BEE-KEEPING.

BY

"THE TIMES" BEE-MASTER.

BEE-KEEPING.

BY

"THE TIMES" BEE-MASTER.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.

LONDON:

SAMPSON LOW. SON, & MARSTON.

14, LUDGATE HILL.

1864.

[The right of translation is reserved.]

LONDON:

PRINTED BY EDMUND EVANS,

RAQUET COURT, FLEET STREET.

PREFACE

MY apology for writing a Bee-Book is as follows:—I sent The Times an account of a very successful honey harvest about the end of July, containing some observations on the treatment of bees, and the profits that might accrue to the cottager were he to take the right and humane way of taking honey from his hives. This communication appears to have interested many, for in consequence of it, persons desirous of information wrote to the Editor of The Times, requesting in confidence the name of the Bee-master, in order that they might correspond with him. The Editor declined to give it up without my consent, which I felt it expedient to withhold. But to satisfy those who took so warm an interest in the subject, I addressed a series of letters to The Times, explanatory of some of the simplest elements of apiculture. These excited so great interest, that I received multitudes of letters addressed to "The Times Bee-master," which it was physically impossible to answer. But most of my correspondents complained of the obscurity and complexity of bee-books in general, and earnestly begged me to prepare a work they could understand and translate into practice. I have attempted to do so, strengthening my own observations by valuable extracts from the works of others. I am not, however, insensible to the great value, wide research, and real usefulness of the works I have carefully and long read. The first and most useful, as well as most beautiful modern work on bees, is "My Bee-Book," by the Rev. William Charles Cotton, M.A., student of Christ Church, Oxon. It is profusely illustrated, and is the most genial and instructive work on bees it has been my lot to read. I have felt so great an interest in this good clergyman, that it often occurred to me to try to ascertain where he was and what he was doing. My own communications to The Times, among many interesting letters, brought me one signed "An Australian," which, though long, contains amid much interesting matter some notice of the author of "My Bee-Book." The reader will not, I am sure, complain of its length.

Sir,—It may be interesting to you, whose letters in The Times have so delighted me, to hear that my experience in Australia of the habits, instincts, and affections (if I may so apply the word) of your little favourites is identical with your own. From early childhood I shared my father's interest in his pets; and at one time I could have counted upwards of ninety hives in the two apiaries which he kept for his own amusement, and for the encouragement of those who were willing to keep bees. Everyone was welcome to a swarm who cared to ask for one. I may give some curious facts as to the sagacity and gratitude of these insects. During the prevalence of the hot winds, it sometimes happens that the delicate comb melts, and the first indication is a stream of melted honey and smothering bees. I have been called to the rescue, and have taken up honey and bees in my hands, placed them in a basin of tepid water, and spread my fingers as landing-stages until all capable of restoration have plumed their wings and buzzed gratefully away, and so on until order and comfort was restored to the disturbed hive. I never was stung on any occasion whilst working amongst the bees, and only twice that I remember, and then by meeting an angry bee accidentally in the garden. The buzz of an angry bee is quite well known to their lovers. On one occasion a swarm met my sister, and actually began to settle on her hand and arm. She knew their ways, and walked very slowly on (of course surrounded by bees) until she found what she considered a comfortable bough, under which she held her hand. The queen adopted the suggestion, and after a few minutes' patiently standing amidst the confusion, she quietly retired, and, as you will believe, unharmed.

Of course we could not house all our swarms, so they went off to the woods and found habitations in gum-trees hollowed out by the action of fires through the bush. I recollect one swarm, however, belonging to a neighbour, which preferred its old quarters, and actually built the combs and filled them with honey suspended from beneath the shelf upon which the hives were ranged in the open air. Its ultimate fate I do not remember.

Bees have many enemies in Australia; the greatest is probably the sugar-ant. To protect them from these intruders, we had the hives ranged on shelves, the supports of which stood in wide vessels of water, alike a protection against other foes. The apiaries were built open in front and ends, against a wall, with thatched roof and overhanging eaves; and there was a space between the shelf on which the hives stood and the wall, where one could sit or stand and watch them; for most of our hives were square, made of wood, with glass sides and wooden shutters; and the bees were so accustomed to be looked at, that they kept their side of the glass quite clean, and generally built a smooth surface of comb next the glass, leaving space to move between the comb and the glass; and I have often seen the queen, surrounded by her admiring subjects (exactly as you describe) making her progress across the comb, each attendant bee with its head next her majesty, fanning with its wings, and one could hear a purr of satisfaction.

The antipathies of the bee are very curious. I have known one individual who was chased perpetually round the garden, and I have seen him obliged to rush through a hedge to escape his little tormentors. Their feuds were sometimes most violent, and I have had to remove a hive from one apiary to the other, a distance of half a mile, to preserve the bees. Your plan of the super-hives is excellent. Most of our hives were square, and all of wood. The straw hives proved a harbour for insects, and deprived us of the pleasure of watching the bees at work. We used large confectioners' glasses as supers, turned upside down. They were speedily filled, and we could ensure honey flavoured with the different blossoms, by placing the glass during the season of the orange-blossom, or heliotrope, &c., &c.

Our chief guide in the management was a book written by the Rev. Mr. Cotton, called "My Bee-Book;" and it may be interesting to mention, that when in after years that gentleman accompanied the Bishop of New Zealand to that country, via Australia, he was my father's guest. Mr. Cotton's delight at finding his favourites so appreciated was only equalled by our pleasure in meeting the author of "My Bee-Book;" but, sad to say, our bees conceived a dislike to their visitor; and upon his exhibiting his fearlessness in handling bees, he was stung (much to the amusement of some small bystanders) by two wicked bees. A relation of my own kept her bees in the verandah of her drawing-room; and she has frequently cut out of the hive a large piece of comb, taking care not to break it, and merely cutting through the little connecting links of wax which support the layers of comb; and this she could do with impunity from the super of a busy hive, simply because she lived amongst her bees. Hoping that this letter may not have wearied you,

I remain yours faithfully,
An Australian.

London, 12th August, 1864.

P.S. I have never had an opportunity of keeping bees in England. I shall look for your promised manual, as I hope some day I may be able to have some of my favourites to care for. I may add, my father procured our original stock from Tasmania, in the common straw hive, a bit of pierced tin fastened over the entrance. One system I do not see alluded to, which we found answer very well, when we wished, for any cause, to take the old comb and start the bees afresh. We used in the early dawn to place the full hive over an empty one, covering all with a large cloth, and then beat the top hive steadily, not roughly, with a stick. Very soon the queen would take refuge in the lower box, when a board was slipped between, and the upper old hive removed. The bees (the few that loitered behind the queen) soon left the honey to join their friends: at night the new hive was carried to the site of the old one, and turned up upon its own board. We always had cross bars of wood on the hives, upon which the swarm at first clung.

Taylor's and Wood's "Manuals of Bee-keeping" are exceedingly good. Richardson's is very full. Lardner's Treatise in the "Museum of Science and Art" well deserves the attention of the reader.

I do not profess to have struck out any original methods of constructing hives or treating bees. To the science of apiculture I have contributed nothing. All I profess to do is to give plain, practical directions for the successful management of bees, chiefly from observation and experience.

I am persuaded there has been much useful and instructive matter in my letters, because I have received a few very ill-natured communications. One of them (not the worst) I insert, as a specimen of the reception my little work is doomed to expect. But perhaps the writers may repent of their intentions, and recover the sweet temper they seem to have lost.

August 15.

Sir,—I have read very attentively the letters in The Times about bees, and am convinced that the American gentleman is right, and that much of what you say is mere old woman's twaddle. Your nonsensical rant about loyalty to the queen-bee (in these days, when loyalty to kings and queens is utterly and very properly extinct), and your raving against radical reform (so much wanted in all matters), both give evidence of anility and failing intellect.

I shall act on my conviction by ordering the American book on bees for myself and friends, and I shall use all my literary influence (which is considerable) in preventing the circulation of your poor trumpery twopenny-halfpenny bee-papers.

A Non-believer in the "Bee-master"
of Tunbridge Wells.

P.S. I am no American, but I sympathise with Messrs. Bright and Cobden. I rejoice at the downfall of the Danish monarchy; and I would not fight, under any circumstances, either for king, queen, princes, or peoples—not foreign peoples at least, I look on loyalty as rank humbug. Kings must behave better before we can respect or love them!

In this work I have purposely left out all notice of a variety of hives as ingenious as they are disliked by bees. Some apiarians have expended all their talent in making tortuous entrances, worrying homes, and elegant residences for the queen and her subjects. They seem to estimate their success by the extent of their departure from simplicity. They merge the useful and convenient in the elegant and complex. But the less the bees are plagued by intricate and arduous arrangements in the interior of their residences, the more comfortable and contented they feel, and the more efficiently they work. It is on this account I have written so favourably of the Ayrshire hive. It is simple in structure, and the parallel openings in the roof of the stock hive introductory to the super are far more liked by the bees than a round central hole, while the facility of removing a super in the honey harvest is perfectly charming. The comb in the super is never or rarely connected with the comb in the stock hive, and, therefore, needs no cutting with zinc plates. A screw-driver gently introduced loosens the propolis, or a table-knife may be employed to cut it all round the lower edge of the super, and the proprietor has only to lift it off and carry it away on a deal board.

I can easily see that had I praised several ingenious contrivances for the residence of bees, I should have provoked fewer charges of ignorance of modern apiculture. I repeat, I have read much on the subject; but my recommendations are not the results of theory or imagination, but of practical knowledge and of careful watching.

The best hop-garden is that which grows the most and best hops; the best mill is that which grinds most corn; and the best hives are those in which is deposited the largest amount of the best honey.

By all means let us have observatory hives for scientific investigations; but what the cottager requires is plenty of produce, with the least tax on his toil and pocket. Hence this work is drawn up, not for scientific apiarians, but for all who wish to enjoy a pleasant and profitable employment.

I must tender my best thanks to Messrs. Neighbour, of Regent-street, London, and to Mr. Pettitt, of Snargate, Dover, for their permission to copy such of their woodcuts as I thought it useful to describe or to suggest amendments on.

I may also add, that in using the name, "The Times Bee-master," I avail myself merely of the title given me by the countless correspondents who did me the honour to write me either directly or indirectly through the editor of The Times.

In reprinting my letters to The Times, I must here notice an alteration I think expedient. I felt it right to reply to a very injudicious and extreme letter which appeared in that paper. I did so playfully, and with kindly feeling. But the correspondent I thus replied to seems to have viewed it as a personal attack. Under the inspiration of very irritated feelings he wrote another letter to the Editor of The Times, which was very properly refused admission. But he was kind enough to send it to several papers, in which he published it, prefacing it in one with controversial remarks so far removed from the courtesies of fair correspondence, that it ceased to be possible to hold any further argument with him. I am really very sorry that a gentleman I never saw, and do not yet know whether he is a clergyman or layman, should have so passionately interpreted remarks made by me in perfect good-humour. I offer him every apology that is due for being misunderstood. In order to avoid any such contingency again, I have omitted his name, and have substituted "Your Correspondent."

I may also add, that when I sent my letters to The Times I had not the remotest idea of composing a book on the subject. Having other and absorbing work to attend to, I have been able to devote spare hours only to a very pleasant work, undertaken at the request of many, and dedicated to the service of all.

CONTENTS

Erratum.—[Page 45, line 18]—For "inches" read "degrees."
[Transcriber's Note: This WAS corrected!]

BEE-KEEPING.

BY

"THE TIMES" BEE-MASTER.

THIS work is not a speculative or philosophical treatise on bees. Its main interest consists in its usefulness; and its author's greatest reward will be the greatest measure of his success in promoting among cottagers and others a means of paying their rent, at once interesting, civilising, and remunerative. Next to this, I hope I may contribute toward the extinction of the savage and unprofitable, but almost universal, habit in this country of burning the bees with sulphur in August, in order to collect honey richly flavoured, and much deteriorated by sulphurous acid. It is a fundamental principle in my bee-management, that no bee shall be burned, or, if possible to avoid it, crushed or killed. No man deserves the name of a Bee-master, or should attempt to keep bees, who has not resolved, with all his might, to avoid bee-murder. Bee-cide, like homicide, may accidentally occur, but it must be accidental, not designed and culpable. That system of management which combines the safety and health of the bees, with the production of the largest amount of pure honey available to the proprietor, while providing generously for the inmates of the hive during the winter months, deserves the greatest patronage.

I.-BEE-KEEPING MONEY-MAKING.

WE live in a practical age. Proposals of all sorts are too often, right or wrong, weighed against gold:—"How much will it bring? Can I turn a penny by this business?" I do not pretend to say bee-masters are rich men, or that the way to a fortune is through a bee-hive; but I do assert that a poor parish minister, vicar, or curate with a little glebe—a cottager who works all day for the squire—or maiden ladies who desire to engage in very delightful and loving labour—may add to their little income or stipend or dividend from ten to twenty pounds a year. To half-pay officers I would earnestly recommend bee-keeping. It would keep them out of those wild speculations into which, from their inexperience in business matters, they are so frequently and ruinously drawn, by giving them an interest, which would soon become a passion, in studying and conferring with a new family, besides yielding them a few spare sovereigns for personal use or charity. For white cells filled with honey in glasses—than which nothing more elegant or picturesque can be placed on a breakfast-table—one can obtain in June two shillings, and even two shillings and sixpence, a pound. For honey later in the season one and sixpence a pound may be easily had; and where the proprietor prefers to be his own consumer, he may dispense with bacon and butter, and take what is far more wholesome—honey—at breakfast. It is a fair average to calculate on fifteen pounds of surplus produce from each hive, if properly attended to. I do not see why our country should not be a "land flowing with milk and honey," or why we should import so much honey and wax from abroad, exporting good money in return, when so many flowers lift their beautiful blossoms, waiting and longing to be kissed and rifled by visitors they love so well. It should not be forgotten, too, that bees do immense good to flowers; some think they introduce one to another, and celebrate the marriage of the flowers. This, however, is certain: flower-gardens are immensely benefited by bees, and therefore every lover of flowers and proprietor of gardens should never drive away or destroy a bee; for the visitor is not only collecting honey for his bee-master, but adding to the variety, fragrance, and beauty of the flowers of their owner.

II.—BEE-KEEPING A SOURCE OF ENJOYMENT.

WHEN pleasure and profit can be combined, time runs swiftly and the heart feels happy.

It is enjoyment to stand by one's bee-hives and watch the intense and untiring work of one's bees. It is like standing at a window in Cheapside, and watching the counter-currents of human beings that ceaselessly traverse its pavement; only, instead of faces grooved with cares and pale with anxieties, we do not see issuing from their hives or returning home a single bee that seems bowed down with trouble or fretful about the future. Each bee, from the queen down to the sentinel at the gate, seems to have heard the Master's words,—"Take no thought" (i.e., irritating care) "for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

Bees rarely fail to become acquainted with a kind and affectionate master. I have stood in the midst of thousands returning home after their day's work, and seen them resting on me, brushing their wings and bodies, and, thereby refreshed and recruited, they enter their home and deposit their sweet burdens. They do not forget little acts of kindness shown them, and rarely fail to show gratitude,—an example Christians would do well to copy. I have sat for hours by my hives with glass windows, and watched the orderly and beautiful array in which some give wax, others build it into forms of strength and beauty, others clear away incidental dirt, others pour honey into the warehouses, others carry out their dead, and all reverently and loyally attend to the instructions of their queen. Relays of ventilators, joining the tips of their wings and making fanners, take up their position at the doors, and send in currents of fresh air. Others are placed as sentries on the bee-board, who, like faithful soldiers, repel wasps and moths, and die rather than desert the post of duty. There is not an idle bee in a hive, if one may except the drones after their mission is ended. Fruges consumere nati; they meet with the consequences which all idle and unproductive citizens provoke. They, however, may be regarded as the exceptional inmates. The bees do not fail to understand their relations, and therefore they get rid of them as soon as they cease to contribute to the wealth or comfort or protection of the hive. They become in June and July the mere hangers-on—the fat, lazy monks, who believe that everybody is made to work for them, while they are excused helping anybody. But the bountiful Creator has left no place for indolence in this world of ours; it would be too disastrous an example to be permitted with impunity. The bees accordingly turn them out to starve, or garrote them as they catch them, and at all risk get rid of the incumbrance. Do idle young men deserve better treatment?

A hive in June is a perfect study, a model of order, work, neatness, and beauty; it is rich in interest to everyone who has an hour to spare. About nine o'clock at night you cannot do better than listen for a quarter of an hour by your hives, and you will hear an oratorio sweeter and richer than you ever heard in Exeter Hall. Treble, tenor, and bass are blended in richest harmony; sometimes it sounds as the distant hum of a great city, and at other times as if the apiarian choristers were attempting the hallelujahs which will swell from earth to heaven when all things are put right, and bee and bird and every living thing sing joyously together the jubilant anthem peal, "Great and marvellous are thy works. Lord God Almighty. Just and true are thy ways, thou King of nations."

III.—HOW TO BEGIN BEE-KEEPING.

YOUR garden may be very small, and its flowers few and far between; but as your bee-pasture is an area two or three miles round on all sides yours for the use of your bees, though entered in other peoples' title-deeds, your own little plot need not much trouble you. Bees seem to prefer to feed at a little distance from the hive, but have no objection to pasture close at hand. In the beginning of August, when the honey-yielding flowers begin to fail, I have found Broadwater Common, near Tunbridge Wells, which grows the finest heather south of Braemar, covered with my bees, and have lain down amid the heath-blossoms, watching and listening to my young friends, immensely enjoying their work.

But if you have any spare space—and there are always nooks and spots available in the smallest garden—sow on these lemon-thyme in abundance, rosemary, lavender, salvia, borage, mignonette, and crocus. Apple-trees, gooseberry and currant-trees, and above all, raspberry-plants, are great favourites with bees; and as their blossoms come early in spring, they are most seasonable and productive. But your chief reliance must be on neighbouring acres of bean-fields and buckwheat or clover meadows, heather and furze, and hedge-blossoms. Lime-trees are very valuable; I wish people would allow thorn-hedges to blossom. Let me urge the cottager to use for the edging of his garden lemon-thyme instead of box or daisies. Do not fear keeping a dozen stocks. I think many apiarians talk nonsense when they allege that a district may be overstocked with bee-hives. If the surrounding country be wholly arable, with little common, and with too good farming, it may be overstocked. But there are still left commons unenclosed, woods and heath, and clover and tiny weeds, which farmers persecute and bee-masters love; and far off are gardens of all sorts and sizes, in which flowers are cultivated for the owners' pleasure, constituting admirable bee-pasture. I only regret there is such a wide-spread rage for double flowers, for bees never touch them. On that magnificent standard rose, so rich in delicious perfume and so very lovely, a bee never alights; but the briar and hedge-rose are favourites and much frequented. On the Clyde, it is usual for bee-proprietors to carry their hives to Arran, Dunoon, and Kilmun, as soon as the heather comes into blossom; and cottagers take charge of them at a shilling apiece. The hives often therefrom receive great and remunerative additions.

Dr. Bevan states:—

"In Lower Egypt, where the flower-harvest is not so early by several weeks as in the upper districts of that country, this practice of transportation is carried on to a considerable extent. About the end of October the hives, after being collected together from the different villages, and conveyed up the Nile, marked and numbered by the individuals to whom they belong, are heaped pyramidally upon the boats prepared to receive them, which, floating gradually down the river, and stopping at certain stages of their passage, remain there a longer or a shorter time, according to the produce which is afforded by the surrounding country. After travelling three months in this manner, the bees, having culled the perfumes of the orange flowers of the Said, the essence of roses of the Faiocum, the treasures of the Arabian jessamine, and a variety of flowers, are brought back about the beginning of February to the places from which they have been carried. The productiveness of the flowers at each respective stage is ascertained by the gradual descent of the boats in the water, and which is probably noted by a scale of measurement. This industry procures for the Egyptians delicious honey and abundance of bees'-wax. The proprietors, in return, pay the boatmen a recompense proportioned to the number of hives which have thus been carried about from one extremity of Egypt to the other."

Richardson sensibly remarks:—

"Water carriage, when procurable, is the best, as it shakes the hives least, but when land carriage must be resorted to, the hives should be carried on poles slung on men's shoulders. The journey should be pursued at night only, and the bees suffered to go forth and feed during the day. Such is their instinct, that they will readily find their way back; but they should not be suffered to go forth until at the distance of upwards of ten or eleven miles from their original home, otherwise they will be lost in endeavouring to regain it—a moderate distance induces them to abandon the idea, and to become reconciled to their new quarters. If travelling by canal, the hives should be removed from the boat, and placed on stands at some distance from the bank, ere the insects are let out, otherwise they will be lost in thousands by falling into the water on their return. The charge made by shepherds for taking care of the hives during a season is from one shilling to eighteen-pence each. It is better to pay a trifle over and above the usual fee, in order to prevent your hives being placed too near to each other, or to those of other parties; for if your weak stocks happen to be placed near the strong ones of some one else, you will stand a fair chance of having them all killed in encounters with their more powerful neighbours. It would be well also to see that your hives are placed in a situation where they will be safe from the attacks of cattle or other foes. Before fetching the hives home again from the heath, it will not be amiss to ascertain their condition and weight, and to take from them what honey they can spare. I must here inform you how to ascertain the state or wealth of a hive."

On the subject of removing bees to the heather in August, Mr. Briggs makes the following useful and practical remarks:—

"In the vicinity of extensive heaths, the bees are removed to them about the beginning or middle of August, according to the season. The usual practice is to raise each hive with small wedges in the evening, to induce the bees to congregate together at the top of the hive. The hives are then firmly fixed to the bottom boards, or tied up in cloths, and conveyed in the night, or very early in the morning, to the garden of a shepherd or other person whose residence adjoins the heath. All hives and swarms are taken, including old and young ones, and the persons who receive them usually charge a shilling for each hive during the season. The hives are thus very frequently crammed together as close as they can stand, and the consequences are that much fighting and loss of life is often caused, and the weak stocks of one person are frequently partly destroyed and robbed of their stores and killed by the stronger ones belonging to other persons. When the blooming of the heath is over, the old stocks are, in general, suffocated on the spot, to obtain possession of the fruits of their labours, and those intended for winter stocks are conveyed home by their respective owners.

"The above system of managing bees at the heather is susceptible of material alterations and improvements. I would suggest that it would be of great advantage to the owners of bees residing within twenty miles' distance, if the proprietors or occupiers of residences adjoining the heath were to extend the accommodation by enclosing a larger extent of ground which is suitable for the purposes desired. It might be cheaply and expeditiously performed by hiring a few dozen of stout stakes, &c., from the neighbouring farmers for the season, and having the bars of them full of coarse thorns, briars, furze, or other convenient or suitable materials, to prevent the inroads of cattle and other depredators.

"I would recommend that none but strong stocks be taken to the heath, until arrangements are made for their convenience and accommodation; and that the collateral system of side hives, &c., be practised with them whilst they are at the heath, as well as on other occasions."

Where there is no water conveyance, a hive may be suspended from each end of a long pole, which may be carried on the shoulder to the neighbourhood of a common, in August, not less than four miles from your garden, and put in charge of a reliable cottager.

"In Yorkshire," says the Rev. Mr. Cotton, that prince of bee-masters, "it is the regular custom of the country to send the stocks to the moors for change of pasture in August and September. Cotters, who have a little garden by the moorside, take in dozens every year, and get a shilling a stock for their trouble. The trouble is a mere nothing—at least not one shilling's worth in all—and the pleasure is surely very great; for what can be a greater pleasure than to have ten additional stocks of bees on a visit to your own, and to cheer you with their glad music whenever you are walking in your garden? To say nothing of the pleasure you must feel at their honied stores, by playing the part of a kind host to these busy bees; and then, what is more, you may have the still greater pleasure of showing your friend (for all bee-masters are, or ought to be, friendly) how to take up his bees who have been your guests so long, as I trust you do your own, that is, without killing them. You and he may do so, if you try; and I, a bee-master like yourself, beg you most earnestly to try. What I have found a very good way with my bees you cannot find a very bad one. The stocks are taken up in the old way as soon as the heather goes out of flower. I hope many a man will learn by my letter to take them up by the fingers, instead of the sulphur match, that ready instrument of bee-murder. In France they put their hives into a boat, some hundreds together, which floats down the stream by night, and stops by day. The bees go out in the morning, return in the evening, and when they are all back and quiet, on the boat floats. I have heard they come home to the ringing of a bell; but I believe they would come home just the same whether the bell rings or no. I should like to see this tried on the Thames, for no river has more bee food near its banks: willows, the best bee food in spring; meadows, clover, beans, and lime-trees, in different places and times, for summer. A handy man, who could make his own boxes, though not up to hard work, might, I am pretty sure, gather through the mouths of his many thousand bees enough to fill his own one mouth, though it be somewhat larger. He might float softly down the river, as the flowers go off at one place and come on at another; and any bargeman would be glad, for the small price of one pound of Thames honey, to give him a tow up when he wishes to go back. I should like to see it tried."

But all this is supererogatory at present, and temporary removals are undesirable, unless where surrounding pastures entirely fail in August. It is, at best, supplemental.

Taylor, in his useful Bee Manual, says:—

"It is almost needless to say, that in the nature and extent of the vegetable production following in succession in the immediate neighbourhood of an apiary, must mainly depend its prosperity. After every care has been bestowed on all points of housing and management, it is in vain to expect a large harvest of honey where Nature has limited the sources of supply, or restricted them to a particular season of the year."

Payne observes:—

"I have always found the advantage of planting in the vicinity of my hives a large quantity of the common kinds of crocus, single blue hepatica, helleborus niger, and tussilago petasites, all of which flower early, and are rich in honey and farina. Salvia memorosa (of Sir James Smith), which flowers very early in June, and lasts all the summer, is in an extraordinary manner sought after by the bees, and, when room is not an object, twenty or thirty square yards of it may be grown with advantage. Origanum humile, and origanum rubescens (of Haworth), and mignonette may also be grown. Cúscuta sinensis is a great favourite with them; and the pretty little plant anacampseros populifolium, when in flower, is literally covered by them. Garden cultivation beyond this, exclusively for bees, I believe, answers very little purpose."

IV.—THE BEE-HOUSE, AND HOW TO PLACE IT.

HAVING decided on the furniture of the garden and the flowers it should grow, and the best kind of neighbourhood for pasture, we must now discuss (and it is done from very considerable experience) the structure and aspect of the bee-house under shelter of which your hives are to stand. Taylor remarks:—

"The common wooden bee-houses, as usually constructed, open in front, and closed altogether behind, retaining the sun's heat as an oven, are objectionable. These are frequently the receptacles of dirt and vermin, and most inconvenient to operate in. It would be an improvement to make them deeper backwards; or with a falling front, moving on hinges, so that the hives can be recessed behind it, away from the influence of weather. At the back should be folding doors, opening from top to bottom, allowing a good access to the hives. For greater convenience, it is best to have them only in a single row, with good head room. But a still more desirable plan is to board up the front of the house entirely, making oblong openings through for a passage to the bees, with an exterior alighting-board, a good deal slanted downwards (the bees preferring this to a flat surface). The hives are arranged immediately behind, upon a shelf, the further apart the better, as the bees occasionally mistake their own homes, and fall a sacrifice in consequence."

The following is a sketch of the shed proposed by Dr. Bevan. It is extremely picturesque. My only objection to it is his use of thatch, which shelters vermin—the pests it is hard to keep away in the most favourable circumstances. Dr. Bevan's shed or bee-house is seven feet square in the clear, with three hives on the upper shelves and three on the under.

A very picturesque and efficient bee-shed is presented by Dr. Lardner, about twelve feet long and about nine feet high.

My objection to this bee-house is, that the hives are exposed too much to wind and weather; if of straw, they will soon rot—if of wood, wet and sunshine will rend and split them. Besides, tier above tier is not good, and it need not be adopted.

The shed I prefer is as follows:—Let it be twelve feet six inches in length, six feet in height, and two feet six inches in depth. Let it be made of good, strong, smooth deal. Divide it into six equal compartments, divided off from each other. Let the roof be also of smooth deal, covered first with Croggon's patent felt; and laid over the felt, and nailed down, let there be zinc plates, projecting six or eight inches in front. Let an opening three inches wide extend along the front from end to end, with a continuous landing-board projecting beneath it, and sloping down at an angle of twenty-five degrees. The floor should be about a foot or eighteen inches above the level of the ground, and perfectly smooth. Behind let there be three doors, with hinges attached to the floor, falling back when open, and thereby forming a pleasant platform, when laid down and resting on the ground, for the bee-master to watch and study, and deprive, and otherwise fulfil his mission. When closed, there must be a good padlock, as bee-hive lifters are still too common in every part of the country. In very hot weather, open the doors behind, but only in very hot weather. I have found from experience that the smoother the surfaces of the bee-shed inside, the less they are liable to the operations of the spider, one of the greatest pests of bee-houses. I have unfortunately, and too often, seen a dozen bees entangled of a fine May morning in a spider's web, and most of them excavated in the cleanest manner. Wasps and spiders I have no mercy on; they are thieves and murderers and beasts of prey, as well as vermin. To the former, extermination by brimstone is a just recompense, and to the latter the application of a hard dry brush is a daily duty.

I prefer three of these bee-sheds, located in different parts of my garden, to one very large shed with under and upper tiers of hives: this makes less likelihood of confusion in swarming. I do not like the sheds to be placed under large trees, the drippings of which tend to create damp. Shrubs, raspberry-plants, and even gooseberry-bushes, not nearer than ten or twelve feet, form nice resting-places to the heavy-laden bees. Under and immediately around the hive should be closely-mowed grass. The front of the hive is best due south, and, if convenient, with an inclination to the east. From the east and west a rising ground, or shrubs tolerably high, are a desirable protection; they break the force of the gales. Do not place your bee-shed at a great distance from the house: bees are civilised and domestic, and delight to see children at play while they are at their work; kept out of society, they grow savage. Having selected the position, do not change it, unless imperatively and unavoidably necessary. Gelieu justly observes:—

"I have seen people shift about their hives very inconsiderately; but change of place invariably weakens them, as the bees will return to their old residence, the environs of which are so familiar to them. A hive should remain as fixed to the spot as the ancient oaks, in the hollows of which they delight to establish themselves; where they have their young, their companions, their beloved queen, and all their treasures. When the young bees take wing for the first time, they do it with great precaution, turning round and round, and fluttering about the entrance, to examine the hive well before taking flight. They do the same in returning, so that they may be easily distinguished, conducting themselves nearly after the same manner as the workers of a newly-hived swarm. When they have made a few excursions, they set off without examining the locality; and returning in full flight, will know their own hive in the midst of a hundred others. But if you change its place you perplex them, much the same as you would be if, during a short absence, some one lifted your house and placed it a mile off. The poor bees return loaded, and, seeking in vain for their habitation, either fall down and perish with fatigue, or throw themselves into the neighbouring hives, where they are speedily put to death. When hives are transported to a considerable distance, there is no fear that the bees will return. But this inconvenience would be sure to take place if they were removed only a few hundred paces from the spot they have been accustomed to. The hive may not perish, but it will be greatly weakened. In my opinion, if the situation is to be changed at all, they should be taken at least a mile and a half."

Richardson, who has offered many sensible suggestions on bee-culture, makes some very sensible remarks on this. But I do not agree with him in one of his opinions—that a south-westerly aspect is best, or that a south-eastern aspect is likely to be prejudicial, from its tempting the bees to go out in too cold spring mornings. The early sun in early spring is not excessively seductive. Besides, bees are very good judges of temperature, as they are infallible prophets of weather, and may be safely left in this matter to the exercise of their own good sense. It is also worthy of notice, that the main work of bees is over by four o'clock in the afternoon, and the setting sun is therefore less important. They are early risers, and go early to bed. But his remaining observations on bee-sheds are thoroughly good:—

"Some recommend high trees for the purpose of keeping the air calm, lest the bees should be blown down when returning home. High trees are not advisable; they form an evil themselves of greater magnitude than that which they may be designed to remove. Bees are seldom blown to the ground by mere wind; but even when they are, they can, in a great majority of cases, recover themselves. Whereas, if blown amongst trees, they will be sure to be whipped so violently by the branches, that they are absolutely hurled to the ground with such force as to render their recovery hopeless. The bees also fly low on their return, when they arrive at the immediate neighbourhood of their stand, and, consequently, high trees would be not only useless, but absolutely inconvenient. Whatever trees you wish, therefore, to plant in the immediate vicinity of the hive should be of low size, planted at the sides of the hive, so as to leave the entrance quite free. Wildman recommends them, and, I think, very judiciously, to be 'of the dwarf kind, with bushy heads, in order that the swarms which settle on them may be more easily hived.' Now, although by judicious management swarming will generally be prevented from taking place, yet, despite of our utmost care, it may accidentally occur; or the bees may quit their boxes in a body, from various causes—some of which I shall endeavour hereafter to explain—and, under such circumstances, Mr. Wildman's suggestions will be found valuable. The garden, therefore, in which you fix your stands should be thus planted; and I further, for the same reasons, recommend wall fruit trees and espaliers.

"Avoid a site near mills or other noisy places, or the neighbourhood of bad smells, as factories and the like; and if, as occasionally may happen, your stand be placed against your garden wall, behind which is the farm-yard, let not a dunghill be built against the opposite side. I have witnessed this before now, and in one instance found the consequence to be a desertion of the boxes. Do not place your stand where you see rat or mouse holes, and let your shed be all of wood, never thatched with straw, as that substance harbours mice, moths, and other similar enemies to your stock.

"Water is essential to the well-being of your bees; it must, however, be presented to them judiciously, or it will prove a greater evil than a good. If you can coax a shallow rippling brook through your garden, so much the better; if not, place near the stand small, shallow, earthen pans of water, and put some pebbles in them. This water must be changed daily. It is highly objectionable to have a pond or canal in your neighbourhood: you will lose thousands of your bees through their means every season, as they will be constantly blown into them when returning heavily laden to the hive, especially in the evening, when wearied after the toil of an industriously spent day. The pebbles in the troughs are for the bees to rest on while drinking, and are the recommendation of Columella. I have seen tin plates perforated with holes, and placed over the pans just on the surface of the water, used for drinking-vessels for bees; I, however, prefer the pebbles."

I have found it a very good plan to place two or three soup-plates filled with pure water mixed largely with round pebbles in front of the bee-house; they thus find water to drink and stepping-stones for their tiny feet, which keep their wings out of water. In long-continued dry and hot summers, I have also been in the habit of using a common garden-squirt, with the end perforated by a dozen pin-holes. The water thus showered on the bee-house at noon cools it, and does not strike down the bees, and seems most acceptable to them all.

The shed should be kept scrupulously clean and dry. Earwigs, snails, and spiders will all try hard to establish their quarters under the warmth of the hives, and must be repelled. Nothing but the bee-master's frequent but quiet and undemonstrative use of a good hard painter's brush, perfectly dry, will keep these pests at a distance. I am no advocate of killing a single living thing, but if these unproductive creatures will prey on the most productive of insects, and kill and steal, there is no help for it. The bee-master must keep his bee-sheds particularly clean; and as spiders and earwigs love dust and dirt, and are inseparable from it, they must go with it. At all events, I cannot give them hospitality in my bee-house.

For people to whom expense is no object, the bee-houses of Messrs. Neighbour are perfect—as ornamental as they are efficient.

Their two-hive shed is as follows:—

Bee-house to contain two hives.
Front view of bee-house, price £3 10s., well painted, constructed to contain two hives. 3 ft. 6 in. high, 4 ft wide.

The back view is given on the following page.

Back view of the preceding, showing the interior. The top hive or cover for the glasses is balanced by a weight, so as to be raised easily for the purpose of inspecting the bees at work in the super hives.

I have already said, what I repeat, that I do not think one row of hives above another in the same bee-shed at all expedient.

V.—HIVES AND BEE-BOXES.

THE inveterate use of the common straw hive, with its fire and sulphur application in autumn to its unhappy inmates, is deeply to be deplored. No humane man can look on the straw hive, rotting on a stand, wasted and worn by wind and rain, covered with a brown earthenware basin, under which vermin breed and multiply, and doomed to brimstone and bee-cide, without feeling it is a penal settlement, or cell of doom, for subjects unworthy of it. There is nothing picturesque or pleasant about it, and the moss of age and usage even of a thousand years fail to beautify it.

A bee-shed is an absolute necessity; it may be rough and coarse, and badly put together, but it cannot and must not be dispensed with. I will assume, in the first instance, that the cheapness of a common straw hive—a rough one costing sixpence, a better a shilling, and a very excellent one eighteen-pence—brings it within the reach of a very poor cottager. On this assumption I proceed to show how he can make the best of a bad house. Placed in his shed with a good swarm in May, it is likely in a good year to be full by the end of June. He must then have ready a good thick board—say three-quarters of an inch or an inch in thickness and twelve inches square, with a round hole in the centre about three inches diameter, perfectly smooth and bevelled in the lower edge of the hole. On this he must have ready a small straw hive with a piece of glass, four inches by three, fastened into the side, in order to see inside; but if he can afford it, still better, a bell-glass or garden-glass, with a woollen nightcap drawn over it, to keep out the light and keep in the warmth. Let this stand ready by him behind the bee-house, about twelve o'clock at noon. He must then take a sharp table-knife, and quietly and fearlessly cut a hole in the top of the hive, about three inches in diameter, and having removed the top by taking hold of its straw loop, he is to place the board with its super over his hive. The smoother he makes the cutting the less trouble will the bees have, and the sooner they will ascend. If the weather still proves friendly, he may have five or six pounds of beautiful honey before the middle of August, and there will be abundance for his bees in the stock hive during winter. The way to remove the super is this:—Get a zinc plate, with sharp edges, some fourteen inches square, press it quietly between the super and the board, laying the left hand on the super and pressing with the right, taking care not to disturb the board on the hive, which the bees will have fastened down. Carry off the super with its bees and honey, laying another board over the hole. Place your super, with the zinc plate below it, at fifty or a hundred yards' distance from your bee-shed; edge up the super about two inches from the plate after it has stood still an hour. The bees will fly out in succession and make their way straight home, and not one will turn on you to sting you. It seems then and there, and in so new circumstances, to dawn on their minds for various reasons, that their proprietor is merely taking his portion in consideration of the care he has bestowed; or, like a mob without a head, they lose all sense of order, self-possession, and organisation, but, unlike a Belfast mob, they rush home out of harm's way.

The Common Straw Hive.

The same hive, with central hole and perforated board, and small straw super or cap.

A small straw super, with glass window, to be placed on the common straw hive.

Common straw hive, with top cut off for board and bell-glass.

From Mr. Pettitt's catalogue—a very sensible one—I take the following models and prices of bell-glasses for supers.

Bell-shaped Glasses, for working on the top of any of the hives. Price, 10 in. 4s.; 7 in. 2s. 6d.; 6 in. 1s. 6d.; 4 in. 1s.

Neighbour's are still better.

I prefer Taylor's glasses to either.

A bell-glass nearly filled with honey.

But supposing you can afford to buy a straw hive with a hole already worked at the top—and it will not cost above a shilling more—you are to place the board with a corresponding hole on the top of this, and, till the middle of June, a small board over, or bung in the hole of the board. Then take it out as before, and place over it your bell-glass or small straw hive, and act thenceforth as already described.

If, however, you can invest a little in apiculture, as people do in agriculture or market-gardening, only on a very much smaller scale, I strongly recommend wooden hives or boxes. These, well made, are necessarily expensive. The objections commonly urged by those I have talked with are, first, that they split and twist, and get out of gear. This may occur in the best in a slight degree, but it arises generally from having unseasoned wood and bad workmanship. Green wood is utterly worthless. Bad workmanship is dearest, when done at the very lowest rate. The best workmanship and the most seasoned wood, I have invariably found in the workshop of Mr. Pettitt, Dover. They never cast, and are beautifully smooth, and all the fittings play easily. Such wood and workmanship, no doubt, may be had of any sensible and honest carpenter. My reference to Pettitt is merely the record of my own experience. In every case the entrance should be cut, not out of the hive, but out of the board on which it rests.

The second objection is, that wood is not sufficiently equable in temperature. I answer, if protected by a bee-shed, which I regard as an essential part of bee-furniture, this objection, so far as summer is concerned, is at once disposed of. Neither rain nor the direct rays of the sun can affect it. But in winter, I am persuaded from thorough experience, that in all hives under sheds additional shelter is required to keep out the searching north and east winds, and to keep in the vital warmth of the bees. For this purpose, I regard good brown paper, or a newspaper after you have read it, as the cleanest, neatest, and really warmest protection. Vermin gather less about paper than woollen material, and brown paper is less palatable to insect pests than any other. Let the back and ends of your bee-boxes inside the bee-shed be covered over in October—the front being left uncovered, unless by the bee-shed, and you will find every objection to wooden hives disposed of by facts.

The first illustration I will present is that of one by Pettitt, made of the best seasoned deal, unpainted, of course; for paint, however necessary to the shed, must on no account be suffered to pollute the hives.

On the top of this hive, of which I give a back view, are four apertures, each about three inches by two; zinc dividers, D D, being pushed in before receiving a swarm, shut off all egress, and on being withdrawn in May, allow the bees to ascend into the bell-glasses E E, of which there are four, each, of course, covered with its nightcap.

B is a glass window, with a thermometer inside. By the window you can examine progress, taking care when you leave to shut the lid.

In very dry, hot weather, when the thermometer rises to ninety-five, draw out the drawer A about two inches, and open the little door C, withdrawing at the same time also the zinc plate F, pushing in its place a perforated zinc plate, precisely the same in size as F, but perforated. A current of air is thus introduced, and in a short time the thermometer will fall five degrees.

Though I do not like the square shape as much as the octagonal or hexagonal, yet I regard this as a very valuable hive-box.

Instead of bell-glasses, Pettitt has substituted boxes for supers, about ten inches in height and seven inches in breadth; the front having glass instead of deal board, with a shutter ready to be put on.

It is in this way:—

Mr. Pettitt has provided, for those who can afford it, a very elegant and ornamental house, which he calls "The Temple Bee-hive." It forms a very suitable ornament on a lawn, and when three guineas can be spared, nothing can be better. It is, however, more adapted to the garden surrounding a gentleman's residence than to circumstances in which it is desirable to obtain large profits from little outlay. But as I wish proprietors of estates to take an interest in bee-keeping, I would try to tempt them by specimens of ornamental bee-furniture.

I give the drawing of it shut, with Mr. Pettitt's description.

Temple Bee-hive, closed. (Showing the entrance).

"Temple Bee-hives, for the humane treatment of honey-bees, are got up in a tasteful and substantial manner; and when placed upon a lawn, in a flower-garden, or on a balcony, have a most picturesque appearance. They need no shade or shelter from extreme solar heat in summer, or from humidity and cold during winter, but afford of themselves a sufficient protection to the industrious tenants. Each hive is furnished with four bell-glasses, from which the drones are effectually excluded, and the temperature of the interior can be so regulated by the use of the ventilators and thermometers, as to prevent the necessity of swarming."

I add also a drawing of the same Temple opened from behind, with his observations.

Temple Bee-hive, open. (Showing the interior.)

"This plate shows the interior of the Temple Hive on the preceding page, with four glass supers upon the top. Owing to the difficulty some persons have experienced in getting the bees to work in the glasses, we have introduced small wooden boxes with glass windows; and it is quite certain that the bees will collect a larger quantity of honey in these small supers than they will in the glasses, particularly in uncertain and unsettled seasons."

Pettitt also constructs a wooden hexagonal hive; but he uses the top as a mere cover to the glasses, and of course perforates the top with four holes, on which he places the glasses. If he will adopt my amendments, he will give us a hive in all respects perfect. First, he must use the top half purely as a super for the honey available to the master. Secondly, he must make half-a-dozen parallel slits from front to back, with corresponding removable slides, made by a rabbet-plane, to be withdrawn in May, when it is desirable that the bees should ascend, and to be reintroduced when the super is full and is to be removed. From this hive I would banish glasses entirely.

I have introduced six slides into this hive, the ends of which are shaped as shown in the following drawing. On removing the slides, very small ones, about an inch long, must be substituted, to prevent bees coming out at the apertures. On removing the super or top half in July, the little slides are removed in succession, and the long ones introduced, in order to shut off the connection between the upper hive, or bee-master's portion, and the lower, or the queen's. When you remove your portion, a zinc plate eighteen inches square is pressed in between the upper and lower boxes, and the upper carried away on it. But this is not always necessary, as I will subsequently show in describing the Ayrshire hive.

I prefer the hexagonal shape, not from any theory, but from practical experience; and if this hive can be constructed at less expense, it will prove alike popular and profitable. Its price maybe reduced by substituting a plain glass window in each section, with a slide shutter instead of door and hinges, retaining all its seasoned wood and thorough workmanship, while lessening its merely decorative features.

The hive-box I have found unfailing in results is the Scotch or Ayrshire hive. It is octagonal in shape; the lowest box is six inches high, and rather wider than a large common straw hive. There are three octagonal boxes in all, the top of each having parallel slits from back to front, with slides corresponding, and withdrawn when required. In May, you place your first super box on the top of the lowest or stock hive, fitting and corresponding in all respects; you withdraw backward each slide, introducing as you do so a little slide about an inch in length, to prevent the egress of the bees behind. There is no possibility of escape in front, from the end of each slide being filled up by the wood of the box.

As soon as this first super is filled, you place on it another, or third; withdraw the slides on the top of the second as you did from the top of the first, and let the bees ascend still higher. A small glass window in each, with a sliding shutter, enables you to report progress. At the honey harvest, you remove each super as I have previously directed; and it must be a very bad summer that does not end as the bee-master would prefer.

Of all straw hives. Neighbours' is the most beautiful and lasting. With the super hive lifted up, you see three bell-glasses on the flat top of the stock hive, the zinc slides being withdrawn. The cost is thirty shillings. Preferable to three glasses is one flat glass, about six or eight inches deep. Bees prefer united to separate action in treasuring up their stores. But either with three small glasses or one large one, it is a very elegant and serviceable hive.

The collateral system of bee-hives has, however, many able and enthusiastic advocates. Nutt is the great advocate, if not the inventor, of this bee-box. As a system for ventilation and facility of deprivation it is unrivalled. His collateral hive, suitable to be placed in a bee-shed, is as below.

A is the stock hive, into which the swarm is introduced and the queen resides; the glass window is open. B B are the side boxes, right and left, having, either in the sides nearest the central box or in the floor, extending right and left, a subterranean communication. C is the cover of a bell-glass: so far in deference to the storifying system. D D D D D are means of ventilation,—above by perforated zinc cupolas, and beneath by drawers, which may be opened or shut as required.

But for every excellence and capability of which the collateral hive is susceptible, Pettitt's is undeniably the happiest and best. I give his own description and woodcut:—

"A is a block front to open for ventilation, also for the egress of the bees from the box F when filled. B Feeding apartment. C C Ventilating slides. D D D Dividers. E 'Pavilion of Nature.' F Surplus box. G G G Ventilators. H H H H Glass surplus hives. The finest specimen of glass honey in the Great Exhibition was taken from one of these hives. They are of such easy and safe access, that they can be approached at the back at mid-day, when the bees are in full work, without giving them any disturbance whatever. The parent hive is provided with apertures for four glasses upon the top, through which the drones cannot pass. These hives are intended for the inside of the apiary, gentleman's library, or attic."

The apertures on the top, which is the retention of the storifying system grafted on the collateral, are all he describes, and a real and valuable device. The price, two guineas, is, for so excellent a bee-box, most reasonable. I can testify from experience that the material is thoroughly seasoned, and the workmanship perfect.

But I still retain my conviction that the collateral system is not productive. The objection to the storifying system, that the bees have more fatigue in climbing than in travelling on the same level, is not tenable. The bee prefers to ascend; it traverses the roof as easily as the floor; it begins its work on the roof, and evidently ignores the difficulty which Nutt and others have invented. The side boxes, also, are too cold; the heat of the pavilion, or stock hive, ascending more easily than radiating sideways. Comb-building requires a certain temperature, without which it is impracticable. Hence, in storifying and collateral hives both, when the weather is cold and ungenial, I cover up as much as possible with brown paper, in order to keep in all the heat generated by the bees. Taylor, the most sensible and practical of apiculturists, thus describes his experience of collateral hives:—

"Another point on which Nutt laid much stress may be mentioned, viz., the supposed advantage to the bees in working on one level, without the necessity of climbing, as in storified hives. I long thought this was indisputable. Further consideration led me more minutely to examine the habits of the bee in this respect, and I became convinced that nature had given it equal facilities for moving in every direction. A scientific correspondent thus writes on this subject:—'I once propounded the question to a very eminent mathematician, and his reply was, that, if any, the difference was too minute to admit of calculation between the horizontal and the perpendicular movement; it was, in the language of the present day 'infinitesimal.' Although few of Nutt's positions have been found to stand the test of practice, it ought not to be said that his crude speculations and rash assertions have been altogether without useful results, as they undoubtedly led to farther investigation, and several modern improvements had thus their origin."

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 ot 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.

"Is made of light net, called Leno, fits over the hat or cap, with sleeves tied at the wrists, and strings at the bottom to draw and fasten round the waist, the sleeves being made of a stronger material. Price 5s.; by post, 6s."

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."

But may it not be preferable still to follow the course indicated by the bees? When pastures fail and turnips perish, from an extreme dry season, we feed cattle with artificial food. Why not try an analogous system with bees? Barley-sugar, I admit, is expensive. But I venture to assert, that if the caste issue not later than June, four pounds of barley-sugar, costing about five shillings, will supplement its own industrious gatherings sufficiently to carry it over the winter into spring, and a pound in spring will start it into vigorous work. If you take from it a super next June or July, weighing ten or twelve pounds, you receive good interest, and your outlay for barley-sugar is returned, and you escape the troublesome and disagreeable process of fumigation. Barley-sugar, I admit, is more costly than cottagers prefer. If you have no arrangement in your hives for feeding, you may boil a pound of common brown sugar—which may be had for fourpence a pound—in a pint of ale; pour it when cool into a soup-plate. Take a circular thin board, the size of the inner bottom of the soup-plate, pierce it with a good-sized gimlet in every direction till it is covered with holes, each through and through. Let it float on the plate. Set the plate opposite your weak swarm day after day for a week. The other bees, strong and busy in June, will rarely touch it, and your destitute family will gladly visit it. The weight of the float will make the sugared ale ascend by the holes, and the bees will sip ad libitum, without the risk of clogging their wings or being drowned. But if, what is more to be desired, you have one of Pettitt's single-box hives, you have only to fill one of his wood feeders, in which there are grooves and parallel edges of wood for the bees to walk on; place it in the drawer beneath the stock, draw out the zinc slide, and the bees will descend and feed with profit and pleasure.

If you have one of Neighbours' hives, already referred to, fill the following zinc pan with the ale and sugar. Put over it the plate of glass, and fix it on the top of the hive. The bees will ascend by the orifice A, the plate-glass cover on the top preventing their escape, while it is so constructed that without moving it you can replenish it by the entrance B.

Taylor thus describes one of his feeding-pans:—

"When there is a hole in the centre of the top of the hive, a trough may be used, made of tin or zinc, seven or eight inches square, and one inch and a quarter deep; having a circular two-inch hole in the middle of the bottom, with a rim round it, standing up half an inch, through which the bees enter the pan from below. Another circular rim or partition, as large in diameter as the square of the pan will admit, is soldered down within it at the four points where it touches the sides. It must not go down to the bottom, but a space should there be left of nearly an eighth of an inch, as a passage for the food, which is poured in at the four angles. A perforated thin wooden bottom or float is fitted loosely into the pan, between the circles, removing an objection sometimes made against the chilling effects of metal upon bees. The float should be a little raised by means of two thin strips of wood, appended below, to allow the liquid to flow beneath. A cover is made by a piece of glass, resting on the larger circle, but cut nearly octagonal in form, so as to leave the corners open. The circle on which the glass rests should be an eighth of an inch lower than the outer rim."

Ingenious bee-masters, who estimate the excellence of their treatment by its tortuous ingenuity, are sure to deride every such homely and easy treatment. But you must disregard their learned and, as they phrase it, scientific talk. In fact, the sulphur-and-match treatment is scarcely worse than the protracted torture of apiarian inquisitors, inflicted on bees by means of their ingenious hives. Experimental investigations are, of course, legitimate. But keeping up queer and twisted and zigzag bee-houses, as monuments of their talent and nothing else, is nothing less than vivisection of bees.

Should the weather prove fine, and the stock hive, as inspected by the glass window, show the honey-comb reaching downward to the floor, place a super on the top. A glass is by far the most elegant, and, of the shape recommended by Taylor, it is the most useful. It is about ten inches wide, six inches high, and straight on the sides, with or without a zinc circular perforated tube.

But it is essential to cover it with a fitting woollen nightcap, the neglect of which is the cause of the unpopularity of bee-glasses.

No additional room ought to be given after the middle of July, even in heath counties; but that supplied in the beginning of June, or toward the end of May, should be large. This is the safe side to err on. Either one good large glass, or, what is less useful, two or three middle-sized, should be used.

In the case of the Ayrshire hive, the rabbet-slides should be drawn out from the top of the bottom box, the super box being previously placed on the top.

During June and July frequently visit your bees. Stand in front of the bee-shed. Study them through your observatory windows. They are too busy to be annoyed. They love company. They are essentially social and friendly, and fond of visitors. Their music will charm your ear, and their industry delight your eye; and their wonderful work will give you many an illustration for sermon, essay, or speech.

The longest summer ends in autumn. The honey harvest comes on.

Pass your zinc plate under the full glass. Detach it, and lift it off the stock hive, of which close up the hole, or place on it a very small bell-glass, just sufficient to cover the aperture, not forgetting the nightcap. Take your glass to a little distance, let it rest for half an hour, then edge up one side, and the bees will rush home to their hive in the bee-shed. Cover the bottom of the glass, when the bees have left, with parchment or thick writing-paper.

Mr. Taylor's directions are as follow:—

"If the queen is not in the super (and she seldom is there after it is filled), the silence that at first prevailed will be exchanged for a murmuring hum, attended by a commotion among the bees; and they shortly after begin to quit the super, without attempting any attack. Should the queen be present, however, a very different scene would ensue, and a hubbub would then commence in the stock hive; though the loss of their queen is sometimes not discovered by the bees for a considerable time. In such a case, the box must be reinstated in its former position, and the communication reopened till some other day. The process might happen to be complicated by the presence of brood, for this the bees leave very reluctantly, and often not at all. In an emergency of this kind, it is best to restore matters to their previous state, and let the super remain till the brood is perfected. A little patience is sometimes necessary; but all attempts at ejection of the bees by tapping, smoking, or driving, usually do more harm than good. So long as they continue to leave the super, it may remain where it is, for on these occasions young bees are sometimes numerous; and if the super is removed, though only to a short distance, these are in part lost, not having become sufficiently acquainted with the position of their home; or, if they enter a wrong hive, they pay the penalty with their lives. This freedom from disturbance has the further good effect of preventing in a great degree the intrusion of robber bees, readily distinguishable from the others by their hovering about the box, instead of flying from it. These are strangers from various quarters, immediately attracted by the scent attending the removal of a full box or glass. Should a few of these plunderers once obtain a taste or sample of the honey, they speedily convey the good news to their associates, when large reinforcements from every hive in the neighbourhood will be at once on the alert, and quickly leave nothing behind but empty combs. Let the separated super, therefore, not be left or lost sight of, but if scented out by robbers, be conveyed into some room or outbuilding, to prevent a general battle, and which might extend itself to all the neighbouring hives. The remaining bees may here be brushed out, escaping by the window or door. Mr. Golding has sometimes found the advantage of using for the purpose a darkened room, with the exception of a very small aperture, to which the bees will fly and make their exit. Others like to remove a super at once to a short distance from the stock hive, leaving it shut up in perfect darkness for an hour or two. Its edge is then raised up, when the bees will evacuate it."

A good plan is, to take the detached super into a room with a window that closes and opens on hinges. On edging up the glass, the bees will fly to the window. Open it for a minute, and they will escape. Shut it again, and repeat the opening. The advantage of this is that wasps and strange bees are excluded, such corsairs careering everywhere in autumn.

Honey is always best preserved in its own sealed and air-tight cells. It will keep throughout the winter. If you separate the honey from the wax, cut the combs into inch-wide pieces, and lay these in sieves over glazed earthenware vessels, and they will yield the choicest honey. It drops from the comb spontaneously.

Take the combs and squeeze them through a cloth. This will yield a second-class honey, admirable for feeding your bees. Carry the remainder, or refuse, in a dish, and place it before your bee-shed, and thousands of your bees will make a good meal from it. If you prefer to save the wax, bring back what the bees have licked clean. Put it into a vessel in which there is as much water as floats it. Place the vessel on a clear fire, stirring till the combs are thoroughly melted. Strain the whole through a fine canvas bag into cold water. Mr. Nutt says:—

"Have ready then a piece of smooth board of such a length that, when one end of it is placed in the tub of cold water, the other end may be conveniently rested against, and securely stayed by, your breast. Upon this inclined plane lay your dripping, reeking strainer, and keeping it from slipping into the cold water by bringing its upper part over the top of the board, so as to be held firmly between it and your breast. If the strainer be made with a broad hem round its top, a piece of strong tape or cord passed through such hem will draw it close, and should be long enough to form a stirrup for the foot, by which an additional power will be gained of keeping the scalding-hot strainer in its proper place on the board; then, by compressing the bag, or rather its contents, with any convenient roller, the wax will ooze through and run down the board into the cold water, on the surface of which it will set in thin flakes. When this part of the operation is finished, collect the wax, put it into a clean saucepan, in which is a little water, to keep the wax from being burned to the bottom; melt it carefully; for should it be neglected, and suffered to boil over, serious mischief might ensue, liquid wax being of a very inflammable nature; therefore, melt it carefully over a slow fire, and skim off the dross as it rises to the top; then pour it into such moulds or shapes as your fancy may direct, having first well rinsed them, in order that you may be able to get the wax, when cold and solid, out of them, without breaking either the moulds or the wax; place them, covered over with cloths or with pieces of board, where the wax will cool slowly; because the more slowly it cools, the more solid if will be, and free from flaws and cracks."

To those who have a taste for very ancient drinks, Richardson's instructions will prove valuable:—

"Mead.—Some persons may feel desirous of making for themselves this once-famous drink, and I shall accordingly furnish them with simple directions for so doing. Common mead is formed by mixing two parts of water with one of honey, boiling them together, and taking off the scum.

"Fermented mead is formed of three parts of water to one of honey, boiled as before, skimmed, and casked. The cask is to be left unbunged and exposed to the sun, or in a warm room, until it ceases to work. It is then bunged, and in about three months it is fit for use. The addition of a ferment is of course necessary, taking care that it be sound, sweet, and good.

"Hops are an improvement to mead, taking from its extreme sweetness; and so is the addition of chopped raisins boiled with it, at the rate of six pounds of honey to each half-pound of raisins; also some lemon peel, a few glasses of brandy, &c.

"Metheglin is only another name for mead, altered by the addition of various ingredients, according to the taste of its preparers. These liquors may be racked, fined, &c., like other wines, and will, if properly managed, keep for years."

I have never tasted these celebrated wines. I have no doubt they are pleasant and wholesome. But I prefer the honey in the honey-comb at breakfast, and mean to recommend it to others also.

VII.—THE INMATES OF THE HIVE.

IN every hive there are three distinct inmates, very easily recognised—the Queen-Bee, the Working-Bee, and the Drone; each essential to the other, and all to the very existence and prosperity of the hive.

THE QUEEN.

The Queen is very elegant. Her symmetry of person, and relative proportions, and greater length of figure, distinguish her from the rest of the community. Her death is followed by a cessation of all labour till a princess ascends the throne. She is the creature of treatment. The egg from which she emerges seems in all respects identical with those from which her subjects issue. On the sides of the tier of comb from which drones and working-bees are developed, large vertical combs, from two to five, are constructed. Woodcuts representing these are found in every bee-book. Taylor gives the following accurate picture:—

The upper portion of the comb contains honey, with the exception of the dark cells, which contain pollen. The lower are drone cells; and the large cells, three in number on each side, are royal palaces. Her majesty is fed with royal jelly till she is ready to show herself; and everything that love and reverence and hope can supply, the bees delight to offer. But it is a curious entomological fact, first discovered by Schirach, an eminent apiarian of the last century, that the bees can supply the loss of their queen by an artificial process—a process confirmatory of the position that every working-bee egg has in it the component elements of royalty, and that development according to a definite treatment is all that is requisite to constitute a queen. On being deprived of their queen by death, the bees select a common grub, not above three days old, break down the wax partitions between it and at least three contiguous cells, forming a vertical pear-shaped chamber. They feed her with the daintiest food, called royal jelly. In five days the grub becomes a nymph, and in fifteen she emerges a royal princess, ascends the vacant throne, and receives the homage, loyalty, and love of fifteen or twenty thousand subjects. Kirby exclaims:—

"What! you will ask, can a larger and warmer house, a different and more pungent food, and a vertical instead of an horizontal posture, give a bee a different-shaped tongue and mandibles; render the surface of its under-legs flat instead of concave; deprive them of the fringe of hairs that forms the basket for carrying the masses of pollen,—of the auricle and pecten which enable the workers to use these legs or feet as pincers,—of the brush that lines the insides of the feet? Can they lengthen its abdomen; alter its colour and clothing; give a curvature to its sting; deprive it of its wax-pockets, and of the vessels for secreting that substance; and render its ovaries more conspicuous and capable of yielding worker and drone eggs?"

In spring, she moves among the combs laying her eggs. Ladies-in-waiting accompany her, who always turn their faces toward her majesty, clear the royal route, and clean out the cells in which she deposits her eggs.

Of this Lardner gives the following representation:—

The Reverend Charles Cotton, while he lived the prince of bee-masters, thus represents the queen and her attendant ladies:—

The queen is the central bee; the surrounding bees are her ladies-in-waiting, and the white specks the eggs she has deposited.

The queen-bee is a model keeper at home, rarely leaving the hive. Most apiarians are interested at present in the habits and acclimatisation of the Ligurian bee—the Apis Ligustica, or Italian bee. It is found easy to substitute an Italian for a British queen, in a British hive which has been deprived of its native sovereign. The bees refuse to constitute themselves into a republic, and therefore they will accept even a foreign queen, who, no doubt, takes the oaths and obligations of the realm over which she is to reign. There is a red tinge in the rings that surround the abdomen of this foreigner; and, contrary to what we should expect in an Italian temperament, the Ligurian bee is more gentle and conciliatory than our native queen. I speak from report, not from personal knowledge. But I hope one day to be present at a levée, and become better acquainted with the royal foreigner.

Lardner gives the following account of two queens, from Huber. Huber placed a piece of comb having three royal cells in a hive in which the queen was laying eggs. The moment she saw them she attacked them, laid them open, and commanded her attendants to destroy them. These instantly tore out the royal nymphs, and devoured the food destined for their use. He then introduced a stranger queen, pregnant with eggs, marking her so as to be able to identify her.

"Immediately on her appearance the workers collected in a crowd around her, and formed as usual a circle of which she was the centre, the heads of all the remaining crowd being directed towards her. This very soon became so dense that she became an absolute prisoner within it.

"While this was going on, a similar ring was formed by another group of workers round the queen-regnant, so that she was likewise for the moment a prisoner.

"The two queens being thus in view of each other, if either evinced a disposition to approach and attack the other, the two rings were immediately opened, so as to give a free passage to the combatants; but the moment they showed a disposition to fly from each other, the rings were again closed, so as to retain them on the spot they occupied.

"At length the queen-regnant resolved on the conflict, and the surrounding crowd, seeming to be conscious of her decision, immediately cleared a passage for her to the place where the stranger stood perched on the comb. She threw herself with fury on the latter, seized her by the root of the wing, and fixed her against the comb so as to deprive her of all power of movement or resistance, and then bending her abdomen, inflicted a mortal stab with her sting, and put an end to the intruder.

"A fruitful queen full of eggs was next placed upon one of the combs of a hive over which a virgin queen already reigned. She immediately began to drop her eggs, but not in the cells; nor did the workers, by a circle of whom she was closely surrounded, take charge of them; but, since no trace of them could be discovered, it is probable that they were devoured.

"The group, by which this intruding queen was surrounded, having opened a way for her, she moved towards the edge of the comb, where she found herself close to the place occupied by the legitimate virgin queen. The moment they perceived each other, they rushed together with ungovernable fury. The virgin, mounting on the back of the intruder, stabbed her several times in the abdomen, but failed to penetrate the scaly covering of the segments. The combatants then, exhausted for the moment, disengaged themselves and retired. After an interval of some minutes they returned to the charge, and this time the intruder succeeded in mounting on the back of the virgin and giving her several stabs with her sting, which, however, failed to penetrate the flesh. The virgin queen, succeeding in disengaging herself, again retired. Another round succeeded, with the like results, the virgin still coming undermost, and, after disengaging herself, again retiring. The combat appeared for some time doubtful, the rival queens being so nearly equal in strength and power; when at last, by a lucky chance, the virgin sovereign inflicted a mortal wound upon the intruder, who fell dead on the spot.

"In this case, the sting of the virgin was buried so deep in the flesh of her opponent, that she found it impossible to withdraw it, and any attempt to do so by direct force would have been fatal to her. After many fruitless efforts, she at length adopted the following ingenious expedient with complete success. Instead of exerting her force on the sting by a direct pull, she turned herself round, giving herself a rotatory motion on the extremity of her abdomen where the sting had its insertion, as a pivot. In this way she gradually unscrewed the sting."

Another very interesting incident is related by Huber. It is described by Lardner:—

"The first work which the population undertakes, after being assured of the loss of its queen, is directed to obtain a successor to her. If there be not royal cells prepared, they set about their construction. While this work was in progress, and in twenty-four hours after their queen had been taken from them, Huber introduced into the hive a fruitful queen in the prime of life, being eleven months old. Not less than twelve royal cells had been already commenced and were in a forward state. The moment the strange queen was placed on one of the combs, one of the most curious scenes commenced which was probably ever witnessed in the animal world, and which has been described by Huber.

"The bees who happened to be near the stranger approached her, touched her with their antennæ, passed their probosces over all parts of her body, and presented her with honey. Then they retired, giving place to others, who approached in their turn and went through the same ceremony. All the bees who proceeded thus clapped their wings in retiring, and ranged themselves in a circle round her, each, as it completed the ceremony, taking a position behind those who had previously offered their respects. A general agitation was soon spread on those sides of the combs corresponding with that of the scene here described. From all quarters the bees crowded to the spot, and each group of fresh arrivals broke their way through the circle, approached the new aspirant to the throne, touched her with their antennæ and probosces, offered her honey, and, in fine, took their rank outside the circle previously formed. The bees forming this sort of court circle clapped their wings from time to time, and fluttered apparently with self-gratification, but without the least sign of disorder or tumult.

"At the end of fifteen or twenty minutes from the commencement of these proceedings the queen, who had hitherto remained stationary, began to move. Far from opposing her progress or hemming her in, as in the cases formerly described, the bees opened the circle on the side to which she directed her steps, followed her, and, ranging themselves on either side of her path, lined the road in the same manner as is done by military bodies in state processions. She soon began to lay drone eggs, for which she sought and found the proper cells in the combs which had been already constructed.

"While these things were passing on the side of the comb where the new queen had been placed, all remained perfectly tranquil on the opposite side. It seemed as though the bees on that side were profoundly ignorant of the arrival of a new queen on the opposite side. They continued to work assiduously at the royal cells, the construction of which had been commenced on that side of the comb, just as if they were ignorant that they had no longer need of them; they tended the grubs in those cells where the eggs had been already hatched, supplying them as usual, from time to time, with royal jelly. But at length the new queen in her progress arriving at that side of the comb, she was received by those bees with the same homage and devotion of which she had been already the object at the other side. They approached her, coaxed her with their antennæ and probosces, offered her honey, formed a court circle round her when she was stationary, and a hedge at either side of her path when she moved, and proved how entirely they acknowledged her sovereignty by discontinuing their labour at the royal cells, which they had commenced before her arrival, and from which they now removed the eggs and grubs, and ate the provisions which they had collected in them.

"From this moment the queen reigned supreme over the hive, and was treated in all respects as if she had ascended the throne in right of inheritance."

THE WORKER-BEE.

The Worker-Bee is an imperfectly developed queen or female. The worker-bees vary in number in a prosperous hive from ten to twenty thousand. They are divided into orders or sections. Some produce wax; others build combs; others feed the young; others ventilate the hive; others, as sentinels, guard the entrance; while the great body traverses gardens and commons, gathering honey for themselves and the bee-master. There are various estimates of the age of the worker-bee. Dr. Bevan thinks the limit of their life is six or eight months. Probably this is the average, from taking into account the accidents of a laborious life, the battles they must wage with enemies, and the wear and tear of ceaseless toil. About the end of August they appear exhausted; their wings become ragged, and the stroke of the sting feebler.

THE DRONE.

The Drone is a male bee, fat, round, and lazy, like an old abbot in mediæval times, who preferred the cellar to his cell. Huber remarks:—

"Naturalists have been extremely embarrassed to account for the number of males in most hives, and which seem only a burden on the community, since they appear to fulfil no function. But we now begin to discern the object of nature in multiplying them to such an extent. As fecundation cannot be accomplished within the hive, and as the queen is obliged to traverse the expanse of the atmosphere, it is requisite that the males should be numerous, that she may have the chance of meeting some one of them. Were only two or three in each hive, there would be little probability of their departure at the same instant with the queen, or that they would meet in their excursions; and most of the females might thus remain sterile."

The queen selects a drone for her husband, who dies invariably at the end of the honeymoon or wedding-trip in the air. But the widowed queen does not marry a second husband. Her whole mind from that day to her death, though surrounded by two thousand suitors, is devoted to the interests and order and government of her realm. During May, and not later than June, the massacre of the drones takes place. They have become at this date encumbrances only. Their mission is ended, and their extermination becomes the duty of the industrious bees. I stated, in my letters to The Times, that I believed the drones had a value additional to that usually assigned to them—viz., that they sustained the temperature of the hive during the chief breeding season. Mr. Cotton—no mean authority—states what substantially confirms all I said:—

"I have watched the drones for many years very attentively, and I will freely give you the result. I will tell you, in the first instance, the facts I have seen, and what I have drawn from them. The drones are hatched just before the new swarms rise; very few go off with them. I for a long time thought that none did; but I am free to confess that I was wrong. They do not fly out early in the day, but about two o'clock they go out to take the air, and make a fine buzzing, which joins very prettily with the milder hum of the bees. Many people kill the drones directly they see them; but they are quite wrong, as the bees know best when they have done their duty, and so we may leave to them the unpleasant task of killing them, though they do not do it in the most merciful way.

"Why do the drones stay in the hive all the morning? Most of the bees are then out gathering honey, so the drones have to stay at home to keep up the heat of the hive by their great fat bodies, just as a gadding wife leaves her husband to look after the children, while she is out taking her pleasure."

It does seem a too great excess of provision to furnish two thousand drones out of whom the queen may select her consort. It looks like unusual waste. It leads to a massacre on a larger scale than is necessary.

The average number of excursions made by each bee is probably ten or twelve, over an area of half a mile; but fewer, of course, in proportion to the greater distance of suitable pasture. Kirby calculates that during a good season a hundred pounds of ponderable material is carried by these tiny workers into their hive. He justly observes:—

"What a wonderful idea does this give of the industry and activity of those useful little creatures! and what a lesson do they read to the members of societies that have both reason and religion to guide their exertions for the common good! Adorable is that Great Being who has gifted them with instincts which render them as instructive to us, if we will condescend to listen to them, as they are profitable."

VIII.—BEE ENEMIES.

THE toad is a lazy, ugly-looking enemy of the bee. His capabilities, however, are not equal to his will and wants. He squats under the bee landing-board, and seizes every too heavily laden or wing-weary labourer that accidentally drops. This is really very cruel. The bee that has finished the longest journey, and gone through the hardest work, and borne the heat and brunt of the hot, long summer day, takes a rest on a leaf just before entering the hive, or comes short of the door of his home by an inch, and is seized by the unclean monster and devoured. The only way of getting rid of this unfeeling destroyer, who sits "seeking whom he may devour," is to pay a visit to your hives soon after sunrise and an hour before sunset; and on finding him on his wicked watch, seize him by the hind leg and throw him to as great a distance across your hedge as you well can. But if the "bee-master" be a lady—if I may use the phrase—let her empty on him a snuff-box full of strong snuff, and he will reflect a few days before he returns to his old quarters. I give this prescription to ladies, because they do not like to seize the cold-blooded creature and fling him to a respectable distance. How favoured our Irish bee-masters must be in this matter!—they have no toads. I also wish they had no riots. But troubles must come in some shape. Still, I would rather have toads than Belfast navvies and ship-carpenters, and any day I would prefer being The Times Bee-master to be Mayor of Belfast.