Instructions for New Bee-Keepers.
Bees may be very inexpensively and profitably kept in the cottager's hive (see [page 110]), which will be found a very productive one. It is true that it has not the appliances of windows and bell glasses; for the cottager is not supposed so much to care for his hives as a source of amusement; his object in bee-keeping is simply the profit it may bring. For those of our readers who wish to have united the facility of observing the bees with that of the plentiful production of honey, we would especially recommend the improved cottager's hive, described at [page 112]. If inclined to go to a little further expense, the hives described at pages 113, 120, 139, and 143, all afford constant opportunity for inspection of the bees, and allow of their working freely in the most natural manner. The Stewarton hive ([page 146]) is also a favourite with those who give the preference to honey stored in boxes, although the opportunities for observation are not so great as with some others.
Renfrewshire Bee-Keeper's Hints on Supering and Prevention of Swarming.
The mention again of the Stewarton hive affords us an opportunity of which we avail ourselves to put before our readers an extract from a private letter received whilst the foregoing pages are in type, from that successful and accomplished apiarian already alluded to, "The Renfrewshire Bee-keeper," which seems to us to contain a useful hint or two as regards putting on supers and the prevention of swarming, which, although practised with our friend's favourite hive, can be advantageously adopted with other hives. He says, "In working Stewarton colonies, I am seldom troubled with swarms, the secret being, in giving super space at the nick of time, before swarming mania seizes them; and when once they have taken to supers, I keep an ample supply of space in advance of their wants.
"However hot the weather may become, they somehow retire upstairs to this vacant room, and comb-building there affords them employment, and they do not readily think of swarming. For instance, in the beginning of summer last year (1876), the season was so bad that at first I gave them little room; suddenly the weather became hot and favourable, and one strong colony swarmed right off. I excised the royal cells, and returned the bees; no use—off they came again in eight or ten days' time; took the hive to pieces, cut out all royal cells, and in addition, the thought having occurred to me that maturing drone brood was an accessory to swarming condition, I excised every portion of that also. With seven supers (each four inches deep) they rested content and kept to work most vigorously, never attempting to swarm again."
From this extract the practical bee-keeper may learn much; particularly as regards depriving the bees of the inclination to swarm by cutting away the drone brood.
Perhaps we may here be allowed to advise the filling up of vacancies where excision of drone comb is made (whether with brood or without), by the insertion of clean worker comb, in order to prevent the construction of the former.
Bees Working in Supers.
There is a little matter here with regard to bees working in supers that should be noticed, and that is that when the ascending hole is round and in the centre of the stock hives, the bees sometimes start wrong and carry the comb upwards. This has two objections: the first is that the bees do not work so quickly as when they begin from the roof of the super, and the other is that the queen gains an easy ascent and deposits eggs in cells where honey is wanted. When this style of comb-building is observed, it is best to take the super off, cut the comb down, and endeavour to make it adhere to the crown of the super by using a little melted wax ([page 261], or if a glass, as recommended at [page 262]), so that the bees may continue the work, as is their wont, downwards.
There are few hobbies which cost so little outlay as the keeping of bees. Once the "plant" of hives is purchased, there is little, if any, additional expense, and always a probability of a fair return. If honey be obtainable the bees will find it; they work for nothing, and provide themselves with sustenance, requiring only a very little labour from their keepers, and that labour of a pleasing and instructive kind.