At [page 62], "Hold the glass horizontally over the flame of the candle."
At [page 80], "An empty hive should be placed on the stand when the living hive is removed, for the purpose of amusing returning bees. If the hive is kept in a bee-house, the entrance should be shut down unto the hive is restored, when the clustered bees may be at once admitted."
[Transcriber Note: Above EXPLANATIONS were placed.]
PREFACE.
Our apology for preparing a bee book is a very simple one. We are so frequently applied to for advice on matters connected with bees and bee-hives, that it seemed likely to prove a great advantage, alike to our correspondents and ourselves, if we could point to a "handy-book" of our own, which should contain full and detailed replies sufficient to meet all ordinary enquiries. Most of the apiarian manuals possess some special excellence or other, and we have no wish to disparage any of them. Yet in all, we have found a want of explanations relating to several of the more recent improvements.
It has, more especially, been our aim to give explicit and detailed directions on most subjects connected with the hiving and removing of bees; and also, to show how, by judicious application of the "depriving" system, the productive powers of the bees may be enormously increased.
We need say little here as to the interest that attaches to the apiary as a source of perennial pleasure for the amateur naturalist. Many of the hives and methods of management are described with a direct reference to this class of bee-keepers; so that, besides plain and simple directions suitable for cottagers with their ordinary hives, this work will be found to include instructions useful for the scientific apiarian, or, at least, valuable, for those who desire to gain a much wider acquaintance with the secrets of bee-keeping than is now usually possessed. We would lay stress on the term "acquaintance," for there is nothing in the management of the various bar-and-frame hives which is at all difficult when frequent practice has rendered the bee-keeper familiar with them. Such explicit directions are herein given as to how the right operations may be performed at the right times, that a novice may at once commence to use the modern hives. The word "new-fangled" has done good service for the indolent and prejudiced; but we trust that our readers will be of a very different class. Let them give a fair trial to the modern appliances for the humane and depriving system of bee-keeping, and they will find offered to them an entirely new field of interest and observation. At present, our continental neighbours far surpass us as bee-masters; but we trust that the season of 1865, if the summer be fine, will prove a turning point in the course of. English bee-keeping. There is little doubt that a greater number of intelligent and influential persons in this country will become bee-keepers than has ever been the case before.
Our task would have lost half its interest, did we not hope that it would result in something beyond the encouragement of a refined and interesting amusement for the leisurely classes. The social importance of bee keeping as a source of pecuniary profit for small farmers and agricultural labourers, has never been appreciated as it deserves. Yet these persons will not, of themselves, lay aside the bungling and wasteful plan of destroying the bees, or learn without being taught the only proper method, that of deprivation. Their educated neighbours when once interested in bee-keeping, will be the persons to introduce the more profitable system of humane bee-keeping. The clergy, especially, as permanent residents in the country, may have great influence in this respect. There is not a rural or suburban parish in the kingdom in which bee-keeping might not be largely extended, and the well being of all but the very poorest inhabitants would be greatly promoted. Not only would the general practice of bee-keeping add largely to the national resources, but that addition would chiefly fall to the share of those classes to whom it would be of most value. Moreover, in the course of thus adding to their income, the uneducated classes would become interested in an elevating and instructive pursuit.
It is curious to observe that honey, whether regarded as a manufactured article or as an agricultural product, is obtained under economical conditions of exceptional advantage. If regarded as a manufactured article, we notice that there is no outlay required for "labour," nor any expense for "raw material." The industrious labourers are eager to utilize all their strength: they never "combine" except for the benefit of their master, they never "strike" for wages, and they provide their own subsistence. All that the master manufacturer of honey has to do financially, is to make a little outlay for "fixed capital" in the needful "plant" of hives and utensils—no "floating capital" is needed. Then, on the other hand, if we regard honey as an agricultural product, it presents as such a still more striking contrast to the economists' theory of what are the "requisites of production." Not only is there no outlay needed for wages and none for raw material, but there is nothing to be paid for "use of a natural agent." Every square yard of land in the United Kingdom may come to be cultivated, as in China, but no proprietor will ever be able to claim "rent" for those "waste products" of the flowers and leaves, which none but the winged workers of the hive can ever utilize.