FOOTNOTES:
[1] The 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 bee keepers whom he has known.
[2] In this way she is sure to deposit the egg in the cell she has selected.
[3] If ever there lived a genuine naturalist, Swammerdam was the man. In his History of Insects, published in 1737, he has given a most beautiful drawing of the ovaries of the queen bee. The sac which he supposed secreted a fluid for sticking the eggs to the base of the cells is the seminal reservoir or spermatheca.
[4] Bevan.
[5] This work being intended chiefly for practical purposes, I have thought best to use, as little as possible, the technical terms and minute anatomical descriptions of the scientific entomologist.
[6] Bevan.
[7] 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 the 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 Swammerdam never afterwards 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 morning, when the sun afforded him light enough to survey such minute objects; and from that hour till twelve, he continued without interruption, 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 powerful 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 microscopes, 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."
[8] The formation of swarms will be particularly described in another chapter.
[9] 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?
[10] Bevan.
[11] Some very extraordinary instances are related of the protraction of life in snails. After they had lain in a cabinet above fifteen years, immersing them in water caused them to revive and crawl out of their shells.
[12] 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 farmers of New Hampshire alone, two and a half millions of dollars! By suitable arrangements, bees even in the very coldest climates can have all the advantages of a mild winter.
[13] 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 cts. 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.
[14] The observations to test the temperature of the Protector were made in Greenfield, Massachusetts, in latitude 42 deg. 36 min.
[15] The beautiful open or Franklin stoves, manufactured by Messrs. Jagger, Treadwell and Perry, of Albany, deserve the highest commendation: they economize fuel as well as life and health.
[16] 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 Western 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 roughly 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.
[17] I 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.
[18] The scent of the hives, during the height of the gathering season, will usually inform us from what sources the bees have gathered their supplies.
[19] If they cannot obtain it, the Apiarian must himself furnish it.
[20] The queens taken from such hives may be advantageously used in forming artificial colonies.
[21] Bevan.
[22] Bevan.
[23] 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.
[24] Report on bees to the Essex County Agricultural Society, 1851.
[25] Instead of using sticks, I much prefer to make the drumming with the open palms of my hands.
[26] The bees in each colony had probably contracted the same smell, and could not distinguish friends from foes.