TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
HOW TO KEEP BEES
[Illustration:
_Photograph by Ralph W. Curtis_
PLATE I. BASSWOOD BLOSSOM]
How to Keep Bees
A Handbook for the Use
of Beginners
By
Anna Botsford Comstock, B. S.
_With Illustrations_
[Illustration: Colophon]
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
MCMXI
Copyright, 1905, by
Doubleday, Page & Company
Published April, 1905
_All rights reserved, including that of
translation—also right of translation
into the Scandinavian languages_
PREFACE
This book has been prepared especially to meet the needs of the
beginner in bee-keeping. It is not intended to be a complete treatise
for the professional apiarist, but rather a handbook for those who
would keep bees for happiness and honey, and incidentally for money.
It is hoped, too, that it will serve as an introduction to the more
extended manuals already in the field.
When we began bee-keeping we found the wide range of information and
varying methods given in the manuals confusing; but a little experience
taught us that bee-keeping is a simple and delightful business which
can be carried on in a modest way without a great amount of special
training. After a beginning has been made, skill in managing the bees
is gained naturally and inevitably, and interest is then stimulated by
the wider outlook which bewilders the novice.
For the sake of simplicity this volume is restricted to knowledge
gained in practical experience in a small apiary; and the writer has
sought to exclude from it those discussions which, however enlightening
to the experienced, are after all but devious digressions from the
simple and straight path which the feet of the inexperienced must tread
to success in the apiary.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Why Keep Bees 3
II. How to Begin Bee-Keeping 8
III. The Location and the Arrangement of the Apiary 20
IV. The Inhabitants of the Hive 27
V. The Industries of the Hive 50
VI. The Swarming of Bees 64
VII. How to Keep from Keeping Too Many Bees 73
VIII. The Hive and How to Handle It 83
IX. Details Concerning Honey 106
X. Extracted Honey 117
XI. Points About Beeswax 126
XII. Feeding Bees 136
XIII. How to Winter Bees 145
XIV. Rearing and Introducing Queens 156
XV. Robbing in the Apiary 164
XVI. The Enemies and Diseases of Bees 172
XVII. The Anatomy of the Honey-Bee 181
XVIII. Interrelation of Bees and Plants 194
XIX. Bee-Keepers and Bee-Keeping 206
XX. Bee-Hunting 211
Bibliography 215
Index 219
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE I.—Basswood blossom _Frontispiece_
Observation hives Page 2
FACING PAGE
PLATE II.—(_a_) Two flat section-boxes (_b_) Corneil smoker 14
PLATE III.—(_a_) Dixie bee-brush, spur wire-embedder and Van
Deusen wax-tube fastener. (_b_) A super with fences. (_c_) The
Porterbee-escape in a honey-board 15
PLATE IV. Hives well shaded by a tree 26
PLATE V. (_a_) Queen; drone; worker. (_b_) Queen cell. (_c_)
Miller’s queen introducing cage 27
PLATE VI. Head of drone; head of queen; head of worker; ventral
surface of worker showing plates of wax 30
PLATE VII. Legs and antennæ of the honey-bee 31
PLATE VIII. Drone cells in a comb of honey 50
PLATE IX. Side of hive removed showing the bees at work 51
PLATE X. Bees hanging in a curtain secreting wax 62
PLATE XI. Hiving bees; cutting down a swarm 63
PLATE XII. (_a_) Two self-spacing frames. (_b_) An empty super.
(_c_) The Doolittle division board feeder 90
PLATE XIII. Examining the brood-frames 91
PLATE XIV. (_a_) Alley’s queen and drone trap. (_b_) A well
filled section. (_c_) One empty section-holder, and one filled
with section-boxes 106
PLATE XV. One and a half story hive for comb-honey 107
PLATE XVI. Drone and Queen trap; queen mailing and introducing
cage; queen-protector and queen-cage used in queen-rearing, and
bee-escape 110
PLATE XVII. “In apple-blossom time” 111
PLATE XVIII. (_a_) Taking off upper story of hive containing combs
for extracting. (_b_) Extracting-room showing apparatus for
extracting honey 122
PLATE XIX. (_a_) Uncapping comb before extracting the honey.
(_b_) Placing uncapped comb in one of the pockets of the
extractor 123
PLATE XX. (_a_) Drawing honey from extractor.
(_b_) Pouring extracted honey into keg for shipping in bulk 126
PLATE XXI. (_a_) Extracted honey in pails, candied.
(_b_) Extracted honey in glass jars ready for market 127
PLATE XXII. Winter quarters in chaff hives 154
PLATE XXIII. Plum blossoms 155
PLATE XXIV. Sumac in blossom. Blossom of mountain maple 184
PLATE XXV. Fig. 1. Vertical longitudinal section of the body
of a larva of an insect. Fig. 2. Section of the body-wall of
insect. Fig. 3. Head of a bee and its appendages. Fig. 4.
Glands of a honey-bee. Fig. 5. The wax plates 185
PLATE XXVI. (_a_) The reproductive organs of the honey-bee.
(_b_) Fig. 1. The internal anatomy of the honey-bee. Fig. 2.
The respiratory system of the honey-bee 192
PLATE XXVII. An old-fashioned apiary 193
PLATE XXVIII. (_a_) Thorn-apple blossoms.
(_b_) Wild crab-apple blossoms 198
PLATE XXIX. Buckwheat in blossom 199
PLATE XXX. Box-elder, staminate and pistillate flowers 210
PLATE XXXI. Blossoms of black locust 211
HOW TO KEEP BEES
[Illustration: An ordinary beehive made into an observation-hive by
inserting glass panes in sides and putting a glass sheet under the
wooden cover. (From V. L. Kellogg.)]
[Illustration: An observation-hive holding only two frames, with the
two sides wholly of glass, so that any single bee can be continuously
watched. (From V. L. Kellogg.)]
CHAPTER I
WHY KEEP BEES
The reasons for keeping bees are many and various; for it is an
industry as many-sided as the cells of a honey-comb, one of its chief
charms being that it appeals equally to “many men of many minds.” To
know all the reasons why one should keep bees one must be conversant
with the history of man; he must be familiar with the Vedas of India
and master of the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt; he must study the
life of the common people in the Hebrew Scriptures and the classic
literatures of Greece and Italy, and must be able to translate into
terms of common human experiences the myths and legends of diverse
peoples. For bees have been a part of the conscious life of man from
the beginning. Not only have they sweetened his daily bread with
beneficent honey, but they have had their place in his religious rites,
and also in his family observances, as millions of happy lovers may
attest who have experienced the “honeymoon.” However, lacking the
erudition necessary to enumerate all, the author of this book is quite
content to mention a few of the more cogent reasons why anyone should,
in this day and generation, undertake the keeping of bees.
One may keep bees for the sake of the honey, which is a most legitimate
and fit reason. Honey is a wholesome and delicious addition to the
family table. Though it is a luxury, yet it may be afforded by one
living in moderate circumstances, if he be willing to give a modicum
of time and care to the happy little creatures that gladly make it for
him, free of all expense. But for the one possessed of great wealth,
and able to corner the honey-market any day, there is sure delight, as
well as education, in raising his own honey. Any person of experience
well knows that the honey made by one’s own bees has quality and
flavour superior to that made by other people’s bees. In fact, the only
way to become a connoisseur of honey is to keep bees, for thus only may
one learn to discriminate between honey made from basswood and that
gathered from clover; or to distinguish, at first taste, the product of
orchard in bloom from that drawn from vagrant blossoms, which, changing
day by day, mark the season’s processional. He who has once kept bees
and become an artist in honey-flavours, would never again, willingly,
become a part of the world at large, which, in its dense ignorance,
dubs all white honey “basswood” or “clover” indiscriminately, and
believes all dark honey is gathered from buckwheat.
Some, perhaps, might keep bees for the sake of making money. For him
who would get rich keeping bees, this book manifestly is not written;
its title explains that it is meant to show how to keep bees, and not
how to make bees keep him. The person who would, from the first, make
bee-keeping his chief work should receive his training in a large
apiary. As a vocation it demands the entire time and energy of a shrewd
and able person to insure success; of such, America already has a great
number, with yearly incomes varying from $1,000 to $10,000. However,
the desire to make the bees keep themselves and add more or less to
the family income is a practical and sensible reason for keeping bees.
Fifteen or twenty colonies may be managed with comparatively little
time and attention and the work may be done largely by women or the
younger members of the household. If proper care be given to such an
apiary, it will prove of material benefit to the family purse; for,
if the season be favourable, the product of one colony should net the
owner from four to ten dollars. We know of boys who have thus earned
their college expenses; and many women have bought immunity from the
drudgery of the kitchen with money paid them for their crops of honey.
It should be borne in mind that honey-money is not obtained without
thought, energy, and some hard work. The bees would have been less
beneficent to mankind had they bestowed honey without demanding a
return in care and labour.
Many have kept bees as a recreation, and there is none better. It gives
delightful and absorbing occupation in the open air and is not merely a
rest from mental and sedentary labours, but is a stimulus to health and
strength as well. In the various bee journals are recorded testimonials
from thousands who, when tired, ill, and nervously worn out, began
bee-keeping, and through it regained vigour and found a new interest
in life. Notwithstanding the fact that bees have honest stings, they
can work the miracle of changing a dyspeptic pessimist into a cheerful
optimist with a rapidity and completeness that merits our highest
admiration.
A love for natural science is a very good reason for keeping bees.
Nowhere are there more fascinating problems for the investigator than
those still unsolved in the hive. Of all the lower animals, bees are,
perhaps, the most highly developed in certain ways; and it is more
probable that the mysteries of the eternal heavens and the distant
stars be made plain than that we ever learn the truths that underlie
the development of the “Spirit of the Hive.”
Another reason for keeping bees is the insight to be gained therefrom
into the conditions of perfect communism. The bees and their relatives
are the most intelligent and consistent socialists that have yet been
developed in this world; and, through studying their ways, one may
discern with startling clearness how the perfect socialism grinds off
all the projecting corners of the individual until it fits perfectly in
its communal niche. In the hive individual traits, as exemplified in
kindness, selfishness, love and hate, are moved up a notch in the scale
and characterise the whole community, even though they are eliminated
from its members. If one is a social philosopher, he may become very
wise, indeed, by studying the results of the laws of socialism which
have been executed inexorably through countless centuries in the bee
commune.
Last, but by no means least, one may keep bees because they belong to
home life and should have place in every well-kept garden or orchard.
There is no more beautiful domestic picture to be found in the world
than a fine garden with a row of hollyhocks hiding the boundary fence
and affording a fitting background for a neat row of white hives. It
is not alone the æsthetic beauty the bees bring to the garden which
touches the deeper currents of feeling and is productive of profound
satisfaction; it is something more fundamental; for since the thyme
of Hymettus yielded nectar, the happy hum of the bee has yielded
comfort to the human senses. The garden without bees seems ever to lack
something; mayhap, the silent longing of the flowers for their friendly
visitors, intangible but real, so permeates the place that we are dimly
conscious of it. Be that as it may, the perfect garden can only be
attained through the presence of happy and populous bee-hives.