It is astonishing what may be done with bees when they are in a good humour. In order to produce this desirable state it is only necessary to sprinkle them with sugar and water. This peculiarity is taken advantage of by the wise apiarian when he wishes to conduct the process of artificial swarming, taking away young queens for other hives, removing honey, &c. Bees when swarming rarely sting, and the reason is this: when they leave their hives they naturally think it prudent to take a supply of honey with them, and accordingly pocket all they can. In this state they are very peaceable. In order to make them take honey and produce the desired state, apiarians puff smoke into the hives; the bees gorge themselves, thinking their honey is to be taken from them, and pass to the upper part of the hive. This method is pursued when it is considered desirable to make an examination of the interior of a colony.
Bees will freely take salt during the early part of the breeding season; but water is absolutely necessary for them, and should be regularly supplied in troughs near the entrance, with straws floating in it, so that the bees may drink without fear of drowning. To ascertain whether bees are sustaining injury from want of water, it is only necessary to examine the bottom of the hive. If candied grains of honey appear, no time must be lost in supplying water, for the bees are eating up their honey in order to obtain it. This is one cause of the starvation of bees; for lack of water they have too rapidly consumed their stores. Bees work in the dark because the admission of light would candy the honey, and they could not seal it up in its proper liquid state. Glass hives, in which they are made to work in the glare of light, are therefore unnatural. An indication of their dislike to light appears in the attempts they make to obscure the small windows often placed in hives for purposes of examination.
Some people think it possible to overstock a district with bees; but we do not think it ever has occurred in Great Britain. Think of the square miles of orchards, fields of clover and beans, and tracts of heather and other honey-producing plants this country contains, and of the thousands of tons of that substance which must pass from them into the atmosphere, much of which might be gathered for the use of man! How many agricultural labourers and railway porters in country districts might double their earnings by keeping bees! Farmers who grow clovers for seed would find that the multiplication of bees around them would be of immense advantage, for these plants depend to a great extent upon the visits of the bee for fertilisation and consequent production of seed. This simple fact ought to be generally known.
It is a good plan to grow borage, thyme, mignonette, heliotrope, heather, and other honey-containing flowers in the neighbourhood of the apiary; infirm or young bees will not then have to fly far in search of honey. Fields of beans contain large quantities of honey. Mr Pettigrew estimates that a twenty-acre field of grass well sprinkled with the flowers of white clover, yields to bees every fine day at least one hundred pounds of honey; and that twenty acres of heather in flower yield two hundred pounds of honey per day. White clover has been called the queen of honey-plants. Heather is more appreciated for bees in Scotland than in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Cheshire, where it also abounds. Bees will not as a rule fly far in search of honey, but a circle with a radius of four miles will almost everywhere yield abundant pasturage. If there are cultivated fields within two miles it will be all the better.
We think there can be no doubt that the variety of bee called Ligurian will enable the apiarian to obtain more profit than if he kept the common kind. These bees may be readily purchased now at about two pounds a swarm, or twelve shillings a queen, to Ligurianise a colony. (See The British Bee Journal, published by Messrs Abbott, Fairlawn, Southall, W.) To Ligurianise an apiary of common bees, it is only necessary to remove the queens and introduce those of the new kind, after a proper interval. This species, which is also called the Italian bee, was introduced into England from Tamin-by-Chur in the canton of Grisons, Switzerland.
Another quality in which the Ligurian bee exceeds the English variety is in its peacefulness of disposition. Respecting the purity of race, Dzierzon says: 'It has been questioned even by experienced and expert apiarians whether the Italian race can be preserved in its purity in countries where the common kind prevail. There need be no uneasiness on this score. Their preservation could be accomplished even if natural swarming had to be relied on, because they swarm earlier in the season than the common kind, and also more frequently.' Even if the breed is not kept pure, little harm is done; indeed we know one skilful apiarian who thinks that a cross between the common and Ligurian varieties is a decided advantage.
The fact that Ligurian bees are less sensitive to cold has been pointed out by the Baron Berlepsch; but he also noticed that they are more inclined to rob the hives of other bees than the common variety. He succeeded in obtaining one hundred and thirty-nine fertile young queens from one Italian queen. Ligurian bees begin work earlier in the morning and leave off later than the common bees.
If the apiarian decides to manage his bees on the swarming or natural method, he must be prepared to give a good deal of attention to his bees, or employ a person to do it for him. Many swarms are lost when the apiarian is away for any length of time, particularly if he possesses an extensive apiary. Besides this, two or more swarms sometimes come out of the hive at the same time and cluster together. In such a case it has been found advantageous to hive them together in a large hive, as it is a somewhat delicate operation to divide the aggregated swarms and hive them separately.
Occasionally a swarm alights on the high branch of a tree, and can only be secured with difficulty. Some apiarians place an old hat or black stocking in a low bush near at hand, and this is said to induce the bees to alight. We have heard of one ingenious gentleman who never lost a swarm, by making a large ball of bees by stringing dead ones together, and placing this upon a string, in its turn affixed to a stick, which he placed in front in a conspicuous situation.
The old queen quits with the first swarm, leaving royal cells ready to supply another after her departure. The second swarm will depart about sixteen days after the first swarm. Bees, however, do not always think it desirable to send out a second swarm. To ascertain this, the apiarian should place his ear at the hive occasionally during that period, in order to ascertain if the young queens are piping. When the old queen has left with the first swarm, the first hatched queen is allowed to kill all the embryo queens in the royal cells, if the bees have decided not to send out another swarm. If an exodus is, however, arranged, the bees prevent the queen from killing the young ones in the cells. These begin to pipe after a certain interval; and hence if the apiarian hears the curious notes, he knows that a second swarm may be expected.