, they keep
continually discharging from-these organs. When no ants
attend them, by a certain jerk of the body, which takes place
at regular intervals, they ejaculate it to a distance.”

“Mr. Knight once observed,” says Bevan, “a shower of
honey-dew descending in innumerable small globules, near
one of his oak-trees, on the Ist of September. He cut off
one of the branches, took it into the house, and, holding it
in a stream of light, which was purposely admitted tlirough
a small opening, distinctly saw the aphides ejecting the fluid
from their bodies with considerable force, and this accounts
for its being frequently found in situations where it could
not have arrived by the mere influence of gravitation. The
drops that are thus spurted out, unless interrupted by the
surrounding foliage or some other interposing body, fall
upon the ground; and the spots may often be observed for
some time beneath and around the trees affected with honey-
dew till washed away by the rain. The power which these
insects possess of ejecting the fiuid from their bodies seems
to have been wisely instituted to preserve cleanliness in each
individual fly, and, indeed, for the preservation of the whole
-- family; for, pressing as they do upon one another, they
would otherwise soon be glued together and rendered inca-
pable of stirring. On looking steadfastly at a group of these
insects (Aphides Salicis) while feeding on the bark of the
.-willow, their superior size enables us to perceive some of
them elevating their bodies and emitting a transparent sub-
stance in the form of a small shower.”
308 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

Nor scorn ye now, fond elves, the foliage sear,

When the light aphids, armed with puny spear,

Probe each emulgent vein, till bright below,

Like falling stars, clear drops of nectar glow.
é # Evans.

“The willow accommodates the bees in a kind of three-
fold succession: from the flowers they obtain both honey
and farina; from the bark, propolis; and the leaves fre-
quently afford them honey-dew at a time when other re-
sources are beginning to fail.”

“ Honey-dew usually appears upon the leaves as a viscid,
transparent substance, as sweet as honey itself, sometimes.
‘in the form of globules, at others resembling a syrup; it is
generally most abundant from the middle of June to the
middle of July, sometimes as late as September.”

“Tt is found chiefly upon the oak, the elm, the maple,
the plane, the sycamore, the lime, the hazel, and the black-
berry; occasionally also on the cherry, currant, and other
fruit-trees. Sometimes only one species of tree is affected
at a time. The oak generally affords the largest quantity.
At the season of its greatest abundance the happy humming
noise of the bees may be heard at a considerable distance
from the trees, sometimes nearly equaling in loudness the
united hum of swarming.”

In some seasons extraordinary quantities of honey are
furnished by the honey-dews, and bees will often, in a few
days, fill their hives with it. If at such times they can be
furnished with empty combs the amount stored up by them
will be truly wonderful. No certain reliance, however, can
be placed upon this article of bee-food, as in some years
there is searcely any to be found, and it is only once in three
or four years that it is very abundant. The honey obtained
from this source is generally of a very good quality, though
seldom as clear as that gathered from the choicest. blossoms.

The quality of honey is exceedingly various, some being
dark, and often bitter and disagreeable to the taste, while
occasionally it is gathered from poisonous flowers, and is
very noxious to the human system.
HONEY. 309

An intelligent Mandingo African informed a lady of my
acquaintance that they do not in his country dare to eat
unsealed honey until it is first boiled. In some of the South-
ern States all unsealed honey is generally rejected. It ap-
pears to me highly probable that the noxious qualities of
the honey gathered from some flowers are, for the most part,
evaporated before it is sealed over by the bees while the
honey is thickening in the cells. Boiling the honey would,
of course, expel it much more effectually; and it is a well-
ascertained fact that some persons are not able to eat even
the best honey with impunity until after it has been boiled!
I believe that, if persons who are injured by honey would
subject it to this operation, they would usually find it to
exert no injurious influence on the system. Honey is im-
proved by age; and many are able to use with impunity that
which has been for a long time in the hive, and which seems
to be much milder than any freshly gathered by the bees.

Honey, when taken from the bees, should be carefully put
where it will be safe from all intruders, and where it will
not be exposed to so low a temperature as to candy in the
cells. The little red ant and the large black ant are extrav-
agantly fond of it; and unless placed where they can not
reach it they will soon earry off large quantities. I paste
paper over all my boxes, glasses, etc., so as to make them
air-tight, and carefully store them away for future use. If
it is drained from the combs it may be kept in tight vessels,
although in this state it will be almost sure to candy. By
putting the vessels in water, and bringing it to the boiling-
point, it will be as nice as when first strained from the comb.
In this way I prefer to keep the larger portion of my honey.
The appearance of white honey in the comb is, however,
so beautiful that many will prefer to keep it in this form,
especially if intended for sale.

In my hives it may be taken from the bees in a great
variety of ways. Some may prefer to construct the main
hive in such a form that the surplus honey can be taken from
it on the frames. Others will prefer to take it on frames
310 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

put in an upper box (see p. 206). Glass vessels of almost
any size or form will make beautiful receptacles for the
spare honey. They ought always, however, to have a piece
of comb fastened in them before they are given to the bees
(see p. 145); and if the weather is cool they must be eare-
fully covered with something warm or they will part with
their heat so quickly as to discourage the bees from building
in them. Unless warmly covered, glass vessels will often be
so lined with moisture as to annoy the bees. This is occa-
sioned by the rapid evaporation of the water from the newly
gathered honey (see p. 300). All hives during the height of
the gathering season abound in moisture, and this, no doubt,
furnishes the bees, for the most part, with the water they
then need.

Honey, when stored in a pint tumbler, just large enough
to receive one comb, has a most beautiful appearance, and
may be easily taken out whole and placed in an elegant
shape upon the table. The expense of such glass vessels is
one objection to their use; the ease with which they part
with their heat, another; and a more serious objection still
is the fact that the shallow cells, so many of which must be
made in a round vessel, require as large a consumption of
honey for their wax covers as those which hold more than
twice their quantity of honey.

I prefer rectangular boxes made of pasteboard to any
other. They are neat, warm, and cheap; and if a small
piece of glass is pasted in one of their ends, the apiarian
can always see when they are full. When the honey is taken
from the bees, the box has its cover put on, and is pasted
tight so as to exclude air and insects. In this form, honey
may be packed and sent to market very conveniently; and
when the boxes are opened, the purchaser can always see
the quality of the article which he buys. The box in which
these small boxes of honey are packed in order to be sent
-o market should be furnished with rope handles, so that it
can be easily lifted without the least jarring. Honey should
be handled with just as much care as glass. A box four
HONEY. 311

inches wide will admit of two combs; and if small pieces of
comb are put in the top, the bees will build them of the
proper dimensions, and will thus make them too large for
brood-combs, and of the best size to contain their surplus
honey. The use of my hives enables the apiarian to get
access to all the comb which he needs for such purposes,
and he, will find it to his interest never to give the bees a
box which does not contain some comb, as well for encour-
agement as for a pattern. I have never seen the use of
pasteboard boxes suggested; but after experimenting with
a great many materials I believe they will be found, all
things considered, preferable to any others. Wooden boxes
with a piece of glass are very good for storing honey; but
they are much more expensive than those made of paste-
board, and the covers can not be removed so conveniently.

Honey may be safely removed from the surplus honey
boxes of my hives, even by the most timid. When the outside
case which covers the boxes is elevated, a shield is thrown
between the apiarian and the bees which are entering and
leaving the hive. Before removing a vessel or box, a thin
knife should be carefully passed under it so as to loosen the
attachments of the comb to the honey-board, without injur-
ing the bees; then a small piece of tin or zine may be pushed
under to prevent the bees that are below from coming up
when the honey is removed. The apiarian should now tap
gently on the box; and the bees in it, perceiving that they
are separated from the main hive, will at once proceed to
fill themselves so as to save as much as possible of their
precious sweets. In about five minutes, or as soon as they
are full, and run over the combs, trying to get out, the glass
or box may at once be removed, and they will fly directly
to the hive with what they have been able to secure. Bees
under such circumstances never attempt to sting; and a
child of ten years may remove, with ease and safety, all their
surplus stores. If a person is too timid to approach a hive
when any bees are flying, the honey may be removed toward
evening, or early in the morning, before the hees are flying
312 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

in any considerable numbers. In performing this operation
it should always be borne in mind that large quantities of
honey should never be taken from them at once unless when
the honey-harvest is over. Bees are exceedingly discouraged
by such wholesale appropriations, and often refuse entirely
to work in the empty boxes, even although honey abounds
in the fields. Not unfrequently when large boxes gre re-
moved, and, being found only partially filled, are returned,
the bees will carry every particle of honey down into the
main hive! If, however, the honey is removed in small
boxes, one at a time, and an empty box with guide-comb is
put iristantly in its place, the bees, so far from being dis-
couraged, work with more than their wonted energy, and
usually begin in a few hours to enlarge the comb.

I would here repeat the caution already given, against
needlessly opening and shutting the hives, or in any way
meddling with the bees so as to make them feel insecure in
their possessions. Such a course tends to discourage them,
and may seriously diminish the yield of honey.

If the apiarian wishes to remove honey from the interior
of the hive, he must remove the combs, as directed on page
175, and shake the bees off on the alighting-board or directly
into the hive.

PASTURAGE,

‘Some blossoms yield only pollen, and others only honey;
but by far the largest number, both honey and pollen. Since
the discovery that rye flour will answer so admirably as a
substitute, before the bees are able to gather the pollen from
the flowers, early blossoms producing pollen alone are not
so important in the vicinity of an apiary. Willows are
‘among the most desirable trees to have within reach of the
bees. Some kinds of willow put out their catkins very
early, and yield an abundance of both bee-bread and honey.
All the willows furnish an abundance of food for the bees;
‘and as there is considerable difference in the time of their
blossoming, it is desirable to have such varieties as will
furnish the bees with food as long as possible.
PASTURAGE. 315

The sugar maple furnishes a large supply of very deli-
cious honey; and its blossoms, hanging in drooping fringes,
will be all alive with bees. The apricot, peach, plum, and
cherry are much frequented by the bees. Pears and apples
furnish very copious supplies of the richest honey. The
tulip-tree, Liriodendron, is probably one of the greatest hon-
ey-producing trees in the world. In rich lands this magnifi-
ceht tree will grow over one hundred feet high; and when
covered with its large bell-shaped blossoms of mingled green
and golden yellow it is one of the most beautiful trees in
the world. The blossoms are expanding in succession, often
for more than two weeks, and a new swarm will frequently
fill its hive from these trees alone. The honey, though dark
in color, is of a rich flavor. This tree has been successfully
cultivated as a shade tree even as far north as southern
Vermont; and for the extraordinary beauty of its foliage.
and blossoms it deserves to be introduced wherever it can
be made to grow. The winter of 1851-2 was exceedingly.
cold, the thermometer in Greenfield, Mass., sinking as low
as 30 degrees below zero, and yet a tulip-tree not only sur-
vived the winter uninjured, but was covered the following.
season with blossoms.

The American linden, or basswood, is another tree which
yields large supplies of very pure and white honey. It is
one of our most beautiful native trees, and ought to be
planted much more extensively than it is in our villages and
country seats. The English linden is worthless for bees,
and in many places has been so infested by worms as. ta
make it necessary to cut it down.

The linden blossoms soon after the white clover begins
to fail; and a majestic tree covered with its yellow clusters,
at a season when very few blossoms are to be seen, is a sight
most beautiful and refreshing.

Here their delicious task, the fervent bees
In swarming millions tend: around, athwart,
Through the soft air the busy nations fly,
Cling to the bud, and, with inserted tube,

Suck its pure essence, its etherial soul.
Thomson.
314 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

Our villages would be much more attractive if, instead of
being filled, as they often are, almost exclusively with maples
and elms, they were adorned with a greater variety of our
native trees. The remark has often been made that these
trees are much more highly valued abroad than at home,
and that to see them in perfection we must either visit their
native forests or the pleasure-grounds of some wealthy
English or European gentleman.

‘Of all the various sources from which the bees derive their
supplies, white clover is the most important. It yields large
quantities of very white honey, and of the purest quality;
and wherever it flourishes in abundance the honey-bee will
always gather a rich harvest. In this country, at least, it
seems to be the most certain reliance of the apiary. It blos-
soms at a season of the year when the weather is usually
both hot and dry, and the bees gather the honey from it after
the sun has dried off the dew, so that its juices are very
thick and almost ready to be sealed over at once in the cells.

Every observant beekeeper must have noticed that, in
some seasons, the blossoms of various kinds yield much less
honey than in others. Perhaps no plant varies so little in
this respect as the white clover. This clover ought to be
much more extensively cultivated than it now is; and I con-
sider myself as conferring a benefit not only on beekeepers
but on the agricultural community at large, in being able to
state on the authority of one of New England’s ablest prac-
tical farmers, and writers on agricultural subjects, Hon.
Frederick Holbrook, of Brattleboro, Vermont, that the com-
mon white clover may be cultivated on some soils to very
great profit as a hay crop. In an article for the New Eng-
land Farmer for May, 1853, he speaks as follows:

“The more general sowing of white-clover seed is confi-
dently recommended. If the land is in good heart at the
time of stocking it to grass, white clover sown with the other
grass seeds will thicken up the bottom of mowings, growing
some eight or ten inches high and in a thick mat, and the
burden of hay will prove much heavier than it seemed likely
PASTURAGE. 315

to be before mowing. Soon after the practice of sowing
white clover on the tillage-fields commences, the plant will-
begin to show itself in various places on the farm, and ulti-
mately gets pretty well scattered over the pastures, as it
seeds very profusely, and the seeds are carried from place
to place in the manure and otherwise. The price of the seed
per pound in market is high; but then one pound of it will
seed more land than two pounds of red-clover seed; so that,

in tact, the former is the cheaper seed of the two, for an
acre.’

“ Red-top, red-clover, and white-clover seeds sown togeth-
er produce a quality of hay universally relished by stock.
My practice is to seed all dry, sandy, and gravelly lands
with this mixture. The red and white clover pretty much
make the crop the first year; the second year, the red clover
begins to disappear, and the red-top to take its place; and
after that the red-top and white clover have full possession
and make the very best hay for horses or oxen, milch cows,
or young stock, that I have been able to produce. The crop
per acre, as compared with herds-grass, is not so bulky; but
tested by weight and by spending quality in the winter it is
much the most valuable.

“ Herds-grass hay grown on moist uplands or reclaimed
meadows, and swamps of a mucky soil, or lands not over-
charged with silica, is of good quality ; but when grown on
sandy and gravelly soils abounding in silex, the stalks are
hard, wiry, coated with silicates as with glass, and neither
horses or cattle will eat it as well or thrive as well on it as
on hay made of red-top and clover; and as for milch cows,
they winter badly on it and do not give out the milk as
when fed on softer and more succulent hay.”

By managing white clover, according to Mr. Holbrook’s
plan, it might be made to blossom abundantly in the second
crop, and thus lengthen out, to: very great advantage, the
pasture for the bees. For fear that any of my readers might
suspect Mr. Holbrook of looking at the white clover through
a pair of bee-spectacles I would add that, although he has
316 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

ten acres of it in mowing, he has no bees, and has never
‘particularly interested himself in this branch of rural
economy. When we can succeed in directing the attention
of such men to bee culture we may hope to see as rapid an
advance in this as in some other important branches of agri-
culture.

Sweet-scented clover (Melilotus leucantha) affords a rich
bee-pasturage. It blossoms the second year from the seed,
and grows to a great height, and is always swarming with
bees until quite late in the fall. Attempts have been made
to cultivate it for the sake of its value as a hay crop, but
it has been found too coarse in its texture to be very profit-
able. Where many bees are kept it might, however, be so
valuable for them as to justify its extensive cultivation.
During the early part of the season it might be mowed and
fed to the cattle, in a green and tender state, and allowed to
blossom later in the season, when the bees can find but few
sources to gather from.

For years I have attempted to srooute, through botanists,
a hybrid or cross between the red and white clover, in order
to get something with the rich honey-producing properties
of the red, and yet with a short blossom into which the hon-
eybee might insert its proboscis. The red clover produces a
vast amount of food for the bumblebee, but is of no use av
all to the honeybee. I had hoped to procure a variety which
might answer all the purposes of our farmers as a field crop.
Quite recently I have ascertained that such a hybrid has
been originated in Sweden, and has been imported into this
country by Mr. B. C. Rogers, of Philadelphia. It grows
even taller than the red clover, bears many blossoms on a
stalk which are small, resembling the white, and is said to be
preferred by cattle to any kind of grass, while it answers
admirably for bees.

Buckwheat furnishes a most excellent fall feed for bees.
The honey is not so well flavored as some other kinds, but
it comes at a season when it is highly important to the bees,
and they are often able to fill their hives with a generous
PASTURAGE, 317

supply against winter. Buckwheat honey is gathered when
the dew is upon the blossoms, and, instead of being thick,
like white-clover honey, is often quite thin; the bees sweat
out a large portion of its moisture, but still they do not ex-
haust the whole of it, and in wet seasons especially it is
liable to sour in the cells. Honey gathered in a dry season
is always thicker, and of course more valuable than that
gathered in a wet one, as it contains much less water. Buck-
wheat is uncertain in its honey-bearing qualities. In some
seasons it yields next to none, and hardly a bee will be seen
upon a large field, while in others it furnishes an extraordi-
nary supply. The most practical and scientific agriculturists
agree that, so far from being an impoverishing crop, it is on
many soil one of the most profitable that can be raised.
Every beekeeper should have some in the vicinity of his
hives.

The raspberry, it is well known, is a great favorite with
. the bees, and the honey supplied by it is very delicious.
Those parts of New England which are hilly and rough are
often covered with wild raspberry, and would furnish food
for numerous colonies of bees.

It will be observed that thus far I have said nothing about
cultivating flowers in the garden to supply the bees with
food. What can be done in this way is of scarcely any
account; and it would be almost as reasonable to expect to
furnish food for a stock of cattle from a small grass plat as
honey for bees from garden plants. The cultivation of bee-
flowers is more a matter of pleasure than profit to those who
like to hear the happy hum of the busy bees as they walk
in their gardens. It hardly seems expedient, at least for
the present, to cultivate any field crops except such as are
profitable in themselves without reference to the bees.

Mignonette is excellent for bees; but of all flowers, none
seems to equal the borage. It blossoms in June and contin-
ues in bloom until severe frost, and is always covered with
bees, even in dull weather, as its pendant blossoms keep the
honey from the moisture. The honey yielded by it is of a
318 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

superior quality. If any plant which does not in itself make
a valuable crop would justify cultivation, there is no doubt
that borage would. An acre of it would support a large
number of stocks. If in a village those who keep bees would
unite together and secure the sowing of an acre in their
immediate vicinity, each person paying in proportion to the
number of stocks kept, it might be found profitable. The
plants should have about two feet of space every way; and
after they have covered the ground they would need no
further attention. They would come into full blossom, cul-
tivated in this manner, about the time that the white clover
beings to fail, and would not only furnish rich pasture for
the bees but would keep them from the groceries and shops
in which so many perish.

If those who are engaged in adorning our villages and
country residences with shade trees would be careful to set
out a liberal allowance of such kinds as are not only beauti-
ful to us but attractive to the bees, in process of time the
honey resources of the country might be very greatly in-
creased.

OVERSTOCKING A DISTRICT WITH BEES.

I come now to a point of the very first importance to all
interested in the cultivation of bees. If the opinions which
the great majority of American beekeepers entertain are
correct, then the keeping of bees must, in our country, be
always an insignificant pursuit. I confess that I find it diffi-
eult to repress a smile when the owner of a few hives, in a
district where as many hundreds might be made to prosper
gravely imputes his ill suecess to the fact that too many bees
are kept in his vicinity! The truth is that, as bees are
frequently managed, they are of but little value, even though
in “a land flowing with milk and honey.” If in the spring
a colony of bees is prosperous and healthy (see p. 185) it
will gather abundant stores, even if hundreds equally strong
are in its immediate vicinity; while if it is feeble, it will be
OVERSTOCKING. 319

of little or no value, even if there is not another swarm
within a dozen miles of it.

Suecess in beekeeping requires that a man should be in
some things a very close imitator of Napoleon, who always
aimed to have an overwhelming force at the right time and
in the right place; so the beekeeper must be sure that his

 eolonies are numerous just at the time when their numbers
ean be turned to the best account. If the bees can not get
up their numbers until the honey harvest is well nigh gone,
numbers will then be of as little service as many of the
famous armies against which “the soldier of Europe” con-
tended; which, after the fortunes of the campaign were
decided, only served to swell the triumphant spoils of the
mighty conquerer. A beekeeper with feeble stocks in the
spring, which become strong only when there is nothing to
get, is like a*farmer who contrives to hire no hands to reap
his harvests, but suffers the crops to rot upon the ground,
and then at great expense hires a number of stalworth labor-
ers to idle about his premises and eat him out of house and
home!

I do not believe that there is a single square mile in this
whole country which is overstocked with bees, unless it is
one so unsuitable for beekeeping as to make it unprofitable
to attempt it at all. Such an assertion will doubtless appear
to many very unguarded; and yet it is made advisedly, and
I am happy to be able to confirm it by reference to the ex-
perience of the largest cultivators in Europe. The following
letter from Mr. Wagner will, I trust, do more than I can
possibly do in any other way to show our beekeepers how
mistaken they are in their opinion as to the danger of over-
stocking their districts, and also what large results might be
obtained from a more extensive cultivation of bees.

Yor«, March 16, 1853.
Dear Sir:—In reply to your enquiry respecting the over-
stocking of a district, I would say that the present opinion
of the correspondents of the Bienenzeitung appears to be
320 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL,

that it can not readily be done. Dzierzon says, in practice
at least, “it never is done;” and Dr. Radlkofer, of Munich,
the president of the second apiarian convention, declares
that his apprehensions on that score were dissipated by
observations which he had opportunity and occasion to make
when on his way home from the convention. I have numer-
ous accounts of apiaries in pretty close proximity contain-
ing from 200 to 300 colonies each. Ehrenfels had a thou-
sand hives, at three separate establishments indeed, but so
close to each other that he could visit them all in half an
hour’s ride; and he says that in 1801 the average net yield
of his apiaries was $2 per hive. In Russia and Hungary,
apiaries numbering from 2000 to 5000 colonies are said not
to be unfrequent; and we know that as many as 4000 hives
“are oftentimes congregated, in autumn, at one point on the
heaths of Germany. Hence I think we need not fear that
any district of this country, so distinguished for abundant
natural vegetation and diversified culture, will very speedily
be overstocked, particularly after the importance of having
stocks populous early in the spring comes to be duly
appreciated. A week or ten days of favorable weather, at
that season, when pasturage abounds, will enable a strong
colony to lay up an ample supply for the year, if its labor
be properly directed.

Mr. Kaden, one of the ablest contributors to the Bienen-
zeitung, in the number for December, 1852, noticing the
communication from Dr. Radlkofer, says: “I also concur
in the opinion that a district of country can not be over-
stocked with bees; and that, however numerous the colonies,
all can procure sufficient sustenance if the surrounding
country contain honey-yielding plants and vegetables in the
usual degree. Where utter barrenness prevails, the case is
different, of course, as well as rare.”

The fifteenth annual meeting of German agriculturis!s
was held in the city of Hanover on the 10th of September,
1852, and in compliance with the suggestions of the apiarian
convention a distinct section devoted to bee culture was
OVERSTOCKING. 32h

instituted. The program propounded sixteen questions for
discussion, the fourth of which was as follows:

“Can a district of country embracing meadows, arable
land, orchards, and woodlands, or forests, be so overstocked
with bees that these may no longer find adequate sustenance
and yield a remunerating surplus of their products? ”

This question was debated with considerable animation.
The Rev. Mr. Kleine: (nine-tenths of the correspondents of
the bee journal are clergymen), President of the section,
gave it as his opinion that “it was hardly conceivable that
such a country could be overstocked with bees.” Counsellor
Herwig, and the Rev. Mr. Wilkens, on the contrary, main-
tained that “it might be overstocked.” In reply, Assessor
Heyne remarked that, whatever might be supposed possible
as an extreme case, it was certain that, as regards the king-
dom of Hanover, it could not be even remotely apprehended
that too many apiaries would ever be established; and that,
consequently, the greatest possible multiplication of colonies
might safely be aimed at and encouraged. At the same time,
he advised a proper distribution of apiaries.

I might easily furnish you with more matter of this sort,
and designate a considerable number of apiaries in various
parts of Germany containing from 25 to 500 colonies. But
the question would still recur, Do not these apiaries occupy
comparatively isolated positions? and at this distance from
the scene it would obviously be impossible to give a per-
fectly satisfactory answer. ;

According to the statistical tables of the kingdom of
Hanover, the annual production of beeswax in the province
of Lunenburg is 300,000 lbs., about half of which is export-
ed; and assuming one pound of wax as the yield of each
hive we must suppose that 300,000 hives are annually
“brimstoned” in the province; and assuming further, in
view of casualties, local influences, unfavorable seasons, etc.,
that only one-half of the whole number of colonies maintain-
ed produce a swarm each, every year, it would require a
322 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

total: of at least 600,000 colonies (141 to each square mile
to secure the result given in the tables. .

The square miles stocked, even to this extent, in this coun-
try; are, I suspect, “few and far between.” The Shakers
at Lebanon have about 600 colonies; but I doubt whether a
dozen apiaries equally large ean be found in the Union. It
is very evident that this country is far from being over-
stocked; nor-it is likely that it ever will be.

A German writer alleges that “the bees of Lunenburg pay
all the taxes assessed on their proprietors, and leave a sur-
plus besides.” The importance attached to bee culture
accounts in part for the remarkable fact that the people of a
district so barren that it has been called “the Arabia of
Germany ” are, almost without exception, in easy and com-
fortable circumstances. Could not still more favorable results
be obtained in this country under a rational system of man-~
agement, availing itself of the aid of science, art, and skill?

But I am digressing. My design was to furnish you with
an account of bee culture as it exists in an entire district of
country, in the hands of the common peasantry. This I
thought would be more satisfactory, and convey a better
idea of what may be done on a large scale than any number
of instances which might be selected of splendid success in
isolated cases. ' Very truly yours,

SAMUEL WAGNER.

Rev. L. L. Lanestroru.

The question how far bees will fly in search of honey has
been very differently answered by different apiarians. I
am satisfied that they will fly over three miles in search of
food; but I believe as a general rule that, if their food is
not within a circle of about two miles in every direction from
the apiary, they will be able to store up but little surplus
honey. The nearer the better. In all my arrangements
(see p. 87) I have made it a constant study to save every
step for the bees that I possibly can, economizing to the'
very utmost their time, which will all be transmuted into
OVERSTOCKING, 323°

honey. An inspection of the frontispiece of this treatise will
exhibit the general aspect of the alighting-board of my
hives, and will show the intelligent apiarian with what
ease bees will enter such a hive, even in very windy weather.
By such arrangements they will be able to store up more
honey, even if they have to go a considerable distance in
search of it, than they would in many other hives when the
honey abounded in their more immediate vicinity. Such
considerations are entirely overlooked by most beekeepers,
and they seem to imagine that they are matters of no impor-
tanee. By the utter neglect of any kind of precautions to
facilitate the labors of their bees you might suppose that
they imagined these delicate insects to be possessed of nerves
of steel and sinews of iron or adamant; or else that they
took them for miniature locomotives, always fired up and
capable of an indefinite amount of exertion. A bee can not
put forth more than a certain amount of physical exertion;
and if a large portion of this is spent in absolutely fighting
against difficulties from which it might easily be guarded,
it must be very obvious to any one who thinks on the subject
at all that a great loss must be sustained by its owner.

If some of these thoughtless owners returning home with
a heavy burden were compelled to fall downstairs half a
dozen times before they could get into the house, they might
perhaps think it best to guard their industrious workers
against such discouraging accidents. If bees are tossed
violently about by the winds as they attempt to enter their
hives they are often fatally injured, and the whole colony
so discouraged, to say nothing more, that they do not gather
nearly as much as they otherwise would.

The arrangement of my protector is such that the bees,
if blown down, fall upon a sloping bank of soft grass, and
are able to enter the hives without much inconvenience.

Just as soon as our cultivators can be convinced, by prac-
tical results, that beekeeping, for the capital invested, may
be made a most profitable branch of rural economy, they
will sec the importance of putting their bees into suitable
324 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

hives, and of doing all that they can to give them a fair
‘chance. Until then, the mass of them will follow the beaten
‘track and attribute their ill success, not to their own igno-
rance, carelessness, or stupidity, but to their want of “luck,’.
or to the overstocking of the country with bees. I ‘hope,
before many years, to see the price of good honey so reduced
that the poor man ean place it on his table and feast upon
at as one of the cheapest luxuries. within his reach.

‘On page 19 a statement was given of Dzierzon’s experi-
‘ence as to the profits of beekeeping. The section of country
an which he resides is regarded by him as unfavorable to
apiarian pursuits. I shall now give what I consider a safe
estimate for almost any section in our country, while in
wnusually favorable locations it will fall far below the
wesults which may be attained. It is based upon the supposi-
ction that the bees are kept in properly constructed hives so
sas to be strong early in the season, and that the increase of
stocks is limited to one new one from two old ones. Under
‘proper management, one year with another, about ten dol-
dars’ worth of honey may be obtained for every two stocks
“wintered over. The worth of the new colonies I set off as
:an equivalent for labor of superintendence, interest on the
-mouey invested in bees, hives, fixtures, ete.

A careful, prudent man who will enter into beekeeping
imoderately at first, and extend his operations only as his
sskill and experience increase, will, by the use of my hives,
‘find that the preceding estimate is not too large. Even on
‘the ordinary mode of beekeeping, there are many who will
consider it rather below than above the mark. If thoroughly
‘careless persons are determined to “try their luck,” as they
‘eall it, with bees, I advise them by all means, in mercy to
ithe bees, to adopt the non-swarming plan. Improved meth-
‘ods of management with such persons will be of little or
mo use unless you could improve their habits first, and very
often their brains too! Every dollar that such persons
spend upon bees, unless with the slightest possible departure
‘from the old-fashioned plans, is a dollar worse than thrown
OVERSTOCKING. 325

away. In those parts of Europe where beekeeping is carried
on upon the largest scale, the mass adhere to the old system.
This they understand, and by this they secure a certainty;
whereas in our country thousands have been induced to enter
upon the wildest schemes, or at least to use hives which
could not furnish them the very information needed for their
successful management. A simple box furnished with my
frames will enable the masses without departing materially
from the common system, to increase largely the yield from
their bees.

In addition to the information given in the Introduction,
respecting the success of Dzierzon’s system of management,
I have recently ascertained that one of its ablest opponents
in Germany has become thoroughly convinced of its supe-
vior value. The government of Norway has appropriated
$300 per annum, for the ensuing three years, toward dif-
fusing a knowledge of Dzierzon’s method in that country,
having previously despatched Mr. Hanser, collector of eus-~
toms, to Silesia to visit Mr. Dzierzon and acquire a practical,
knowledge of his system of management. He is now em-.
ployed in distributing model hives in the provinces, andj

imparting information on improved bee culture.

Note.—The time has hardly come when the attention of any of our
State authorities can be attracted to the importance of bee culture. It
is only of late that they have seemed to manifest any peculiar interest
in promoting the advancement of agricultural pursuits. A Department
of Agriculture ought to have been established, years ago, by the national
government at Washington. Let us hope that the administration now in
power will establish a lasting claim to the gratitude of posterity by tak-
ing wise and efficient steps to advance the agricultural interests of the
country. A national society to promote these interests has recently been
established, and much may be hoped from its wisdom and energy. Untit
some disinterested tribunal can be established, before which all inven-
tions and discoveries can be fairly tested, honest men will suffer, and
ignorance and imposture will continue to flourish. Lying advertisements
and the plausible misrepresentations of brazen-faced impostors will stilk
drain the purses of the credulous, while thousands, disgusted with the
horde of impositions which are palmed off upon the community, wilk
settle down into a dogged determination to try nothing new. A society
before which every thing claiming to be an improvement in rural econ~
omy could be fairly tested would undoubtedly be shunned. by ignorant
and unprincipled men, who now find it an easy task to procure any
number of certificates, but who dread nothing so much as honest and
intelligent investigation. The reports of such a society after the most
thorough trials and examinations, would inspire confidence, save the
community from severe losses, and encourage the ablest’ minds to devote
their best energies to the improvement of agricultural implements.
CHAPTER XVIII.

THE ANGER OF BEES; REMEDY FOR THEIR STING; BEE-DRESS,
INSTINCTS OF BEES.

IF the bee were disposed to use, without any provocation,
the effective weapon with which it has been provided, its
domestication would be entirely out of the question. The
same remark, however, is equally true of the ox, the horse,
or the dog. If these faithful servants of man were respec-
tively determined to use to the very utmost their horns, their
heels, and their teeth, to his injury, he would never have
been able to subject them to his peaceful authority. The
gentleness of the honeybee, when kindly treated, and man-
aged by those who properly understand its instincts, has in
this treatise been frequently spoken of, and is truly astonish-
ing. They will, especially in swarming time, or whenever
they are gorged with honey, allow any amount of handling
which does not hurt them, without the slightest show of
anger. For the gratification of others I have frequently
taken them up by handfuls, suffered them to run over my
face, and even smoothed down their glossy backs as they
rested on my person! Standing before the hives I have, by
a rapid sweep of my hands, caught numbers of them at once,
just as though they were so many harmless flies, and allowed
them, one by one, to crawl out by the smallest opening to the
light of day; and I have even gone so far as to imitate
many of the feats which the celebrated English apiarian,
Wildman, was accustomed to perform, who, having once
secured the queen of a hive, could make the bees cluster on
his head, or hang, like a flowing beard, in large festoons
from his chin. Wildman, for a long time, made as great a
mystery of his wonderful performances as the spirit-rappers
ANGER OF BEES. 327

of the present day do of theirs; but at last he was induced
to explain his whole mode of procedure; and the magic
control which he possessed over the bees, and which was,
by the ignorant, ascribed to his having bewitched them, was
found to be owing entirely to his superior acquaintance with
their instincts and his uncommon dexterity and boldness.

Such was the spell, which round a Wildman's arm

Twined i in dark wreaths the fascinated swarm;

Bright o’er his breast the glittering legions led,

Or with a living garland bound his head.

His dextrous hand, with firm yet hurtless hold,

Could seize the chief, known by her scales of gold,

Prune ’mid the wondering train her filmy wing,

Or o’er her folds the silken fetter fling.
Evans.

““M. Lombard, a skillful French apiarian, narrates the
following interesting occurrence which shows how peaceable
bees are in swarming time, and how easily managed by those
who have both skill and confidence.

“ A young girl of my acquaintance,” he says, “was greatly
-afraid of bees, but was completely cured of her fear by the
following incident. A swarm having come off, I observed
the queen alight by herself at a little distance from the
apiary. I immediately called my little friend that I might
show her the queen. She wished to see her closer; so, after
having caused her to put on her gloves, I gave the queen into
her hand. We were in an instant surrounded by the whole
bees of the swarm. In this emergency I encouraged the girl
to be steady, bidding her be silent and fear, nothing, and
remaining myself close by her. I then made her stretch out
her right hand, which held the queen, and covered her head
and shoulders with a very thin handerkerchief. The swarm
soon fixed on her hand and hung from it as from the branch
of a tree. The little girl was delighted above measure at
the novel sight, and so entirely freed from all fear that she
bade me uneover her face. The spectators were charmed
with the interesting spectacle. At length I brought a hive,
and, shaking the swarm from the child’s hand, it was lodged
in safety and without inflicting a single wound.”
328 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

The indisposition of the bees to sting when swarming is a
fact familiar to every practical beekeeper; but I have not
in all my reading or acquaintance with apiarians ever met
with a single observation which has convinced me that the
philosophy of this strange fact was thoroughly understood.
So far as I know, J am the only person who has ever ascer-
tained that, when bees are filled with honey, they lose all
disposition to volunteer an assault, and who has made this
eurious law the foundation of an extensive and valuable
system of management. It was only after I had thoroughly
tested its universality and importance that I began to feel
the desirableness of obtaining a perfect control over each
comb in the hive; for it was only then that I saw that such
control might be made available in the hands of any one
who could manage bees in the ordinary way. The result of
my whole system is to make the bees unusually gentle, so
that they are not only peaceable when any necessary opera-
tion is being performed, but at all other times. Even if I
could open hives and safely manage at pleasure, still, if the
result of such proceedings was to leave the bees in an excited
state, so as to make them unusually irritable, it would all
avail but very little.

There is, however, one difficulty in managing bees so as
not to incur the risk of being stung at all, which attaches to
every system of bee culture. If an apiary is approached
when bees are out in great numbers, thousands and tens
of thousands will continue their busy pursuits without at all
interfering with those who do not molest them. Frequently.
however, there will be a few cross bees which come buzzing
around our ears, and seem determined to sting without the
very slightest provocation. From such lawless bees no per-
son without a bee-dress is absolutely safe. By repeated
examinations I have ascertained that disease is the cause
of such unreasaonable irritability. I am never afraid that a
healthy bee will attack me unless unusually provoked; and
I am always sure as soon as I hear one singing about my ears
that it is incurably diseased. If such a bee is dissected it
\

ANGER OF BEES. 329

‘will be found to exhibit the unmistakable evidence that a
peculiar kind of dysentery has already fastened upon its
system. Inthe first stages of this complaint the insect is
very irritable,’ refuses to labor, and seems unable or unwill-
ing to distinguish friend from foe. As the disease pro-
gresses, it becomes stupid, its body swells up, and is filled
with a great mass*of yellow matter, and, being unable to fly,
it erawls on the ground in front of the hive, and speedily
perishes. I have never.been able to ascertain the cause of
this singular malady, nor~can I suggest any remedy for it.
I hope that some scientific apiarians will investigate it close-
ly; for if it could only be remedied we might have hundreds
of colonies on our premises and in our gardens, and yet be -
perfectly safe. :

A person thoroughly acquainted with the leading princi-
ples of bee culture as they are set forth in tnis manual will
never under any circumstances find it necessary to provoke to
fury a colony of bees. Let it be remembered that nothing
an be more terribly vindictive than a family of bees when
thoroughly aroused by gross abuse or unskillful treatment.
Let their hive be suddenly overthrown or violently jarred,
or let them be provoked by the presence of a sweaty horse,
or any animal offensive to them, so that the anger at first
manifested by a few is extended to the whole community,
and the most severe and sometimes dangerous consequences
may ensue. In the same way in the management of the
animals most useful to man, by ignorance or abuse they may
be roused to a state of frantic desperation, and limbs may
be broken, and often lives destroyed; and yet no one possess-
ed of common sense attributes such calamities, except in
very rare instances, to any thing else than carelessness or
want of skill. Let it be remembered that even the most
peaceable stock of bees can, in a very few days, by abusive
‘treatment be taught to look on every living thing as an
enemy, and to sally forth with the most spiteful intentions
aS soon as any one approaches their domicile. How often
does it happen that the vicious beast, which its owner so
330 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

passionately belabors, is far less to blame for ited obstinacy
than the equally vicious brute who so unmercifuily beats it !

A word now to those timid females who are almost ready
to faint or to go into hysterics if a bee enters the house or
approaches them in the garden or fields. ‘Such alarm is
entirely uncalled for. It is only in the wicinity of their
homes, and in resistance to what they eofisider an evil de-
sign upon their very altars and firesidés, that these insects
ever volunteer an attack. Away from home they are as
peaceably inclined as you could desire. If you attack them
they are much more eager to escape than to offer you any
annoyanee, and they can be induced to sting only when they
are compressed, either by-accident or design.

Let not any of myv‘readers think that they have even a
slight encouragemyfit, from this conduct of the bee, to re-
serve all theiz sweet smiles and honied words for the world
abroad while they give free vent, in the sacred precincts of
home, to ill-natured looks and ill-tempered language; for
toward the occupants of ‘its honied’ dome the bee is all
kindness: and affection. In the experience of many years I
never saw an instance in which two bees, members of the
same family, ever seemed to be actuated by any but the very
kindest feelings toward each other. In their busy haste they
often jostle against each other; but where every thing is
well meant, every thing is well received. Tens of thousands
all live together in the sweetest harmony and peace, when
very often if there are only two or three children in a family
the whole household is tormented by their constant bickerings
and contention. Among the bees the good mother is the hon-
ored queen of her happy family; they all wait upon her steps
with unbounded reverence and affection, make way for her
as she moves over the combs, smooth and brush her beautiful
plumes, offer her food from time to time, and, in short, do.
all that they possibly can to make her perfectly happy;
while too often children treat their mothers with irreverence
or neglect, and, instead of striving with loving zeal to lighten
their labors ard save their steps they treat them more as
ANGER OF BEES. 331

though they were servants hired only to wait upon every
whim and to humor every caprice.

Let us pause for a moment and contemplate further the
admirable arrangement by which the instinct of the bce
which disposes it to defend its treasures is made so perfectly
compatible with the safety both of man and the domestic
animals under his care. Suppose that, away from home,
bees were as easily provoked as they are in the immediate
vicinity of their hives, what would become of our domestic
animals among the clover-fields in the pastures? <A tithe of
the merry gambols they now so safely indulge in would
speedily bring about them a swarm of these infuriated
insects. In all our rambles among the green fields, we
should constantly be in peril; and no jocund mower would
ever whet his glittering scythe or swing his peaceful weapon
unless first clad in a dress impervious to their stings. In
short, the bee, instead of being the friend of man, would
be one of his most vexatious enemies, and, as has been the
case with the wolves and the bears, every effort would be
made for their utter extermination.

The sting of a bee often produces very painful and (upon
some persons) very dangerous effects. I am persuaded,
from the result of my own observation, that the bee seldom
stings those whose systems are not sensitive to its venom,
while it seems to take a special and malicious pleasure in
attacking those upon whom it produces the most painful
effects. It may be that something in the secretions of such
persons both provokes the attack and causes its consequences
to be more severe.

I would not advise persons upon whose system the sting
of a bee produces the most agonizing pain, and violent if
not dangerous symptoms, to devote any attention to the
practical part of an apiary, although I am acquainted with
a lady who is thus severely affected, and who yet, strange
to say, is a great enthusiast in apiarian pursuits! I have
met with individuals upon whom a sting produced the sin-
gular effect of causing their breath to smell like the venom
332 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANDAL,

of the enraged insect! The smell of the poison resembles
almost perfectly that of a ripe banana. It produces a very
irritating effect upon the bees themselves; for if a minute
drop of it is extended to them on a stick they at once man-
ifest the most decided anger.

It is well known that the bee is a lover of sweet odors,
and that unpleasant ones are very apt to excite their anger.
And here I may as well speak plainly, and say that bees
have a special dislike to persons whose habits are not cleanly,
and particularly to those who bear about them a perfume

not in the very least resembling those

Sabean odors
From the spicy shores of Araby the blest,

of which the poet so beautifully discourses. Those who
belong to the family of the “ great unwashed” will find to
their cost that bees are decided foes to all of their tribe.
The peculiar odor of some persons, however cleanly, may
account for the fact that the bees have such a decided antip-
athy to their presence in the vicinity of their hives. It is
related of an enthusiastic apiarian that, after a long and
severe attack of fever, he was never able to take more pleas-
ure in his bees. His secretions seem to have undergoue
some change, so that the bees assailed him as soon as he
ventured to approach their hive.

Nothing is more offensive to bees than the impure breath
exhaled from human lungs. It excites them at once to fury.
Would that, in their hatred for impure air, human beings
had only a tithe of the sagacity exercised by bees! It
would not be long before the thought of breathing air loaded
with all manner of impurities from human lungs, to say
nothing of its loss of oxygen, would excite unutterable loath-
ing and disgust.

As the smell of a sweaty horse is very offensive to the
bees, it is never safe to allow these animals to go near a hive,
as they are sometimes attacked and killed by the furious
insects. Those engaged in bee culture on a large scale will
do well to enclose their apiaries with a strong fence so as
to prevent cattle from molesting the hives. If the apiary is
ANGER OF BEES. 333

‘enclosed by a high fence, with sharp and strong pickets, and
the door is furnished with a strong lock, it will prevent the
losses which in some loealities are so common from human
pilferers. Such losses may be guarded against by fastening
a wrought-iron ring into the top of each hive, well clinched
on the inside. An iron rod may run through these rings,
and thus with two padlocks and fixtures (one at each end)
a dozen or more hives may be secured. I am happy to say
that in most localities such precautions are entirely unnec-
essary. A place in which the stealing of honey and fruit is
practiced by any except those who are candidates for state’s
prison is in a fair way of being soon considered as a very
undesirable place of residence. If owners of apiaries, gar-
dens, and orchards could be induced to pursue a more liberal
policy, and not be so meanly penurious as they often are, I
am persuaded that they would find it would conduce very
highly to their interests. -The honey and fruit expended
with a cheerful, hearty liberality would be more than repaid
to them in the good will secured, and in the end would cost
much less than bars and bolts. Reader, do not imagine that
I have the least idea that a thoroughly selfish man can ever
be made to practice this or any other doctrine of benevo-
lence. Demonstrate it again and again, until, even to his
narrow and contracted view it seems almost as clear as light,
still he will never find the heart to reduce it to practice.
You might almost as well expect to transform an incarnate
fiend into an angel of light by demonstrating that “ Wis-
dom’s ways are ways of pleasantness,” while “the way of
the transgressor is hard,” as to attempt to stamp upon a
heart encrusted with the adamant of selfishness the noble
impress of a liberal spirit.

Of all the senses, that of smell in the bee seems to be the
most perfect. Huber has demonstrated its exceeding acute-
ness by numerous interesting experiments. If honey is
placed in vessels from which the odor can escape, but in
which it can not be seen, the bees will soon alight upon them
and eagerly attempt to find an entrance. It is by this sense.
334 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

unquestionably, that they recognize the members of their
own community, although it seems to us very singular that
each colony should have its own peculiar scent. Not only
can two colonies: be safely united by giving them the same
odor, but in the same way any number of colonies may be
made to live in perfect peace. If hundreds of hives are all
connected with gauze-wire ventilators, so that the air passes
freely from one to another, the bees will all live in absolute
harmony; and if any bee attempts to enter the wrong hive
he will not be molested: The same result can often be at-
tained by feeding colonies from a common vessel. I have
seen literally hundreds of thousands of bees that, after being
treated in this way, so as to acquire the same odor, were
always gentle toward each other, while if a single bee from
a strange apiary lit upon the feeder it was sure to be killed.

T have described (p. 191) the use which I make of pepper-
mint in order to prevent bees from quarreling when they
are united. The Rev. Mr. Kleine (see p. 321), in a recent
number of Beinenzeitung, has recommended the use of
another article which he finds to be very useful in preventing
robbing. His statement would have come in more appropri-
ately in the chapter on Robbing, but was not received until
too late. He says that the most convenient and effectual
mode of arresting and repelling the attacks of robbers is to
impart to the attacked hive some intensely powerful and
unaccustomed odor. He effects this most readily by placing
a small portion of musk in the attacked hive, late in the
evening, when all the robbers have retreated. On the fol-
lowing morning, the bees (provided they have a healthy
queen) will promptly and boldly meet their assailants, and
these in turn are nonplused by the unwonted odor, and if
any of them enter the hive and carry off some of the coveted
booty they will not be recognized nor received at home on
their return, on account of their strange smell, but will be
at once seized as strangers, and killed by their own house-
hold. Thus the robbing is speedily brought to a close.

In combination with my blocks this device might be made
ANGER OF BEES. 335

very effectual. When the apiarian perceives that a hive is
being robbed, let him shut up the entrance. Before dusk he
can open it and allow the robbers to go home, and then put
in a small piece of musk. The entrance next day may be
kept so contracted that only a single bee can enter at once.
In the union of stocks the same substance might be used
advantageously. A short time before the process is at-
tempted, each colony might have a small dose of musk (a
piece of musk tied up in a little bag), and they would then
be sure to agree. I prefer, however, in most cases, the use
of scented sugar-water.

By using my double hives, and putting a small piece of
gauze wire on an opening made in the partition, the two
colonies having the same scent will always agree. This will
be very convenient where they are compelled to live as such
uear neighbors, and enables the apiarian at any time to unite
-hem and appropriate their surplus stores. These double
hives are admirably adapted to the wants of those who wish
to make the smallest possible departure from the old system,
as they need make no change except to unite the stocks
instead of killing the bees.

I have already remarked that no operation should ever be
altempted upon bees by which a whole colony is liable to be
excited to an ungovernable pitch of fury. Such operations
are never nécessary; and a skillful apiarian will, by availing
himself of the principles laid down in this treatise, both
easily and safely do every thing that is at all desirable, even
to the driving of a powerful colony from an old box hive.
When bees are improperly dealt with they will “ compass ”
their assailant “about ” with the most savage ferocity; and
woe be to him if they can creep up his clothes, or find on
his person a single unprotected spot! On the contrary,
when not provoked by foolish management or wanton abuse,
the few who are bent on mischief appear to retain still some
touch of grace amid all their desperation. Like the thor-
oughbred scold, who, by the elevated pitch of her voice,
often gives timely warning to those who would escape from
336 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

the sharp sword of her tongue, a bee bent upon mischief
raises its note almost an octave above the peaceable pitch,
and usually gives us timely warning that it means to sting if
it ean. Even then it will seldom proceed to extremities
unless it can leave its sting somewhere upon the face of its
victim, and usually as near as possible to the eye; for bees
and all other members of the stinging tribe seem to have,
as it were, an intuitive perception that this is the most vul-
nerable spot upon the “human face divine.” If the head is
quietly lowered and the face covered with the hands they
will often follow a person for some rods, all the time sound-
ing their war-note in his ears, taunting him for his sneaking
conduct, and daring him, just for one single moment, to look
up and allow them to catch but a glimpse of his coward face!

If a person is suddenly attacked by angry bees, no matter
how numerous or vindictive they may be, not the slightest
attempt should ever be made to act on the offensive. If a
single bee is violently struck at, a dozen will soon be on
hand to avenge the insult; and if the resistance is still con-
tinued, hundreds and at last thousands will join in the
attack. The assailed party should quickly retreat from the
vicinity of the hives, to the protection of a building, or, if
none is near, he should hide himself in a clump of bushes
and lie perfectly still, with his head covered, until the bees
leave him.

REMEDIES FOR THE STING OF A BEE,

If only a few of the host of remedies so zealously advo-
cated could be made effectual, few persons would have much
reason to dread being stung. Most of them, however, are of
no manner of use whatever. Like the prescriptions of the
quack, they are absolutely worse than doing nothing at all.

The first thing to be done after being stung is to pull the
sting out of the wound as quickly as possible. Even after
it is torn from the body of the bee (see p. 55) the muscles
which control it are in active operation, and it penetrates
deeper and deeper into the flesh, injecting continually more
REMEDIES FOR THE STINGS OF BEES. 337

and more of its poison into the wound. Every apiarian
should have about his person, or close at hand, a small piece
of looking-glass, so that he may be able with the least possi-
ble delay to find and remove a sting. In most cases, if it 1s
at once removed it will produce no serious consequences;
whereas if suffered to empty all its vials of wrath it may
cause. great inflammation and severe suffering. After the
sting is removed, the utmost possible care should be taken
not to irritate the wound by the very slightest rubbing.
However intense the smarting, and, of course, the disposi-
tion to apply friction to the wound, it should never be done,
as the poison will at once be carried through the circulating
system, and severe consequences may ensue. As most of the
popular remedies are rubbed in, they are, of course, worse
than nothing. Be careful not to suck the wound as so many
persons do. This produces irritation in the same way as
rubbing. Who does not know that a mosquito bite, even
after the lapse of several days, may be brought to life again
by violent rubbing or sucking? The moment that the blood

is put into a violent and unnatural circulation, the poison -

is quickly diffused over a considerable part of the system.
If the mouth is applied to the wound, other unpleasant con-
sequences may ensue. “While the poison of most snakes and
many other noxious animals affects only the circulating
system, and may, therefore, be swallowed. with impunity,
the poison of the, bee acts powerfully, not only upon the
circulating system, but upon the organs of digestion. The
most distressing headaches are often produced by it.

From my own experience I recommend cold water as the
very best remedy with which I am acquainted for the sting
of a bee. It is often applied in the shape of a plaster of
mud, but may be better used by wetting cloths and holding
them gently to the wound. Cold water seems to act in two
ways. The poison of the bee being very volatile, it is quick-
ly dissolved in water; and the coldness of the water has also
a powerful tendency to check inflammation and to prevent
the virus from being taken up by the absorbents and carried
338 THE BEEKEEPER’'S MANUAL.

through the system. The leaves of the plantain, crushed
and applied to the wound, will answer as a very good sub-
stitute when water can not at once be procured. The broad-
leafed plantain, or, as some call it, “ the toad plantain,” is
regarded by many as possessing a very great efficacy. Bevan
recommends the use of spirits of hartshorn applied to the
wound, and says that in cases of severe stinging its internal
use is beneficial. Whatever remedy is applied should be
used, if possible, without a moment’s delay. The immediate
extraction of the sting will be found, even if nothing more
is done, much more efficacious than any remedy that can be
applied after it has been allowed to remain and discharge
all its venom into the wound.

It may be some comfort to those who are anxious to ceulti-
vate bees to know that, after a while, the poison will produce
less and less effect upon their system. When I first became
interested in bees a sting was quite a formidable thing, the
pain often being very intense, and the wound swelling so as
sometimes to obstruct my sight. At present the pain is
usually slight; and if I can only succeed in quickly extract-
ing the sting no unpleasant consequences ensue, even if no
remedies are used. Huish speaks of seeing the bald head of
Bonner, a celebrated practical apiarian, lined with bee stings
which seemed to produce upon him no unpleasant effects.
Like Mithridates, king of Pontus, he seemed almost to thrive
upon poison itself!

I have met with a highly amusing remedy very gravely
propounded by an old English apiarian. I mention it more
as a matter of curiosity than because I imagine that any of
my readers will be likely to make trial of it. He says, let
the person who has been stung catch as speedily as possible
another bee, and make it sting on the same spot! It requires
some courage, even in an enthusiastic disciple of Huber, to
venture upon such a singular homeopathic remedy; but as
this old writer had previously stated that, the oftener a
person is stung, the less he suffers from the venom; and as

had proved, in my own experience, the truth of this asser-
°
BEE DRESS. 339

tion, I determined to make trial of his remedy. I allowed
a bee to sting me upon the finger, and suffered the sting to
remain until it had discharged all its venom. I then com-
pelled another bee to insert its sting as near as possible in
the same spot. I used no remedies of any kind, and had
the satisfaction, in my zeal for new discoveries, of suffering
more from the pain and swelling than I had previously
experienced for years.

An old writer recommends a powder of dried bees for
distressing cases of stoppages; and some of the highest medi-
cal authorities have recently recommended a tea made by
pouring boiling water upon bees, for the same complaint,
while the homeopathic physicians employ the poison of the
bee, which they call apis, for a great variety of maladies.
That it is capable of producing intense headaches any one
who has been stung or who has tasted the poison very well
knows.

BEE-DRESS,

Timid apiarians, and all who are liable to suffer severely
from the sting of a bee, should by all means furnish them-
selves with the protection of a bee-dress. The great objec-
tion to gauze-wire veils or other materials of which such a
dress has been usually made, is that they obstruct clear
vision, so highly important in all operations, besides pro-
ducing such excessive heat and perspiration as to make the
apiarian peculiarly offensive to the bees. I prefer to use
what I shall call a bee-hat, of entirely novel construction. It
is made of wire cloth, the meshes of which are too fine to
admit a bee, and yet coarse enough to allow a free circula-
tion of air, and to permit distinct sight. The wire cloth
should first be fastened together in a circular shape, like a
hat, and large enough to go very easily over the head. Its
top may be of cotton cloth, and it should have the same
material fastened around its lower edge, and furnished with
strings to draw it so closely around the neck and shoulders
that a bee can not creep under it. Woolen stockings may
340 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

then be drawn over the hands, or, better still, india-rubber
‘gloves, such as are now in very common use, may be worn.
These gloves are impenetrable to the sting of a bee, and
yet are so soft and pliant as scarcely in the least to interfere.
with the operations of the apiarian.

If it were not for the diseased bees of which I have several
times spoken, such precautions would be entirely unneces-
sary. The best apiarians, as it is, dispense with them, even
at the cost of a sting now and then.

INSTINCTS OF BEES.

This treatise has already grown to such a length that I
must be exceedingly brief on a point peculiarly interesting
to all who delight in investigating the wonders of the insect
world. In the preceding parts of the work, numerous proofs.
have been given of the refined instincts of the bee. It is
impossible always to draw the line between instinet and
reason, and very often some of the actions of animals and
insects appear to be the result of a process of reasoning
almost the same with the exercise of the reasoning faculty
in man. “ There is this difference,” says Mr. Spence, “ be-
tween intellect in man and the rest of the animal creation.
Their intellect teaches them to follow the lead of their
senses, and to make such use of the external world as their
appetites or instincts incline them to, and this is their wis-
dom; while the intellect of man, being associated with an
immortal principle, and connected with a world above that
which his senses reveal to him, can, by aid derived from

_Heaven, control those senses, and render them obedient to
the governing power of his nature; and this is his wisdom.”

This subject has seldom been more happily expressed than
by Mr. Spence. The line of distinction between man and
the lower orders of creation is not the mere fact that he
reasons and they do not, but that he has a moral and ac-
countable nature, while they have nothing of the kind.

“Tt will be evident,” says Bevan, “that, though I make a
distinction between the instinct and the reason of bees, I do.
INSTINCTS OF BEES. 341

vot confound their reason with the reason of man. But to
obviate all possibility of misconception, I will at once define
my meaning when I use the terms insect reason and instinct.

“ By reason I mean the power of making deductions from
previous experience or observation, and thereby of adapting
means to ends. Instinct I regard as a disposition and power
to perform certain actions in the same uniform manner,
depending upon nice mechanism and having no reference
either to observation or experience; operating on the means,
without anticipation of the end, incited by no hope, con-
trolled by no foreboding. Those who have attended to this
subject will be aware that insect reason, as above defined,
is more restricted in its functions than the reason of man;
to which is superadded the power of distinguishing between
the true and the false, and, according to some metaphysi-
cians, between right and wrong. Reason, in man, has a
regular growth and slow progression; all the arts he prac-
tices evince skill and dexterity, proportioned to the pains
which have been taken in acquiring them. In the lower links
of creation, but little of this gradual improvement is ob-
servable; their powers carry them almost directly to their
object. They are perfect, as Bacon says, in all their mem-
bers and organs from the very beginning.”

Far different Man, to highter fates assigned,
Unfolds with tardier step his Proteus mind,
With numerous instincts fraught, that lose their force
Like shallow streams, divided in their course;
Long weak, and helpless, on the fostering breast,
In fond dependence leans the infant guest,
Till reason ripens what young impulse taught,
And builds, on sense, the lofty pile of thought;
From earth, sea, air, the quick perceptions rise,
And swell the mental fabric to the sama

vans.

T shall here narrate a very remarkable instance of sagacity
which seems to approach as near to human reason as any
thing in the bee which has ever fallen under my notice. In
the year 1851 I had a small model hive constructed into
which I temporarily placed a swarm of bees. The particular
object which I had in view was to test the feasibility of
some plans which I had recently devised for facilitating the
342 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

storing of honey in small tumblers. The bees, in a short
time, filled the hive and stored about a dozen glasses with
honey. I was called away from them for a few days, and
was much surprised, on my return, to find that the honey
which has been stored up in the hive and sealed over for
winter use was all gone, and the cells filled with eggs and
young worms! The hive stood in a covered bee-house, and
the bees had built a large quantity of comb on the outside
of the hive, into which they had transferred the honey taken
from the interior. The object of this unusual procedure
was, beyond all question, to give the poor queen a place
within the hive for laying her eggs. For this purpose they
uncapped and emptied all the cells so carefully sealed over,
instead of using the new comb on the outside for the brood.

Those who wish to study the natural history of the honey-
bee to the best advantage will derive great aid in their in-
vestigations from the use of my observing hives. Each
comb in these hives is attached to a movable frame, and they
all admit of easy removal. In this respect the construction
of the hive is entirely new; and, while it greatly facilitates
the business of observation, it enables the apiarian, on the
approach of cool weather, to transfer his bees from a hive
in which they can not winter to one of the common con-
struction. As soon as the weather in the spring is sufficient-
ly warm they may again be placed in the observing hive, in
which (as both sides of every comb admit of inspection)
every bee can be seen, and all the wonders of the hive are
exposed to the full light of day (see p. 23). In the common
observing hives experiments are often conducted with great
difficulty by cutting away parts of the comb, whereas in
mine they can all be performed by the simple removal of
one of the frames; and if the colony becomes reduced in
numbers it may, in a few moments, be strengthened by help-
ing it to maturing brood from one of the other hives. A
very intelligent writer in a description of the different hives
exhibited at the World’s Fair, in London, lamented that no
method had yet been devised of enabling bees to cluster, in
INSTINCTS OF BEES. 343

cool weather, in an observing hive, and that it was found
next to impossible to preserve them in such hives over win-
ter. By the use of the movable frames this difficulty is
entirely obviated.

I can not allow this work to come to a close without ac-
knowledging my great obligations to Mr. Samuel Wagner,
of York, Pennsylvania. To him I am indebted for a knowl-
edge of Dzierzon’s discoveries, and for many valuable sug-
gestions scattered throughout the treatise.
CHAPTER XVIII.
BEEKEEPERS’ CALENDAR—BEEKEEPERS’ AXIOMS.

J SHALL now furnish plain directions for each month in the
year, so that the beginner may always know what to do at
any given season in his apiary.

JanuaRy.—lIn cold climates bees in this month are usually
in a state of repose. If the colonies have had proper atten-
tion in the fall, nothing will ordinarily need to be done that
will excite them to an activity always more or less injurious.
Tn very cold climates, however, when a severe temperature is
of very long continuance, it will be necessary if the hives are
not thoroughly protected to bring them into a warm room to
thaw out the ice, and allow the bees to get access to their
supplies. If the holes in the spare honey-board are left
open the hives may be set low, and if completely covered
with snow so much the better for the bees if proper precau-
tions are used to prevent the water from entering them in
ease of a sudden thaw. In January there are occasionally,
even in very cold latitudes, days so pleasant that bees can
fly out to discharge their feces. Do not confine them, even
if some are lost on the snow. In this month clean the bot-
tom-boards, but disturb the bees as little as possible.

Frpruary.—This month is somtetimes colder than January,
and then the directions given for the previous month must
be followed. In milder seasons, however, and in warmer
regions bees begin to fly quite lively in February, and in
some locations they commence gathering pollen. The bottom-
boards should be again attended to as soon as the bees are
actively on the wing, and if any hives are suspiciously light
sugar candy should be given them. Strong colonies will now
BEEKEEPER'S CALENDAR. 345.

begin to breed considerably, but nothing should be done to
excite them to premature activity.

Marcu.—In our Northern States the inhospitable reign of
winter still continues, and the directions given for the two
previous months will be applicable to this. If there should
be a pleasant day when bees are able to fly briskly seize the
opportunity to remove the covers; carefully clean out the
hives, and learn the exact condition of every colony. See
that your bees have a sheltered and sunny place for procur-
ing water, and also that they are well supplied with rye flour.
In this month weak stocks commonly begin to breed, while
strong ones increase quite rapidly. If the weather is favor-
able colonies which have been kept in a special winter depos-
itory may now be put upon their proper stands.

APRIL.—Bees will ordinarily begin to gather much pollen
in this month and sometimes considerable honey. As brood
is now very rapidly maturing there is a largely increased
demand for honey, and great care should be taken to prevent
the bees from suffering in the very least for want of food.
If the supplies are at all deficient breeding will be checked,
even if much of the brood does not perish or the whole colony
die of starvation. If the weather is propitious feeding to
promote a more rapid increase of young may now be com-
menced. If any colonies are too feeble in numbers they must
now be reinforced, and should the weather continue cold for
several days at a time, the bees ought to be supplied with
water in their hives. In April, if not before, the larve of
the bee-moth will begin to make their appearanee, and should
be carefully destroyed.

May.—As the weather becomes more genial the increase
of bees in the colonies is exceedingly rapid, and drones, if
they have not previously made their appearance, begin to
issue from the hives. In some locations the bees will now
gather much honey, and it will often be advisable to give
them access to the spare-honey receptacles; but in some
seasons and locations, either from long and cold storms, or
346 THE BEEKEEPER'S MANUAL.

a deficiency of forage, stocks that are not well supplied with
honey will exhaust their stores and perish unless they are fed.
In favorable seasons swarms may be expected in this month,
even in the northern States. In Texas I have seen them issue
early in March, and in some of the southern States they are
quite common in April. These May swarms often issue near
the close of the blossoming of fruit trees, and just before
the later supplies of forage, and will sometimes starve if the
weather becomes suddenly unfavorable unless they are fed.
Even if there is no danger of this they ought to be fed when
food is scarce or they will make so little progress in comb-
building and breeding as to be surpassed by much later
swarms. The apiarian should have hives in readiness to
receive new swarms, however early they may issue or be
formed. If new colonies are to be made by artificial proc-
esses the proper methods should be taken to secure a season-
able supply of queens. I ought previously to have stated
that a queen nearly mature may be known by having the
wax removed by the bees from the extremity of her cell so
as to give it a very brown appearance.

JunE.—This is the great swarming month in all our
northern and middle States. As bees keep up a high tem-
perature in their hives they are by no means so dependent
upon the weather for forwardness as plants and most other
insects necessarily are. I have had as early swarms in
northern Massachusetts as in the vicinity of Philadelphia.
If bees do not swarm very soon after the fruit trees are in
blossom it is desirable to have them defer it until later sup-
plies furnish them with abundant forage. They seldom
swarm if honey is not so abundant that they can gather more
than they need for immediate consumption. Artificial colo-
nies, therefore, should not be made except at such seasons
unless the apiarian expects to feed them.

In the chapter on Artificial Swarming I forgot to say that
the bees may be driven up into the top box of my hive by
removing the honey-board, blowing smoke into the entrance,
BEEKEEPER’S CALENDAR. 347

and drumming upon the outside of the hive. Inexperienced
apiarians may, prefer this to opening the hive and lifting out
the combs. I can easily stupefy bees by fumigating them
with puff-ball or by pouring into their hive a little chloro-
form or ether, but it is far more troublesome to manage them
in this way than with the smoke of punk.

If the beekeeper relies upon natural swarming his apiary,
if not in full sight and sound, should be carefully watched.
If this can not be done he should after a short absence care-
fully examine the neighboring bushes and trees, on some of
which he will often find a swarm clustered preparatory to
their departure for a new home. As it may often be impor-
tant to know from which hive the swarm has issued after
it has been hived and removed to its new stand, let a cupful
of bees be taken from it and thrown into the air near the
apiary. They will soon return to the parent stock, and
may easily be.recognized by their standing at the entrance
and fanning like ventilating bees. Where the hives have
glass windows the diminished number of bees will usually
show which colony has swarmed.

As fast as they are filled* and the cells capped over the
surplus honey-receptacles should be removed, and empty
ones returned in their place. Careless beekeepers often lose
much by neglecting to do this in season, thereby condemning
their colonies to a very unwilling idleness. The apiarian.
will bear in mind that all small swarms which come off late
in this month should be either aided, doubled, or returned to
the mother stock. With my hives the issue of such swarms
may be prevented by removing in season the supernumerary
queen-cells. During all the swarming season, and indeed at
all other times when young queens are being bred, the bee-
keeper must ascertain seasonably that the hives which contain
them succeed in securing a fertile mother.

I have repeatedly observed that after-swarms build the

* Mr. Quinby informs me that he succeeds in making bees fill a double

tier of small boxes by placing one set on the hive first. When they have
partially filled these he puts the second set wnder the first.
348 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

most regular worker comb, and that if they lay up a suffi-
cient supply of honey they usually make the best stock hives.
If, by further experiments,-I ascertain that this is owing to
their possessing a young queen I shall judge it best in making
artificial swarms to leave the old queen with the parent stock,
and to supply the forced swarm with a young one as soon
as they manifest a consciousness of their loss.

Juty.—In some seasons and districts this is the great
swarming month, while in others bees issuing so late are of
small account. In northern Massachusetts I have known
swarms coming after the 4th of July to fill their hives and
make large quantities of surplus honey besides.: In this
month all the choicest spare honey should be removed from
the hives before the delicate whiteness of the combs becomes
soiled by the travel of the bees or the purity of the honey is
impaired by an inferior article gathered later in the season.

The bees should have a liberal allowance of air during all
extremely hot weather, and if the stocks are strong I often
remove entirely the entrance blocks.

Aveust.—In most regions there is but little forage for
bees during the latter part of July and the first part of
August; and being on this account tempted to rob each other,
the greatest precautions should be used in opening hives.

In districts where buckwheat is extensively cultivated bees
will sometimes swarm when it comes into blossom, and in
some seasons extraordinary supplies are obtained from it.
I had a buckwheat swarm this year (1856) as late as the
16th of September.

If any colonies are, in the expressive language of old
Butler, “ over fat,” some of their full combs should now be
removed. If the caps of the cells are carefully sliced off
with a very sharp knife, and the combs laid over a vessel in
some moderately warm place, and turned once, most of the
honey will drain out of them, and they may be returned to
the bees to be filled again. I know of scarcely any more
BEEKEEPER’S CALENDAR. 349

profitable operation in the whole range of beekeeping than
this when a fair price can be obtained for the liquid honey.

The beekeeper who has queenless stocks on hand in August
must expect as the result of his ignorance or neglect either
to have them robbed by other colonies or destroyed by the
moth.*

SEPTEMBER.—This is often a very busy month with bees.
The fall flowers come into blossom, and in some seasons
colonies which have hitherto amassed but little honey become
heavy, and even yield a surplus to their owner. Bees are
very reluctant to work in boxes so late in the season, even
if supplies are very abundant; but if empty combs are
inserted in the place of full ones removed they will fill them
with astonishing celerity. These full combs may afterwards
be returned if the bees have not a sufficient supply without
them. Then can be profitably used for making new stocks
out of bees driven from hives condemned by old-fashioned
beekeepers to thé sulphur pit.

If no fall supplies abound, and any stocks are too light
to winter with safety, then, in the northern States, the latter
part of this month is the proper time for feeding them. I
have already stated that it is impossible to tell how much
food a colony will require to carry it safely through the
winter. It will be found, however, very unsafe to trust to
a bare supply, for even if there is food enough it may not
always be readily accessible to the bees. For this reason I
prefer to leave in all my hives a very generous supply as I

* An attentive perusal quite recently of what Aristole has written on
the subject of the honeybee has impressed me with the extraordinary
knowledge possessed by him of their habits. Several important points
which I have met with in no other work, and which I had supposed to be
discoveries of my own, appear to have been familiar to this truly wonder-
ful genius. Speaking of the larve of the bee-moth, he says: ‘‘ Good bees
expel them; but others from slothfulness neglect their combs, which then
perish.” His good bees were evidently such as possessed abundant
stores and a healthy queen; and his bad ones neglected to expel the
worms, not from idleness, but from despair. We learn from this remark
of Aristotle that the moth preyed upon queenless stocks more than two
thousand years ago precisely in the same way as now. So, doubtless, it

will continue to do in spite of all pretended moth-proof hives as long as
time shall endure.
350 THE BEEKEEPER’'S MANUAL.

can easily remove any surplus in the spring. If the aggre-
gate resources of the colonies are sufficient those which have
not enough may be supplied from those having a superabun-
dance. In some cases the beekeeper may prefer by uniting
several destitute stocks to save the labor and expense of
feeding. Great caution will still be necessary to guard
against robbing, but if there are no feeble, queenless, or
impoverished stocks the bees, unless tempted by improper
management, will seldom rob each other.

Ocrosper.—Forage is now almost entirely exhausted in
most localities, and colonies which are too light should be
fed early in this month. If feeding is begun too early in
seasons when late forage is abundant there will be a great
waste of honey. In this month, at the very latest, the exact
condition of every stock should be known, and if any are
found in a queenless condition they should be broken up.
Small colonies should be united to others, and all the hives
put into proper condition for wintering. Some full honey-
combs should be put in the center of the hive, and holes for
easy intercommunication be made in the combs. Since put-
ting to press the remarks on wintering bees, I have succeeded
in devising a very simple, cheap, and efficient method by
which in new frames the requisite winter passages will be
left by the bees, so that movable frames may be safely used
without the necessity of opening the hives to make the holes.

In deseribing the advantages of punk-smoke for subduing
bees it ought to have been stated that no utensil of any kind
will be needed for using it, the apiarian being able to blow
the smoke upon the bees with his mouth better than in any
other way. I find that tbe punk from hard wood is the best.

Hives not made of doubled materials, if they are to winter
out of doors, should be protected according to the directions
for outdoor wintering. By the last of October the glass
hives should be thoroughly packed between the outside cases
and the glass with cotton, or any other warm material.
BEEKEEPER’S CALENDAR. 351

NoveMBER.—I take for granted that all necessary prepar-
ations for winter have, in our northern States, been com-
_ pleted by the last of the previous month. If, however, the
beekeeper has been prevented from examining his stocks he
may on warm days in November safely perform all neces-
sary operations, the feeding with liquid honey excepted.
The entrances of the hives must now be secured against mice,
and it will be well to give the roofs a new coat of paint. If
the hives are to be exposed to the sun at all seasons no color
is so good as a pure white; but if they are set under the
shade of trees a dark color will do them no harm in the
hottest weather, while early in the season before the leaves
"are expanded by absorbing instead of reflecting the heat, it
will prove highly advantageous to the bees.

By the latter part of November, in our northern States,
winter usually sets in, and colonies which are to be kept in
a special winter depository should be properly housed. The
later in the season that the bees are able to fly out and dis-
charge their feces the better. The beekeeper must regulate
the time of housing his bees by the season and climate, being
careful not to take them in until cold weather appears to be
fairly established, nor to leave them out too late. The neces-
sity for the exercise of so much good judgment in this
matter is a serious objection to the use of winter quarters
by any except those who have considerable experience in
their management. If colonies are carried in too early, and
a spell of quite warm weather succeeds the first cold it will
sometimes be advisable to replace them on their summer
stands.

DecempeR.—In regions where it is advisable to house bees,
the dreary reign of winter is now fairly established, and the
directions given for January are for the most part equally
applicable to this month. It may be well in hives out of
doors to remove the dead bees and other refuse from the
bottom-boards, but neither in this month nor at any other
time should this be attempted with those removed to a dark
352 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

and protected place. Such colonies must not, except under
the pressure of some urgent necessity, be disturbed in the
very least.

I recommend to the inexperienced beekeeper to read this
synopsis of monthly management again and again, and to be
sure that he fully understands and punctually discharges the
appropriate duties of each month, neglecting nothing, and
procrastinating nothing to a more convenient season; for
while bees do not require a large amount of attention in
proportion to the profits yielded by them they must have it
at the proper time and in the right way. Those who com-
plain of their unprofitableness are oftea as much to blame
as a farmer who, after neglecting to take suitable care of his
stock, or to gather his crops in season, should denounce his
employment as yielding only a scanty returu on a large in-
vestment of capital and labor.

BEEKEEPERS’ AXIOMS.

Under this head I shall briefly enumerate certain first
principles which should regulate the whole management of
bees, and ought therefore to be as familiar to every apiarian
as the letters of his alphabet.

1. Bees gorged with honey never volunteer an attack.

2. Bees may always be made peaceable by inducing them
to accept of liquid sweets.

3. Bees when frightened by smoke or by drumming on
their hives fill themselves with honey, and lose all disposition
to sting unless they are hurt.

4. Bees dislike any quick movements about their hives,
more especially any motion which jars their combs.

5. Bees dislike the offensive odor of sweaty animals, and
will not endure impure air from human lungs.

6. The beekeeper will ordinarily derive all his profits from
stocks, strong. and healthy, in early spring.
BEEKEEPERS’ AXIOMS. 358

7. In districts where forage is abundant for only a short
period, the largest yield of honey will be secured by a very
moderate increase of stocks.

8. A moderate increase of colonies in any one season will
in the long run prove to be the easiest, safest, and cheapest
mode of managing bees.

9. Queenless colonies, unless supplied with another queen,
will inevitably dwindle away or be destroyed by the bee-
moth or. by robber bees..

10. The formation of new colonies should ordinarily be
confined to the season when bees are accumulating honey,
and if this or any other operation must be performed: when
forage is scarce the greatest precautions should be used to
prevent robbing. :

The very essence of all profitable beekeeping may be con-
densed into Oetle’s Golden Rule: “ Keep your stocks strong.”
If you can not succeed in doing this, the more money you
invest in bees the heavier will be your losses; while if your
stocks are strong you will show that you are a beemaster
as well as a beekeeper, and may safely calculate on generous
returns from your grateful and industrious subjects.
APPENDIX.

 

ON THE IMPREGNATION OF THE EGGS OF THE QUEEN.

Ir would seem, from recent discoveries, that the spermato-
zoa do not simply come in contact with an egg in impreg-
nating it but actually enter into it through a small opening.
In applying this discovery to bees Prof. Siebold, of Germany,
dissected a large number of worker-eggs, and found in such
as were not too much mutilated for proper examination from
one to three spermatozoa, while in dissecting drone-eggs, he
could not find the slightest traces that they had been im-
pregnated.

Dr. Donhoff reared last September a worker larva from a
drone-egg which he had artificially impregnated. I attempt-
ed this experiment in 1852; but to my great disappointment
the bees removed or devoured all the eggs thus treated,
owing, as I then supposed, to their unwillingness to raise
workers in drone-cells. By taking a piece of drone-comb in
which eggs have just been deposited, and touching some of
them with a fine brush dipped in the diluted semen of drones,
I believe that queens, workers, and drones may be raised
from these eggs, if the precaution is taken to give them to
bees having neither queen nor brood of any kind.

To those who deny that the human family could ever have
sprung from a single pair on account of the great physical
diversities between the different races, I would respectfully
submit the fact, which has been demonstrated in so many
independent ways, that queens, workers, or drones may be
raised from the same kind of eggs. The differences between
them in size, shape, color, and instinets are confessedly
much greater than any between the various races of men;
APPENDIX. 355

and yet, in the one case, the changes are all produced in a
few weeks, while in the other they may have had many
hundreds of years for their gradual development.

ON THE SECRETION OF ROYAL JELLY.

Some recent observations of Mr. P. J. Mahan prove that
bees when entirely confined to their hive and supplied with
water are able from the honey and pollen stored in their
combs to secrete royal jelly and rear perfect queens. The
ineessant attention bestowed upon the royal cells must, in
part, be owing to the many visits required for the workers
to store in them the usual allowance of jelly.

ON TRANSFERRING BEES FROM COMMON TO MOVABLE-COMB
HIVES.

On a cold day in the latter part of December a colony of
bees in an old box was transferred by Mr. P. J. Mahan to
a movable-comb hive. About a dozen bees were killed in
the transfer which was performed in a warm room. A
month later this colony was examined in their new home, and
their combs found to contain eggs, worms, and sealed brood.
It would seem from this experiment that there is no day in
the year so cold that experienced operators can not safely
transfer bees.

ON THE USE OF GRATED SUGAR-CANDY AS A WINTER BEE-FEED.
ON THE SHAPE OF HIVES.

The Rev. Mr. Kleine uses grated sugar-candy as a winter
food for bees. He first dampens the empty combs with
sweetened water, and after grating into them the candy, puts
them where they will be most accessible to the.bees. Increas-
ing experience confirms the extraordinray merits of candy
as a winter bee-feed. It may be easily and safely given to
needy stocks in the coldest weather if they are in movable-
comb hives.
356 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

The long low hive recommended by M. Quinby will be
found objectionable by those who desire to lift and manage
them without any assistance. All hives designed to accom-
modate more than one colony will, for the same reason, be
unsuited to the wants of such cultivators. By making my
chive about 18 inches, from rear to front, and varying the
other proportions, I am able to combine a shape convenient
for handling with one well adapted for wintering bees in
cold climates,

| ON MOVABLE BOTTOM-BOARDS.

I find that the use of punk-smoke* obviates some of the
chief objections to movable bottom-boards. By blowing a
little smoke into the mouth of the hive the bees may be
quickly driven up among the combs, so that the hive may be
lifted and the bottom-board cleaned without crushing a single
bee.

By the use of movable bottom-boards the bee-keeper can
set one hive on top of another, making use of the upper
one as a place of storage for the surplus honey. In hives of
the simplest form built in this way a given quantity of
honey may be secured on frames in marketable order at a
very moderate outlay—I believe for as small a sum as in
any kind of hive whatever.

ON WINTERING BEES IN THE OPEN AIR.

Jn the previous part of this work directions were given
for furnishing proper intereommunications among the combs,
and for allowing the dampness of the main hive to escape
into the upper cover by opening some of the holes in the
spare honey-board. To-day (Jan. 9, 1857), a number of
colonies were examined to which suitable winter ecommuni-
cations between their combs had been given, all the holes wn

* The use of smoke in subduing bees is referred to by Aristotle, Colu-

mella, and Pliny. Beekeepers who have never tried it can hardly con-
ceive how wonderfully it facilitates the management of bees.
APPENDIX. 857

their honey-boards being left open. The month of December
was severely cold, the thermometer falling to 17 degrees below
zero. The last three days it has been about half of the
time below zero, and never more than ten above, while the
wind has blown almost a continuous gale. In none of the
hives could I dectect any frost or dampness or any bees
frozen by being caught away from the main body of the
colony. In the upper covers, however, there was an abun-
dance of frost, and it was easy to see where the dampness
had escaped. In a few of my colonies in which none of the
holes had been opened the sides of the hive, many of the
combs, and the surface of the honey-board next to the bees
were coated with frost! ;

So long as it is too cold for the frost in the hives to thaw,
it may subject the bees to little inconvenience unless they
need the food in the frosty combs; but as soon as a thaw
sets in the combs must become damp and the bees so drenched.
with wet as to be exposed to disease. If the weather sudden-
ly changes to severe cold before the hive has time to dry then
the bees being wet, are liable to be entirely destroyed. In
this way many colonies perished in the month of March,
1856. The winter having been intensely cold, the hives were
filled with frost, and’in some the ice on the sides was nearly
one-fourth of an inch thick. A few days of mild weather in
which the frost began to thaw out was followed by extreme
cold and furious winds during which many colonies which
had abundant stores perished. In many instances the bees
which were still wet from the previous thaw were frozen into
an almost solid mass! I find by experience that in very cold
climates, unless the dampness is allowed to escape from
above, it is almost impossible to prevent such fatalities in
hives standing in the open air. The intense cold will defy
any amount of protection which can be given, and the hives
will be damp, the combs moldy, and the bees diseased, even
where frost may be entirely excluded. Indeed the greater
the protection given to hives that have no upward ventilation
358 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

the greater, often, the risk from dampness. A very thin
hive, unpainted, so that it may easily absorb the heat of the
sun, will dry inside when the weather becomes mild enough
to thaw much sooner than one painted white, and in every
way most thoroughly protected against cold. The first may
be compared to a garret, and the other to a cellar. While
the one is annoyed with dampness for a short time only, the
other may be so long in drying as to injure if not destroy
the bees.

In order to test this matter more thoroughly I have re-
moved some colonies from hives the best protected into others
less than an inch thick. Giving them the necessary openings
to allow the dampness to escape, and exposing them to a
temperature 10 degrees below zero, I have found very little
frost in their hives! It must not be inferred from these
observations that it is a matter of indifference to bees wheth-
er their hives are well or ill protected, but that security
against dampness if the hives are well peopled and well
provisioned is more important than anything else.

In the experiments of this winter some of my hives have
been subjected to the severest tests. The honey-board has
been entirely removed, and only a thin upper cover placed
over the bees, so that the empty space above them was nearly
as large as the main hive. On lifting this cover it has been
found coated with frost, while the main hive was dry, and
the bees full of life and activity. In a temperature many
degrees below zero they would rush up from their combs on
the slightest jar of their hive, rapidly pouring through the
intereommunications between the combs, and thus showing
their ability to reach any of the stores in their hive.

It must not be forgotten, however, that when upward
ventilation is given to the hives the entrances should be most
carefully sheltered from cold winds. In situations where
this is difficult they should be almost entirely closed, and this
may be safely done in the thinnest hives by making proper
provision for the escape of dampness. Even if the hives
APPENDIX. 359

should be buried in the snow and the entrances entirely
closed, the bees will not suffer for want of air where they
have free openings into the upper cover, but like the Esqui-
maux in their snow huts will only be the more effectually
protected against the cold. The upward ventilation of the
hives in winter renders a ventilator on the bottom-board
unnecessary.

If on the opproach of winter a few thicknesses of common
straw wrapping paper or old newspapers are tacked on the
under side of the spare honey-board, neither frost nor damp-
ness will ever gather upon it to annoy the bees. Holes for
upward ventilation may be cut out in the paper; but I prefer
to drive tacks into the four corners of the board,* so as to
elevate it about half an inch. The paper should be removed
and the honey-board shut down in the spring.

Since the chapter on Protection of Hives went to the press,
owing to a delay in printing the rest of the work, caused by
the author’s ill health, an opportunity has been afforded for
nearly two winters of experimenting further on the best
mode of wintering bees. While the results of last winter
taught me the need of upward ventilation and a more free
communication among the combs the numerous experiments
of this winter have convinced me that I have over-estimated
the benefits to be derived from thoroughly protected hives.
To-day (Jan. 14, 1857), I have opened three hives and care-
fully examined the combs, and find their condition to be as
follows: (No. 1.) A good stock of bees in a thin hive with
abundant upward ventilation, the spare honey-board being
entirely removed. In the main hive there was a very little
frost (the thermometer this morning being 1014 degrees
below zero), and the bees were dry and lively. The central
combs contained eggs and unsealed worms. (No. 2.) A stock
equally strong in a thin hive long enough to hold 18 frames.
The bees with their combs occupied the eight central frames;

* To-day (Jan. 16) the thermometer being below zero, I examined a

stock in a thin hive, the honey-board being elevated as above. The hive
was free from frost, and the bees very lively.
360 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

the other frames had no combs. This hive had no upward
ventilation and contained much frost. The central combs
had eggs and unsealed worms. (No. 3.) A hive most thor-.
oughly protected by dead-air spaces all around, and having
upward ventilation, the holes in its honey-board being all
left open. This hive was about as frosty as No. 1, and its
central combs had eggs and worms, a few of which were sealed
over. It had a better stock of bees than the others, but
appeared to have commenced breeding only a few days
earlier.

The results of these examinations show that where there
is a good supply of food and bees, breeding commences*
about the same time, being influenced very little by the thick-
ness or thinness of the hives. Bees can breed only in such
combs as they can densely cover, and, :as shown in No. 2,
however large the cold and unoccupied space in their hive,
they are able to develop their brood in these combs. No
amount of protection which could possibly be given to the
hive would enable them to rear a single bee except in the
warm combs on which they are clustered. Bees kept in large
garret-closets where their combs occupy but a small part of
the enclosed space are exposed often to a very severe tem-
perature. In such situations, however, they are able to breed
in the depth of winter, and I believe that they would thrive,
even if their combs were hung in an open shed, and merely
protected from the wind. I would sooner risk them in such
a situation than in a damp hive, however well protected.

The grand essentials for successful wintering bees in the
open air in cold climates may be condensed into a very few
words: Plenty of bees; plenty of food; easy communications
among the combs; upward ventilation. for the escape of
dampness; and the hive-entrance well sheltered from piercing
winds.

* T examined a number of strong stocks Nov. 1, and found that breed-
ing had entirely ceased. Aristotle says that_it ceases for about 60 days.
This agrees with my own observations, as I found eggs in these stocks
early in January.
APPENDIX. 361

January 20, 1857: This month, the coldest on record for
more than 50 years, has furnished the most decisive proof of
the correctness of the views advanced in this Appendix on
wintering bees in. the open air. My colonies have been ex-’
posed to a temperature of 30 degrees below zero, the mercury
for two days never having risen above 6 degrees below, and
the wind blowing a strong gale the whole time! I have to-day
carefully examined the thin hive (No. 1, p. 359), and find
the bees tobe very healthy. The central comb is almost
entirely filled with sealed brood nearly mature; the combs are
free from any appearance of mold, and the interior of the
hive is very dry. The spare honey-board was covered on its
under side with straw wrapping-paper, and elevated by tacks
on its corners about half an inch. In all my hives where I
have adopted this arrangement not a particle of dampness is
found to settle over the bees. The value of the intercom-
municating passages through the eombs has this winter been
most fully tested; and its importance can hardly be over-
estimated. For the last few days a thaw has set in which has
not injured the hive having upward ventilation, although it
has filled with dampness the few which were purposely left
without it.

To-day, Jan. 31, I have removed the upper cover and
spare honey-board ‘from the thin hive mentioned above, ex-
posing the bees to the full heat of the sun, the thermometer
being 30 degrees in the shade and the atmosphere calm. The
hive standing on the sunny side of the house, the bees were
quickly in motion, and, takng wing, discharged their faces.
Very few were lost on the snow and nearly all that lit upon
it took wing without being chilled. More bees were lost from
other hives which were not opened as few which left such
hives were able to return; while in the one with the cover
removed the returning | bees were able to alight at once among
thir warm companions.

The Rev. J. C. Bodwell, of ‘Framingham, Mass., put at the
commencement of the winter a number of good stocks in
movable-comb hives into-a very. dry cellar, leaving the spare
362 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

honey-boards entirely off. In examining* one of these on
the 17th of January he found that the combs were perfectly
dry and contained an abundance of eggs, worms, and sealed
brood. This is a highly important observation, proving as it
does that bees in a suitable winter depository begin to breed
at the usual period, even although their hives are in midnight
darkness. In due time the results of Mr. Bodwell’s experi-
ments, as compared with those obtained by others from
wintering colonies in the open air will be communicated to
the public.

ON PROPAGATING THE ITALIAN BEE.

The Baron of Berlepsch thinks that when a queen is re-
duced to a torpid condition by cold the contents of her
spermatheca are injured so that she is never after capable of
laying worker eggs. It occurred to me that if his experi-
ments on this point could be verified it would be an easy
matter, at any time, by refrigerating a queen, to change her
into a drone-layer, and thus have a supply of Italian drones
for impregnating newly raised queens. Thus far, however,
my experiments do not at all support the Baron’s observa-
tions. Dr. Leidy has examined several refrigerated queens,
and found the contents of their spermatheca to be uninjured.
One queen was reduced to a torpid condition and then re-
stored, and after this process was repeated several times, she
was returned to her colony. An examination of the sealed
brood in this hive a few weeks later showed that it was all
regular working brood! I would propose a method by whick
drone-laying queens can be easily obtained at any time they
are wanted. Let a person receiving an Italian queen so late
in the season that she does not incline to lay drone eggs
proceed as follows: Raise from her worker-eggs a few
queens, and confine them to their hives by adjusting the
entrances for about twenty-four days. Their impregnation

* The careful reader will notice the very great facilities for experi-

menting furnished by the movable-comb hive. It need hardly be added
that all these winter examinations are injurious to bees.
APPENDIX. 363

being thus delayed, they will ever after produce only drones.
As soon as these queens begin to lay the proper steps may be
taken to raise from the original Italian queen others to be
impregnated by these drones. A person receiving an Italian
queen in July might thus succeed in replenishing his apiary
in September with her progeny impregnated by Italian
drones. In consulting the old Greek and Latin writers who
have noticed the Italian bee I find no mention made of its
superior gentleness except by Columella, who speaks of it as
being “ mitior moribus,” that is, more peacedule in its be-
havior than the common kind.

Feb. 14. To-day the thermometer being 45 degrees in the
shade, and the atmosphere calm and clear, the bees have
filled the air with their happy hum, and although the ground
has been covered with snow, very few have failed to return
to their hives. A careful examination of my stocks shows
that they have wintered unusually well, notwithstanding the
intense cold. The bees are very numerous and in perfect
health. When upward ventilation is given them I find no
difficulty, even in the coldest weather, in getting them to eat
sugar candy put on top of their frames. Mr. Wagner in-
forms me that some of the Germans complain that hives thus
ventilated are so dry in winter that the bees have not mois-
ture enough for their brood. I have experienced no such
difficulty in my hives this winter, but if it should occur, it
might easily be obviated by occasionally pouring a little luke-
warm water among the bees. This would usually be advis-
able when the weather in February and March is such as to
prevent the bees from flying out. J can speak very favor-
ably of the plan of elevating the frames, as I find that the
bees have wintered best in such hives. Although I do not
recommend disturbing bees in winter, still I can, on any
emergency, not only feed them, but thoroughly examine all
their combs and transfer them to another hive, and this with
the loss of only a few bees.
364 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

ON SWEDISH WHITE CLOVER.

A correspondent of the Frauendorfer Blatter, Nov. 16,
1856, inquires: 7
“Does the new Swedish clover (Trifolium hybridum)
deserve the high encomiums it receives, and in what does its
superiority consist? ”
-To this the editor, E. Furst, himself good authority, re-
plies:

“The hybrid clover is really to be recommended; and
though it is as yet but little cultivated, will doubtless in a
few years be very generally introduced. In both quality and
quantity of product it is pre-eminently distinguished, and is
especially valuable for the continued succulency of the stalk,
even where the plant is in full bloom. It requires a less
fertile soil than the red clover, and is less liable to be thrown
out by frost in winter. It also yields a heavier second crop
than the common white clover. We add a report on its
culture received from a farmer in Smaleald, who says: “I
sowed it with barley in a light soil with a dry subsoil. The
previous crop was tobacco, well manured. In the fall the
hybrid clover had completely covered the ground. In 1854,
it grew luxuriantly, attained a height of three feet, and threw
out numerous side shoots where the heads or blossom buds
were formed. It was much more succulent and produced a
heavier first crop than the red clover growing by its side. It
matured twelve days later. The second crop of the hybrid
clover was, however, must lighter than that of the red. I had
some of each cut and placed before my cattle, which left the
red clover untouched till they had eaten up the hybrid. ” (8.
Wagner. y

ON MAKING ARTIFICIAL SWARMS ADHERE, LIKE NATURAL
SWARMS, TO THEIR NEW LOCATION.

Dr. Donhoff says: “On an evening when the next day
promises to be clear and warm, drive out a swarm, place
the parent hive in a dark cellar, put the swarm in a shallow
APPENDIX. 365

box, and set it in the place of the parent stock. Next day,
when the temperature has become warm, pour a quantity of
honey among the bees in the box, and in a few hours they
will swarm, and may then be set in a new place and the
parent hive restored to its former position.” If the box was.
turned over, the bees would be more sure to leave it. By
dividing one such swarm, or a natural swarm, or any swarm
brought from a distance, into five or six parts, as many’
artificial swarms may be easily made if the apiarian has suit--
able stocks from which to make them. These may be placed
on the stands of the parent hives, which may be safely re-
moved to a new position by giving to them their proper share
of the divided swarm.
EXPLANATION OF PLATES.

 

DESCRIPTION OF WOODCUTS OF THE VARIOUS STYLES OF MOv-
ABLE-COMB HIVES WITH BILLS OF STOCK FOR MAKING THEM.

These engravings (with the exception of those which are
in perspective) are all on the scale of 114 inches to the foot,
so that every ¥ of an inch is an inch in a hive of the full
size. All the measurements are inches or fractions of an
inch. The thickness of stock used is mostly 7% of an inch,
but the measurements here given can be easily varied to suit
any thickness that may be most convenient. In making a
lot of hives there will be scarcely any waste as pieces which
otherwise would be refuse are used for the frames. Good
stock will prove much the cheapest in the end.

Those not accustomed to longitudinal and cross-sections
will be greatly assisted by the perspective views. In the
longitudinal sections the hive is represented as sawed in two
from front to rear, and in the cross-sections from side to side.
All the parts supposed to be cut by the saw are marked by
eross-lines. The parts which, though not eut, can be seen
after the cutting are also represented in the -engravings.
Any measurement may be proved by applying an accurate
rule to the sections.

The reader will bear in mind that those only who have
purchased the patent right (ministers of the gospel except-
ed) can legally use these hives. For terms see p. xvi.

PLATE. Fies. 1, 2, 3, Hive No. 1.

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a hive of the simplest form,
the cover being removed to show one of the frames; Fig. 2
is a vertical longitudinal section, and Fig. 3 a vertical cross-
section of the same.
EXPLANATION OF PLATES. 867

b Front of hive, 14% by 8% by %; b rear, 14% by 938
by %. cc Sides of hive, 19% by 10 by %. dd Strips on
front and rear of hive, 15% by 1144 by %. f Movable cover
to hive, 2544 by 1814 by %. gg Clamps on cover, 2514 by
by %. If a movable bottom-board is used it may be made
like the cover, and the rear and sides of the hive beveled to
avoid crushing bees, as shown in Figs. 1 and 2. Holes in the
top cover may be made as in Fig. 21, and another hive of the
same form set on it to receive the spare honey in movable
frames. In all the hives it is best to have the spare honey
stored in frames; but boxes or any kind of receptacles may
be set over the holes. For very hot climates the back of this
hive may be made like the front, and by keeping both open in
summer or the back covered with wire-gauze the bees will
have an abundance of air.

Hive No. 1 with changes and additions. Figs. 1, 2, 3.

b Front end of hive, 144% by 8% by %. b Rear, 141% by
10% by %. ce Sides, 23% by 10% by %. dd Strips on
front and rear of hive, 15% by 1144 by %. Permanent bot-
tom put in as in hive No. 2, 23 by 14% by %.. f Movable
cover, 2514 by 18% by %. gg Clamps on cover, 2514 by
% by %. In this hive the alighting-board is sheltered, and
the bottom-board permanent; the spare honey may’ be taken
as in the former hive.

Movable comb-frames, see Figs. 1, 2, 16, 18.

t Top piece, 19% by % by 5-16. ¢ Bottom piece, 1734
by % by 4. wu Triangular top comb-guide, coped at each
end upon the triangular sides, 1734 by 7% by % by 7%. uu
Triangular sides cut off square at each end, 85% by % by %
by %. v Winter passage* cut square on the bottom, and coped

*I have not yet experimented with this winter passage sufficiently to
enable me to feel certain that it will answer the ends proposed. In my
own apiary I prefer to cut with a small knife a hole in the combs after
the bees have ceased gathering in the fall. This winter passage may be

put in the middle of the frame (Fig. 2) or further back (Fig. 16). The
first position is probably the best.
368 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

upon the top triangular comb-guide so as to set cornerwise in
the frame, 854 by % by %. A mortise 4 by 14 may be eut
through two opposite corners of this piece to allow the bees
to pass from comb to comb in the winter. This mortise may
be cut out with a circular saw by holding (v), while pushing
it down over the saw in a groove formed in a piece of board
such as is shown cut in (a), Figs. 4 and 5. All the parts of
the movable frames should be cut out by a circular saw, and
the measurements should be exact so that the frames when
nailed together may be perfectly square. If they are not
both strong and square, the proper working of the hive will
be greatly interfered with. Frames for holding spare honey
in the upper apartment need no winter passage. Ten frames
equally distant from each other are placed in the lower hive,
and nine in the upper for spare honey.

PLATETI. Figs. 4 and 5 show the gauge-board for sawing
copings of the movable comb-frames.:

Fig. 4 is a view, and Fig. 5 a cross-section.

a Foundation board, 20 by 10 by %, with two grooves eut
lengthwise in it, each making one-half of a square that mea-
sures ¥%. b b Guide strips for holding to be coped, the top
triangular comb-guide (u) of the movable frames, 2 by 34
by 174, beveled under on the inner edge 7-16. ¢ c Gauge
stops for top triangular piece (w) of frame, so placed that
said piece, when the copings are sawed out, will be 17% in
length. dd Gauge stops so fixed in the grooves cut in (a)
that the winter passages (v). when coped shall be 85% in
length. e Guide block in which block and the piece (a) the
saw is guided in kerfs cut on an angle of 60 degrees with
the end. By the arrangement above described the movable
frames may be coped rapidly and accurately by hand. Cop-
ing the frames makes them very much stronger than mitering
them. It may be done with the circular saw.
EXPLANATION OF PLATES. 369

PLATE II. Fuias. 6, 7, and 8, show the gauge-block for fas-
tening the movable frames together.

Fig. 6 is a view of the front of this block, Fig. 8 a view
of the back, and Fig. 7 is a cross-section of the front and
back. 5

a Foundation board, 21% by 91% by %. bb Guides for
sides (uu) of frames fastened to (a) equally distant from its
ends, and so as to leave 173g between (bb) and 14 of an inch
from upper edge of .(a) to ends of (bb). cc Buttons for
holding sides of frames (uw) ‘against (bb), 644 by 114 by %.
Cut in one end of each button a triangular groove corres-
ponding to the shape of the sides of the frames. dd Guides
for placing the winter passage (v), 4 pieces, 7-16 by 114 by
144. One end of each piece is cut to a miter so that when
fastened on (a), as shown in Fig. 6, two sides of a 5g square
are formed. The upper edge of the upper guides is 144 from
top edge of (a), and the lower edge of the lower guides is
5 from the bottom of (a). ff Guides in which the top tri-
angular comb-guide is placed in order to have the top strip
(t) nailed thereto; each piece (f) is 21% by 2 by %4, and
they are beveled from one edge back, 7-16, and are then
fastened to (a), forming a triangular groove each side of
which is 7%. Two triangular pieces 7% by 7 by 7% by 3 are
cut on a miter at one end and fastened (Fig. 6) at each end of
the groove. g Guide-strip, % by 5-16 by 19¥g. h. Guide-
strip % by 5-16 by 3%, fixed on and across the pieces (ff)
Y% an inch from their ends. To nail the frames together, put
the triangular comb-guide (w) in the groove formed by the
pieces (ff); place the piece (¢) on the top of (u) and
against the guides (g) and (h), and nail it to (w) with two
brads each about two inches from the end. Proceed in this
way until all the triangular guides are nailed to the top
strips. Now turn over the gauge-block and secure the vertical
pieces (wx), against the guides (bb), by the buttons (ec),
and nail the bottom (t) to (w«) with two brads at each end.
Turn the gauge-block, place the winter passage (v) in the
370 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

guides (dd), glue the copings and place the top of the frame

(t), which has before been nailed to the guide (wu), in its
proper position, and nail it to (ww) with two brads in each
end, and to the winter passage (v) with one brad. When
the gauge-block is turned for the next frame, put a brad
through the bottom (t) into the winter passage (v), before
turning the buttons and removing the frame.

PLATE III. Fig. 10 shows the arrangement of the cireular
saw to cut the triangular comb-guides.

The first piece cut is waste; as fast as a guide is sawed the
piece from which it is cut must be turned over, end for end.

PLATES IIL. V., and VI. Figs. 11, 12, 17, 19 show the
construction and position of the entrance-regulators. —

Fig. 11 is a right-angled triangle 7% thick by 4 by 534 by
7. Fig. 12 is a right-angled triangle 1 inch thick by 7 by 4
by 534. In the bottom of the first piece grooves are cut 14
deep by 14 an inch wide as traps for the larve of the bee-
moth. On the face of the second piece strips 5-32 of an inch
thick are placed, two of which are 1% an inch wide, and are
placed as shown in Fig. 12, jarallel with the 4-inch side, and
so as to leave a space of 114 inches between them and the
second and third piece, which last piece is a right-angled
triangle. In the spaces between the strips just mentioned
cut Fig. 12 to a bevel of 45 degrees. Now fasten very se-
curely the two blocks, so that there will be no chance for any
alteration of the 5-32-inch passage by warping or swelling.
To test the accuracy of the 5-32-inch strips put four of them
together, and if they measure just 54, they will answer for
confining the queen. If there is no desire to prevent swarm-
ing,* then Fig. 11 will answer without the addition of Fig.
12. Two of these doubled blocks made right and left are

* The author has not experimented sufficiently on this plan of prevent-
ing swarming to be able fully to endorse it. P :
EXPLANATION OF PLATES. 371

used for a hive. When Figs. 11 and 12 are fastened to-
gether, the corner made by the meeting of the 7-inch and
5%4-inch sides should be very slightly clipped so that the 7-
inch side will measure a secant 4 of an inch less than 7
inches. To confine the queen, turn over the blocks and place
them with the 7-inch sides against the front of the hive,
keeping them pushed up close to each other. To confine the
drones or to shut them out, leaving the queen room to pass,
put the blocks in the same position, only pushing them about
3-16 of an inch apart. By varying the position of these
blocks’ on the alighting-board (see Fig. 17, in which some of
the positions are shown), the size of the entrance to the hive
may be varied in a great many ways, and the bees always
directed by the shape of the blocks to the entrance without
any loss of time in searching for it.

MOVABLE PARTITION (no figure).

One piece, 181% by 934 by %, each end made 14 inch bevel-
ing for easy adjustment ; the bevels should be parallel to each
other. One piece, 5 by % by 1934, nailed on the first piece,
like the top piece (t) of the movable comb-frames. By this
partition the size of any hive may be diminished at will.

PLATES III. and IV. Fias. 9 and 13, Hive No. 2.

Fig. 9 is a vertical longitudinal section,.and Fig. 13 a
vertical cross-section.

This hive is doubled on the front and rear, has a perma-
nent bottom-board, a sheltered alighting-board, and a top-
cover over the spare honey-box. Glass may be put in the
back, as in hive No. 4, or in the sides.

a Bottom-board, tongued and grooved, 2434 by 14% by
1%. b Front and rear of body, four pieces, each 14% long
and % thick, by 10%, 934, 914, and 8% wide. ¢ Sides of
body, two pieces, 2554 by 10% by 7%, one corner, 4 by 1%
cut out of each. d Ledges on body, two pieces, % by 2 by
372 THE BEEKEEPER'S MANUAL.

2234, and one piece, % by 14% by 15%. ¢ Roof of alighting-
board, 4% by % by 19%, beveled on upper side from 4% an
inch in thickness, back 3 inches (see Figs. 9 and 20). f
Board for supporting surplus honey-receptacles, 215 by
17% by %. g Clamps for spare honey-board, two pieces,
% by 7% by 215g. h Front and rear of spare honey-box, one
piece 934 by 14% by %; two pieces 1% by 144% by %.
i Sides of spare honey-box, two pieces, 19% by 10 by %.
j Ledge around top of honey-box, two pieces 175% by 1%
by %, and two pieces 19% by 114 by %. k Cover for hon-
ey-box, 2154 by 175 by %. 1 Clamps for honey-box‘cover,
two pieces, % by % by 1754. m Observing-glass in honey-
box, 54% by 14. » Strips against which the glass is fastened
two pieces, 144% by 54 by 14, and two pieces, 54% by 54 by
4, o Top of cover, tongued and grooved, 203. by 22% by
%. p Front and rear of upper part of cover, two pieces,
834 by 19% by %. gq Sides of upper part of cover, two
pieces, 834 by 224% by %. r Front and rear of lower part
of cover, two pieces, 5 by 19% by %. s Sides of lower part
of cover, two pieces, 5 by 224% by %. w Buttons for hald-
ing the upper and lower parts of cover together, four, 2 by 1
by %; the upper inside part of these buttons is beveled to
allow the upper part of the cover to sit down readily on the
lower part.

PLATE IV. Figs. 14 and 15, Hive No. 3.

Fig. 14 is a side view, and Fig. 15 a vertical cross-section.

This hive is intended solely for observation.

a Base-board, 245% by 4% by %. A % of an inch en-
trance-hole is bored 314 inches deep into the end of (a), and
two holes are bored in its center, 7% of an inch in diameter
and 11% inches from center to center, the wood being cut out
between them. b Bottom of hive, 2144 by 1854 by %. Make
a rabbet at both upper corners, 394 of an inch on, by 7-16
deep. Start a % of an inch hole, one inch from the end, and
bore slanting, to meet entrance-hole in (a) and make a hole
EXPLANATION OF PLATES. 373

in the center to match center hole in (a), for a ventilator,
and cover with wire-gauze, on the inside. ¢ Front and rear
of hive, 11% by 2% by 10%. Rabbet the inner corners, up
and down, 14 by %. Make a ventilator in each piece, like
the one in (a); 5 of an inch from the upper ends cut in
¥% of an inch, and % of an inch from the lower end cut in
Y% of aninch. d Side strips, ¥% by 1 by 205¢; on one corner
of each rabbet on 4 of an inch, and in.¥4 of an inch for the
glass. e Movable cover, 215% by 44%4 by 1%; holes may be
made in this cover, as in Fig. 21, over which glass receptacles
for honey may be placed. f Glass, two panes, 914 by 1814.
g Alighting-board, 4 by 44% by 1%. h Clamps on base-
board, 44% by 2 by 44. «and j Clamps on cover, and ledges
on hive, four pieces, 414 by % by 14.

PLATES V. and VI. Figs. 16 and 18, Hive No. 4.

Fig. 16 is. a vertical longitudinal section, and Fig. 18 a
vertical cross-section.

This hive has glass on the back, and being doubled on the
inside, affords uncommon protection against the weather. I
have given no bill of stock for its construction as I recom-
mend those who want a doubled hive to make the glass hive
No. 5, the cost of which will not be very much greater. This
hive can be built by applying an accurate rule to the en-
gravings.

PLATES VI. to X. Figs. 19 to 23, Hive No. 5.

Fig. 19 is a perspective view with the cover down. Fig.
20 is a perspective view with the cover elevated so as to show
the working of the bees, both in the main hive and the upper
honey-box. Fig. 21 is a plan of the lower part of the hive,
showing the surplus honey-board in place, and the holes
made in it to allow the bees to pass up into the surplus
honey-receptacles. On this board receptacles of glass or
wood, of any size or shape, may be set, instead of the upper
374 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

box. Fig. 22 is a vertical longitudinal section, and Fig. 23
a vertical cross-section. This hive has glass on four sides,
and is admirably adapted to purposes of general observation.
A cornice under the projecting roof of the cover would
improve its appearance.

a Main bottom of hive, tongued and grooved, 31 by 203%
by %. 6b Outer* bottom of hive, 27% by 18% by %. ¢
Rabbeted strips for outer bottom, two pieces, 297% by 114
by %, and two pieces, 1714 by 1% by %. d Front and rear
of lower outer case of hive, one rabbet in upper outer corner
of each, 7-16 by 7-16; front, 1114 by 20%% by %; cut out of
the center of the lower edge, 144% by 14; rear, 44% by 20%
by %. e Sides of lower outer part, with rabbets the same
as front and rear (for form of this see Fig. 20), two pieces,
31% inches long, by % of an inch thick, 414 inches wide at
one end, and 124% inches wide at 4% inches from the other
end where a notch is cut out 1 5-16 inches deep by 4 inches
long. f Roof of alighting-board, 2344 by 414 by %; % of
an inch thick in rear, and 4% of an inch thick in front. g
Board under which bees pass into the hive, 144% by 4 by 14.
h Front posts of lower hive, two pieces, 914 inches long by
4 by %. 7 Rear posts of lower hive, two pieces, with tenon,
% by % by %, on one end, 10 inches long, by 134 by %.
j Front and rear strips of lower hive, in which the frames
hang, two pieces, 157% by 134 by %, with rabbet, % by 5%,
and notch, 5 by 7%, cut at each end from upper side. k
Side strips from post to post, in lower hive, 215g by 5 by
5g, with noteh, 14 deep by 134, cut in under side of each end.
1 Spare honey-board 17% by 2154 by %, nine holes bored
134 inches in diameter by 4% inch deep, and then bored
through with a 14-inch bit. These holes when not in use
are covered with pieces of tin cut out with a punch. , They
may be bored plain and covered with pieces of glass or wood.
m Front and rear of lower part of cover, 634 by 20% by %;
rabbets (Fig. 22) 7-16 by 7-16, on both upper and lower

* This outer bottom may be dispensed with.
EXPLANATION OF PLATES. 875

edges. m Sides of lower part of cover, two pieces, 27%
inches from front to rear, by 634 by 7%, with rabbets 7-16
by 7-16; for.shape of these pieces see Fig. 20. o Front and
rear of upper part of cover, one piece, 554 by 20% by 7%,
and one piece 134% by 20% by %. pp Sides of upper part
of cover, two pieces, each 55% and 13%, by 27% by %, with
rabbets, 7-16 by 7-16; for shape, see Fig. 20.

q Top of cover, tongued and grooved from front to rear,
and rain-grooved on top (Figs. 19 and 23), 2454 by 30% by
7%. r Honey-box cover, 21% by 1954 by %. s Clamps for
honey-box cover, two pieces, 2134 by % by %. L. Division-
board in honey-box (shown only in Fig. 23), 8% by 184% by
%. Such a board may be used in the surplus honey-boxes
of all the hives, and enables the beekeeper to get his spare
honey on small frames (when these boxes are ledged on the
sides as well as the front and rear), or on large ones, or on
part small and part large. 2. Triangular cheeks to hold the
cover when elevated, two pieces, 134 by 134 by 2% by %.
3. Four buttons, 144 by 2 by %. w Posts of honey-box,
four pieces, 134 by 84 by %. «x Front and rear bottom-
strips of honey-box, two pieces 134 by 15% by %. y Side.
bottom strips of honey-box, two pieces, 2154 by 5% by %.
x and y are halved together at ends. z Front, rear, and side
top pieces of honey-box, made up of two strips, 134 by %
by 1754, two strips 134 by % by 215%, halved together at
ends; and two strips, 1754 by 7% by 54; tw» strips, 19% by:
% by %. 4. Clamps for spare honey-board, two pieces,
2154 by % by %. Glass, two pieces, 14 by 9, four pieces
18 by 9, and two pieces 4 by 8, for the double glass of lower
hive; two pieces 18 by 8, and two pieces 14 by 8, for the
spare honey-box.
376 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANDAL.

DESCRIPTION OF IMPLEMENTS USED IN THE APIARY.
PLATE XL, Figs. 24 to 30.

Fig. 24 is a box for storing surplus honey.

Fig. 25 is a bee-hat.

Fig. 26 is a box for feeding bees.

Fig. 27 is an indiarubber glove.

Fig. 28 shoemaker’s pincers, a convenient tool for many
operations in the apiary.

Fig. 29 is a knife for eutting the combs from a box hive.

Fig. 30 is a seraper for cleaning the bottom-board.

DESCRIPTION OF WOODCUTS OF BEES AND COMBS ILLUSTRATING
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HONEYBEE.

PLATE XIL, Figs. 31 to 36.

Figs. 31, 32, Queen of magnified and natural size.

Figs. 33, 34, Drone of magnified and natural size.

Figs. 35, 36, Worker of magnified and natural size.
These illustrations may be found in “ Bagster on Bees.”

PLATE XIII. Figs. 37 to 46.

Fig. 37 shows the seales of wax (highly magnified) as they
exude from the wax-pouches. ,
Fig. 38 is the abdomen of a worker-bee, magnified, and
showing the exuding scales of wax. ;
Fig. 39 is a section of a magnified cell, showing an egg in
the position in which it is usually deposited by the queen.
' Fig. 42 is a worker-larva fully grown and ready to envelop
itself in a cocoon.
Fig. 43. Worker-nymph or pupa.
Fig. 44 shows the eggs of the bee-moth of natural and
magnified size.
EXPLANATION OF PLATES. 377

Fig. 45 is a larva of the bee-moth, , fully grown and ready
to envelop itself in a cocoon.

Fig. 46 is a web or gallery of the kind often spun by the
larva of the bee-moth, in which it protects itself from the
bees.

These illustrations have been taken principally from the
works of Swammerdam, Reaumur, and Huber.

PLATE XIV. Fig. 47.

This plate was-copied with some important additions from
a woodeut in Cotton’s “ My Bee-Book.”

b A queen-cell from which the inmate has not yet rien

a A queen-cell with the cap or lid as it often appears just
after the young queen has come out.

d A queen-cell whose inmate has met with a violent death.

‘e The remains ofa queen-cell which the bees have nearly
demolished.

nm A cell in which the bees have just begun to rear, artifi-
cially, a young queen.

e Cells containing honey, some full and sealed over, and
others only partially sealed.

f Cells with eggs, larve, and hatching bees.

g Drone-cells containing brood capped over by the bees.

p A hole in the comb showing“its depth:

PLATE XV. Figs. 48, 49, and 50,

. Fig. 48 is a piece of honeycomb ‘with cells of the size of
nature. Those ‘on the right hand are of drone, and those on
the left of worker ‘size. The five-sided cells between them
show how bees pass from one size of cell to another.

This accurate and beautiful representation of comb was
drawn from nature by M. M. Tidd, of Boston, Mass., and
engraved by D. T. Smith of the same city.

Fig. 40 shows a rumber of worker-larve of different ages.

Fig. 41 is a section of a magnified cell, showing the posi-
tion of the larva in the cell.
378 THE BEEKEEPER’S MANUAL.

Fig. 49 is a queen-cell of the natural size.
Fig. 50 is a queen-cell eut open to show the position of the
unhatched queen. At its base may be seen the royal jelly.

PLATE XVI. Figs. 51 and 52.

Fig. 51 shows the proboscis of a worker-bee highly magni-
fied (Swammerdam). The central tube (a) is used for suck-
ing up the honey, and the other parts for pushing aside the
petals of flowers and for various other purposes.

Fig. 52 shows the abdomen of a worker, magnified.

PLATE XVII. Figs. 53 and 54.

Fig. 53 shows the magnified sting of a worker (Swam-
merdam). (a) is the poison-bag. The muscles on each
side of the sting serve to drive it into the wound, and all the
parts represented are torn from the body of the bee whe.
she loses her sting.

Fig. 54 (Reaumur) shows the honey-bag (a), stomach (b),
intestines (c), and rectum (0) of a worker. The honey-bag
is not entirely filled.

PLATE XVIII. Fig. 55, Ovaries of the Queen.

(h) and (g) are the two ovaries uniting in a common ovi-
duct (e). dis the spermatheca; an egg is represented as
passing through the oviduet by the mouth of this seminal
reservoir to be impregnated. r is the rectum and (a) the
poison-sae. The sting is more curved than that of the
worker.
         
 

 

   
 

  
 
    

 
 
 

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