BEE-KEEPERS AND BEE-KEEPING
Most business occupations lead to rivalry and all the selfish
emotions incident to competition; not so is bee-keeping; quite the
opposite, indeed, as there is a freemasonry that holds bee-keepers
together and renders their attitude toward each other friendly and
helpful. Bee-keeping is everywhere a bond of brotherhood and a sign
of congenial tastes. One night at a dinner-party the gentleman on
my right was a stranger, known to me only by reputation as a lawyer
of high standing and great erudition. He was reserved and silent,
and evidently bored by the trivialities of table-talk. Some one
incidentally spoke of our bees, when the face of my neighbour became
illumined with interest, and he said, “I am sure that by becoming a
lawyer I spoiled a good bee-keeper. I have never found anything else
so interesting as bee-keeping;” and thus was swept away the curtain of
cold conventionalism which had hung between us, and we began, from that
moment, to be friends.
Nowhere is this brotherly interest more noticeable than in the
bee-books and the bee-journals. The former bear evidence, on every
page, of kindness and courtesy to all; while the latter are like
friendly correspondence published, wherein John Smith of Maine
explains his views on the bee business to Timothy Jones of Oregon, and
incidentally sends his kindest regards to the family.
I never take into my hands that delightful book, “A B C of Bee
Culture,” without turning to the biographies of noted bee-keepers, and
looking again at the faces there depicted, noting the noble forehead of
Huber; the keen, scholarly face of Dzierzon; the judicial countenance
of Friend Quinby and the beautiful expression of the venerable
Langstroth. And thus on, page by page, and getting, by the way, a
friendly greeting from the kindly eyes of Professor Cook, that most
excellent of good teachers; and finally deriving sincere satisfaction
from a long look at the keen, humorous face of Mr. A. I. Root himself.
These leaders in apiculture are men with whom one is proud to be
associated. And the fact that there are, in the United States, 300,000
persons engaged in bee-keeping, makes one hopeful that our republican
institutions are to be guarded by intelligent citizenship.
It is interesting to note that knowledge of bees has been given to
the world by men who have attained the high peaks of scientific fame.
Such knowledge began with Aristotle and Pliny in ancient times, and
received no additions during the uncertain Dark Ages. It began anew
with Swammerdam, in the seventeenth century, was augmented by Linnæus,
De Geer, Réaumur, Bonnet, Lyonnet, Fabricius, Latreille, Lamarck, and
finally reached a climax in the study of the habits of the bee by the
blind Huber, who was born in Geneva in 1750. His observations made
with his own brain, but with the eyes of his wife, niece and servant,
form a classic in bee literature. In 1811 there were born, a continent
apart, two great bee-keepers: Langstroth in Philadelphia, and Dzierzon
in Silesia. Both were clergymen, but were also true scientists, and
both invented means by which the combs could be moved and examined.
Langstroth carried his invention farther, and in 1852 devised the
movable frame which revolutionised bee-keeping.
Up to this time the business of the bee-man was largely guess-work. He
did not know anything about the condition of his bees in the hive, for
he had no way of penetrating that dark chamber. The ways of reaping
the honey-harvest were devious; at best the combs were torn from the
hives with little regard for the rights and lives of the bees. Finally,
there was devised the truly infernal plan of killing the bees with the
fumes of burning brimstone, before taking their treasure; this method
undoubtedly originating in the turgid theology of the times.
However, about the time of Langstroth, someone, or perhaps many, had
discovered that bees stored their honey in the upper part of the hive;
and the old box-hive had a few auger-holes in the top, over which
was inverted a box, which the bees usually filled, and thus saved
themselves from the brimstone pit. We remember well the delight in our
family when we used, for the first time, such boxes with glass sides;
and as we saw they were being filled with combs, we rejoiced that we
need not “take up” any more swarms, as the suffocation by sulphur fumes
was termed.
When, to the invention of the box super, was added the greater
invention of Langstroth, and finally thereunto was added the invention
of the honey-extractor, bee-keeping became a science, instead of a
haphazard avocation.
Bee-keeping in America has since then passed through many phases and
survived many experiments. Our bee-keepers have been wide awake and
willing to try all things and hold fast to the good. Once, having read
of the floating apiaries of the Nile, which follow the flower bloom
along the banks, an enthusiast tried the same scheme on the Mississippi
River, starting at the southern part early in the season and coming
north abreast of the spring; but too many bees were left behind to make
this profitable. Another enterprising gentleman took his bees south
winters, but the cost of transportation took away the profits. Now,
however, another plan for gaining pasturage is proving most successful;
_i. e._, the establishment of out-apiaries. As seventy-five or a
hundred colonies will usually take all the nectar of a given locality,
the bee-keeper places his surplus colonies in other apiaries far enough
distant, so there is good pasturage for all. Mr. A. L. Coggshall has
about 3,000 colonies in out-apiaries in central New York.
The up-to-date bee-keeper is not merely an operator in his apiary,
but a co-operator with his bees, and we firmly believe that the bees
are being educated by the partnership, as well as the bee-keeper.
Bees certainly do learn by experience, as is well instanced by some
Cyprians, which, in their native home, build columns of wax and
propolis at the hive-entrance to keep out the large death’s-head moth
which preys upon them. After living in this country for two years,
the bees discovered that there were none of these moths about, and so
ceased building these bars. The readiness with which our bees use the
comb-foundation and fit their combs to the frames and follow the hint
given by the starters in the sections, all point to their adaptability;
and however others may regard the matter, we never take off a section
filled with just one pound of pearly comb and amber honey that we do
not pay tribute to the bee intelligence which placed it there, and
regard the little artisans as true partners in our enterprise. And we
never doubt that in the future this co-operation and co-education of
bees and bee-keepers will result in a perfection of honey-production as
yet undreamed.
[Illustration:
_Photograph by Ralph W. Curtis_
PLATE XXX. BOX-ELDER
Staminate and pistillate flowers. This and the other maples and the
willows give the bees pasturage in early Spring.]
[Illustration:
_Photograph by Ralph W. Curtis_
PLATE XXXI. BLOSSOMS OF BLACK LOCUST
The locusts often yield large crops of honey.]