Dover ridge, Derby, August 26th.
Sir,—Last autumn I saved from a cruel and unnecessary death a very old stock of bees belonging to a neighbour, the parent one of all his colony, full of black comb; I gave him seven or eight shillings for it. I fed it, and it just lived through the winter. I gave it a box on the lateral plan, which it filled with a quarter of a hundredweight of honey,—so rewarding my interference.
At the time I took my box from this stock, a neighbour destroyed two of his hives, bees, &c., for the honey (I think he will not do so ungrateful a thing another year). Happening to go into his garden the morning after, he told me he had found the queen that morning dead. On showing her to me, we found she was alive, but of course none the more lively for the sulphuring of the previous night.
I begged her, took her home, and put her under a finger-glass with a little honey. I then got down from my store-closet my box of honey-comb untouched, cut away a good bit of honey, leaving sixteen or seventeen pounds. I carried it back to its old spot, opened the communication, and soon had a good number of the little manufacturers in their old quarters. Towards night I closed the communication again, stopped them in, and carried the old hive away about fifty yards. This done, I opened the ventilator at the top of the box, and inserted the strange queen, and put the inverted finger-glass over to see the effect. They seemed in a moment to be in a strange commotion, apparently receiving her majesty with hurrahs, as the popular candidate at an election is received.
The next morning they seemed quite satisfied, and I noticed pollen taken in, and a struggle once or twice with a drone which had remained—there may have been seven or eight of these gentlemen in my experimental colony. Of course, the carrying in pollen was soon discontinued, as there was no brood to feed; the material, weighing sixteen pounds, being all honey and wax. I also saw them active in defence of their homes against the wasps; and although some wasps contrived to enter, I have seen the bees bring out their corpses now and then since, showing that they appear right.
To-day, the sun shining very bright and the temperature being warm, I am flabbergasted by seeing crowds of drones going in and out, and no slaughtering of these now unnecessary mouths. I say, can all be right? Is the queen still alive? My little friends fight the wasps, and go in and out; but what meaneth this crowd of drones?
Will you excuse my putting my case to you? for I am a lover of bees, but not very learned in the matter.
I should like to make my one cast-off stock two for next year by this artificial means, besides getting my honey; and so be in a good position to preach to the bee-killers the folly as well as cruelty of bee-murder.
I enclose a stamped envelope, and remain, Sir,
Yours faithfully,
Orlando William Forrester.