When winter sets in many cover their hives with a thatching of straw; and, if a few warm days occur which tempt the bees out, they are fed with sugar and water boiled into a syrup, and not with merely sugar dissolved in water, as is frequently the case. Some persons recommend the syrup given to bees to be put on a plate and crossed with straws, to enable the bees to take it without drowning themselves; while others recommend paper pierced with holes, or perforated zinc, for the same purpose. It may be useful to mention that the sting of a bee, being a powerful acid, may be cured by the application of an alkali; and thus chalk, or any similar substance, will very soon allay the pain.
I shall now add a few words on keeping silk-worms, and then I think I shall have said quite enough on the animals usually kept in the country. Silk-worms succeed best when fed on the leaves of the white mulberry, but those of the black mulberry are unwholesome for them. When the leaves of the white mulberry cannot be procured, lettuce leaves or those of the maclura are the best substitute. Where the mulberry is grown purposely for silk-worms, the trees are cut down to the ground every year to make them send up strong vigorous shoots. The leaves of these shoots are gathered in the morning after the dew has gone off, so that they may be perfectly dry, and, when stripped off, they are deposited in a bag kept open with a hoop round the top, in order that they may be preserved in as fresh a state as possible; and every leaf is taken off one tree before another is begun upon, as it is found that this plan of stripping the trees entirely injures them less than taking a few leaves from each at a time; as, after the tree has been for some time entirely denuded, it forms a fresh set of leaf buds, and produces a second crop of leaves. None of the leaves of this second crop, however, must be taken off. Where labour is sufficiently cheap, the leaves are best cut off with a pair of scissors.
If you should feel inclined to try your skill in feeding silk-worms, you can purchase the eggs in Covent Garden market for ten shillings an ounce, and, if kept in a cool place, they will remain good for nearly a year. When they are to be hatched, they must be exposed to a temperature of 86° Fahr., and they are best kept in a room appropriated for the purpose, and heated by a stove. If you have any small room adjoining your laundry, or any other place where there is a constant fire, you will have no difficulty in managing your silk-worms. Supposing you to have a room of this nature, it will be well to have tables and shelves provided for keeping the insects on; the shelves should not be let into the wall, but should be so contrived, by being suspended on holdfasts or in some other way, as to have the air on every side; and they should be furnished with ledges round them to prevent the insects from falling off.
As soon as the mulberry begins to unfold its leaves, the eggs of the silk-worms should be laid on the shelves, and when they begin to turn white, which will be in about ten days if the room has been kept at a proper temperature, they should be covered over with little trays made of writing-paper turned upside down, and pierced full of holes with a large knitting-needle. On each tray should be laid some young twigs of the mulberry, which the insects will smell as soon as they are hatched, and, crawling through the holes in the paper, will begin to eat. As soon as a twig is covered all over with silk-worms, it should be carefully removed to another shelf, and the insects placed on blotting-paper. Each insect should be allowed about a square inch of paper. It should then be fed with chopped leaves, and it will appear to pass the greater part of its time in sleep till it changes its skin. In its second state it will also appear to pass a great portion of its time in sleep; but it may be fed with young leaves without chopping, till it changes its skin a second time. In its third state the silk-worm becomes more lively and vigorous, and it will devour full-grown leaves without chopping. Up to this period of its life it will be sufficient to feed it three times a day. After changing its skin a third time, the silk-worm becomes of a flesh colour, and eats so greedily that it should be kept supplied with a succession of leaves all day long. After the next change the silk-worm eats abundantly night and day, and should be kept warm. It now begins to get restless, and instead of eating is continually stretching out its head as though it were in search of something; its body will have become transparent, of a clear pearly hue, with bands of gold colour. Little bits of wood should now be fixed on the shelves in such a way as to give the insects a feeling of security; and they will immediately begin to make their cocoons, which they will complete in from four to seven days.
When the insects have done working, the cocoons are taken from the sticks, and a few being selected to breed from, the rest are prepared for unwinding. The insects enclosed are first killed, either by putting them in bags and enclosing them for half an hour in an oven heated to 88°; or by putting them in sieves, and, after covering them closely with a woollen cloth, placing the sieves over boiling water or boiling spirits of any kind. The insects being killed, the loose or floss silk is removed from the cocoons, and they are put by handfuls into basins of hot water, which has been heated almost to the boiling point; and the cocoons are stirred round in it for a few minutes with a whisk of broom. In a very short time the gum with which the insect had covered the cocoon is dissolved, and the loose threads beginning to float on the water, five or six of them are collected, and the reeling of the silk begins. If well fed and kept in a proper temperature, the caterpillars will finish their labours twenty-four days after they are hatched. An ounce of eggs will produce about forty thousand caterpillars, which will consume nearly eleven hundred pounds of leaves, and will produce about eighty pounds of cocoons, or eight pounds of raw silk.