ILLUSTRATIONS.
| [Frontispiece].—Coloured view of Geo. Neighbour and Sons' Apiary. | |
| [Plate I.]—Italian Alp Queen, Drone and Worker Bees, with Anatomical Drawings Facing page | [34] |
| [Plate II.]—Dissected Bee, with Illustrations of various Members Facing page | [86] |
| Common Cottager's Hive | [108] |
| Neighbours' Crystal Palace Skep | [109] |
| The Cottager's Hive | [110] |
| Improved Cottager's Hive | [112] |
| Improved Cottage Hive (No. 5) | [113] |
| Improved Cottage Hive (No. 6), no windows | [119] |
| The Ladies' Observatory Hive | [120] |
| Nutt's Collateral Hive | [123] |
| Woodbury's Bar-frame Hive (wood) | [135] |
| Woodbury's Single Bar Frame as taken from hive | [135] |
| Woodbury's Bar-frame Hive (straw) | [136] |
| Woodbury's Bar-frame Hive (glass) | [138] |
| Neighbours' New Frame Hive (wood) | [139] |
| Neighbours' New Frame Hive (straw), with Frame Super | [142] |
| Neighbours' Cottager's Frame Hive (wood) | [143] |
| Neighbours' Philadelphia Frame Hive | [144] |
| Stewarton or Ayrshire Hive | [147] |
| Neighbours' Outdoor Unicomb Hive | [158] |
| Neighbours' Indoor Unicomb Hive | [162] |
| Bee House for two Hives—Front view | [166] |
| Bee House for two Hives—Back view | [167] |
| Bee House for twelve Hives—Front view | [169] |
| Bee House for twelve Hives—Back view | [170] |
| Ornamented Zinc Cover | [171] |
| Zinc Cover for Cottager's Hive | [172] |
| Wooden Cover for Frame Hive | [174] |
| Neighbours' New Frame Hive, with Cover, Stand, and Pair of Divisional Supers—Back view | 175 |
| Neighbours' New Frame Hive, ditto—Closed front view | [176] |
| Neighbours' New Frame Hive and Frame Super (glass), with large Cover and on Stand—Front view | 178 |
| Neighbours' New Frame Hive—Front view, closed | [178] |
| Neighbours' New Frame Hive (No. 81). Wood with Straw Crown, and Large Window in close-fitting Cover and Stand | 179 |
| Bell and Flat-shaped Glasses (5 varieties) | [181] |
| Payne's Glasses | [182] |
| Flap-topped Glass, with Cover for Table | [182] |
| Woodbury Glass-sided Bar Super | [183] |
| Bar-frame Super—Glass Sides and Top, with Shutters | [184] |
| Neighbours' New Divisional Super | [184] |
| Neighbours' New Sectional Super | [185] |
| Neighbours' New Bar-frame Holder | [192] |
| Honey Cutters | [193] |
| Honey Extractor | [194] |
| Neighbours' Queen and Drone Preventer | [200] |
| Neighbours' Bottle Feeder | [203] |
| Neighbours' New Can Feeders | [204] |
| Neighbours' Round Feeders | [205] |
| New Wood Feeder | [206] |
| Fumigators (2 illustrations) | [207] |
| Bee Dress or Protector | [209] |
| Bee Veil | [210] |
| Contrivance for protecting Queen Cell | [244] |
| Guide Comb Glasses | [263] |
| Weighing Hives | [277] |
| Bees at Exhibition of 1862 | [348] |
| Exterior of an Apiary | [352] |
| Interior of an Apiary | [353] |
INTRODUCTION.
LITERATURE OF BEE-KEEPING.
JUST a few words at starting on the history of the bee in ancient and modern literature. Our work is not a critical survey, and still less an exhaustive treatise; but even that popular outline which it is our aim to produce seems defective without some mention of the great bee-students of the past. We find the first definitive description of the insect in Aristotle's "History of Animals," written about the middle of the fourth century before Christ, and combining much sound scientific information on our subject with other statements which better information has had to reject. A little before him lived Aristomachus, of Cilicia, who wrote works on agriculture and domestic economy which are lost to us except in a few quotations, but of whom we are told that he devoted some fifty-eight years to a continual observance of the habits of bees. One Philiscus, of Thasos, is mentioned as another of their votaries, who betook himself to a forest life in order uninterruptedly to pursue their study. Then just after the Christian era came Pliny the Elder, from whom we learn these few particulars of the two just named, and whose celebrated "Natural History," which is the work rather of a student than of a master, honours the bee with an elaborate and interesting description. Shortly after him Columella, in his work "On Rustic Matters," gave copious instructions on bee-keeping, which, though reproducing some older errors, are greatly in advance of any that had appeared, and place him, for the accuracy that they display, at the head of the apiarians of antiquity. Theophrastus, Celsus, and Varro must also be ranked among the ancient writers whose attention was drawn to this industrious insect. But perhaps the most renowned of classic works upon the subject is the fourth book of the "Georgics" of Virgil, in which we are presented with a minute treatise upon bees and their culture, with all the sense as well as nonsense that then passed current thereupon, together with that most beautiful passage in the poet's writings, the story of the visit of Orpheus to the shades, which is appended by one of those incidental connecting-links of which ancient poets were wont to avail themselves.
In more modern times the principal writers have been Swammerdam. The Dutch naturalist; Maraldi, an Italian mathematician; Schirach, a Saxon clergyman; Réaumur, well known for his thermometer; Bonnet, a Swiss entomologist and jurist; the famous Dr. John Hunter; and above all Francis Huber, of Geneva. The last of these, though totally blind, contrived, principally by the aid of his very intelligent and painstaking assistant, Burnens to accumulate a long series of minute observations which have brought about an entire revolution in the science. In connection with Huber must be mentioned Mlle. Jurine, who, by her delicate microscopic examinations, rendered him the most important services, and gave more than one valuable discovery to the world. At the same period lived Dr. John Evans, who may be fitly styled the poet-laureate of the bee. His poem, "The Bees," from which we shall make numerous quotations, is written with great taste, and combines, with rare felicity, scientific accuracy of detail with a poetic spirit which never flags.[3] A little later than these, though in part their contemporary, came Dr. Bevan, whose name is still cited as among the highest authorities on the subject, and whose work, "The Honey Bee," was regarded as its great text-book in our language, till superseded, with the progress of discoveries, by one under the same title from the pen of the Rev. L. L. Langstroth. This last gentleman, who is a Presbyterian minister in Ohio, stands undoubtedly at the present day as the foremost apiarian of the English-speaking race. But we are forced to admit that the Germans bear the palm above us, for all the great advances in our knowledge of the bee which have been made for a generation have come from them. To Dr. Dzierzon,[4] therefore, a Roman Catholic priest of Carlsmarkt in Silesia, to whose acute investigations the great mass of these are to be ascribed, must be conceded a rank scarcely second to that of Huber; while Baron von Berlepsch, of Coburg, who is ever ready to follow up and improve upon the researches of the "great, master," has beyond question earned for himself a position inferior to that of the master alone. Of famous Scotch writers we should allude to Bonner, of Glasgow, who lived in the latter part of the last century, and the Rev. Dr. Dunbar, who dates at the beginning of this.
[3] Dr. Evans's poem consisted of four parts, of which only three were ever published. We possess an author's presentation copy in which is a written memorandum that the manuscript of the remainder had been prepared for the press, and was still in the keeping of the family. We have written numerous letters with a view to tracking it out for publication; but very recently we have learnt that the only survivor of nine children is unable at present to discover the whereabouts of the document. Dr. Evans was some time a physician at Shrewsbury, but removed into and died in Wales.
[4] Pronounced Dzeert-sohn. Some of the above names, it may not be amiss to add, are not always spelt correctly by bee-writers. In particular, nearly all of them, copying each other, omit the accent in "Réaumur" (Ray-oh-mewr), which we find French biographers unanimous in inserting. We have also seen "Miraldi" in a recent popular work, while one author had a fancy to write "Hüber," which is evidently a pure mistake.
Of the mass of other names that press in upon us it will be impossible in such narrow limits to supply any details. The literature of the subject is truly enormous, and all that we can do is to furnish a list in rough chronological order of the more noteworthy of those who have in some way rendered service to our acquaintance with the bee. Besides the great naturalists Linnæus and Cuvier we therefore select the following:—
Sixteenth century.—Hill, Nikol Jacob. "De Proprietatibus Apum" (anon.) published about 1510.
Seventeenth century.—Butler, Purchas, Goedart, Swammerdam, Sir C. Wren, Hartlib, Gedde. Rusden, Ray (with Willughby and Dr. M. Lister), Dr. Martin John (of Germany).
Eighteenth century.—Maraldi, Mme. Merian, Dr. Warder, Dr. Derham, Réaumur, Thorley, Lyonnet, Vanière (poet, of Holland), Dobbs, Rev. Stephen White, Schirach, Janscha, Bonner, Debraw, Thos. and Danl. Wildman, Gilb. White, Mme. Vicat, Pösl, Abbé Della Rocca, Hubbard, Keys, Bonnet, Riem, Dr. Jno. Hunter.
Nineteenth Century.—François Huber (with his son Pierre, and Burnens), Latreille, Mlle. Jurine, Spitzner, T. A. Knight, Rev. Dr. Dunbar, Huish, Dr. Evans (poet), Feburier, Kirby and Spence, Humphrey, Baron von Ehrenfels, Newport, Dr. Bevan, Gundelach, Lord Brougham, Pastor Oettl, Capt. von Baldenstein, Nutt, Payne, Taylor, Golding, Maj. Munn, Woodbury, Quinby (of America), Wagner (ditto).
Of contemporary writers in our own language, we may, in addition to Langstroth, refer to Rev. W. C. Cotton, Samuelson (with Dr. Hicks), Hunter, Cheshire, and Pettigrew; while to the German names already given may be added those of Professors Leuckart and Von Siebold, Drs. Dönhoff and Küchenmeister, Pastors Kleine and Schönfeld, Vogel, Dathe, Rothe, Count von Stosch, and Schmid, the editor of the Bienenzeitung. It is worth noting how large is the number of apiarians of different lands to whom the title of "reverend" is prefixed.
But while conceding to Germany an unquestioned first position in the theoretical department, we do not admit the accuracy of Von Berlepsch's assertion that "in all other countries bee-keeping is almost throughout a mere plaything and amusement." If the Baron would honour our island with a visit, we could show him, from one end of it to the other, a goodly number of very different cases; and though we have much to learn, and have not long gone systematically to work to learn it, there are not wanting clear and increasing signs that the right course is entered, upon, and must in time secure corresponding results. In the year 1874 was established the British Bee-keepers' Association, with one of the first entomologists of the day, Sir John Lubbock, at its head; and under its auspices there have since been held annual shows at the Crystal and Alexandra Palaces, at which bees themselves, their dwellings and paraphernalia, and their products, have been submitted to the awards of judges as well as to the popular inspection. Several periodicals are either wholly or in part devoted to apiculture, and altogether appearances are healthy and hopeful. While therefore we still do look for amusement from our bees, we claim to experience a more solid satisfaction as well.
