HIVING OF SWARMS.
The hiving of bees is a proceeding so well known that it seems
unnecessary to offer any observations on the particular method of
effecting it.
In every apiary there should be a stock of hives, boxes, &c. always
ready before-hand, either for storifying or for single-hiving; a neglect
of this precaution will often be productive of great inconvenience and
confusion.
It is always desirable to _have swarms put into new hives_, as old
ones often contain the larvæ of moths and other embryo insects, which
may prove injurious to the bees. If straw be the material with which
they are made, every rough straw should be removed from the interior,
otherwise the bees will lose that time in rendering it smooth, which they
could employ to greater advantage in gathering honey and constructing
combs. For a similar reason, if boxes be preferred, these should be made
air-tight with putty or other cement, that the bees may not consume
their time in filling the crevices with propolis. If on any occasion the
apiarian be induced to have recourse to _an old hive_, for receiving a
swarm, it _should, before being used, be dipped into boiling water_, to
destroy the eggs of moths and other insects, after which it should be
made perfectly dry.
In the common straw-hive, two new sticks placed across each other, at
the second round of straw from the bottom, will be useful to support the
weight of combs: the bees require no aid at the top, to which they will
themselves securely attach the combs, as may be seen in hollow trees
where bees have taken up their abode.
_Dressing the insides of the hives_ is of doubtful advantage. Some people
rub the interior of the hive with balm, bean-tops, fennel, &c. or smear
it over with cream and honey. Wildman strongly reprobates this practice,
as it gives the bees the trouble of making the hive clean again. If any
thing be used, in compliance with custom, sugared or honeyed ale is the
most alluring. +Keys+ says that a hive, containing old combs and dressed
with sugared ale, will often decoy a swarm to settle in it. +Huish+
recommends sprinkling the interior of the hives with human urine; which
he regards as a specific, on account of "its _abounding_ with _sugar_
and _salt_, two substances of which bees are particularly fond:" if
such were the fact, it would I think, be more cleanly, and therefore a
preferable plan, to mingle those favourite articles with a little ale or
water for this purpose. Huish himself recommends smearing the interior
of the hive with honey, when a swarm of bees settle in a situation,
from which it cannot be dislodged and made to enter the hive, by shaking
or other forcible means. If urine be attractive to bees, its attraction
must proceed from other qualities than those which he has mentioned; it
does certainly contain a _very small portion_ of _salt_, but I know of no
analysis of healthy human urine, which admits sugar to be a constituent
part of it.
A tinkling noise is generally, though I believe erroneously, considered
to be useful in inducing bees to settle. +Keys+ recommends the use of a
watchman's rattle, but not till the queen has come forth, for fear of
alarming her too soon, nor after the bees have begun to cluster.
+Keys+ advises also the throwing of sand or water among the bees, to make
them cluster; likewise the making of some _very_ great noise, such as
firing a gun; some have supposed the bees to mistake a loud noise, for
thunder foreboding a storm; but this, instead of causing them to settle,
would rather cause their return to the parent stock. +Dr. Evans+ suggests
the probability of noises being first used, as signals to the neighbours
that a swarm was up, and being afterwards continued by habit only. The
throwing up of handfuls of dust or sand, is said to make bees descend,
when they soar very high; these missiles being mistaken for rain.
_Bees, when swarming, are generally peaceable_, and if treated gently,
may be hived without danger or difficulty. _A remarkable instance of
their inoffensiveness at this time_ is related by +Mr. Thorley+. Wanting
to dislodge a swarm from the branches of a codlin-tree, he placed the
hive in the hands of his maid-servant, who being a novice, covered her
head and shoulders with a cloth, to guard her face; on shaking the tree,
most of the bees alighted upon the cloth, and quickly crept under it,
covering the girl's breast and neck up to her very chin. Mr. T. impressed
her with the importance of neither flinching from nor buffeting the bees,
and began immediately to search for the queen; which on finding, he
gently seized and removed, but without effecting a dislodgement of the
swarm: thus disappointed, he suspected that there was a second queen;
which actually proved to be the case: on securing, and placing her also
in the hive, with a portion of the bees, the rest followed in multitudes,
till in two or three minutes not one bee remained upon the girl, who was
thus released from her state of apprehension and alarm, without feeling
the point of a single sting. All persons similarly situated may not be
so fortunate, as, notwithstanding the greatest precaution, bees may be
provoked to draw their swords. +Dr. Evans+ relates a case of this kind;
a swarm having settled on the branch of a larch-tree, and its long tufts
of narrow leaves flapping the bees as the bough was shaken, the woman
who hived them, received above thirty stings. If the weather be windy, at
the time of swarming, they are often irritable, and apt to sting; though
clustered, they will frequently return home: this last occurrence is
generally caused by the absence of a queen; but it may also be produced
by a sudden shower, or by the transit of a dark cloud.
A queen has sometimes a defect in her wings, or is disabled by some
accident; either of these misfortunes may cause the return of a swarm, or
produce symptoms of discontent after hiving.
As many persons doubt _the queen's importance_ to the harmonious union
of a swarm, I shall give an instance or two, to show how essentially
necessary her presence is to produce this effect. +Dr. Warder+ being
desirous of ascertaining the extent of the bees' "loyalty to their
sovereign, ran the hazard of destroying a swarm, for this purpose."
Having shaken on the grass, all the bees from a hive which they had only
tenanted the day before, he searched for the queen, by stirring amongst
them with a stick. Having found and placed her, with a few attendants, in
a box, she was taken into his parlour; where the box being opened, she
and her attendants immediately flew to the window, when he clipped off
one of her wings, returned her to the box, and confined her there for
above an hour. In less than a quarter of an hour, the swarm ascertained
the loss of their queen, and instead of clustering together in one social
mass, they diffused themselves over a space of several feet, were much
agitated, and uttered a piteous sound. An hour afterwards they all took
flight, and settled upon the hedge where they had first alighted, after
leaving the parent stock; but instead of hanging together, like a bunch
of grapes, as when the queen was with them, and as swarms usually hang,
they extended themselves thirty feet along the hedge, in small bunches,
of forty, fifty, or more. The queen was now presented to them, when
they all quickly gathered round her, with a joyful hum, and formed one
harmonious cluster. At night the Doctor hived them again, and on the
following morning repeated his experiment, to see whether the bees would
rise; the queen being in a mutilated state, and unable to accompany
them, they surrounded her for several hours, apparently willing to die
with her rather than desert her in distress. The queen was a second time
removed, when they spread themselves out again, as though starching
for her: her repeated restoration to them, at different parts of their
circle, produced one uniform result, "and these poor loyal and loving
creatures, always marched and counter-marched every way as the queen was
laid." The Doctor persevered in these experiments, till after five days
and nights of fasting, they all died of famine, except the queen, who
lived a few hours longer and then died. _The attachment of the queen to
the working bees_, appeared to be equally as strong as their attachment
to her; though offered honey on several occasions, during the periods of
her separation from them, she constantly refused it, "disdaining a life
that was no life to her, without the company of those which she could not
have."
My next instance is contained in the _Transactions of the Society of
Arts, &c._ for 1790, in a paper written by +Mr. Simon Manley+, of Topsham
in Devonshire, for which the Society awarded him five guineas. "I have
before now," says he, "taken the queen-bee, while in the act of swarming,
put her into a clean bottle, and kept her from the swarm a full hour. I
have then shown her to several gentlemen, the swarm continuing to hover,
without settling, the whole time. I brought her home, and laid her on the
floor of a kitchen window. Being moist with her own breath in the bottle,
when I took her out she licked herself clean, and being quite recovered,
was carried out and placed upon the hive she swarmed from. About a
handful of her subjects soon found her out, and seemed much rejoiced at
finding her. From thence she rose up, and pitched upon a currant bush,
and the remainder of the swarm came to her, and settled at once."
+Swammerdam+ tried the experiment of fastening the queen by one of her
legs to the end of a pole, by which he induced the bees to follow him
wherever he chose. Reaumur relates a somewhat similar instance of a
bee-man mentioned by +Father Labbat+ in his Travels, who had the address
to conceal the source of his dexterity. +Wildman's+ expertness in this
way was celebrated far and near. _Vide_ chapter on Uniting Swarms.
In confirmation of the evidence I have already given, of the queen's
importance to the well-being of the community, I will advert to some
experiments of +Huber+. He removed a queen from one of his hives; the
bees were not immediately aware of it, but continued their labours,
watched over the young, and performed the whole of their ordinary
occupations. In a few hours afterwards, agitation commenced, and all
appeared to be a scene of tumult; a singular humming noise was heard,
the bees deserted their young and rushed over the surface of the combs,
with delirious impetuosity. On replacing the queen, tranquillity was
instantly restored; and from what will be said presently, it appeared
that they knew her individual person. Huber varied this experiment with
other hives, in different ways; instead of restoring their own queen,
he tried to substitute _a stranger queen_; the manner of her reception
depended upon the period at which she was introduced. If twenty-four
hours had elapsed after the removal of the queen, the stranger was
well received, and at once admitted to the sovereignty of the hive.
If not more than eighteen hours had elapsed, she was at first treated
as a prisoner, but after a time permitted to reign. If the stranger
was introduced within twelve hours, she was immediately surrounded by
an impenetrable cluster of bees, and commonly died either from hunger
or privation of air. It appeared therefore, in the course of these
experiments, that from twenty-four to thirty hours were required, for a
colony to forget its sovereign, and that if, before the lapse of that
period, no substitute was presented, they set about constructing royal
cells, as stated in page 22; and moreover, that if, during the time they
were so occupied, a princess was brought to them, the fabrication of
royal cells was instantly abandoned, and the larvæ selected to occupy
them were destroyed. On the admission of a welcome stranger queen, more
regard is perhaps shown to her at first, than to a restored natural
queen,--at least there are more conspicuous demonstrations of it:
the nearest workers touch her with their antennæ, and, passing their
proboscis over every part of her body, give her honey. In the cases above
related, the bees all vibrated their wings at once, as if experiencing
some agreeable sensations, and ranged themselves in a circle round her.
Others, in succession, broke through this circle, and having repeated the
same process, of touching her with their antennæ, giving her honey, &c.
formed themselves in a circle behind the others, vibrating their wings
and keeping up a pleasurable hum. These demonstrations were continued for
a quarter of an hour, when the queen beginning to move towards one part
of the circle, an opening was made through which she passed, followed
and surrounded by her customary guard. Such is the substance of Huber's
account: it does not entirely correspond with what has been stated by
Dunbar. _Vide_ chapter on Bee-boxes.
The loyal _attachment of bees to their queen_ extends even beyond this:
+Huber+ states that he has seen the workers, "after her death, treat her
body as they treated herself when alive, and long prefer this inanimate
body to the most fertile queens he had offered them." And +Dr. Evans+
relates a case, in which a queen was observed to lie on some honey-comb
in a thinly peopled hive, apparently dying, and surrounded by six bees,
with their faces turned towards her, quivering their wings, and most
of them with their stings pointed, as if to keep off any assailant. On
presenting them honey, though it was eagerly devoured by the other bees,
the guards were so completely absorbed in the care of their queen, as
entirely to disregard it. The following day, though dead, she was still
guarded; and though the bees were still constantly supplied with honey,
their numbers were gradually diminished by death, till, at the end of
three or four days, not a bee remained alive.
+Wildman+ says that if the queen of a swarm be lost, though it happen
several weeks after leaving the mother hive, the bees will return to it,
carrying their honey with them. This, if true, must occur where no grub
can be converted into a queen. Both +Reaumur+ and +Wildman+ tried the
experiment of introducing a royal larva into a queenless stock, when the
bees immediately set to work again, on the inspiration of hope alone.
Should symptoms of discontent be observed after hiving, the queen will
probably be discovered on the ground, or somewhere apart; surrounded by a
small cluster of attendants, whom nothing but violence can separate from
her. If she be taken up either singly or with the cluster, and placed
near the entrance of the hive containing the swarm, all will be harmony.
_Sometimes a swarm divides into two portions_, which settle apart from
each other and have each a distinct leader. The conduct of the apiarian
must be governed by the size of the two divisions, and the season at
which they emerge; unless both be large and the swarming early, they had
better be hived in separate boxes, and joined together, in the manner
recommended in Chap. XIX.
+Columella+ was the first who proposed union by killing the supernumerary
queen.
The branch on which the swarm settled is sometimes rubbed with wormwood,
or smoked with disagreeable fumes, to drive away all remaining loiterers.
In every operation, it is desirable to avoid crushing a single bee, as,
in case of discovery, the rest are excited to anger. See chapter on the
_Senses of Bees_.
Immediately on the bees taking to the hive, it should be placed upon a
table, on a proper floor board, and be covered with boughs or a cloth;
and the hive should be near the parent stock, to catch stragglers,
on their return home. At night it should be removed to its permanent
station.