§ XII. GENERAL REMARKS.
Book-Keeping.
Every bee-keeper should be a book-keeper, that is so far as to have a permanent record of the events of the apiary and the fortunes of his bees. A book similar to a tradesman's journal would be very suitable for the purpose. In it he should note down the date of the first swarm of the season especially, and those of other swarms also; and in autumn the quantity of honey taken from each hive should be entered, with remarks on the probable size and weight of the various stocks. These particulars will not only be interesting for the bee-keeper to turn to in winter, but will be of practical service in enabling him to know the exact age and probable strength of each stock. The bee-book may also be contrived to show the total amount of honey that the bees have produced for their owner, and the nett profits of the apiary. A simple and clear account like this—provided, by the bye, that it does show a satisfactory balance—will be very useful for inducing cottagers and farm-labourers to start bee-keeping. Nothing like ocular demonstration for this class. The "humane" apiarian will reason with them in vain until he shows them a monster skep of honey and mentions the price that it will fetch in the market. When convinced that the depriving system will pay, the cottager will gladly adopt it.
Advice for Cottagers, etc.
A writer in the Quarterly Review (whose article has since been published by Mr. Murray as a shilling handbook, "The Honey Bee") gives the following good advice: "Don't bore the cottager with long lectures; don't heap upon him many little books; but give him a hive of the best construction, show him the management, and then buy his honey; buy all he brings, even though you should have to give the surplus to some gardenless widow. But only buy such as comes from an improved hive—and you cannot easily be deceived in this—one which preserves the bees and betters the honey. Then, when you pay him, you may read to him, if you will, the wise rules of old Butler, exempli gratia:—
"'If thou wilt have the favour of thy bees that they sting thee not, thou must not be unchaste or uncleanly; thou must not come among them with a stinking breath, caused either through eating of leeks, onions, or garlic, or by any other means, the noisomeness whereof is corrected by a cup of beer; thou must not be given to surfeiting or drunkenness; thou must not come puffing or blowing unto them, neither hastily stir among them, nor violently defend thyself when they seem to threaten thee; but, softly moving by, thy hand before thy face, gently put them by; and, lastly, thou must be no stranger to them. In a word (or rather in five words), be chaste, sweet, sober, quiet, familiar; so they will love thee and know thee from all others.'"
These "wise rules of old Butler" are, however, in the main taken from Columella.
Allusion having been made to the profit that may be gained by the judicious management of bees, we will illustrate that point by relating an anecdote of a certain French curé.[34] It is one which may be suggestive to some of the rural clergy in this country, who might almost as easily keep an apiary as they do a garden or an orchard.
[34] This story, in a disguised form, or, as the writer would say, an improved form, was quoted in the Cornhill Magazine some time ago. In transforming the bee-keeping curé into an English clergyman the effect was cleverly enhanced, especially as to the dismay of the decorous English prelate in hearing that his poor brother in the Church had turned "manufacturer;" but then the vraisemblance of the story, as we have it, was destroyed.
A good French bishop, in paying his annual visit to his clergy, was very much afflicted by the representations they made to him of their extreme poverty, which, indeed, the appearance of their houses and families corroborated. Deploring the sad state of things which had reduced them to such a condition, he arrived at the house of a curate, who, living amongst a poorer set of parishioners than any he had yet visited, would, he feared, be in a still more woful plight than the rest. Contrary, however, to his expectations, he found the appearance of this remote parsonage to be superior to those he had already visited. Everything about the house wore the aspect of comfort and plenty. The good bishop was amazed. "How is this, my friend?" said he; "you are the first pastor I have met with having a cheerful face and a plentiful board! Have you any income independent of your cure?" "Yes, sire," said the pastor, "I have: my family would starve on the pittance I receive from the poor people that I instruct. If you will walk into the garden, I will show you the stock that yields me such excellent interest." On going into the garden he showed the bishop a long range of beehives. "There," said he, "is the bank from which I draw an annual dividend, and it is one that never stops payment." His harvest of honey enabled him almost to dispense with the use of sugar, leaving him a considerable quantity for disposal in the market; of the coarser portions he made a tolerable substitute for wine, and the sale of the wax nearly paid his shoemaker's bill. Ever afterwards, when any of the clergy complained to the bishop of poverty, he would say to them, "Keep bees! keep bees!" In this succinct advice—extending it to laity as well as clergy in rural districts—we heartily join, believing that in this country a tenfold greater number of hives might be successfully kept than are now established.
In a very practical sense the oft-repeated lines of Gray are strictly true:—
"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
An apiary in the garden of every village clergyman would afford the means of economising this unclaimed bounty of Providence.
An Old Anecdote.
An amusing instance of the fondness of bears for honey is related by a Muscovite ambassador to Rome, in the "Feminine Monarchie; written out of Experience by Charles Butler. Printed in the Year 1609"—a quaint, but sensible work:—
"A neighbour of mine (saith he), in searching in the woods for honey, slipped down into a great hollow tree, and there sunk into a lake of honey up to the breast; where—when he had stuck fast two days, calling and crying out in vain for help, because nobody in the meanwhile came nigh that solitary place—at length, when he was out of all hope of life, he was strangely delivered by the means of a great bear, which, coming thither about the same business that he did, and smelling the honey, stirred with his striving, clambered up to the top of the tree, and then began to lower himself down backwards into it. The man bethinking himself, and knowing that the worst was but death—which in that place he was sure of—beclipt the bear fast with both his hands about the loins, and withal made an outcry as loud as he could. The bear being thus suddenly affrighted, what with the handling and what with the noise, made up again with all speed possible. The man held, and the bear pulled, until, with main force, he had drawn him out of the mire; and then being let go, away he trots, more afeared than hurt, leaving the smeared swain in joyful fear."
Instructions for New Bee-Keepers.
Bees may be very inexpensively and profitably kept in the cottager's hive (see [page 110]), which will be found a very productive one. It is true that it has not the appliances of windows and bell glasses; for the cottager is not supposed so much to care for his hives as a source of amusement; his object in bee-keeping is simply the profit it may bring. For those of our readers who wish to have united the facility of observing the bees with that of the plentiful production of honey, we would especially recommend the improved cottager's hive, described at [page 112]. If inclined to go to a little further expense, the hives described at pages 113, 120, 139, and 143, all afford constant opportunity for inspection of the bees, and allow of their working freely in the most natural manner. The Stewarton hive ([page 146]) is also a favourite with those who give the preference to honey stored in boxes, although the opportunities for observation are not so great as with some others.
Renfrewshire Bee-Keeper's Hints on Supering and Prevention of Swarming.
The mention again of the Stewarton hive affords us an opportunity of which we avail ourselves to put before our readers an extract from a private letter received whilst the foregoing pages are in type, from that successful and accomplished apiarian already alluded to, "The Renfrewshire Bee-keeper," which seems to us to contain a useful hint or two as regards putting on supers and the prevention of swarming, which, although practised with our friend's favourite hive, can be advantageously adopted with other hives. He says, "In working Stewarton colonies, I am seldom troubled with swarms, the secret being, in giving super space at the nick of time, before swarming mania seizes them; and when once they have taken to supers, I keep an ample supply of space in advance of their wants.
"However hot the weather may become, they somehow retire upstairs to this vacant room, and comb-building there affords them employment, and they do not readily think of swarming. For instance, in the beginning of summer last year (1876), the season was so bad that at first I gave them little room; suddenly the weather became hot and favourable, and one strong colony swarmed right off. I excised the royal cells, and returned the bees; no use—off they came again in eight or ten days' time; took the hive to pieces, cut out all royal cells, and in addition, the thought having occurred to me that maturing drone brood was an accessory to swarming condition, I excised every portion of that also. With seven supers (each four inches deep) they rested content and kept to work most vigorously, never attempting to swarm again."
From this extract the practical bee-keeper may learn much; particularly as regards depriving the bees of the inclination to swarm by cutting away the drone brood.
Perhaps we may here be allowed to advise the filling up of vacancies where excision of drone comb is made (whether with brood or without), by the insertion of clean worker comb, in order to prevent the construction of the former.
Bees Working in Supers.
There is a little matter here with regard to bees working in supers that should be noticed, and that is that when the ascending hole is round and in the centre of the stock hives, the bees sometimes start wrong and carry the comb upwards. This has two objections: the first is that the bees do not work so quickly as when they begin from the roof of the super, and the other is that the queen gains an easy ascent and deposits eggs in cells where honey is wanted. When this style of comb-building is observed, it is best to take the super off, cut the comb down, and endeavour to make it adhere to the crown of the super by using a little melted wax ([page 261], or if a glass, as recommended at [page 262]), so that the bees may continue the work, as is their wont, downwards.
There are few hobbies which cost so little outlay as the keeping of bees. Once the "plant" of hives is purchased, there is little, if any, additional expense, and always a probability of a fair return. If honey be obtainable the bees will find it; they work for nothing, and provide themselves with sustenance, requiring only a very little labour from their keepers, and that labour of a pleasing and instructive kind.
To the advanced and skilful apiarian we would especially commend the use of the frame hives. With these, as we have attempted to show, the bee-keeper has a full command over his hives and bees. Many mistakes, it is true, have been made by uninitiated bee-keepers in using the more elaborate hives. Being struck with the remarkable facilities afforded by these superior hives for the extraction of any one comb, and, perhaps, fascinated with their easy sway over so highly organised a community, these new-fangled bee-keepers have acquired a habit of perpetually and incautiously meddling with the bees. The inevitable results in such cases are, distress to the bees, impoverishment of the stocks, and loss and vexation to the over-zealous apiarian. All these things may be avoided if it is remembered that there are first steps in bee-keeping, as well as in chemistry, croquet, or cricket. In bee-keeping, as in floriculture, it is a great point to know when to "let well alone." There is no florist, however anxious for a prize, who would be continually pulling up his plants to see how their roots were growing. Doubtless the full control which the bars and frames afford over the inmost recesses of the hives is a great temptation to the bee-keeper; but if he yields too readily to it he will imperil his chance of profit and deprive himself of that continuous source of interest which a judicious apiarian always enjoys.
Ignorance Concerning Bees.
Many persons who are well-informed on most subjects are profoundly ignorant on all points of the natural history of bees; and as with old so with young. As an amusing illustration of this, we may transcribe an order we received a few years back from a seminary in the north of England: "Master presents his compliments to Messrs. Neighbour, and begs they will send him a swarm of bees; he encloses six postage stamps, and hopes they will send him a good swarm." This embryo naturalist was evidently of a mercantile turn, and had a mind to buy in the cheapest market, for in a postscript he adds: "Please let it be fourpence, if you can!" We need scarcely say that, in reply, we endeavoured to enlighten our juvenile correspondent as to what constituted a swarm of bees, and returned the stamps, with our thanks.
Superstition Respecting Bees.
Much superstition has existed, and, in some quarters, still exists, among the poor respecting bees. If a death occurs in the family of the bee-owner, these superstitious folk consider it needful to make the bees aware of the bereavement by "waking" them; that is, by giving a few raps at the entrance, and audibly announcing the circumstance. If this be not done, "no luck," say they, will come of the bees the following season. One summer, even near the metropolis, we heard a cottager bemoaning to his neighbour "his bad luck with his bees," when the other replied, "Ah! no wonder; you never 'waked' your bees when your wife died; what can you expect if you omit such needful duty?" In many parts of France, as well as here, it is a custom on such occasions to put the bees into mourning, by placing black crape or some such material round the hives. Bees also receive intelligence when a marriage or a christening takes place: in these cases the hives are draped with red cloth. In fact it is considered an essential element of "good luck" to inform the bees of any remarkable circumstance that occurs in the family of the bee-keeper. How would these good people manage with the newly imported foreign bees, for they can hardly be expected to have learned our "lingo"? This difficulty is, however, not likely to be experienced, for the keeping of superior sorts implies an intelligence that would be above any such pitiable nonsense. Fancy a man in this nineteenth century haranguing his bees after the above-mentioned fashion! Mr. Langstroth says that "some superstitious folk in America assert that the bees sometimes take the loss of their master so much to heart as to alight upon the coffin whenever it is exposed." A clergyman told him that he attended a funeral where, as soon as the coffin was brought from the house, the bees gathered on it so much as to excite alarm. Some years after this occurrence, being engaged in varnishing a table, the bees alighted upon it in such numbers as to convince the clergyman that love of the varnish on the outside, rather than any respect for the deceased within, was the occasion of their conduct at the funeral. Mr. Langstroth adds: "How many superstitions, believed even by intelligent persons, might be as easily explained, if it were possible to ascertain as fully all the facts connected with them!" Only a short time since an English clergyman informed us of a severe contest going on in his garden between Church and Dissent, for he had a hive of bees from a Nonconformist in his parish, and these dissenting bees persistently attacked his hives to such an extent that he really must get rid of them, and thus liberate his episcopal apiary from such discordant disturbers of the peace.[35] Another infatuation is, that you should on no account part with your bees for silver money—only for gold. This is so far sensible that it ensures a respectable price. Certain credulous bee-keepers cannot, on any account, be induced to part with their bees for money; they will barter, but not sell—to sell bees is, in their view, to lay themselves open to evil fortune. If these apprehensions are correct, our punishment will be a severe one, for we have been great offenders in that way, and seem likely to go on sinning.
[35] The explanation may probably be that a strong hive was brought close to weak or queenless ones.
The culture of bees would be greatly promoted if a knowledge of it were considered necessary as one of the regular qualifications of a gardener. So little time is needed to gain the skill requisite for the tendance of an apiary, that it seems only reasonable to expect it of a well-taught gardener, and he should feel a pleasure in the circumstance of its forming a part of his duties. In Germany, where a country gentleman's table is kept constantly supplied with fresh honey, the gardeners are expected to understand the management of hives; and in Bavaria modern bee-culture is taught in the colleges to all the horticultural students. Travellers in Switzerland will call to mind the almost invariable practice of placing new honey on the breakfast tables at hotels in that country. We are told that some of this new honey so highly approved of is only golden syrup with a portion of the colour extracted, and possibly otherwise made up to be palatable; also that there is a factory in Switzerland doing a profitable business in this way. If such be the case, tourists are often taken in. Treacle will do no one any harm, but it is not pleasant to be gulled except for the reason that "ignorance is bliss."
Caution Respecting Flight Hole.
Fine colonies are sometimes destroyed by the entrance-way becoming stopped by some impediment or other, and care is requisite to keep a watch, that so fatal a catastrophe does not happen, because the bees (unless where very simple ventilation is given), excited by their imprisonment, make matters worse, by raising the temperature of their hive to such a pitch that the combs melt from their foundations, and the bees themselves are suffocated, presenting, alas! a most woful spectacle to witness.
We give this hint because of having ourselves suffered from a similar cause when workmen have been employed in the vicinity of hives; these gentlemen, thoughtless of the welfare of the bees, but most careful of their own convenience, have placed a piece of wood across, or otherwise stopped the entrances, to prevent the bees coming out. In summer weather a very short time of confinement in a close hive suffices to complete the work of desolation; but should the bee-keeper's attention be drawn to such a state of things, he must immediately raise the hive from the floor-board and let the poor bees, have all the air possible, leaving them thus exposed for the purpose of affording them a chance of revival. When bees are likely to incommode those whose duties temporarily oblige them to be near the entrances, it is better to cover the hive over night with net in the form of an inverted bag tied at the base, so that, the bees may be able to get air within the net and not be too closely confined. The objection to this is that you stop all labour, which of course harasses the bees for the time, but there will be no other bad results. The foregoing remarks more particularly apply to the summer season. In winter or in the spring, when the weather is cool and the bees are not so numerous, hives may be shut up even for a day or so without much ventilation, and but little harm will arise therefrom.
Hive for Swarming Needful.
There is another little matter of detail that should be named here; that is, the necessity of the bee-keeper always having a common hive in readiness near the bees, so as to be able to secure any swarm which may unexpectedly start.
CONCLUSION.
Here our pleasant task must close. We trust that all information has been given that is needful to enable the practical bee-keeper to begin business and the scientific apiarian to extend his observations. In conclusion, we would remind all bee-keepers who earnestly desire success, and who hope to draw pecuniary profit from their pursuit, of the golden rule in bee-keeping—"Keep your stocks strong." In exercising the assiduous attention and persevering effort which that maxim enjoins, they will not only be regarded as bee-keepers, but, as Mr. Langstroth says, will acquire a right to the title of bee-masters.
