A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive / With an Abstract of Wildman's Complete Guide for the Management of Bees Throughout the Year

by William Augustus Munn

"I have ever found it best," says Wildman, "to place the mouth of the hives to the west in spring, care being taken that they have the afternoon sun; the morning sun is extremely dangerous during the colder months, when its glare often tempts these industrious insects out to their ruin; whereas the mouth of the hive being then in the shade, the bees remain at home; and as clouds generally obscure the afternoon's sun at that season, the bees escape the temptation of going out. When food is to be obtained, the warmth of the air continues round the hive in the afternoon, which enables the bees to pursue their labours without danger.

A valley is a better situation for an apiary than a hill, being more convenient to the bees returning home with their loads; and, besides, bees are not so apt to fly away when swarming as when on a hill: but when swarms take a distant flight, they generally fly against the wind, so that the stragglers of the swarms may better hear the direction of the course taken by their fellow emigrants.

I recommend a hard gravel terrace for the hives to be placed upon, as being drier both in summer and winter for the bee-master to walk upon, when inspecting his bees, and also as less likely to afford shelter for ants or other enemies to bees; and, besides, it is better for the bees, which when much fatigued by their journeys, or benumbed by the cold, are apt to fall around the hives, and would recover more quickly from the warmth of the dry ground than if they had alighted on damp grass.

The hives should not be placed where water from the eaves of houses, from hedges, or trees, drop upon them; but they should be near the mansion house for the convenience of watching the bees, &c.

A small stream of water running near the hives is thought to be of advantage, especially in dry seasons, with gently declining banks, in order that the bees may have safe access to it.

Heaths, or places abounding in wild flowers, constitute the best neighbourhood for an apiary, and in default of this pasturage, there should be gardens where flowers are cultivated, and fields in which buck-wheat, clover, or sainfoin, is sown.

But cultivating small gardens of flowers for bees is useless, except a few early flowers near the hives for the bees to collect some pollen for the brood, such as the common kinds of crocus, white alyssum, single blue hepaticas, helleborus niger, and tussilago petasites, all of which flower early; but should any of the tribe of the willows grow near, there will be no necessity for cultivating the flowers above-mentioned, as they yield an abundant harvest of farina, or pollen.

A rich corn country is well known to be a barren desert to the bees during a greater portion of the year. Hence the judicious practice of shifting the bees from place to place according to the circumstances of the season, and the custom of other nations in this particular well deserves our imitation.

Few places are so happily situated as to afford bees proper pasturage both in the beginning of the season and also the autumn; it was the advice of Celsus that, after the vernal pastures are consumed, they should be transported to places abounding with autumnal flowers; as was practised by conveying the bees from Achaia to Attica, from Eubœa and the Cyclad Islands to Syrus, and also in Sicily, where they were brought to Hybla from other parts of the island.

Pliny states that the custom of removing bees from place to place for fresh pasturage was frequent in the Roman territories, and such is still the practice of the Italians who live near the banks of the Po, (the river which Pliny particularly instances,) mentioned by Alexander de Montfort, who says that the Italians treat their bees in nearly the same manner as the Egyptians did and still do; that they load boats with hives and convey them to the neighbourhood of the mountains of Piedmont; that in proportion as the bees gather in their harvest, the boats, by growing heavier, sink deeper into the water; and that the watermen determine from this, when their hives are loaded sufficiently, and it is time to carry them back to their places from which they came. The same author relates that the people of the country of Juliers used the same practice; for that, at a certain season of the year, they carried their bees to the foot of mountains that were covered with wild thyme.