Although I have recommended Bees to be confined in their hives so long as snow remains upon the ground, it would, however, be very prejudicial to them if carried on beyond that time, for I never saw Bees healthy and strong after being shut up through the winter.
Gelieu, says, "Bees have no real disease, dysentery, about which so much noise has been made, and for which so many remedies have been prescribed, never attacks the Bees of a well-stocked hive, that is left open at all seasons, but those only that are too long and too closely confined. They are always in good health as long as they are at liberty, when they are warm enough and have plenty of food. All their pretended diseases are the result of cold, hunger, or the infection produced by a too close and long confinement during winter."
CHAPTER IV.
Method of placing the small Hive,[5] Box, or Glass, upon the Improved Cottage Hive, by which means fine Honey may be obtained, without destroying the Bees.
[5] To avoid repetition, we shall in future use the term, "Box," to express any receptacle employed to obtain Honey on the Improved System, whether it be in wood, glass, straw, or any other material.
At the end of April, or very early in the month of May, take the moveable piece of straw, from the top of the Improved Cottage Hive, ([fig. 3,]) and place upon it the adapter, ([fig. 5,]) then put the Box or small Hive ([fig. 7, and 4,]) upon this adapter, and cover the whole with a milk-pan, to defend them from wet. A glass may be used instead of the small Hive or Box, with equal success, providing it be covered with something that will effectually exclude light; a cover of straw, is perhaps preferable to any other.
The boxes which I use, and that I would recommend, are made of inch deal: nine inches square, and eight inches deep, inside measure: with a piece of glass six inches by seven and a half, let in on one side and covered by a shutter to exclude the light. The small hives are in diameter eight inches, and seven inches deep, with a bit of glass on one side, some are made with a hole in the top, that they may, when required be placed between a glass partially filled, and the stock hive.
When the Bees are beginning to work in a glass, a cold night generally obliges them to forsake their newly made combs, sends them down into the hive, and compels them to discontinue their labours which are seldom resumed till the middle of the next day; to prevent this delay, I would recommend the space between the glass and its cover to be filled with fine tow or wool, the temperature of the glass being thereby kept up, and the Bees enabled to carry on their labours without interruption. The latter is to be preferred, it being not so good a conductor of heat as the former.
Experience has proved that the milk-pan is the best of all protections for a hive, provided it be six inches in diameter larger than the hive itself.
When the Box is filled with honey, and the combs partially sealed, or when the Bees are seen to cluster at the mouth of the Hive, at nine or ten o'clock in the morning, let no time be lost in lifting up the Box, and placing between it and the Stock-hive, another Box with a hole in the top; the adapter ([fig. 5.]) will be found very useful in this operation. It is necessary to use this precaution at all times, but more especially in a rainy season, as a greater disposition amongst the Bees to swarm then prevails. "Dry weather makes plenty of honey, and moist, of swarms."[6] However incorrect this position may at first sight appear, the attentive observer will quickly become convinced of its truth.