VI.—HOW TO GET BEES.
THE best and most effective plan is to buy a swarm as early in May as possible. The farther off from your bee-garden the swarm is brought the better. I have invariably found that a swarm from a hive a mile or two off is preferable to a swarm from one of your own hives.
Send your bee-box or hive to some cottager who keeps bees, about the end of April. Explain to her or him how the hive is to be adjusted on receiving the swarm, and request that it be carried by hand, if possible, the evening of the day on which the swarm was hived. Let a piece of gauze be placed over the entrance of your hive, in order that the bees while prisoners on the journey may have plenty of air; and when it arrives place it quietly on your bee-shed, remove without noise the gauze, and next morning, if it be fine, the bees will make themselves masters of the situation, and make up their minds and arrange themselves to work in that place in which their bee-master sets them.
Should the weather, the day after you have placed the hive containing your swarm in your bee-shed, turn out wet and cold, push into the hive through the entrance-hole a couple of sticks of barley-sugar, or more. Half-a-pound only costs sevenpence, and you will get it all back in due time; thereby the bees will start with renewed strength, as soon as the weather clears up, most grateful for a little help when help is most required. You need not fear lest by so doing you will encourage idleness or mendicancy. Bees are not like street beggars. They do not want to be dependent. All they ask is a little help at the beginning, to be able then to help themselves. As soon as the sun shines the swarm will work hard and without cessation, and by the middle of June you may find it right to open communication with a super, or at least with a bell-glass, and find yourself very soon rewarded with honey of exquisite flavour, in cells of unrivalled whiteness.
Richardson and Wildman thus teach how stocks are to be obtained:—
"A stock of bees is usually to be obtained by purchase, although it may indeed chance that you get an opportunity of hiving a 'vagabond' swarm which may have settled in your garden or orchard. In the latter instance, indeed, I think your property in the stragglers somewhat questionable, and perhaps scarcely more so than it would be in a stray ox or sheep, which accident had driven into your premises.
"You may procure stock either in the spring or autumn. I should prefer the former period, because that is the fitting time for removal of stocks from the old-fashioned awkward hives to the more improved modern receptacles; but it is more difficult to ascertain the exact condition of the stock you are about purchasing in spring than it is in autumn. I am sorry to say, that unless you purchase your stock from a friend, or from some one, at all events, that you can confidently depend on, you are very likely to be taken in, and must therefore be upon your guard against imposition. As some writer (I forget who) quaintly enough remarks, 'Let it be with the bees as with a wife—never take them on the recommendation of another party' If you would purchase a stock in early spring, just after the bees have been removed from their winter quarters, you need not attempt it unless from a person on whose honour you can positively depend. During the months of May or June, you can form some judgment for yourself, and, if you act cautiously, may perhaps bid defiance to trickery. In this case, you should visit the garden or other locality in which the hive stands that you intend purchasing, about mid-day; stand opposite to it, and observe attentively the actions of its inhabitants. If they crowd busily in and out of the hive, giving evidence of their industry by the laden appearance of their legs, and altogether exhibiting a busy earnestness in their toils, you may safely buy the hive; and if you obtain this hive before swarming has taken place, you may look upon yourself as a fortunate man.