§ XII. INCREASE OF BEES.
In the section upon "The Queen" we have given ([page 10]) some particulars as to the rate of breeding with bees. The needful expansion for this rapid development is found in the above process of "swarming," by which they provide themselves with fresh space, and plant new colonies. But the object of the bee-master is to train and educate his bees, and in so doing he avoids much of the risk and trouble which is incurred by allowing the busy folk to follow their own devices. The various methods for this end adopted by apiarians all come under the term of the "depriving" system, and they form part of the great object of humane and economical bee-keeping, which is to save the bees alive instead of slaughtering them as under the old clumsy régime. A very natural question is often asked: How is it that, upon the depriving system, where our object is to prevent swarming, the increase of numbers is not so great as upon the old plan? It will be seen that the laying of eggs is performed by the queen only, and that there is but one queen to each hive; so that where swarming is prevented there remains only one hive or stock, as the superfluous princesses are not allowed to come to maturity. If all those princesses were to become monarchs, or mother bees, and to emigrate with a proportionate number of workers, increase would be going on more rapidly; but the old stock would be so impoverished thereby as possibly to yield no surplus honey, whilst the swarms might come off too late for them to collect sufficient store whereon to grow populous enough to withstand the winter.
With bees, as with men, "union is strength;" and it is often better to induce them to remain as one family, rather than to part numbers at a late period of the honey-gathering season, without a prospect of supporting themselves, and so perish from cold and hunger during the ordeal of the winter season. This is one of the great secrets of successful bee-keeping. Mr. Langstroth's recommendation is that none "but the most experienced apiarians" should attempt "at the furthest to do more than treble their stocks in one year." Even doubling them, he says, is often too rapid an increase for obtaining spare honey.
Our plan of giving additional storage-room will, generally speaking, prevent swarming. This stay-at-home policy, we contend, is an advantage; for instead of the loss of time consequent upon a swarm hanging out preparatory to flight, all the bees are engaged in collecting honey, and that at a time when the weather is most favourable and the food most abundant. Upon the old system the swarm leaves the hive simply because the dwelling has not been enlarged at the time when the bees are increasing. Upon the antiquated and inhuman plan where so great a destruction takes place by the brimstone match, breeding must, of course, be allowed to go on to its full extent to make up for such sacrifices. Our chief object under the new system is to obtain honey free from all extraneous matter. No one can depend upon gathering pure honey from combs where storing and breeding are performed in the same compartment. For fuller explanations on this point we refer to the various descriptions of our improved hives in a subsequent chapter of this work.
We often receive from Scotland magnificent boxes of honey; and though the fine quality is no doubt to be in part attributed to good pasturage, it is largely owing to keeping the stocks strong, and thus having hives well stored and well populated early in the season. A weakly hive will take some weeks, if not months, to grow populous; and as soon as the strength of the hive has recovered, the honey season will have advanced, if not ended, whilst the strong stocks have been able to take full advantage of the supplies, having an abundance of labourers to collect the honey and store it in supers for their master.
There can now be scarcely two opinions as to the uselessness of the rustic plan of immolating the poor bees after they have striven through the summer so to "improve each shining hour." The ancients in Greece and Italy took the surplus honey and spared the bees, and now for every intelligent bee-keeper there are ample appliances wherewith to attain the same results. Mr. Langstroth quotes from the German the following epitaph, which, he says, "might be properly placed over every pit of brimstoned bees:"—
Here Rests,
CUT OFF FROM USEFUL LABOUR,
A COLONY OF
INDUSTRIOUS BEES,
BASELY MURDERED
BY ITS
UNGRATEFUL AND IGNORANT OWNER.
And Thomson, the poet of "The Seasons," has recorded an eloquent poetic protest against the barbarous practice, for which, however, in his day there was no alternative:—
"Ah! see, where, robbed and murdered, 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, and planning schemes
Of temperance, for winter poor; rejoiced
To mark, full flowing round, their copious stores.
Sudden, the dark, oppressive steam ascends;
And, used to milder scents, the tender race
By thousands tumble from their honeyed domes,
Convolved and agonising in the dust."
It will be our pleasing task, in subsequent chapters; to show "a more excellent way."
