Having satisfied yourself, by peeping in at the windows, and from symptoms at the entrance, that the original boxes are well filled, place your prepared honey-box on the top, draw a slide at each side of the middle box to afford communication, and insert the little pegs. It is not well to withdraw the slides in the middle, because the queen is then far more likely to ascend. Bees may more readily be induced to work in the supers if the junctures are covered with gummed paper to preserve warmth. When you notice that the bees have fairly commenced work in the honey-box, and are likely to keep to it, a second and afterwards other supers may still be added, the new one being always placed uppermost; in all cases the remaining box C must be added below the stock, which will afford additional room and prevent swarming, exchanging the entrance to the newly-furnished box and sliding in pieces of wood to close the aperture of that above. Supers and nadirs may in fact be added—in fine seasons and with first-rate management—till there are eight or ten boxes in the pile.
Should the bees begin making comb in the bottom box, draw two more slides for freer access into the super, as there will then be little risk of the queen ascending, having so much range for egg-laying in the three lower boxes.
In very fine weather a good swarm or stock will fill a honey-box in the space of two weeks; but a much longer time is usually occupied. The process of taking the honey differs very little from that ordinarily followed in removing supers ([Chap. V. § xiv.]). The super box is disconnected with a spatula and twine; then drawing out one or two top slides, the bees are smoked or blown with bellows to cause them to make their exit.
Before winter sets in, the box C, if in use, may be removed, and the comb it contains (if well filled) be used for consumption; if the comb be empty, let it remain carefully guarded from moth and other insects, as it will be invaluable next season. Empty comb may be thus preserved by tying or pasting a piece of stout newspaper closely round the bottom, and keeping the box in a dry place. Feeding, when required, may be liberally pursued by withdrawing two slides and supplying a bottle or other feeder.
The chief value of the Stewarton supers consists in the boxes being shallow, so that the combs are more likely to be well filled down to the base; the bees will also commence work more readily in such than in loftier compartments. This is a great advantage with supers, particularly when required to be sent to a distance, as there is less likelihood of the combs breaking down. For the same reason, when the weather is hot and the rays of the sun fall on the hive, the combs might part from their foundations if there were no intermediate bars, which is now the case in the stock hive, composed as it is of two boxes. If these two boxes were in one, the depth of each comb would be twelve inches; and, when filled with brood and honey, would probably weigh ten pounds. This is a great weight to be supported in hot summer weather, when the wax is softened by the heat. Another distinguishing feature that the Stewarton hive possesses is the use of the box C, which, by giving increased room as the season advances, prevents what is often an annoyance to the apiarian, viz., a late swarm—too late to be of any value, and impoverishing the stock by a division of its numbers, thereby perhaps impeding the completion of the super. A further advantage of the box C is that it induces the bees (who frequently hang in clusters about the entrance) to carry on their work instead of remaining in enforced idleness.
An accomplished apiarian who writes much in the Horticultural and Bee Journals under the title of "A Renfrewshire Bee-keeper," and whose descriptions and management of the Stewarton hive render him an authority on this mode of bee-keeping as well as on the subject generally, says the only fault he has to find with the Stewarton hive is the fixity of the bars. With a modified hive used by him they are held in position with half-inch brass screws; thus all are movable, instead of being fastened with nails as in the original Stewarton. In each of the three body boxes are four bar-frames from end to end of the parallel sides; the two combs on either side of these are attached to movable bars, but these have no frames, as there would be a difficulty in making them to suit the angle. If it is requisite to withdraw the bars, they may be easily disconnected from the sides by passing down a knife. These boxes are one inch deeper than those of the ordinary Stewarton. We must say we do not consider that there is quite the same facility for extracting combs as with other movable comb hives described in these pages, but this may be an element of success—it possesses the opportunity without the facility. Many indiscreet bee-keepers are tempted to disturb their bees a great deal too much.
The writer had the pleasure of paying this gentleman a visit when in Scotland last autumn, and saw his apiary, also some remnants of the store of wonderful supers he took from his hives last summer—specimens indeed of good bee-keeping, and of the golden maxim worthy of all imitation, "Keep your stocks strong."
§ XVI. THE LANARKSHIRE HIVE.
In outward form this hive is much like the first bar-frame hive introduced to English apiarians by Mr. Tegetmeier, who about eighteen years ago was secretary to a now defunct apiarian society the head-quarters of which were just outside London at Muswell Hill. This gentleman adapted the Stewarton slides to a square bar-frame hive, so that no crown-board was needed, just as is here provided by the ingenious Lanarkshire bee-keeper. One of Mr. Tegetmeier's hives may be seen at the Bethnal Green Museum of Science and Art. From some cause it did not come into very general use.
The stock hive we are now describing measures sixteen inches and three-quarters from front to rear, and seventeen and a quarter from side to side, within; the height is nine inches and a half, and it contains eleven frames and one division board or dummy. Each of the frames is fitted with a false bar, which is intended to be under the bar proper: by taking a frame and pressing this bar out, an arrangement will be found for enclosing and holding tightly fixed the impressed sheets of wax for guides. The ends of the frames rest in the front and back of the hive; the top edges of the latter being deeply grooved along their centres to reduce the bearing surfaces, so that there may be less danger of crushing a bee when the frames are placed in position. These are now kept apart, and the spaces between are closed by wooden slides as in the octagon Stewarton hive; thus the advantages claimed by Scotch apiarians are here to be found in a square bar-frame hive. The sides and lower ends of the frames have projections which touch and keep each other steady, so that the combs are not so liable to be pressed together.