Back View of the above, showing the Interior.
Where economy of room is a consideration, we fit up bee-houses with a double row of hives, one above the other. Our engravings show the back and front of a house of this kind, having an ornamental zinc gutter to prevent the wet from dripping on to the alighting board.
When a number of hives are thus together, we colour the alighting boards differently, so that bees may have a distinctive mark by which each may know its own home, and not wander into its neighbour's house. Bees readily enough receive a honey laden labourer into a hive; but if the wanderer be poor and empty, he will be promptly repulsed, and may have to forfeit his life for his mistake. Queens returning from their wedding trip, are liable to mistake their hive if all the entrances are so much alike that a noticeable difference is not easily apparent. A queen entering a hive already supplied with a fruitful sovereign would be certain to be killed. The loss to the hive to which the queen belonged is a most serious one. Hives are often made queenless from this cause, and thereby reduced to utter ruin; the bee-master perhaps attributing his loss to something altogether different.
BEE-HOUSE TO CONTAIN NINE HIVES. No. 41.
This engraving represents a bee-house adapted for having a number of hives in a limited space. Three rows of hives, one above the other.
We do not recommend a bee-house of this construction; it is difficult to erect one to afford space for super hives, without it being so inconveniently high as to be liable to be blown over by strong winds.
Hives thus located in a bee-house are not exposed to so much change of temperature and the stocks generally pass the winter well. Here we may introduce the meditations of a German apiarian, as he describes the advantages of a bee-house for the bees, and his own pleasure in watching over his pets in the winter, as they dwell so comfortably and safely. It is true that Heer Braun associates still choicer delights with the simple pleasures of bee-keeping, but as Mr. Woodbury has not excluded the higher theme from his translation, we need not hesitate to quote the whole:—
EVENING THOUGHTS IN JANUARY.
(Translated from the German of Adalbert Braun.)