Bees, Bee-hives, and Bee-masters.
To the Editor of "The Times."
Sir,—I have been so annoyed at your correspondent's attack on the good name of my bees, that I cannot resist the temptation of saying a word or two of additional defence.
That the queen is not a mere egg-laying machine obedient to mere mechanical impulses, nor her subjects mere mechanical creations obeying similar impulses with no instructive appreciation, will be evident from the following facts:—
Reaumur, the eminent naturalist, observes that after the queen-regnant has become a mother—
"The bees are constantly on the watch to make themselves useful to her and to render her every kind office. They are for ever offering her honey. They lick her with the proboscis, and wherever she goes they form a court to attend her. Even the body of a dead queen is the object of tender affection to the bees. I took a queen out of the water seemingly dead. She was also mutilated, having lost a leg. Bringing her home, I placed her amid a number of working-bees recovered from drowning also by means of warmth. No sooner did the revived workers perceive the queen in her miserable plight, than they appeared to compassionate her, and continued to lick her with their tongues until she showed signs of returning vitality, when they set up a general hum as of joy at the event."
Huber writes:—
"I have seen the workers lavish the most tender care on such a queen, and, after her decease, surround her inanimate body with the same respect and homage as they had paid to her while living, and in the presence of these beloved remains refuse all attention to young and fertile queens who were offered to them."
These are two facts noticed and recorded by the two most eminent and careful apiarian naturalists. They are, in the judgment of everyone able to appreciate weight of evidence, conclusive disproofs of the material and mechanical theory, and no less decisive confirmations of all I ventured to state in your columns.
The senses of the bee are no less clear protests against the mechanical theory so acceptable to "our transatlantic brethren."
The bee leaves her house, traverses fields a mile or two distant, and returns to her home—one amid twenty contiguous ones—with unerring certainty.
The sense of touch through its antennæ is so exquisite, that in total darkness it carries on its architecture as perfectly as by day.
Its smell is possessed of unrivalled sensibility. Odours from afar are directly scented. Huber thinks it is the scent, not the colour of flowers, that attracts them.
Their power of memory is illustrated by Huber. He placed a supply of honey on the sill of an open window in autumn. The bees feasted on it for weeks. He removed the honey and closed the window during winter. Next spring the bees came to the same window, looking for supplies. Here was memory of place and circumstances lasting during half a bee's lifetime.
Huber mentions a species of moth that attacks and plunders bee-hives; it is called the death's-head moth. Finding out its daring depredations, he lessened the apertures of some of his hives, leaving sufficient room for the exit and entrance of the bees, but not for the entrance of the moth. This succeeded perfectly. But several hives he left undefended. In each of these undefended hives the bees raised a Avail of wax and propolis right behind their doors of entrance, making embrasures for exit and entrances through the solid wall. As soon as spring arrived and all danger was at an end, these Royal Engineers threw down their fortifications.
I need not refer to the perfect and well-known geometrical construction of the cells of a hive as evidences of design and high instinct; they combine the maximum of strength with the least expenditure of substance and the largest capacity in a given space. The equilateral triangle, the square, and the hexagon, were the only three forms of tubular cells that would leave no interstices: in the first there would be lost space in each angle; a similar disadvantage would be found in the second. The bees, by an instinct surely Divine, or in the exercise of engineering powers demonstrative of mind, have adopted the last.
Having thus disposed of your correspondent, will you allow me to select one or two of the most important practical inquiries which I have received in upwards of twenty additional letters addressed to "The Times Bee-master?" Your universal circulation is the cause of my extraordinary visitation of correspondence, and this unexpectedly-wide practical interest in bees will justify you to your readers. One asks, "How am I to begin an apiary?" Let me tell him. Buy a stock this month or next for 20s., taking care that it is not old, and weighs (inclusive of straw hive) not less than 30 lbs. Erect a shed with sloping roof projecting sufficiently to carry the rain beyond the alighting-board of the bees. The length may be 12 feet, the height about 6 feet, and width 2½ feet. Divide it into six equal sections or chambers. Make an exit in each, three inches long by two inches high. Place each hive in the centre of one of them, with its opening directly opposite the opening in the chamber. Fix below each opening in the shed a bees' landing-board sloping at an angle of 25°. If you can afford it, buy six stock-hives. Next May cut out the top of each, as I directed in a previous letter. Place on it a board with circular hole, and a bell-glass rather narrower at the lower part than at the centre; cover each with its plaid nightcap, and you will have plenty of delicious honey in 1865.
If, however, you do not mind loss of time, build your shed this autumn, make it smooth inside to discourage spiders, and next April send round the country to cottagers keeping bees, and engage six good swarms, which ought not to cost more than 10s. each. In carrying them home, pin over the entrance-hole a piece of gauze, tie a towel or napkin underneath, fastening the four corners at the top, and do not jolt the young family unnecessarily. If the swarms can be had in May, and if it prove a fine summer, you may place a glass on each about the end of June. Do not forget the old adage—
"A swarm in May
Is worth a load of hay;
A swarm in June
Is worth a silver spoon;
A swarm in July
Is worth a fly."
If your swarm is an early June one, you may save it by pushing three or four sticks of barley-sugar into the hive by the exit aperture once a fortnight till next March. Any little expense in feeding introduces you to your bees and helps them wonderfully, and is never a loss.
If you want to tempt the bees to feed in your own garden, sow mignonette, salvia, and sanfoin; plant plenty of raspberry, gooseberry, and currant bushes. They like lime poplars, apple-blossoms, thyme, and, above all, borage. Bees never touch double flowers. Should the early summer prove very dry, place near your bee-shed two or three soup-plates half-full of water, taking care to put in as many pebbles as each will hold. The bees require stepping-stones for their tiny feet, and otherwise they are necessary to save them from drowning.
I am giving directions to those who desire to work economically. But if you can lay out a little as an investment, and you desire to combine interest and pleasure with profit, you cannot do better than call on Neighbour, either in Regent-street or Holborn, where I have seen many varieties of hives of different prices and all of good workmanship. In answer to numerous inquiries about the Ayrshire hives, I am sorry to be obliged to answer that I have to send to Scotland for them. They may be had of Air. Bruce Taylor, Post-office, Mauchlin, Ayrshire; or of Messrs. Craig, Stewarton, Ayrshire. The three boxes in the lower or stock hive, with two supers exactly corresponding, cost me 20s. But they last for ever. Their chief value is their productiveness. Neighbours' and Pettitt's are far more interesting for experimental uses. The collateral system is the most elegant, but least productive; its bee-boxes are also expensive. Your correspondent's hive (which I ought previously to have referred to) is no improvement, and its architect has so bad an opinion of the moral character of bees, that were they to know it was his, they would desert it. There are people to whom bees never take, and there are hives they invariably sicken in. I do not like the nadir system recommended in The Times by "A Rector." Bees naturally ascend or traverse the same plane, but mostly preferring ascent. "Excelsior" is their favourite aspiration. In answer to another inquiry, do I approve using stupifying fumes, as of puff-ball, &c., in order to expel the bees from supers full of honey?—I say, certainly not. It may not injure the bees if judiciously administered. Some highly recommend it. But it is not necessary. The bees will leave the super on its being detached from the hive and carried to a little distance, and will return in an hour or two to their home and their queen. The only case in which I have recourse to fumigation is when any portion of the comb, through accidental admission of wet, has become mouldy. A few whiffs of puff-ball may be injected, by means of an instrument sold for this purpose, during five minutes. As soon as the humming noise ceases, lift the hive and cut out the mouldy portion of the comb, replace it, and in twenty minutes the bees will again be at work. This is the only case in which I like to employ either this or tobacco-smoke, which answers as well if not too long continued.
Your apiary or bee-shed should be placed as near your dwelling as possible, sheltered from the north and northeast winds, and at the greatest possible distance from poultry. Frequently, but quietly and unobtrusively, visit your bees, watch them at work in your bee-glasses, or by windows in your bee-boxes. Let your children play beside them. They are fond of children, and unless violently irritated they will not injure them. I can state this from very ample experience. At the same time, it is proper to state, that some few persons are so offensive to bees that they must not approach them. Plenty of soap and water and fastidious cleanliness are essential to a bee-master's continued popularity with his apiarian family.
I am, &c.,
A Bee-master.
Tunbridge Wells.