A little care will have to be exercised in purchasing the swarm. It
should be got from a reliable local bee-keeper—a man on whom you
can depend to give you what you want, namely, a healthy, natural,
“first”[2] swarm, weighing not less than about three pounds. You should
receive the swarm in May, but the middle of June will not be too late
in many parts of England, especially if the season is at all backward.
[Illustration: STANDARD FRAME FITTED WITH FOUNDATION.]
Everything should be in readiness for the swarm. The hive should be
given three or four coats of good light stone-colour paint, and a site
must be chosen for it. This should be in a quiet corner of the garden,
sheltered from the prevailing winds, and, by preference, shaded from
the midday sun; but a dark, damp place under the constant drip of trees
should be avoided. Most bee-keepers prefer to have their hives facing
south or south-east to catch the early morning sun, but this is not a
matter of great importance.
The location having been decided upon and the hive set level in it, the
next care will be to furnish the hive.
Each frame must have a sheet of beeswax, called _brood foundation_,
fixed into it, to act as a foundation on which the bees may build their
comb. Bees naturally start building their combs from some support above
them, continuing the work in a downward direction. The foundation must,
therefore, be fixed into the top bar of the frame, which has a saw-cut
down the middle on purpose to receive it. Prize the saw-cut wide open,
and then insert the edge of the foundation into it. Two or three fine
shoemaker’s brads driven through the side of the top bar will make the
work secure.
Strips of foundation about two inches wide are generally considered
sufficient for fitting into frames, but larger sheets answer better.
The illustration shows a full-sized sheet of foundation which is held
in the centre of the frame by means of tinned wire embedded in the wax.
The sides and bottom of full sheets must be kept clear of the frame.
One or two _quilts_ should be cut out of some warm material just the
size to cover the tops of the frames; a three-inch round hole should
be made in the centre for the feeder. A small square piece of cloth
should also be cut for covering the hole when the feeder is not on.
Felt or baize is best for quilts, but pieces of old carpet answer the
purpose very well. A quilt of ticking or unbleached calico, similarly
cut, should be placed under the other quilts, next the bees, to prevent
them from nibbling holes in the soft material.
In preparing the hive for the reception of the swarm, see that the
frames are equally spaced by means of the metal ends, so that they
hang one and a half inches apart from centre to centre. Do not attempt
to hive the swarm until late in the afternoon, say about 4 P.M. and 5
P.M. If the swarm arrives in the middle of the day, place it in a cool
place, and see that it has plenty of ventilation.
Do not follow the old-fashioned plan of smearing the inside of the hive
with beer and sugar. It is a mistake to suppose that the bees require
such mixtures when swarming, or, indeed, at any other time. The only
thing they want now is a clean dry hive.
For hiving the swarm, the alighting board will have to be extended by
means of a large board, one or two feet wide, called a _hiving-board_,
which may be propped up with bricks so as to be on a slight slant. The
whole should be covered with a sheet. Also raise the stock-box up a
little in front, so as to enlarge the entrance. The stock-box may be
kept in this position by means of two little pebbles.
Though the chances of getting badly stung while hiving a swarm of bees
are more or less remote, it will be advisable to wear the bee-veil, if
it be only for the purpose of inspiring confidence during the first
attempt at bee-work. The smoker also, though seldom necessary on this
occasion, may come in useful, and should be at hand, charged with a
roll of smouldering brown paper.
[Illustration: BEE-VEIL AND SMOKER.]
Now shake a few bees on to the sheet. They will immediately commence
running up into the hive. Scarcely any will take to the wing. When this
first lot of bees has made a good start, some more may be shaken down
on top of them, and this will have the effect of making them all much
more eager to press into the hive. A few light puffs of smoke from the
smoker may now be useful to dislodge an inert cluster, or to correct
the course of a group of bees that may have a mistaken notion as to the
direction in which the entrance to the hive lies.
Unless the queen has been caged, she should now be carefully looked
for amongst the living moving mass on the sheet. It will be very
satisfactory if we can succeed in spotting her, and can see her enter
the hive safely amongst her subjects, for should she by any chance
be missing, the swarm will be useless. She is considerably longer,
though very little stouter, than an ordinary worker-bee, her tail being
particularly long and tapering; her wings also are shorter than those
of the workers, and there is a reddish appearance about her legs. We
must not mistake a drone for the queen. There is only one queen in the
swarm, but there may be several thousands of drones. The drone-bee may
be known by his broad body, long wings and large eyes, which almost
meet on the top of his head. The drone is stingless. The queen, on the
contrary, possesses a sting, but she cannot pierce the skin with it, so
we may handle her, when necessary, without fear.
[Illustration: DRONE.]
[Illustration: QUEEN.]
[Illustration: WORKER.]
If the queen is in a cage it will be necessary to liberate her and to
let her run into the hive with the workers when the latter have almost
all entered the hive.
Next morning the front of the stock-box may be lowered, and we may take
a peep into the hive by lifting up a corner of the quilts. All frames
not filled with bees may be removed and placed behind the dummy, to be
given again to the bees when they require more room, which they will do
in a few days.
If the weather keeps fine and warm we shall now see a number of
workers flying around the entrance of the hive, and carefully noting
the position of their new home. Then off they will go to the fields
in search of food in the shape of honey and pollen, to return again
before long with their bodies distended with the sweet juice, and their
“thighs” laden with the yellow paste.
Meanwhile their comrades at home have not been idle. Clustering inside
the hive, they have been busy secreting wax, and have already drawn
out some of the foundation into a comb of cells to hold the supplies
brought in by the field-workers.
And so the work of construction and storage goes on day after day,
harmoniously and rapidly. There are no hitches or quarrelling amongst
the twenty thousand or so little workers which constitute the swarm.
Each one knows and does her share of the work, with results that are
astonishing, as we shall see if we examine the hive at the end of even
one short week.
Donning the veil,[3] and armed with the smoker charged, as before, with
smouldering brown paper, we send one or two light puffs of smoke into
the entrance, which quiets the bees and prepares them for the intended
examination. We then remove the roof, taking care not to jar the hive,
and, lifting up a corner of the quilts, we send another gentle puff
or two of smoke between the frames. We do the same at another corner.
After this we make bold to lift out a frame covered with bees, and
to our surprise we find that it is filled from top to bottom with a
delicate white comb. It is already quite heavy with the honey which
glitters in thousands of cells. Here and there a cell contains, instead
of honey, a dark mass of pollen-paste called bee-bread.
A more careful inspection of the comb will show that the queen-bee
too has done her share of work, not by helping to gather honey or to
build combs, but by laying eggs which will hatch into grubs (_larvæ_),
and these, by careful feeding and nursing, will eventually become
worker-bees, to take the place of the present workers when they die.
Near the centre of the comb is a broad circle of cells, each of which
contains a tiny white egg, almost invisible to the eye, which the queen
has deposited there. Within this circle, in the very centre of the
comb, we shall probably find that these eggs have given place to plump
little _larvæ_, each one coiled up in the bottom of its cell, and
floating in a tiny drop of liquid food which the workers have supplied
and keep replenishing. When the _larvæ_ are full grown the mouths of
their cells will be covered over by a thin capping of wax, and, hidden
away underneath this capping, they will change to the third or _pupal_
stage. The perfect bee gradually develops from this stage, and in three
weeks from the time that it was deposited in its cell by the queen-bee
as an almost microscopic egg it emerges from it as a full-fledged
worker-bee, exactly like the other worker-bees in the hive, and fit in
a few days’ time for two months of daily incessant toil. No sooner has
the young worker quitted its cell than the cell is cleaned out by one
of the other workers, and a fresh egg is deposited in it by the queen.
Thus thousands of willing workers are raised from mere specks in the
space of three short weeks, and as soon as these shall have completed
their marvellous transformations, thousands more will be similarly
reared in their place. What wonders the beehive contains! But we are
only on the threshold of them.
[Illustration: SECTION THROUGH COMB CONTAINING BROOD (ENLARGED).]
This paper will close with a few hints that may now come in useful to
the beginner.
In the first place don’t meddle with your bees more than is absolutely
necessary. It tends to make them bad-tempered, and if they are once
thoroughly roused they may be difficult to manage for months, and
become the terrors, not the pets, of their owner. When you have decided
that an operation is necessary, have everything ready at hand before
you begin, such as frames ready fitted with foundation, the smoker well
charged and burning, an extra roll or two of brown paper, matches, etc.
If possible, have an assistant to help you, and so avoid trouble and
delay at a critical moment.
Though swarms, especially “first” ones, usually come off only in
settled fine weather, it sometimes happens that they are unfortunate
enough to commence life as a separate colony during a spell of bad
weather when they cannot obtain food. In such a case, having no
stores to fall back upon, they would starve and die if not fed by the
bee-keeper, and syrup must be given to them through the feeder. Syrup
suitable for feeding bees at this time of the year may be made by the
following recipe:—
Ten pounds of pure cane sugar, seven pints of water, a teaspoonful of
vinegar, and a pinch of salt. Keep stirring over a brisk fire, and
allow to boil for a few minutes.
(_To be continued._)
FOOTNOTES:
[2] The “first” or “prime” swarm is the first swarm of the season that
issues out of the hive; it is headed by the old queen. Second swarms or
casts, which come off about eight days after the first swarm has left
the hive, are headed by young newly-emerged queens. They are not so
valuable as the first swarm.
[3] Best worn with a straw hat. This examination is not necessary.
[Illustration]
IN THE TWILIGHT SIDE BY SIDE.
BY RUTH LAMB.