I have read most of the treatises that have been published on bees, and have found errors in most of them. To avoid them myself, I shall advance nothing that I have not verified by numerous experiments, which every one may repeat. I shall make my narrative as short as possible.
I have said that the storied hives invented by my late father, were known only through his correspondence with M. de Reaumur, and other literary men; the following is the proof:
Extract from the Corps d'Observation of the Society of Commerce and Agriculture of Great Britain, 1757-58. Printed at Rennes in 1761, page 162.
"Monsieur de la Bourdonaye, Procureur General-Syndic, to whom the custom of our peasants (of drowning the bees, or suffocating them with sulphur, in order to deprive them of all the store they have laid up to maintain them during the winter) has been long known, wrote to M. de Reaumur, during the last assembly of the states, 1756, to ask for some instructions on this subject.
"This academician pointed out, in his answer, the methods which he had expounded in the fifth volume des Memoires pour servir à l'Histoire Naturelle des Insectes; but he recommends, more particularly, to use the curiously shaped hives, invented by Gelieu, a gentleman of the principality of Neuchatel.
"Reaumur's letter, which, at first sight, seems to contain a sufficient description of Gelieu's hive, does not clear up certain difficulties that presented themselves in the detail, when we come to attempt their construction from his directions; and therefore Nevel, member of the Committee of Rennes, resolved to request a pattern hive from Reaumur himself, which he accordingly obtained, and sent to the society. It appears that hives of this kind would supply all that can be desired in the management of bees; but they would cost more than one louis each—a price infinitely beyond the reach of a labouring man, and which would even be too great for the rich. It was necessary, therefore, to think of profiting by the invention of Gelieu, in contriving hives so cheap that every peasant might use them.
"Monsieur de la Bourdonaye, who paid great attention to this subject, kindly communicated to the Society both the letter of Reaumur, and the plan which he himself had formed, of making hives at a small expence. He began by using, on his own estate, those which he recommended as an experiment to the Society. It was called an experiment, because, in reality, notwithstanding the probability of success attending the use of hives like those of which he sent the model, his modesty made him afraid that experience might, in some shape, belie his hopes. The Society was not long in ordering hives to be made after the model. They have made trial of them in the different faubourgs of Rennes. The rainy summer has prevented these trials being completed, but the commencement has succeeded very well.
"It is perhaps not altogether useless to give here an abridged exposition of the accidents that might be prevented, in changing the shape of ordinary hives, and of the means that might be employed for that purpose.
"It has been already said, that it is but too common to suffocate or drown the bees, at the end of the season, for the sake of profiting by the honey and wax. Those who manage them with more profit and intelligence, watch the time when the hives are nearly full, to force the bees up into an empty hive. This operation must be done in fine weather, in order that the bees may have time to make a sufficient provision for the winter. This practice, though the best of those in use at present, causes considerable loss; the brood-comb is taken away with the wax; so that the proprietor loses a swarm just coming out, as well as the swarms that this one might have afterwards produced. It is this loss particularly that Gelieu would prevent.
"The hives at present on trial are, in shape, like a little round tower, or hollow cylinder, composed of four equal pieces, placed one above another."