“But faintly, Rome, thy waxen cities shone
Through the dim lantern or refractive stone,
And faintly Albion saw her film-wing’d train
Glance evanescent through the latticed pane.
Ere Wildman’s art unveil’d the straw girt round,
Its broad expanse with crystal vases crown’d,
And each full vase, like Amalthæa’s horn,
For Man successive graced the festal morn.”
Evans.
Madame Vicat, a very ingenious lady in Switzerland, published, in the Memoirs of the Berne Society, some very judicious Observations on bees and hives. She was the first who hinted, that upon the storifying plan, the duplets and triplets should always be placed under the full hives; as the bees, in constructing fresh works, evidently prefer descending to ascending.
Lastly, we have Mr. Keys’s very useful book, "The ancient Bee-master’s Farewell," which has long been a standard work to the practical apiarian.
Keys states, that upon the storifying plan, three pecks of bees will collect more honey in a season, than four pecks divided into two families, upon the common plan, and that the proportion of pure honey and pure wax will likewise be greater. He observes, that a good storified colony has, under favourable circumstances, received an accession of thirty pounds of honey in seven days; whereas if a swarm had been sent off, the increase, in the same period, would not, probably, have been more than five pounds.
This difference of increase is owing, I conceive, to the divided family occupying a larger proportion of its workers as nurses, than the storified family employs, there being in the former the brood of two queens, in the latter the brood of only one, to be attended to. The one establishment is in fact divided, so as to form two establishments, and there must be of course, an observance of the accustomed peculiarities of dignity and office, in each of the two, as there was in the one; consequently, fewer collecting bees can be spared from the divided family, than would have been at liberty in their undivided state; and this reasoning will apply with increasing force as the number of duplets and triplets is increased.
In single-hiving, if rainy weather occur at the time the bees are prepared to throw off a swarm, and the hive be filled with comb to its utmost limit, all the bees must remain idle till the return of fine weather; whereas if more room be given, as upon the storifying plan, they will, by embracing every opportunity for collecting, and by constructing fresh combs by means of the stores already collected, be enabled to diminish that check to their activity, which wet weather always occasions. Though rainy weather has this effect upon the bees, yet are they much less susceptible to moisture than to cold: they may frequently be seen in full activity upon a warm showery day, whereas on a cold dry one, they cluster closely together within the hives. The colder the weather the more closely they cluster. “When the lime-tree and black grain blossom,” says Huber, “they brave the rain, they depart before sun-rise, and return later than ordinary.”
Independently of the benefit derived from storifying, as congregating a numerous body of bees together, it will always be found advantageous to have hives of whatever sort well filled, as the bees uniformly work best when in a numerous body: this has induced Mr. Espinasse and others strongly to recommend the union of stocks that do not well fill the hives.