Fine colonies are sometimes destroyed by the entrance-way becoming stopped by some impediment or other, and care is requisite to keep a watch, that so fatal a catastrophe does not happen, because the bees (unless where very ample ventilation is given), excited by their imprisonment, make matters worse, by raising the temperature of their hive to such a pitch, that the combs melt from their foundations, and the bees themselves are suffocated, presenting, alas! a most woful spectacle to witness.
We give this hint because, having ourselves suffered from a similar cause when workmen have been employed in the vicinity of hives, these gentlemen, thoughtless of the welfare of the bees, but most careful of their own convenience, placed a piece of wood across, or otherwise stopped, the entrances, to prevent the bees coming out. In summer weather a very short time of confinement in a close hive suffices to complete the work of desolation; but should the bee-keeper's attention be drawn to such a state of things, he must immediately raise the hive from its floor-board, and let the poor bees have all the air possible, leaving them thus exposed for the purpose of affording them a chance of revival. When bees are likely to incommode those whose duties temporarily oblige them to be near the entrances, it is better to move the hives a few paces (for less loss will be experienced), or else let the workmen cover their faces with net. The foregoing remarks more particularly apply to the summer season. In winter or in the spring, when the weather is cool and the bees are not so numerous, hives may be shut up even for a day or so without much ventilation, and but little harm will arise therefrom.
When we send away stocks or swarms, we are always careful to pack them so as to allow of a full current of air, in order that they may travel even in the hottest weather.
Some bee-keepers find an adapting-board convenient for placing underneath straw supers, as it facilitates their removal. These boards are made of mahogany half an inch thick, with a hole in the centre corresponding with that in the stock-hive. We do not consider it necessary to fix cross sticks in the straw stock-hives, as is frequently done; but if the apiarian prefers to have his hives so furnished, there is no serious objection to it. These observations refer to our cottager's hive ([page 80]).
There is another little matter of detail that should be named here; that is, the necessity of the bee-keeper always having a common hive in readiness near the bees, so as to be able to secure any swarm which may unexpectedly start.
Here our pleasant task must close. We trust that all information has been given that is needful to enable the practical bee-keeper to begin business and the scientific apiarian to extend his observations. By way of illustrating the two characters combined, we will quote another simple idyll, by the German bee-keeper, Herr Braun, whose winter musings we have already presented to the reader:—
ON THE FIRST FLIGHT OF BEES IN SPRING.
[From the German of Adalbert Braun.]
By "A Devonshire Bee-keeper."
Hark! what is so gaily humming