The district is not so good for bees as if it were farther in the country and more removed from London smoke; nevertheless we have had fine supers worked here, and find it a great convenience to have a bee-farm at so moderate a distance from' town to carry on this department of our trade.
Some time ago we exhibited in our window a super of fine honey from the apiary of Mr. Shirley Hibberd, the proprietor and editor of the Gardener's Weekly Magazine. It consisted of a box containing twenty pounds nett weight of honey, and was produced at Stoke Newington, only three and a quarter miles from the General Post Office.
The Times "Bee-Master," whose letters from Tunbridge Wells awakened so much interest in this pleasing pursuit, also commissioned us to exhibit a super produced under his own management in that locality. Mr. S. B. Fox, at Exeter, had upwards of four hundred pounds of honey, of excellent quality, though one of his apiaries is quite within the city.
§ XII. GENERAL REMARKS.
Book-Keeping.
Every bee-keeper should be a book-keeper, that is so far as to have a permanent record of the events of the apiary and the fortunes of his bees. A book similar to a tradesman's journal would be very suitable for the purpose. In it he should note down the date of the first swarm of the season especially, and those of other swarms also; and in autumn the quantity of honey taken from each hive should be entered, with remarks on the probable size and weight of the various stocks. These particulars will not only be interesting for the bee-keeper to turn to in winter, but will be of practical service in enabling him to know the exact age and probable strength of each stock. The bee-book may also be contrived to show the total amount of honey that the bees have produced for their owner, and the nett profits of the apiary. A simple and clear account like this—provided, by the bye, that it does show a satisfactory balance—will be very useful for inducing cottagers and farm-labourers to start bee-keeping. Nothing like ocular demonstration for this class. The "humane" apiarian will reason with them in vain until he shows them a monster skep of honey and mentions the price that it will fetch in the market. When convinced that the depriving system will pay, the cottager will gladly adopt it.
Advice for Cottagers, etc.
A writer in the Quarterly Review (whose article has since been published by Mr. Murray as a shilling handbook, "The Honey Bee") gives the following good advice: "Don't bore the cottager with long lectures; don't heap upon him many little books; but give him a hive of the best construction, show him the management, and then buy his honey; buy all he brings, even though you should have to give the surplus to some gardenless widow. But only buy such as comes from an improved hive—and you cannot easily be deceived in this—one which preserves the bees and betters the honey. Then, when you pay him, you may read to him, if you will, the wise rules of old Butler, exempli gratia:—
"'If thou wilt have the favour of thy bees that they sting thee not, thou must not be unchaste or uncleanly; thou must not come among them with a stinking breath, caused either through eating of leeks, onions, or garlic, or by any other means, the noisomeness whereof is corrected by a cup of beer; thou must not be given to surfeiting or drunkenness; thou must not come puffing or blowing unto them, neither hastily stir among them, nor violently defend thyself when they seem to threaten thee; but, softly moving by, thy hand before thy face, gently put them by; and, lastly, thou must be no stranger to them. In a word (or rather in five words), be chaste, sweet, sober, quiet, familiar; so they will love thee and know thee from all others.'"
These "wise rules of old Butler" are, however, in the main taken from Columella.