To remove a full Box or Super.—The middle of a sunny day may be recommended as the best time to take away for deprivation a box or glass of honey. The mode usually adopted is at once to remove it from its position to a distance from the stock-hive, and there get rid of the bees. I have often found it well to reverse this proceeding. Whether the box to be taken is a collateral or storified one, let the communication from the parent hive be previously cut off, and without any jarring. Entire quietness is the main requisite. Gently lift up the super on one side, inserting under it a small wedge or two, so as just to allow an exit for the bees. The position of the queen bee will soon become apparent. If she is not in the super (and she seldom is there after it is filled), the silence that at first prevailed will be exchanged for a murmuring hum, attended by a commotion among the bees; and they shortly after begin to quit the super, without attempting any attack. Should the queen be present, however, a very different scene would ensue, and a hubbub would then commence in the stock-hive; though the loss of their queen is sometimes not discovered by the bees for a considerable time. In such a case, the box must be reinstated in its former position, and the communication reopened till some other day. The process might happen to be complicated by the presence of brood, for this the bees leave very reluctantly, and often not at all. In an emergency of this kind, it is best to restore matters to their previous state, and let the super remain till the brood is perfected. A little patience is sometimes necessary: but all attempts at ejection of the bees by tapping, smoking, or driving usually do more harm than good. So long as they continue to leave the super, it may remain where it is, for on these occasions young bees are sometimes numerous; and if the super is removed, though only to a short distance, these are in part lost, not having become sufficiently acquainted with the position of their home; or, if they enter a wrong hive, they pay the penalty with their lives. This freedom from disturbance has the further good effect of preventing in a great degree the intrusion of robber bees, readily distinguishable from the others by their hovering about the box, instead of flying from it. These are strangers from various quarters, immediately attracted by the scent attending the removal of a full box or glass. Should a few of these plunderers once obtain a taste or sample of the honey, they speedily convey the good news to their associates, when large reinforcements from every hive in the neighbourhood will be at once on the alert, and quickly leave nothing behind but empty combs. Let the separated super, therefore, not be left or lost sight of, but if scented out by robbers, be conveyed into some room or out-building to prevent a general battle; and which might extend itself to all the neighbouring hives. The remaining bees may here be brushed out, escaping by the window or door. Mr. Golding has sometimes found the advantage of using for the purpose a darkened room, with the exception of a very small aperture, to which the bees will fly and make their exit. Others like to remove a super at once to a short distance from the stock-hive, leaving it shut up in perfect darkness, for an hour or two. Its edge is then raised up, when the bees will evacuate it. In the case of a bar-hive super, after most of the bees have left it, it can be placed across a couple of rails or sticks, when the top cover may be unscrewed and detached. It is then readily cleared of bees by brushing them downwards between the bars, with a feather or a twig.
The same general directions apply when a full glass is to be removed. If it stands on a double adapter, a piece of tin or zinc can be inserted between them, and the upper part then lifted with the glass. Payne, however, says, “I have found the process much simplified by placing an empty box between the glass and the parent hive, and leaving it a few hours. The bees by that time have quitted the glass, and by this plan robbing is entirely prevented, whilst the bees are less irritated.” It might occasionally happen that a piece of comb had been worked upwards, so as to be connected with the underneath hive, and thus causing a difficulty on attempting a separation. There is no better way of meeting such an emergency than by passing a bit of fine wire beneath the lower edge of the super, from side to side, and thus cutting through the obstruction. It may be well to observe that on removal, the box or glass ought to be kept in its original position, to prevent the honey, which at first is thin and fluid, from running out of the cells, and especially in hot weather.
Honey Harvest.—As regards the quantity of honey to be taken from a hive in any one year, there can, in our uncertain climate, be no general rule, though now and then I have known a very large amount obtained by deprivation.
Payne says, as the result of his own experience with depriving hives, “It is usual to obtain from every good stock twenty or perhaps thirty pounds of honey annually.” This would be thought too high an estimate, in many districts; as in my own, near London. It must be remembered that honey thus harvested sells at a higher rate than that procured by suffocating the bees, as in the common single hives; for then the brimstone not only imparts a disagreeable flavour, but there is no means of preventing the intermixture with the honey more or less of pollen and brood. After deprivation, the sooner the honey is drained from the comb the better, as it soon thickens, particularly if not kept warm. For the purpose of straining it off, a hair sieve is commonly used, within which the combs are inverted; the waxen seals on both sides being first sliced off. The honey will of course run off the sooner if placed before a fire, but exposure to heat is injurious to fine flavour. We may here resort to the advice of Payne, who says, "the honey should be put into jars, quite filled, and tied down with a bladder; for exposure to the air, even for a few hours, very much deteriorates its flavour. I may observe that honey in the combs keeps remarkably well, if folded in writing paper, sealed up to exclude the air, and kept dry."
Comb-knives.—A difficulty sometimes arises in extracting the combs from common hives or boxes. A large spatula will separate them from the sides, but to detach them from the top, an instrument of a different kind is requisite. The one often preferred is simply a bar of steel about fourteen inches in total length, half an inch wide, and an eighth of an inch thick. At one end it is bent at a right angle with the handle, and at the other at an angle of 80° or 90°. The part thus turned up is in both cases an inch and a half long, rather less than half an inch wide, and made spear-pointed, or lancet-shaped; sharp on both sides, to cut either way. The one end is used when the top of the hive is flat; and the other is adapted to the common dome-formed roof. Another useful instrument is the one employed in detaching the combs from the bar-hives, made as recommended by Mr. Golding, with a double-edge blade, an inch and a half long, and three eighths of an inch wide; turned at right angles from the end of a rod, which may be of quarter-inch square iron. For occasional convenience, the other end may be turned the flat way, sharpened at both edges.
Robbers.—Should an attack upon a hive from strange bees take place, which sometimes occurs at this season (the strong robbing the weak), no time ought to be lost in narrowing the entrance, for if allowed to continue a day or two the ruin of the family might be the consequence. Indeed, it is always well gradually to do this as the working season draws to a close. An assault from robber bees is often a much more formidable evil than one from wasps, although it is said that one of these is a match for three bees. Unless the colony is very weak, they are usually soon expelled, if the methods pointed out at [page 117] are resorted to. Not so with bees, for if but one or two strangers gain admittance into a hive they will return again and again, always with an accession of force; and for a day or two it is often necessary entirely to close the entrance against them, opening it only at night. In such case the robber bees will sometimes collect in vast numbers at the mouth of the hive, when a shower from a watering-pot will send them away to dry themselves. The thieves are generally distinguishable; and they are often cunning enough to commence their marauding practices early in the morning and late at night. A supply of honey given on the top, or even sprinkled among the combs of contending hives, will often divert the attention of the combatants; or smoke is sometimes effectual, puffed into both hives. If fighting recommences on the succeeding day, the smoking should be repeated, followed by a feed of honey. Others have found it advantageous to remove for some days a plundered hive to a distance; or even to make the belligerent hives change places in the apiary; which, as a friend remarked to me, “gives a new turn to their ideas of meum and tuum.” A German proprietor, after removing an attacked stock, put in its place a hive filled with wormwood leaves, so distasteful to the robbers that they forsook the spot, when the stock was brought back again.
Autumnal Feeding.—All labour is now usually suspended for the year, and it remains to see that ample provision is laid up for the coming winter and spring. There ought not to be less than seventeen to twenty pounds of honey in a hive of the same year; but in the case of an old one, eight or ten pounds more must be allowed in estimating the weight; for old combs are much heavier than new ones; besides that they are a good deal filled with stale pollen, and sometimes contain candied honey, of no use to the bees.[T] In a healthy stock there should be no scarcity of food, if the season has been tolerable. The worst, however, must be provided for; and if, from any cause, it should be necessary, recourse must be had to supplying the deficiencies of nature. “A stock of bees,” observes Dr. Bevan, “generally consumes from a pound to a pound and a half of honey per month, betwixt the first of October and the first of March. From this time to the end of May, they will consume double that quantity.”
[T] In reference to this part of our subject, it may be useful to quote the following estimate, as given by Dr. Dunbar:—“A common straw hive weighs, when empty, from five to six pounds; an ordinary swarm about four pounds; the wax of a full hive of the current year, nearly two pounds; of the preceding year, at least three pounds; and the farina in the cells, not less than one pound; making in all about fifteen pounds. A stock, therefore, to be secure, ought to be double that weight in the gross; that is, should contain not less than fifteen pounds of honey.”—Naturalists' Library.
The requisite feeding to make up the winter store ought not to be delayed later than the beginning of October, and the weather should be fine. Food must never be placed in the open air, but under a cover; otherwise the smell would attract wasps or, what is worse, strange bees; in the latter case a battle generally following.