Every farmer should keep bees--provided he have pasturage for them, on
his own land, or if a proper range for their food and stores lie in his
immediate vicinity. Bees are, beyond any other domestic _stock_,
economical in their keeping, to their owners. Still they require care,
and that of no inconsiderable kind, and skill, in their management, not
understood by every one who attempts to rear them. They ask no food,
they require no assistance, in gathering their daily stores, beyond that
of proper housing in the cheapest description of tenement, and with that
they are entirely content. Yet, without these, they are a contingent,
and sometimes a troublesome appendage to the domestic stock of the farm.
We call them _domestic_. In one sense they are so; in another, they are
as wild and untamed as when buzzing and collecting their sweets in the
vineyard of Timnath, where the mighty Sampson took their honey from the
carcass of the dead lion; or, as when John the Baptist, clothed with
camel's hair, ate "locusts and wild honey" in the arid wastes of
Palestine. Although kept in partial bondage for six thousand years, the
ruling propensity of the bee is to seek a home and shelter in the
forest, when it emerges in a swarm from the parent hive; and no amount
of domestic accommodation, or kindness of treatment, will induce it
willingly to migrate from its nursery habitation to another by its side,
although provided with the choicest comforts to invite its entrance.
It will soon fly to the woods, enter a hollow and dilapidated tree, and
carve out for itself its future fortunes, amid a world of labor and
apparent discomfort. The bee, too, barring its industry, patience, and
sweetened labors, is an arrant thief--robbing its nearest neighbors,
with impunity, when the strongest, and mercilessly slaughtering its
weaker brethren, when standing in the way of its rapacity. It has been
extolled for its ingenuity, its patience, its industry, its
perseverance, and its virtue. Patience, industry, and perseverance it
has, beyond a doubt, and in a wonderful degree; but ingenuity, and
virtue, it has none, more than the spider, who spins his worthless web,
or the wasp, who stings you when disturbing his labors. Instinct, the
bee has, like all animals; but of kind feeling, and gratitude, it has
nothing; and with all our vivid nursery remembrance of good Doctor
Watts' charming little hymn--
"How doth the little busy bee," &c. &c.,
we have long ago set it down as incorrigible to kind treatment, or
charitable sympathy, and looked upon it simply as a thing to be treated
kindly for the sake of its labors, and as composing one of that
delightful family of domestic objects which make our homes attractive,
pleasant, and profitable.
The active labors of the bee, in a bright May or June morning, as they
fly, in their busy order, back and forth from their hives, or the
soothing hum of their playful hours, in a summer's afternoon, are among
the most delightful associations of rural life; and as a luxury to the
sight, and the ear, they should be associated with every farmer's home,
and with every laborer's cottage, when practicable. And as their due
accommodation is to be the object of our present writing, a plan is
presented for that object.
In many of the modern structures held out for imitation, the bee-house,
or apiary, is an expensive, pretentious affair, got up in an ambitious
way, with efforts at style, in the semblance of a temple, a pagoda, or
other absurdity, the very appearance of which frightens the simple bee
from its propriety, and in which we never yet knew a colony of them to
become, and remain successful. The insect is, as we have observed, wild
and untamable--a savage in its habits, and rude in its temper. It
rejects all cultivated appearances, and seeks only its own temporary
convenience, together with comfortable room for its stores, and the
increase of its kind; and therefore, the more rustic and simple its
habitation, the better is it pleased with its position.
[Illustration: APIARY.]
The bee-house should front upon a sheltered and sunny aspect. It should
be near the ground, in a clean and quiet spot, free from the intrusion
of other creatures, either human or profane, and undisturbed by noisome
smells, and uncouth sounds--for it loathes all these instinctively, and
loves nothing so much as the wild beauty of nature itself. The plan here
presented is of the plainest and least expensive kind. Nine posts, or
crutches, are set into the ground sufficiently deep to hold them firm,
and to secure them from heaving out by the frost. The distance of these
posts apart may be according to the size of the building, and to give it
strength enough to resist the action of the wind. The front posts should
be 9 feet high, above the ground; the rear posts should be 7 feet--that
a man, with his hat on, may stand upright under them--and 6 feet from
the front line. The two end posts directly in the rear of the front
corner posts, should be 3 feet back from them, and on a line to
accommodate the pitch of the roof from the front to the rear. A light
plate is to be fitted on the top line of the front posts; a plate at
each end should run back to the posts in rear, and then another
cross-plate, or girt, from each one of these middle posts, to the post
in rear of all, to meet the plate which surmounts this rear line of
posts; and a parallel plate, or rafter, should be laid from the two
intermediate posts at the ends, to connect them, and for a central
support to the roof. Intermediate central posts should also be placed
opposite those in front, to support the central plate, and not exceeding
12 feet apart. A shed roof, of boards, or shingles, tightly laid, should
cover the whole, sufficiently projecting over the front, rear, and
sides, to give the house abundant shelter, and make it architecturally
agreeable to the eye--say 12 to 18 inches, according to its extent. A
corner board should drop two feet below the plate, with such finish, by
way of ornament, as may be desirable. The ends should be tightly boarded
up against the weather, from bottom to top. The rear should also be
tightly boarded, from the bottom up to a level with the stand inside,
for the hives, and from 15 to 18 inches above that to the roof. Fitted
into the space thus left in the rear, should be a light, though
substantial, swing door, hung from the upper boarding, made in sections,
extending from one post to the other, as the size of the house may
determine, and secured with hooks, or buttons, as may be convenient. The
outside of the structure is thus completed.
The inside arrangement for the hives, may be made in two different ways,
as the choice of the apiarian may govern in the mode in which his hives
are secured. The most usual is the _stand_ method, which may be made
thus: At each angle, equidistant, say 18 to 24 inches, inside, from the
rear side and ends of the building--as shown in the ground plan--and
opposite to each rear and end post, suspend perpendicularly a line of
stout pieces of two-inch plank, 4 inches wide, well spiked on to the
rafters above, reaching down within two feet of the ground--which is to
hold up the bottom of the stand on which the hives are to rest. From
each bottom end of these suspended strips, secure another piece of like
thickness and width, horizontally back to the post in rear of it, at the
side and ends. Then, lengthwise the building, and turning the angles at
the ends, and resting on these horizontal pieces just described, lay
other strips, 3x2 inches, set edgewise--one in front, and another in
rear, inside each post and suspended strip, and close to it, and secured
by heavy nails, so that there shall be a double line of these strips on
a level, extending entirely around the interior, from the front at each
end. This forms the hanging frame-work for the planks or boards on which
the hives are to rest.
Now for the hives. First, let as many pieces of sound one and a half, or
two-inch plank as you have hives to set upon them, be cut long enough to
reach from the boarding on the rear and ends of the building, to one
inch beyond, and projecting over the front of the outer strip last
described. Let these pieces of plank be well and smoothly planed, and
laid lengthwise across the aforesaid strips, not less than four inches
apart from each other--if a less number of hives be in the building than
it will accommodate at four inches apart, no matter how far apart they
may be--these pieces of plank are the _ferms_ for the hives, on which
they are to sit. And, as we have for many years adopted the plan now
described, with entire success, a brief description is given of our mode
of hive, and the process for obtaining the surplus honey. We say
surplus, for destroying the bees to obtain their honey, is a mode not at
all according to our notions of economy, or mercy; and we prefer to take
that honey only which the swarm may make, after supplying their own
wants, and the stores for their increasing family. This process is given
in the report of a committee of gentlemen appointed by the New York
State Agricultural Society, on a hive which we exhibited on that
occasion, with the following note attached, at their show at Buffalo,
in 1848:
"I have seen, examined, and used several different plans of _patent_
hive, of which there are probably thirty invented, and used, more or
less. I have found all which I have ever seen, unsatisfactory, not
carrying out in full, the benefits claimed for them.
"The bee works, and lives, I believe, solely by instinct. I do not
consider it an inventive, or very ingenious insect. To succeed well, its
accommodations should be of the _simplest_ and _securest_ form.
Therefore, instead of adopting the complicated plans of many of the
patent hives, I have made, and used a simple box, like that now before
you, containing a cube of one foot square _inside_--made of one and a
quarter inch sound pine plank, well jointed and planed on all sides, and
put together perfectly tight at the joints, with white lead ground in
oil, and the inside of the hive at the bottom champered off to
three-eighths of an inch thick, with a door for the bees in front, of
four inches long by three-eighths of an inch high. I do this, that there
may be a thin surface to come in contact with the shelf on which they
rest, thus preventing a harbor for the bee-moth. (I have never used a
patent hive which would exclude the bee-moth, nor any one which would so
well do it as this, having never been troubled with that scourge since I
used this tight hive.) On the top of the hive, an inch or two from the
front, is made a passage for the bees, of an inch wide, and six to eight
inches long, to admit the bees into an upper hive for surplus honey,
(which passage is covered, when no vessel for that purpose is on the
top.) For obtaining the honey, I use a common ten or twelve-quart water
pail, inverted, with the bail turned over, in which the bees deposit
their surplus, like the sample before you. The pail will hold about
twenty pounds of honey. This is simple, cheap, and expeditious; the pail
costing not exceeding twenty-five cents, is taken off in a moment, the
bail replaced, and the honey ready for transportation, or market, and
_always in place_. If there is time for more honey to be made, (my bees
made two pails-full in succession this year,) another pail can be put on
at once.
"Such, gentlemen, in short, is my method. I have kept bees about twenty
years. I succeed better on this plan than with any other."
In addition to this, our hives are painted white, or other light color,
on the outside, to protect them from warping, and as a further security
against the bee-moth, or miller, which infests and destroys so many
carelessly-made hives, as to discourage the efforts of equally careless
people in keeping them. Inside the hive, on each end, we fasten, by
shingle nails, about half-way between the bottom and top, a small piece
of half-inch board, about the size of a common window button, and with a
like notch in it, set upward, but stationary, on which, when the hive is
to receive the swarm, a stick is laid across, to support the comb as it
is built, from falling in hot weather. At such time, also, when new, and
used for the first time, the under-side of the top is scratched with the
tines of a table fork, or a nail, so as to make a rough surface, to
which the new comb can be fastened. In addition to the pails on the top
of the hives, to receive the surplus honey, we sometimes use a flat box,
the size of the hive in diameter, and six or seven inches high _inside_,
which will hold twenty-five to thirty pounds of honey. The pails we
adopted as an article of greater convenience for transporting the honey.
The other plan of arranging the hives alluded to, is suspending them
between the strips before described, by means of _cleats_ secured on to
the front and rear sides of the hive, say two-thirds the way up from the
bottom. In such case, the strips running lengthwise the house must be
brought near enough together to receive the hives as hung by the
_cleats_, and the bottom boards, or forms, must be much smaller than
those already described, and hung with wire hooks and staples to the
sides, with a button on the rear, to close up, or let them down a
sufficient distance to admit the air to pass freely across them, and up
into the hive--Weeks' plan, in fact, for which he has a patent, together
with some other fancied improvements, such as chambers to receive the
boxes for the deposit of surplus honey. This, by the way, is the best
"patent" we have seen; and Mr. Weeks having written an ingenious and
excellent treatise on the treatment of the bee, we freely recommend his
book to the attention of every apiarian who wishes to succeed in their
management. As a rule, we have no confidence in _patent_ hives. We have
seen scores of them, of different kinds, have tried several of great
pretension to sundry virtues--such as excluding moths, and other
marvelous benefits--and, after becoming the victim of bee empirics to
the tune of many a dollar, have thrown aside the gimcracks, and taken
again to a common-sense method of keeping our bees, as here described.
The bees themselves, we feel bound to say, seem to hold these
patent-right habitations in quite as sovereign contempt as ourself,
reluctantly going into them, and getting out of them at the first safe
opportunity. But, as a treatise on bee-keeping is not a part of this
present work, we must, for further information, commend the inquirer on
that subject to some of the valuable treatises extant, on so prolific a
subject, among which we name those of Bevan, Weeks, and Miner.
The bee-house should be thoroughly whitewashed _inside_ every spring,
and kept clean of cobwebs, wasp's nests, and vermin; and it may be
painted outside, a soft and agreeable color, in keeping with the other
buildings of the farm. Its premises should be clean, and sweet. The
grass around should be kept mowed close. Low trees, or shrubbery, should
stand within a few yards of it, that the new swarms may light upon them
when coming out, and not, for want of such settling places, be liable to
loss from flying away. It should, also, be within sight and hearing, and
at no great distance from a continually-frequented room in the
dwelling--perhaps the kitchen, if convenient, that, in their swarming
season, they may be secured as they leave the parent hive. The apiary is
a beautiful object, with its busy tenantry; and to the invalid, or one
who loves to look upon God's tiny creatures, it may while away many an
agreeable hour, in watching their labors--thus adding pleasure to
profit.
The cost of a bee-house, on the plan given, may be from ten to fifty
dollars, according to the price of material, and the amount of labor
expended upon it. It should not be an expensive structure, in any event,
as its purpose does not warrant it. If a gimcrack affair be wanted, for
the purposes of ornament, or expense, any sum of money may be squandered
upon it which the fancy of its builder may choose to spare.