The "Bee-master" must have forgotten to have taken his usual allowance of honey at breakfast when he penned those harsh words.
Did he know "Brother Ignatius," he would soon discover he was
No Drone.
That he is no honey-bee is plain. If not a drone he must be a spider or earwig, creeping by stealth into the old Romish Benedictine hive, to which he does not really belong.
Stoke-upon-Trent, July 29th.
Dear Sir,—I have long been hoping against hope, and trying to persuade my friends to interest themselves in that courageous little insect, the apis mellifica; but the drawbacks appear to me to be rather disheartening. In the first place, the ladies dread the stings of my little friends; and in the next place, they lose the pleasure of investigation into the habits of the bees by not being enabled to procure hives that will enable one to observe the operations of the industrious little creatures. Your letter, however, in yesterday's Times enlightens us somewhat as to where the best-constructed hives may be obtained; and I am sure you have my hearty thanks for the information you have so kindly spread abroad through the medium of The Times. The common straw hive may not be very conveniently "tolled" without being in mortal fear of an accident; and to destroy the bees seems very cruel and wasteful, in order to take the honey from them. For my part, I have never yet had the courage to attempt to interfere with a straw hive, nor have I ever yet destroyed one, but kept them for my amusement and observation. Last year I constructed a wooden hive—say a square box, divided in the middle by a slide—and I introduced a young swarm into it, and they soon filled the bottom half of the box. This year they have had one swarm only, which I have put into a newly-constructed hive with a moveable bottom and front, with glass to look through and doors to protect the glass: the size is 12 by 14 and 16 inches, and they have very nearly filled it since they were swarmed, on the 6th June. It contains ten large parallel combs or plates, which are beautifully full of virgin honey, carefully covered with fine films of wax, to prevent it from either running out or becoming damaged, I presume, from the atmosphere. I have a small box to fit underneath the full one; but I cannot induce the bees to come down by easy means—that is, by shaking the box or drumming upon it: the vibrations only cause them to run about, but they will not descend. Pray what means would you adopt to cause them to leave the spaces between the combs, and go into the lower box, to enable me to take a portion of the combs and their contents without destroying or injuring the queen or the other bees? With regard to the box-hive first named, and which is divided in the middle by a wooden slide, which has a hole cut into its centre about 6 by 4 inches, and which was covered by a zinc slide, which I removed in June, after the swarm came from the box. In a few days after I could only observe about a dozen which had passed into the top part of the hive. I then tried to frighten them by shaking the box, in order to induce them to leave the combs in the bottom half, and pass through the hole into the top, but without success. I afterwards reversed the box, thinking that I might induce them to descend, and so shut them out; but they would not budge an inch. I afterwards placed the box in its proper position, and closed the entrance-holes for two days, thinking by that means to cause them to ascend in order to find a way out, but without any result, save the destruction of eight hundred drones in those two days, from the anger of the little workers; for, as they could not go abroad to collect food, the drones cleared every comb that contained any honey, and now I can see them all as empty as when just made; so you see I am really nonplussed. Pray what would you do? for if I smoke them, they will come down, not go up; and I am afraid that brimstone or tobacco would destroy them.
Yours very faithfully,
T. H.
This family of my correspondent has been, I fear, very ill-used. Bees have a will of their own, and a way too. You may lead and draw, but you cannot, and should not, drive.
Had Mr. H. given them more barley-sugar, or ale and sugar, and practised less manipulation, I think they would have behaved as well as he could wish.