Part 6

I do not wish to take up space by explaining the nether or nadir system. The simplest description would be:--The common straw hive placed on a square box, six inches in depth and twelve inches square, having a window behind for observation. An aperture is in the floor of the box, having a movable zinc slide, to be withdrawn when the bees are required to descend. This they will do when room is denied above. But the nadir-box is apt to be cold, and the queen is apt to treat it as part of the stock hive when it becomes warm, and to lay her eggs and rear her young in it, and so spoil your harvest.

A is the nadir-box, on which the hive B--the common straw hive--stands; C is a pane of glass, and A is a moveable zinc slide for opening or shutting communication between the nadir and the hive. It is not a wise or useful plan.

VI.--HOW TO GET BEES.

The best and most effective plan is to buy a swarm as early in May as possible. The farther off from your bee-garden the swarm is brought the better. I have invariably found that a swarm from a hive a mile or two off is preferable to a swarm from one of your own hives.

Send your bee-box or hive to some cottager who keeps bees, about the end of April. Explain to her or him how the hive is to be adjusted on receiving the swarm, and request that it be carried by hand, if possible, the evening of the day on which the swarm was hived. Let a piece of gauze be placed over the entrance of your hive, in order that the bees while prisoners on the journey may have plenty of air; and when it arrives place it quietly on your bee-shed, remove without noise the gauze, and next morning, if it be fine, the bees will make themselves masters of the situation, and make up their minds and arrange themselves to work in that place in which their bee-master sets them.

Should the weather, the day after you have placed the hive containing your swarm in your bee-shed, turn out wet and cold, push into the hive through the entrance-hole a couple of sticks of barley-sugar, or more. Half-a-pound only costs sevenpence, and you will get it all back in due time; thereby the bees will start with renewed strength, as soon as the weather clears up, most grateful for a little help when help is most required. You need not fear lest by so doing you will encourage idleness or mendicancy. Bees are not like street beggars. They do not want to be dependent. All they ask is a little help at the beginning, to be able then to help themselves. As soon as the sun shines the swarm will work hard and without cessation, and by the middle of June you may find it right to open communication with a super, or at least with a bell-glass, and find yourself very soon rewarded with honey of exquisite flavour, in cells of unrivalled whiteness.

Richardson and Wildman thus teach how stocks are to be obtained:--

"A stock of bees is usually to be obtained by purchase, although it may indeed chance that you get an opportunity of hiving a 'vagabond' swarm which may have settled in your garden or orchard. In the latter instance, indeed, I think your property in the stragglers somewhat questionable, and perhaps scarcely more so than it would be in a stray ox or sheep, which accident had driven into your premises.

"You may procure stock either in the spring or autumn. I should prefer the former period, because that is the fitting time for removal of stocks from the old-fashioned awkward hives to the more improved modern receptacles; but it is more difficult to ascertain the exact condition of the stock you are about purchasing in spring than it is in autumn. I am sorry to say, that unless you purchase your stock from a friend, or from some one, at all events, that you can confidently depend on, you are very likely to be taken in, and must therefore be upon your guard against imposition. As some writer (I forget who) quaintly enough remarks, 'Let it be with the bees as with a wife--never take them on the recommendation of another party' If you would purchase a stock in early spring, just after the bees have been removed from their winter quarters, you need not attempt it unless from a person on whose honour you can positively depend. During the months of May or June, you can form some judgment for yourself, and, if you act cautiously, may perhaps bid defiance to trickery. In this case, you should visit the garden or other locality in which the hive stands that you intend purchasing, about mid-day; stand opposite to it, and observe attentively the actions of its inhabitants. If they crowd busily in and out of the hive, giving evidence of their industry by the laden appearance of their legs, and altogether exhibiting a busy earnestness in their toils, you may safely buy the hive; and if you obtain this hive before swarming has taken place, you may look upon yourself as a fortunate man.

"If the object of your intentions be an autumnal hive, you had better ascertain that the massacre of the drones has taken place: an observation of the stand and of the ground around the hive will tell this. Observe the actions of these bees--see that they are lively and industrious; and if, on your too near approach, one or two bees dash at your face, do not be alarmed, but rather regard their pugnacity as a sign of vigour, and buy the hive. Some writers speak of the necessity of purchasing only such stocks as are in nice new hives. This is an advice very necessary to be attended to; but it would not be so, were you sure that the interior of the hive were filled only with honey-comb, and with no old worn-out comb, the accumulation of years. If you are in doubt on the subject, you should fumigate the hive in the evening, in the manner hereafter to be described; then, turning up the hive, you can readily ascertain the character of its contents. If the comb be black, have nothing to do with the stock. The genuine colour of the comb is white, and, consequently, the lighter it is, the more the stock is to be esteemed.

"Never, unless you can depend on the party, send your hive to receive a swarm: for you may, if you do, have a second swarm imposed upon you for a first--a comparatively valueless stock for just the very thing you desire. The first swarm begin the formation of the combs at the middle of the apex of the hive; the second does so at the side. These are the only criteria I can furnish, for neither weight nor bulk are to be depended upon. It is to the obstinate use of the old-fashioned hive that these difficulties, and these opportunities for fraud, are attributable. Were the improved system once established, these cautions would be no longer called for. For old Wildman I entertain a very high respect, although in some instances I am compelled to differ from him; yet I always investigate closely the point at issue between us ere doing so, and, if I doubt, I suffer the weight of his authority to act as a 'casting vote.' Wildman has given some good advice as to the purchase of stocks; and in this advice he speaks like an oracle. Attend to him:--

"'The person who intends to erect an apiary should purchase a proper number of hives at the latter end of the year, when they are cheapest. The hives should be full of combs, and well stored with bees. The purchaser should examine the combs, in order to know the age of the hives. The combs of that season are white; those of a former year are of a darkish yellow; and when the combs are black, the hives should be rejected, because old hives are most liable to vermin and other accidents.

"'If the number of hives wanted have not been purchased in the autumn, it will be necessary to remedy this neglect, after the severity of the cold is past, in the spring. At this season, bees which are in good condition will get into the fields early in the morning, return loaded, enter boldly, and do not come out of the hive in bad weather, for when they do, this indicates that they are in great want of provisions. They are alert on the least disturbance, and by the loudness of their humming we judge of their strength. They preserve their hives free from all filth, and are ready to defend it against every enemy that approaches.

"'The summer is an improper time for buying bees, because the heat of the weather softens the wax, and thereby renders the comb liable to break, if they are not very well secured. The honey, too, being then thinner than at other times, is more apt to run out at the cells, which is attended with a double disadvantage--viz., the loss of the honey, and the daubing of the bees--whereby many of them may be destroyed. A first and strong swarm may indeed be purchased: and, if leave can be obtained, permitted to stand in the same garden until the autumn; but, if leave is not obtained, it may be carried away in the night after it has been hived.

"'I suppose that, in the stocks purchased, the bees are in the hives of the old construction. The only directions here necessary are, that the first swami from these stocks should be put into one of my hives; and that another of my hives should, in a few days, be put under the old stock, in order to prevent its swarming again.'"

But perhaps you have a swarm from one of your own stock-hives,--not so desirable as the purchase of a swarm from a neighbour. A swarm will occasionally emerge from hives and bee-boxes, in spite of every plan of preventing it. The signs of swarming are some of them appreciable by the most expert bee-master only. A common sign of the emergence of a swarm is inactivity in work, and about the hive clusters hanging from the bee-board--arising, probably, from the old queen finding no princess ready to take her throne--and a high temperature within. If, in addition, the weather is moist and warm, the issue of a swarm may be expected. From ten o'clock to three has been stated as the period within which swarming occurs. Every swarm I have had for twelve years has issued between twelve and three.

A strong swarm will consist of from ten thousand to twenty thousand bees; a caste, or second swarm, of five thousand. Two thousand bees fill a pint measure. Scouts are generally sent out to select a residence for the young family. House-seeking is an arduous work for human tenants, and no doubt the pioneer bees find great difficulty in fixing on what seems to them suitable. I have seen them settle under the leaves of a standard rose, sometimes on the bough of an apple-tree, and at other times in a sheltered recess in a laurel-hedge. No sight is more exciting than that of a swarm of bees. The air is clouded with the circling bees--vocal with their united music, while the eyes of the bee-master quietly watch their descent. As soon as the queen settles, the bees cluster around her and hang from the branch on which she has settled. As soon as the great mass has settled, take your bee-box or hive, hold it with one hand, mouth or bottom upward, beneath the swarm, enclosing as many of the pendent bees as the situation will allow. With the other hand shake the bough from which they hang, and on the great mass tumbling into the hive, carry it away half-a-dozen yards; set it upright on the bottom board, or a white sheet previously spread on the grass; raise the edge of the hive with a piece of wood or stone a few inches from the ground, and cover the hive with a branch or two to keep off the direct rays of the sun.

If the queen be inside the hive, the bees that are already inside will remain, and you will find the bees that linger about the branch on which they first settled steadily enter, and by sunset they will all be within. If the queen has not been caught, and still remains on the bough or branch on which the swarm first settled, the bees will leave the hive and re-cluster as they were. You must then repeat the process. You need not be afraid of stings. But if your nerves do not respond to your convictions, begin by spreading a square of gauze over your hat, the brim of the hat keeping it from your face; push the ends and corners under your coat, buttoning it to the chin. This will protect your face, ears, and neck, and a pair of worsted gloves will protect your hands. But practice will dispel fear, and save you from the necessity of such defences. If this homely and cheap defence seem to you insufficient, you can purchase at Neighbours', in Regent-street, for five shillings, a perfect fit.

It is thus represented by its inventor in Messrs. Neighbours' list.

If you have more than one bee-shed, do net place the young colony in the shed in which its mother hive stands.

A few straggling bees often hang about the branch next day. Lay on it a few nettles, and they will speedily forsake it, and return to the hive from which they issued, where, of course, their labours are not lost to the bee-master.

Sometimes a caste, or second swarm, will issue from the same hive. These are occasionally feeble in comparison of the first swarm. Are we to preserve it, and make the most of it? or are we to unite the weaker and later caste to a stronger one? Almost all apiarians recommend the uniting of two weak castes, in order to make one strong family, or uniting the feeble swarm to an old stock. Mr. Cotton, the most affectionate of bee-masters while he lived, advocates the use of the usual anesthetic, fuzz-ball or puff-ball, or frog's-cheese; and while the bees are in a state of insensibility pouring the one family into the hive of the other. The instrument employed for this purpose is made of tin plate.

The ignited puff-ball, which may be gathered and dried, or purchased for a trifle from Neighbours' in London, or Pettitt in Dover, is placed in the box A. The part B is then fitted into A. The orifice D is introduced into the hive, a little rag or clay is packed round it to keep in the smoke. The mouth is to be applied to the end C, and thus the smoke is driven into the hive. The bees will soon become still as death. The queen had better be picked out and removed from the caste.

The tube of an ordinary bellows may be introduced for this fumigation, as perhaps more effective and less troublesome. It will then appear thus:--

Richardson describes another plan:--

"Some persons may conceive it to be a difficult matter to come at the queen. When fumigation is resorted to, she is, of course, easily discovered; but even when it is dispensed with, and the practice adopted which I have yet to describe, she is not so very difficult to come at; for, on a hive being turned up and tapped, the queen is among the first, if not indeed the very first, who makes her appearance, as if to discover the occasion of the unwonted disturbance; and recollect, that although the dusk of an autumnal evening answers best for this purpose, I say nothing indicative of my disapprobation of the use of a lantern. The queen usually lodges near the crown of the hive, and is, when fumigation is resorted to, one of the last to fall; she will consequently, in this case, be found amongst the uppermost bees. In practising fumigation (with a view to the union of weak stocks), two persons should act in concert, each taking a hive and operating upon it, in order that both stocks should be simultaneously in a similar condition as to intoxication. I may add, that in fumigation the hive must be well covered with a cloth, to prevent the escape of the smoke. When you have united the two stocks in the manner I have described, it is advisable to confine the insects to their hive for that night and the following day. Do not, however, wholly deprive them of air in doing so, or you may smother them."

Taylor, who is always judicious, proposes what I regard as a preferable plan of uniting weak swarms:--

"Like most other operations on bees, the mode of uniting swarms admits of variety, according to choice and circumstance; and some apiarians prefer to drive them, in the way for which general directions have already been given; a plan that may be resorted to almost at any time. Another mode of junction can be effected by the aid of a sheet of perforated zinc, inserted between the two hives about to be united. There is little reason to doubt that the members of each colony of bees are distinguishable amongst themselves by a certain peculiarity of odour, which, if assimilated, appears to have the effect of preventing mutual dissension. When the construction, therefore, of the hives admits of their being brought into juxtaposition, the perforated zinc allows a free circulation of scent between them, without permitting actual contact of the bees. After leaving matters in this position for two or three days, I have usually found, on withdrawing the zinc divider, that no disturbance has ensued."