BEE PASTURAGE, AND NUMBER OF HIVES.
It is almost needless to say that on the nature and extent of the vegetable productions, following in succession, in the immediate neighbourhood of an apiary, must mainly depend its prosperity. After every care has been bestowed on all points of housing and management, it is in vain to expect a large harvest of honey where nature has limited the sources of supply, or restricted them to a particular season of the year. The most highly-cultivated corn districts are rarely so favorable to bees as those in which wild commons, woods, and heathy moors prevail; or where some such farm products as Dutch clover, trefoil, saintfoin, buck-wheat, tares, mustard, colewort, turnip and cabbage blossoms, &c., do not enter largely into the staple of the country. The neighbourhood of certain kinds of willows, and of hazels, in the opening spring, is of great advantage to our little collectors in furnishing farina; as also the blossoms of the furze, broom, bramble, wild thyme, &c. To these we may add the large early stores of honey and farina available from many of the products of our horticultural gardens and orchards, as gooseberries, currants, raspberries, apples, pears, plums, and other fruits. Payne says, "I have always found the advantage of planting in the vicinity of my hives a large quantity of the common kinds of crocus, single blue hepatica, helleborus niger, and tussilago petasites, all of which flower early, and are rich in honey and farina. Salvia memorosa (of Sir James Smith), which flowers very early in June, and lasts all the summer, is in an extraordinary manner sought after by the bees; and, when room is not an object, twenty or thirty square yards of it may be grown with advantage. Origanum humile, and origanum rubescens (of Haworth), and mignonette may also be grown. Cuscuta sinensis is a great favorite with them; and the pretty little plant anacampseros populifolium, when in flower, is literally covered by them. Garden cultivation, beyond this, exclusively for bees, I believe answers very little purpose."
It will follow as a matter of course from what we have said, that the size of an apiary in any district must be mainly determined by circumstances. In some seasons, so prolific a harvest of blossoms and honey comes all at once, that a large number of hives may abundantly be filled together. The locality must be the chief guide; and I have known instances where fewer stocks would have yielded a much better return; for one rich colony is worth more than two or three half-starved ones.
The distance to which bees will resort during the honey harvest has been the subject of controversy; some limiting their flight to one mile, and others extending it to three or four. When pressed for stores, they will doubtless fly a long distance, directed probably by their very acute sense of smell; but I am inclined to believe, with Dr. Dunbar, that the ordinary range of their excursions is comprised within the radius of a comparatively small circle.
The question has often been put to me, “How and at what time can an apiary be best commenced?” Some remarks in reference to this subject will be found under the heads both of Autumnal and Spring Management. At present the reader is supposed to have been put in possession of a prime swarm, in the season, which is the best method of stocking a new hive of whatever kind, and the earlier the better.[O] On this head we may with advantage quote the words of Mr. Golding. “Notwithstanding,” says he, "all that has been said about tenanting hives by the removal of the bees of other hives into them, there is no plan so safe or certain as peopling them by good early swarms. When these are brought from a distance, it should be on the day in which they are hived, and in a cloth of coarse texture, which should be tied round near the bottom of the hive, so as to prevent the escape of the bees. Tie up the cloth by its corners over the top of the hive; and, if carried by the hand, or properly suspended, a swarm may be removed in this manner for miles."