HIVES AND BEE-BOXES.
Having given a description of the bar-frame-hive, it will be as well to enter into the comparative advantages of using wooden boxes and straw hives.
Some apiarians confine themselves to the use of straw hives, others to wooden boxes, and a third party use both; but as far as the bees are concerned it matters little what kind of hive is given them, for if the season be favourable, and the bee-pasturage rich with flowers, they collect and store up the honey in their combs in any receptacle of any shape or size, provided it affords them shelter from the weather.
Hives made of straw are generally preferred for an out-of-door apiary, as being less liable to be over-heated by the rays of the sun, and in the winter they exclude the cold better than hives made of other materials, while the moisture arising from the bees is more quickly absorbed within the hive, and does not run down the sides as it generally does in wooden hives or boxes; at the same time they are always to be obtained from their cheapness, and from their simplicity easily understood and made use of; wooden boxes can only be used with advantage in a bee-house, they stand firmer on the bottom boards, or one upon another, they admit of having glass windows, through which to observe the operations of the bees, and they are not so liable to harbour moths, spiders, and other insects, as the straw hives.
The objects to be attained in the construction and management of an apiary, are, to secure the prosperity and multiplication of the colonies of bees, to increase the amount of their productive labour, and to obtain their products with facility, and with the least possible detriment to the stock. It is to the interest of the owner, therefore, that he provide for the bees shelter against moisture, and the extremes of heat and cold—especially, sudden vicissitudes of temperature, protection from their numerous enemies, every facility for constructing their combs and for rearing their brood, and that the hive should be so constructed as to allow of every part of the combs to be inspected at any moment, and capable of removal when requisite: and while attention is paid to economy, it should be made of materials that will secure its durability.
These observations apply equally to the straw hives, boxes, or whatever the bees may be lodged in or hived. Some cultivators of bees have been chiefly anxious to promote their multiplication, and to prevent the escape of the swarms in their natural way, by forming artificial swarms, by separating a populous hive previous to its swarming, into two parts, and allowing to each greater room for the construction of their works. Others, and the most numerous class, have contemplated only the abundance of the products which they yield, and the facility of extracting them from the hive, without showing any particular solicitude as to the preservation of the bees themselves. Another class of apiarians have, on the other hand, had it more particularly in view, to facilitate the prosecution of researches in the natural history and economy of bees.
Then, again, amongst apiarians a diversity of opinion exists regarding the system to be adopted in the management of the hives, whether the bees are to be kept in single hives, caps or bell-glasses, and extra boxes, which may be added at the top, which is called the storifying system; or inserting additional room at the bottom, called nadering; or whether adding boxes at the sides, called the collateral system, should be followed out; and a plan of ventilating the boxes has been added to the last system, but experience has proved that it is utterly useless, as in spite of ventilating tubes and thermometers, the bees have swarmed, and the queen-bee has deposited her eggs in the collateral boxes and destroyed the purity of the honey.
No successful plan has been yet devised to ventilate the combs where the bees cluster; for the bees prevent the circulation of the cold air amongst the combs by immediately forming themselves in thick rows at the bottom of the combs; and instead of ranging the fields to gather honey or pollen, have to collect together and idle away their time to retain the necessary heat for the formation of the combs, or to rear their brood.
As a single hive, Huber's leaf-hive is certainly the best; but it requires great attention, and none but experienced apiarists can use it for the purpose of trying experiments; but in the hands of experienced apiarists it is invaluable. All other single hives are objectionable, as neither the proceedings of the bees can be observed, nor the honey taken out, without either destroying the bees, or driving them out with smoke by which much of the brood is killed; or if rainy weather occur at the time the bees are preparing to throw off a swarm, and the hive be filled to its utmost limits with comb, all the bees must remain idle till the return of fine weather for want of room.
To meet this objection, some apiarians have straw-hives with flat wooden tops made, or use boxes, and have holes cut in them at the top, so that small glasses may be added, when the bees require room. But this does not prevent swarming, and besides, the flatness of the roof is prejudicial, as it allows the moisture which exhales from the bees to collect in the roof, and to fall in drops at different parts, to the great injury of the subjacent contents of the hive, and, like the common straw hive or square box, the bees cannot be examined, except partially through the windows made in the sides.
To remedy this evil, the further plan of storifying hives or boxes, was introduced, and by this method swarming may to an extent be prevented, and the wax and honey can be taken without destroying the bees; and with the same view was introduced the collateral system, which is adding room at the sides (of course preserving a free communication between the boxes and hives). But there are objections to the collateral system, as it is now a very well established fact, that partitions of any kind are detrimental to the prosperity of the bees; and the same applies, though perhaps in an inferior degree, to the storied system, or hives and boxes divided into stories one above another; besides that which holds good equally to all hives or boxes, that it is not possible to proportion the hives in all cases to the magnitude of the swarms, or the energy with which they labour.
In single hives the honey becomes bad and discoloured from being put into the old breeding cells. In double storied, or collateral hives, the bees are divided, and live in different families; while their own preservation, and that of the brood, requires them to live in the strictest union; the heat also necessary for the secretion of wax is lessened by the division of the bees into different groups. And, besides, all these different hives or boxes should have some sort of protection from the weather, either in the way of eaves or covers, or be placed in a shed or bee-house.
They require also centre boards and division tins, &c. to separate one hive or box from another, floor boards for them to stand upon, as well as stands or stools to raise them from the ground, &c., for a description of which, and a full history of all hives and boxes, I refer the reader to Dr. Bevan's "Honey-bee."
In mentioning the defects of these different boxes and hives, I do not mean to condemn them as useless, for they will all answer to a certain extent the purposes for which they were intended, rewarding the attentive bee-keeper, according to the seasons, and enabling the bees to send forth many swarms, and collecting and storing up their treasures of honey; but my object has been to point out briefly to those anxious for the better, more extended, and economical mode of bee-management, the difficulties to be provided against, and to recommend to their consideration the advantages offered in the bar frame-hive. But, however, I should not be doing justice to Mr. R. Golding, if I did not particularly mention his "improved Grecian hive" by the use of which combs may be removed from the interior of the hive and inspected at pleasure: this improvement he has effected by carefully investigating the laws of the insects for whose use the hives were intended, and by a particular arrangement of the bars, (every alternate one being furnished with guide combs,) the bees have been induced, in a manner at once simple and beautiful, to construct a uniform range of combs. When the hive is filled with honey, two or three, or more of the bars may be, at any time, removed, or exchanged for unoccupied bars, without much disturbing the brood combs, all annoyance from the bees being prevented by a whiff or two of tobacco smoke being blown into the hive at the time of the removal of the bars. With the protection of a bee-house these hives can be applied to many of the systems of bee-management, and prove equally profitable, and more manageable than some of the newly-invented hives.