I shall now put you in possession of what I conceive to be the simplest, cheapest, and most profitable mode of managing bees. There are two prominent systems in use directed to these objects, each based upon the importance of giving room to the bees, and diminishing thereby their disposition to swarm. By one of these systems we are directed to place the hives or boxes side by side (the collateral system); the other system advocates the piling of the boxes one upon another (the storifying system), affording in both cases a free communication between the boxes whenever required. I have tried both systems myself, and have taken considerable pains to ascertain the success of others, who have also given both an ample trial. The result has been to give me a decided opinion in favour of storifying, and indeed many of my acquaintances, who had originally been induced to adopt the collateral plan, have wholly abandoned it for that of storifying. Whichever of these modes he had recourse to, it has been found that the bees have a regular habit of constructing their combs at uniform distances from each other; but they have also another habit, when they are untutored, viz., that of building them irregularly, insomuch that their position is frequently curvilinear, and sometimes they are even placed at right angles with each other. This proceeding forms a great impediment to the manipulation of wax and honey. It is an impediment, however, which the mere cottager pays little regard to, and blunders through it. But to the scientific apiarian it is indispensably necessary to avoid these various incurvations. To accomplish this desirable object, every box or bee-hive should be furnished with movable wooden bars, upon each of which, or at any rate upon every other bar, pieces of worker-comb should be fixed, to serve as a guide to the bees, prior to their introduction to a swarm. This, you will perceive, has been attended to in the hive and boxes before you. And it will be found that the bees, if they have their guide-combs correctly and securely fixed, will invariably accept them as the foundations of their future structures; by which means several important objects will be accomplished. In the first place, the facility of taking the stored honey will be very much increased. In the next place, if the bees are not wealthy enough to spare a whole box full of honey, you can without difficulty take from them what they can spare. And thirdly, if in your apiary there should be any families very unequal in wealth, provided the boxes and bars are reciprocally adapted to each other, one or more bars can be removed from a weak hive and exchanged for the same number of loaded bars from a strong one, thus giving needful support to one or more families without injury to any. In the performance of these operations, the use of a little tobacco smoke is required to paralyse the bees so far as to prevent them from being intrusive. But I will now endeavour to illustrate what I have stated to you, by having recourse to the boxes upon the table. I will suppose a swarm to have been introduced to one of them, and that the box and bees have been placed where they are to remain permanently. If your object be to collect pure honey, and to prevent swarming, as soon as you have ascertained that the box is about three-parts full of combs, another box should be placed either under or over the first, and a communication opened between them; if the season promise well, the family may be supered, if not nadired. In some remarkable seasons even a third box may be required; but this will rarely happen during the first year of a family's establishment. Indeed, during the first year honey should generally be rather sparingly taken. In future years, with good seasons, from thirty to forty pounds may be taken from each family; in highly favourable seasons, in a good locality, much more.
I have now brought this lecture to a close. My chief difficulty in the composition of it has arisen from the exuberance of my materials, which it was not easy to compress into the form of a lecture. You will, of course, infer, therefore, that much has been left untold, for which I must beg to refer you to those works which have been written professedly on the subject.
So I here take leave of my brief history of the honey-bee—that wonderful, that useful insect, which, though not possessed of the advantages with which man is gifted, having neither religion nor reason for its guide, affords nevertheless an example to man of the most perfect order, the most unremitting industry, the greatest harmony, and the most undeviating attention to the welfare of all. (Applause.)
HEREFORD: PRINTED AT THE TIMES OFFICE, WIDEMARSH-STREET.