But how can the Apiarian, if he delays the formation of artificial

swarms until nearly the season for natural swarming, be sure that his

bees will not swarm in the usual way? Must he not still be constantly on

hand, or run the risk of losing many of his best swarms? I come now to

the entirely novel plan by which such objections are completely

obviated. If the Apiarian decides that he can most advantageously

multiply his colonies by artificial swarming, he must see that all his

fertile queens are deprived of their wings, so as to be unable to lead

off new swarms. As an old queen never leaves the hive except to

accompany a new swarm, the loss of her wings does not, in the least

interfere with her usefulness, or with the attachment of the bees.

Occasionally, a wingless queen is so bent on emigrating, that in spite

of her inability to fly, she tries to go off with a swarm; she has "a

will," but contrary to the old maxim she can find "no way," but

helplessly falls upon the ground instead of gaily mounting into the air.

If the bees succeed in finding her, they will never desert her, but

cluster directly around her, and may thus be easily secured by the

Apiarian. If she is not found, the bees will return to the parent stock

to await the maturity of the young queens. The Apiarian will ordinarily

be prepared to form his artificial colonies before any of these young

queens are hatched.

The following is the best plan for removing the wings from the queens.

Every hive which contains a young queen, ought to be examined about a

week after she has hatched, (see Chapter on Loss of the Queen,) in order

to ascertain that she has been impregnated, and has begun to lay eggs.

Some of the central combs or those on which the bees are most thickly

clustered, should be first lifted out, for she will almost always be

found on one of them; the Apiarian when he has caught her, should remove

the wings on one side with a pair of scissors taking care not to hurt

her. On examining his hives next season, let him remove one of the two

remaining wings from the queen. The third season, he may deprive her of

her last wing. Bees always have four wings, a pair on each side. This

plan saves him the trouble of marking his hives so as to know the age of

the queens they contain.

As the fertility of the queen generally decreases after the second year,

I prefer, just before the drones are destroyed, to kill all the old

queens that have entered their third year. In this way, I guard against

some of my stocks becoming queenless, in consequence of the queen dying

of old age, when there is no worker-brood in the hive, from which they

can rear another: or of having a worthless, drone-laying queen whose

impregnation has been retarded. These old queens are removed at that

period of the year when their colony is strong in numbers; and as the

honey-harvest is by this time, nearly over, their removal is often a

positive benefit, instead of a loss. The population is prevented from

being over crowded at a time when the bees are consumers and not

producers, and when the young queen, reared in the place of the old one

matures, she will rapidly fill the cells with eggs, and raise a large

number of bees to take advantage of the late honey-harvest, and to

prepare the hive to winter most advantageously.

The certainty, rapidity and ease of making artificial swarms with my

hives, will be such as to amaze those most who have had the greatest

experience and success in the management of bees. Instead of weeks

wasted in watching the Apiary, in addition to all the other vexations

and embarrassments which are so often found to attend reliance on

natural swarming, the Apiarian will find not only that he can create all

his new colonies in a very short time, but that he can, if he chooses,

entirely prevent the issue of all after-swarms. In order to do this, he

ought to examine the stocks which are raising young queens, in season to

cut out all the queen cells but one, before the larvæ come to maturity.

If he gave them a sealed queen nearly mature, they will raise no others,

and no swarming, for that season, will take place. If the Apiarian

wishes to do more than to double his stocks in one season, and is

favorably situated for practicing natural swarming, he can allow the

stocks that raise young queens to swarm if they will, and he can

strengthen the small swarms by giving to them comb with honey and

maturing brood from other hives. Or he can, after an interval of about

three weeks, make one swarm from every two good ones in his Apiary, in a

way that will soon be described.

I do not know that I can find a better place in which to impress certain

highly important principles upon the attention of the bee-keeper. I am

afraid, that in spite of all that I can say, many persons as soon as

they find themselves able to multiply colonies at pleasure, will so

overdo the matter, as to run the risk of losing all their bees. If the

Apiarian aims at obtaining a large quantity of honey in any one season,

he cannot at the furthest, more than double the number of his stocks:

nor can he do this, unless they are all strong, and the season

favorable. The moment that he aims, in any one season, at a more rapid

increase, he must not only renounce the idea of having any surplus

honey, but must expect to purchase food for the support of his colonies,

unless he is willing to see them all perish by starvation. The time,

food, care and skill required to multiply stocks with very great

rapidity, in our short and uncertain climate, are so great that not one

Apiarian in a hundred can expect to make it profitable; while the great

mass of those who attempt it, will be almost sure, at the close of the

season, to find themselves in possession of stocks which have been so

managed as to be of very little value.

Before explaining some other methods of artificial swarming, which I

have employed to great advantage, I shall endeavor to impress upon the

mind of the bee-keeper, the great importance of thoroughly understanding

each season, the precise object at which he is aiming, before he enters

on the work of increasing his colonies. If his object is, in any one

season, to get the largest yield of surplus honey, he must at once make

up his mind to be content with a very moderate increase of stocks. If,

on the contrary, he desires to multiply his colonies, say, three or four

fold, he must be prepared, not only to relinquish the expectation of

obtaining any surplus honey, if the season should prove unfavorable, but

to purchase food for the support of his bees. Rapid multiplication of

colonies, and large harvests of surplus honey cannot, in the very nature

of things, be secure in our climate, in any one season.

If the number of colonies is to be increased to a large extent, then the

bees in the Apiary will be tasked to the utmost in building new comb,

as well as in rearing brood. For these purposes, they must consume the

supply of honey which, under other circumstances, they would have stored

up, a part for their own use in the main hive, and the balance for their

owner, in the spare honey-boxes.

To make this matter perfectly plain, let us suppose a colony to swarm.

If the new hive, into which the swarm is put, holds, as it ought, about

a bushel, it will require about two pounds of wax to fill it with comb,

and at least forty pounds of honey will be used in its manufacture! If

the season is favorable, and the swarm was large and early, they may

gather, not only enough to build this comb and to store it with honey

sufficient for their own use, but a number of pounds in addition, for

the benefit of their owner. If the old stock does not swarm again, it

will rapidly replenish its numbers, and as it has no new comb to build

in the main hive which already contains much honey, it will be able to

store up a generous allowance in the upper boxes. These favorable

results are all on the supposition that the season was ordinarily

productive in honey, and that the hive was so powerful in numbers as to

be able to swarm early. If the season should prove to be very

unfavorable, the first swarm cannot be expected to gather more than

enough for its own use, while the parent stock will yield only a small

return. The profits of the bee-keeper, in such an unfortunate season,

will be mainly in the increase of his stocks. If the swarm was late, in

consequence of the stock being weak in Spring, the early part of the

honey-harvest will pass away, and the bees will be able to obtain from

it, but a small share of honey. During all this time of comparative

inactivity, the orchards may present

"One boundless blush, one white empurpled shower

Of mingled blossoms,"

and tens of thousands of bees from stronger stocks, may be engaged all

day, in sipping the fragrant sweets, so that every gale which "fans its

odoriferous wings" about their dwellings, dispenses

"Native perfumes, and whispers whence they stole[18]

Those balmy spoils."

By the time that the feeble stock is prepared to swarm, if it swarm at

all that season, the honey-harvest is almost over, and the new colony

will seldom be able to gather enough for its own use, so that unless

fed, it must perish the succeeding Winter. Bee-keeping with colonies

feeble in the Spring, is most emphatically nothing but "folly and

vexation of spirit."

I have shown how the bee-keeper, with a strong stock-hive which has

swarmed early and but once, may in a favorable season realize handsome

profits from his bees. If the parent stock throws a second swarm, then,

as a general rule, unless this swarm was very early, and the honey

season good, if managed on the ordinary plan, it will seldom prove of

any value. It will almost always perish in the Winter, if it does not

desert its hive in the Fall, and the family from which it issued, will

not only gather no surplus honey, (unless it was secured before the

first swarm issued,) but will very often perish likewise. Thus the

inexperienced owner who was so delighted with the rapid increase of his

colonies, begins the next season with no more colonies than he had the

year before, and has very often lost all the time he has bestowed upon

his bees. I can, to be sure, on my plan, prevent the death of the bees,

and can build up all the feeble colonies, so as to make them strong and

powerful: but only by giving up all idea of obtaining a single pound of

honey. From the first swarm, I must take combs containing maturing

brood, to strengthen my weak swarms, and this first swarm however

powerful or early, instead of being able to store its combs with honey,

will be constantly tasked in building new combs to replace those taken

away, so that when the honey harvest closes, it will have scarcely any

honey, and must be fed to prevent it from starving. Any man who has

sense enough to be entrusted with bees, can, from these remarks,

understand exactly why it is impossible to multiply colonies rapidly in

any one season, and yet obtain from them large supplies of honey. Even

the doubling of stocks in one season, will very often be too rapid an

increase, if the greatest quantity of spare honey is to be obtained from

them; and when the largest yield of honey is desired, I much prefer to

form, in a way soon to be described, only one new stock from two old

ones; this will give even more from the three, than could have been

obtained from the two, on the ordinary non-swarming plan.

I would very strongly dissuade any but experienced Apiarians, from

attempting at the furthest, to do more than to triple their stocks in

one year. In order to furnish directions for very rapid multiplication,

sufficiently full and explicit to be of any value to the inexperienced,

I should have to write a book on this one topic; and even then, the most

of those who should undertake it, would be sure at first to fail.

I have no doubt that with ten strong stocks of bees in a good location,

in one favorable season, I could so increase them as to have, on the

approach of Winter, one hundred good colonies: but I should expect to

feed hundreds of pounds of honey, to devote nearly all my time to their

management, and to bring to the work, the experience of many years, and

the wisdom acquired by numerous failures. After all, what we most need,

in order to be successful in the cultivation of bees, is a _certain_,

rather than a _rapid_ multiplication of stocks. It would require but a

very few years to stock our whole country with bees, if colonies could

only be doubled annually; and an increase of even one third, would

before long, give us bees enough. This rate of increase I should always

encourage in the swarming season, even if, in the Fall, I reduced my

stocks (see Union of Stocks) to the Spring number. In the long run, it

will keep the colonies in a much more prosperous condition, and secure

from them the largest yield of honey.

I have never myself hesitated to sacrifice one or more colonies, in

order to ascertain a single fact, and it would require a separate volume

quite as large as this, to detail the various experiments which I have

made on the subject of Artificial Swarming. The practical bee-keeper,

however, should never, for a moment, lose sight of the important

distinction between an Apiary managed principally for the purposes of

experiment and discovery, and one conducted almost exclusively with

reference to pecuniary profit. Any bee-keeper can easily experiment with

my hives: but I would recommend him to do so, at first, on a small

scale, and if profit is his object, to follow the directions furnished

in this treatise, until he is _sure_ that he has discovered others which

are preferable. These cautions are given to prevent persons from

incurring serious losses and disappointments, if they use hives which,

if they are not on their guard, may tempt them into rash and

unprofitable courses, by allowing so easily of all manner of

experiments. Let the practical Apiarian remember that the less he

disturbs the stocks on which he relies for surplus honey, the better.

After they are properly lodged in their new hive, they ought by all

means to be allowed to carry on their labors without any interruption.

The object of giving the control over every comb in the hive, is not to

enable him to be incessantly taking them in and out, and subjecting the

bees to all sorts of annoyances. Unless he is conducting a course of

experiments, such interference will be almost as silly as the conduct of

children who pull up the seeds which they have planted, to see whether

they have sprouted, or how much they have grown. If after these

cautions, any still choose to disregard them, the blame of their losses

will fall, not upon the hive, but upon their own mismanagement.

Let me not, for a moment, be understood as wishing to discourage

investigation, or to intimate that perfection has been so nearly

attained that no more important discoveries remain to be made. On the

contrary, I should be glad to learn that many who have the time and

means, are disposed to use the facilities furnished by hives which give

the control of each comb, to experiment on a large scale; and I hope

that every intelligent bee-keeper who follows my plans, will experiment

at least on a small scale. In this way, we may soon expect to see, more

satisfactorily elucidated, some points in the Natural History of the

bee, which are still involved in doubt.

Having described the way in which forced swarms are made, both in common

hives and in my own, when the Apiarian wishes in one season merely to

double his colonies, I shall now show in what way he can secure the

largest yield of honey, by forming only one new colony from two old

ones.

Early in the season, before the bees fly out, or better still, after

they ceased to fly in the previous Fall, the two hives from which the

new colony is to be formed, should be placed near each other, unless

they are already, not more than a foot apart. When the time for forming

the artificial colony has arrived, these hives should be removed from

their stand, and the bees driven from them, precisely in the manner

already described. If all the bees are at home, I sometimes shut up the

hives on their stand, and drum long enough to cause the bees to fill

themselves before the hive is removed. Timid Apiarians may find some

advantage in this course, as the bees will all be quiet after they are

well drummed, and the hive may then be removed with greater safety. In

five minutes I can in this way reduce any swarm to a peaceable

condition. After the forced swarms are secured, the removed hives are

replaced, in order to catch up all the returning bees, and the forced

swarms must be shut up, until towards sunset; unless it is judged best

to keep the entrances temporarily open, so as to secure the return of a

sufficient number of bees to the parent stocks. The old stocks are now

moved to a new place, and managed according to the previous directions.

If neither of the expelled swarms was driven into the hive intended for

the new colony, then the proper hive must be placed, as near as

possible, in the center of the space previously occupied by the original

colonies. One of the swarms must now be shaken out upon a sheet, in

front of this hive which should be elevated, so as to enable the bees to

enter it readily. As soon as they are shaken out, they should be gently

sprinkled with sugar-water scented with peppermint, or any other

fragrant odor. Diligent search must now be made for the Queen, and if

found, she should be carefully removed, and given to the hive to which

she belongs. If the queen of the first swarm has been found, the second

colony may be shaken out, and sprinkled in the same way, and allowed to

enter without any further trouble. If the queen of the first colony was

not found, then that of the second one must be sought for; if neither

can be found, (though this, after a little experience, will very seldom

happen,) one of the Queens will soon kill the other, and reign over the

united family. The next day, the doubled colony will be found working

with amazing vigor, and it will not only fill its main hive, but will,

in any ordinary season, gather large quantities of surplus honey

besides.

The Apiarian who relies upon natural swarming, can double his new

colonies if they issue at the same time, by hiving them together, or if

this cannot be done, he may hive them in separate hives, and then,

towards evening, set one hive on a sheet, and shake down the bees from

the other, so that they can enter and join the first. It may be safely

done, even if several days have elapsed before the second colony swarms;

although in this case, I prefer after turning up their hive to sprinkle

the oldest swarm with scented sugar-water, and then to give the new

swarm the same treatment. I have doubled natural swarms in this way,

repeatedly, and have never, when they were early, failed to secure from

them a large quantity of honey. In sprinkling bees, let the operator

remember that they are not to be _drenched_, or almost drowned, as in

this case, they will require a long time to enter the hive. Bees seem to

recognize each other by the sense of smell; and when they are made to

have the same odor, they will always mingle peaceably. This is the

reason why I use a few drops of peppermint in the sugar-water.

If one of the queens of the forced swarms can be returned to her own

colony, it will of course, save them the time which would otherwise be

lost in raising another. I do not know that I can better illustrate the

importance of the inexperienced Apiarian following carefully my

directions, than by supposing him to return the queen to the colony to

which she does not belong. Now I can easily imagine that some bee-keeper

may do so, conceiving that I am foolishly precise in my directions, and

that the queen might be just as well given to one hive as to the other.

But if this is done before at least 24 hours have elapsed since they

were deprived of their own, she will almost certainly be destroyed. The

bees do not _sting_ a queen to death, but have a curious mode of

crowding or knotting around her, so that she is soon smothered; and

while thus imprisoned, she will often make the same piping note which

has already been described. In all this treatise, I have constantly

aimed to give no directions which are not important; and while I utterly

repudiate the notion that these directions may not be modified and

improved, I am quite certain that this cannot be done by any but those

who have considerable experience in the management of bees.

The formation of one new swarm from two old colonies, may, of course, be

very much simplified by the use of my hives. The two old hives are first

opened and sprinkled, and the bees taken from them and put into the new

hive in the same way in which the process was conducted when only one

colony was expelled, some brood comb being given to the united family.

There will be no difficulty in rightly proportioning the bees; one queen

may always be caught and preserved, and the operation may be performed

at any time when the sun is above the horizon. I have no doubt that

those who have a strong stock of bees, and who are anxious to realize

the largest profits in honey, will find this mode of increase, by far

the simplest and best. If judiciously practiced, they will find that

their colonies may always be kept powerful, and that they may be managed

with very great economy in time and labor. As Apiarians may be so

situated as to wish to increase their bees quite rapidly, I shall give

such methods as from numerous experiments, many of them conducted on a

large scale, I have found to be the best. I wish it however to be most

distinctly understood, that I do not consider _very_ rapid

multiplication as likely to succeed, except in the hands of skillful

Apiarians; and under ordinary circumstances it requires too much time,

care and honey, to be of very great practical value. Its chief merit

consists in the short time which it requires to build up an Apiary.

After trying my mode of management for a few seasons, a bee-keeper may

find out, that he is in all respects, favorably situated for taking care

of a large stock of bees. Suppose him to have acquired both skill and

confidence, and that he has ten powerful colonies. If he is willing to

do without surplus honey for one season, and the honey-harvest should be

very productive, he may without feeding, and without very much labor,

safely increase his ten colonies to thirty. If he chooses to feed

largely, he may _possibly_ end the season with fifty or sixty, or even

more; but he will _probably_ end it in such a manner as most thoroughly

to disgust him with his folly, and to teach him that in bee-keeping, as

well as in other things, "Haste makes waste."

On the supposition that by the time the fruit-trees are in blossom, the

Apiarian has, in hives of my construction, ten powerful colonies, let

him select four of the strongest, and make from each a forced swarm. He

will now have four queenless colonies, which will at once, proceed to

supply themselves with a young queen. In about ten days, he may make

from his other six stocks, six more forced swarms. He will probably find

in making these, many sealed queens, if he has delayed the operation

until about swarming time; so that he may give to each of the six stocks

from which he has expelled a swarm, the means of soon obtaining

another. If he has not enough for this purpose, he must take the

required number from the four stocks which are raising young queens, the

exact condition of which ought to have been previously ascertained. Some

of these stocks will be found to contain a large number of queen cells.

Huber, in one of his experiments, found twenty-four in one hive, and

even a larger number has sometimes been reared by a single colony. As

the Apiarian will always have many more queens than are wanted, he ought

to select those combs which contain a sealed queen, so as to secure say,

about fifteen combs, each of which has one or more queens. If necessary,

he can cut out some of the cells, and adjust them in the manner

previously described. Each comb containing a sealed queen must be put

with all the bees adhering to it, into an empty hive; and by a divider,

or movable partition, they must be confined to about one quarter of the

hive; water should be given to them, and honey, if none is contained in

the comb. I always prefer to select a comb which contains a large number

of workers almost mature, and some of which are just beginning to hatch,

so that even if a considerable number of the bees should return to the

parent stock, after their liberty is given them, there will still be a

sufficient number hatched, to attend to the young, and especially to

watch over the maturing queens. If the comb contains a large number of

bees just emerging from their cells, I prefer to confine them only one

day, otherwise I keep them shut up until about an hour before sunset of

the third day. The hives containing the small colonies, ought, if they

are not well protected by being made double, to be set where they are

thoroughly sheltered from the intense heat of the sun; and the

ventilators should give them an abundance of air. They should also be

closed in such a manner, as to keep the interior in entire darkness, so

that the bees may not become too uneasy during their confinement. I

accomplish this by shutting up their entrance, and replacing their front

board, just as though I were intending to put them into winter quarters.

These small colonies I shall call _nuclei_, and the system of forming

stocks from them, my nucleus system; and before I describe this system

more particularly, I shall show other ways in which the nuclei can be

formed. If the Apiarian chooses, he can take a frame containing bees

just ready to mature, and eggs and young worms, all of the worker kind,

together with the old bees which cluster on it, and shut them up in the

manner previously described; even if he has no sealed queen to give

them. If all things are favorable, they will set about raising a queen

in a few hours. I once took not more than a tea-cup full of bees and

confined them with a small piece of brood comb in a dark place, and

found that in about an hour's time, they had begun to enlarge some of

the cells, to raise a new queen! If the Apiarian has sealed queens on

hand, they ought, by all means, to be given to the nuclei, in order to

save all the time possible.

I sometimes make these nuclei as follows. The suitable comb with bees

&c., is taken from a stock-hive, and set in an empty one, made to stand

partly in the place of the old hive, which, of course, must previously

be moved a little on one side. In this way, I am able to direct a

considerable number of the bees from the old stock to my nucleus, and

the necessity of shutting it up, is done away with. If the bees from the

old stock do not enter the small one, in sufficient numbers, I sometimes

close their hive, so that the returning bees can find no other place to

enter. My object is not to catch up a _large_ number of bees. For

reasons previously assigned, I do not want enough to build new comb, but

only enough to adhere to the removed comb, and raise a new queen from

the brood, or develop the sealed one which has been given them. A short

time after one nucleus has in this way, been formed, another may be made

by moving the old hive again, and so a third or fourth, if so many are

wanted. This plan requires considerable skill and experience, to secure

the right number of bees, without getting too many.

If bees are to be made to enter a new hive, by removing the old one from

its stand, it will always be very desirable not only to have the new one

contain a piece of comb, but a considerable number of bees _clustered_

on that comb. I repeatedly found my bees, after entering the hive,

refuse to have anything to do with the brood comb, and for a long time,

I was unable to conjecture the cause; until I ascertained that they were

dissatisfied with its deserted appearance, and that, by taking the

precaution to have it well covered with bees, I seldom failed to

reconcile them to my system of forced colonization. I can usually tell,

in less than two minutes, whether the operation will succeed or not. If

the returning bees are content, they will, however much agitated at

first, soon begin to join the cluster on the comb; while if they are

dissatisfied, they will abandon the hive, and nearly all the bees that

were originally on the comb, will leave with them. They seem capricious

in this matter, and are sometimes so very self-willed, that they refuse

to have anything to do with the brood comb, when I can see no good

reason why they should be so rebellious.

I shall here state some _conjectures_ which have occurred to me on this

subject. Is it absolutely certain that bees can raise a queen from _any_

egg or young larva which would produce a worker? Or if this is possible,

is it certain that _any kind of workers_ can accomplish this? Huber

ascertained to his own satisfaction that there were two kinds of workers

in a hive. He thus describes them.

"One of these is, in general, destined for the elaboration of wax, and

its size is considerably enlarged when full of honey; the other

immediately imparts what it has collected to its companions, its abdomen

undergoes no sensible change, or it retains only the honey necessary for

its own subsistence. The particular function of the bees of this kind is

to take care of the young, for they are not charged with provisioning

the hive. In opposition to the wax workers, we shall call them small

bees or nurses."

"Although the external difference be inconsiderable, this is not an

imaginary distinction. Anatomical observations prove that the capacity

of the stomach is not the same--experiments have ascertained that one of

the species cannot fulfil all the functions shared among the workers of

a hive. We painted those of each class with different colors, in order

to study their proceedings; and these were not interchanged. In another

experiment, after supplying a hive deprived of a queen with brood and

pollen, we saw the small bees quickly occupied in nutrition of the

larvæ, while those of the wax working class neglected them. Small bees

also produce wax, but in a very inferior quantity to what is elaborated

by the real wax workers."

Now if these statements can be relied on, and thus far I have nearly

always found Huber's statements, where-ever I had an opportunity to test

them, to be most wonderfully reliable, then it may be that when bees

refuse to cluster on the brood comb and to proceed at once to rear a new

queen, it is because they find that some of the conditions necessary for

success are wanting. Either there may not be a sufficient number of

wax-workers, to enlarge the cells, or a sufficient number of nurses to

take charge of the larvæ; or it may be that the cells contain only young

wax-workers which cannot be developed into queens, or only young

nurses, which may be in the same predicament.

If any of my readers imagine that the work of carefully experimenting,

in order to establish facts upon the solid basis of complete

demonstration, is an easy work, let them attempt now to prove or

disprove the truth of any or all of my conjectures upon this single

topic. They will probably find the task more difficult than to blot over

whole quires and reams of paper with careless assertions.

All operations of any kind which interfere in the very least, with the

natural mode of forming colonies, are best performed in the swarming

season: or at least, at a time when the bees are breeding freely, and

are able to bring in large stores of honey from the fields. At other

times, they are very precarious, and unless under the management of

persons who have great experience, they will in most cases, end in

nothing but vexatious losses and disappointments.

It is quite amusing to see how bees act, when they find, on their return

from foraging abroad, that their hive has been moved, and another put in

its place. If the new hive is precisely similar to their own, in size

and outward appearance, they enter it as though all was right; but in a

few moments, they rush out in violent agitation, imagining that they

have made a prodigious mistake and have entered the wrong place. They

now take wing again in order to correct their blunder, but find to their

increasing surprise, that they had previously directed their flight to

the familiar spot; again they enter, and again they tumble out, in

bewildered crowds, until, at length, if they can find the means of

raising a new queen, or one is already there, they seem to make up their

minds that if this is not home, it not only looks like it, but stands

just where their home ought to be, and is at all events the only home

they are likely to get. No doubt they often feel that a very hard

bargain has been imposed upon them, but they seem generally determined

to make the best of it.

There is one trait in the character of bees, for which I feel, not

merely admiration, but the most profound respect. Such is their

indomitable energy and perseverance, that under circumstances apparently

the most despairing, they will still labor to the utmost, to retrieve

their losses, and sustain the sinking state. So long as they have a

queen, or any prospect of raising one, they struggle most vigorously

against impending ruin, and never give up, unless their condition is

absolutely desperate. In one of my observing hives, I once had a colony

of bees, the whole of which might have been spread out on my two hands,

busy at work in raising a new queen, from a small piece of brood comb.

For two long weeks, they adhered with unfailing perseverance and

industry, to their forlorn hope: until at last, one of the two queens

which they raised, came forth, and destroyed the other while still in

her cell. The bees had now dwindled away to less than half their

original number, and the new queen had wings so imperfect that she was

unable to fly. I watched their proceedings with great interest; they

actually paid very unusual attention to this crippled queen, and treated

her more as they are wont to treat a fertile one. In the course of a

week, there were not more than a dozen left in the hive, and in a few

days more, I missed the queen, and saw only a few disconsolate wretches

crawling over the deserted comb! Shame upon the faint-hearted and

cowardly of our own race, who, if overtaken by calamity, instead of

nobly breasting the dark waters of affliction, and manfully buffetting

with their tumultuous waves, meanly resign themselves to their ignoble

fate, and sink and perish where they might have lived and triumphed; and

double shame upon those who thus "faint in the day of adversity," when

living in a Christian land, they might, if they would only receive the

word of God, and open the eye of faith, behold a bow of promise spanning

the still stormy clouds, and hear a voice bidding them, like the great

apostle of the Gentiles, learn not merely to "rejoice in hope of the

glory of God," but to "glory in tribulations also."

I have been informed by Mr. Wagner, that Dzierzon has recently devised a

plan of _forming nuclei_, substantially the same with my own. His book,

however, contemplates having two Apiaries, three or four miles apart,

and his plans for multiplying colonies, as there described, were based

upon the supposition that the Apiarian will have two such

establishments. Such an arrangement would no doubt very greatly

facilitate many operations. Our forced swarms might all be removed from

the Apiary where they were formed, to the other, and our nuclei treated

in the same way, and there would be no necessity for confining the bees

after their removal. There are however, weighty objections to such an

arrangement, which will prevent it, at least for some time, from being

extensively adopted. The labor of removing the bees backwards and

forwards, is a serious objection to the whole plan; and in addition to

this, the necessity of having a skillful Apiarian at each establishment,

puts its adoption out of the question, with most persons who keep bees.

It might answer, however, if two bee-keepers, sufficiently far apart,

would enter into partnership, and manage their bees as a joint concern.

Dzierzon's new plan of creating nuclei, is as follows. Towards evening,

remove a piece of brood comb, with eggs and bees just hatching, and put

it, with a sufficient number of mature bees, into an empty hive; there

must be enough to keep the brood from being chilled over night. If the

operation is performed so late that the bees are not disposed to take

wing and leave the hive, by morning a sufficient number will have

hatched, to supply the place of those which may abandon the nucleus. In

my numerous experiments last Summer, in the formation of artificial

swarms, I tried this plan and found that it answered a good purpose; the

chief objection to it, is the difficulty often of selecting the suitable

kind of comb, if the operation is delayed until late in the afternoon. I

prefer, therefore, to perform it, when the sun is an hour or two high,

and to confine the bees until dark. If there are not a sufficient number

of bees on the comb, I shake off some from another frame, directly into

the hive, and shut them all up, giving them a supply of water. Sealed

queens if possible, should be used in all these operations.

I shall now give a novel mode of creating nuclei, which I have devised,

and which I find to be attended with great success. Hive a new swarm in

the usual manner, in an old box, and as soon as the bees have entered

it, shut them up and carry them down into the cellar. About an hour

before sunset, take combs suitable to form as many nuclei as you judge

best, say five or six, or even eight or ten if the swarm was large, and

you need as many. Bring up the new swarm and shake it out upon a sheet,

sprinkling it gently with sugar-water. With a large tumbler or saucer,

scoop up without hurting any of the bees, a pint or more of them, and

place them before the mouth of one of the hives containing a brood comb;

repeat the process, until each nucleus has, say, a quart of bees. If you

see the queen, you may give the hive in which you put her, three or four

times as many bees as any other; and the next day it may be strengthened

with a few combs containing brood, just ready to mature. If you did not

find her, at the time of forming the nuclei, when you afterwards examine

them, the one which contains her may be properly reinforced with bees

and comb, so as to enable it to work to the best advantage.

If this plan of forming nuclei, were attempted earlier in the afternoon

it would be difficult to prevent the bees from communicating on the

wing, and all going to the hive which contained their queen. If however,

the bees when first shaken out of the temporary hive, are so thoroughly

sprinkled, as not to be able to take wing and unite together, this mode

of forming colonies may be practiced at any hour of the day; and an

experienced Apiarian may prefer to do it, as soon as he has fairly hived

the new swarm. When the bees are shaken out in front of a hive which has

a sealed queen, or eggs from which they can raise one, having a whole

night in which to accustom themselves to their new situation, they will

be found, the next day, to adhere to the place where they were put, with

as much tenacity as a natural swarm does to their new hive. How

wonderful that the act of swarming should so thoroughly impress upon the

bees, an absolute indisposition to return to the parent stock. If this

were a fixed and invariable unwillingness, a sort of blind, unreasoning

instinct, it would not be so surprising, but we have already seen that

in case the bees lose their queen, they return in a very short time to

the stock from which they issued! If the nuclei formed in the manner

just described, found in their new hive, no means of obtaining a queen,

they would all return, next morning, to the parent stock.

When the Apiarian can obtain a natural swarm from any other Apiary, it

may be divided into nuclei in the same way, and even a forced swarm, if

brought from a distance, will answer equally well. If the Apiarian

wishes to form colonies earlier than the season of natural swarming, and

cannot conveniently obtain a forced swarm from an Apiary, at least a

mile distant, he may, before the bees begin to fly out in the Spring,

transport one of his stocks to a neighbor's, and force from it a swarm

at the desired time. Even if it is moved not more than half a mile off,

the operation will be almost sure to succeed. Of all modes of forming

the nuclei, this I believe will be found to be the neatest, simplest and

best.

Having thus described the various ways in which I have successfully

formed my nuclei, I shall now show how they may be all built up into

powerful stocks. It will be very obvious that on the ordinary plan of

management, they would be absolutely worthless, even if it were possible

to form them with the common hives. If they were not fed, they would be

unable to collect the means of building new comb, and would gradually

dwindle away, just as third or fourth swarms which issue late in the

season; nor could they be saved even by the most generous feeding, as

they would only use their supplies to fill up the little comb they had;

so that when the queen was ready to lay, there would be no empty cells

to receive her eggs, and too few bees to build any, even if they had all

the honey that they required. Such small colonies must gradually waste

away, unless they can be speedily and effectually supplied with the

requisite number of bees, and this can be done only by hives which give

the control of all the combs. With such hives, I can speedily build up

my nuclei, (provided I have not formed too many,) to the strength

necessary to make them powerful stocks. The hives containing them, ought

if possible, to stand at some distance from other hives, say two or

three feet: and if this cannot conveniently be done, they should in some

way, be so distinguished from the adjoining hives, that the young queens

when they are hatched and go out to seek the drones, will not be liable

to lose their lives by entering a wrong hive on their return. A small

leafy twig fastened on the alighting board of such hives, when they

stand near to others, will be almost sure to prevent such a

catastrophe: if they stand near to each other, some may be marked in

this way, and others with a piece of colored cloth. (See Page 159.) To

guard them against robbers, &c., the entrances to these nuclei should be

contracted, so that only a few bees can enter at once. Those which were

confined, should be examined, the day after their liberty is given to

them; the others, the day after they were formed, when, if they were not

supplied with a sealed queen, they will be found actively engaged in

constructing royal cells. A new range of comb should now be given to

each one, and it should contain no old bees, but brood rapidly maturing,

and if possible, eggs and worms only a few days old.

This new addition of strength will greatly encourage the nuclei, and

give them the means of starting young queens, if they have not succeeded

in doing so with the first comb. I have very frequently found that for

some cause which I have not yet ascertained, they often start a large

number of queen cells, which in a few days, are all discontinued and

untenanted. The second attempt seldom fails. Does practice in this thing

make them more expert? But I will simply state the fact, referring to my

conjectures on page 218; and remarking that when they make a second

attempt, they seem frequently disposed to start a much larger number

than they otherwise would have done. In two or three days after giving

them the first piece of comb, I give them another, if their queen is

nearly mature, and I now let them alone until she ought to be depositing

eggs in the hive. I then give them, at intervals of a few days, two or

three combs more, and they will now be sufficiently powerful in bees, to

gather large quantities of honey, and fill the empty part of their hive.

The young queen is supplying with thousands of worker-eggs, the cells

from which the brood has emerged, and also the new ones built by the

bees, and the new colony will soon be one of the best stock hives in

the Apiary. If some of the full frames are moved, and empty ones placed

between them, as soon as the bees begin to build powerfully, there need

be no guide combs on the empty frames, and still the work will be

executed with the most beautiful regularity.

But what, in the mean time, is the condition of the hives from which we

are taking so many brood combs for the proper development of our nuclei;

are they not weakened so much as to become quite enfeebled? I come now

to the very turning point of the whole nucleus system. If due judgment

has not been used, and the sanguine bee-keeper has endeavored to

multiply his colonies too rapidly, a most grievous disappointment awaits

him. Either his nuclei cannot be strengthened at the right time, or this

can be done, only by impoverishing the old stocks, and the result of the

whole operation will be a most decided failure, and if he is in the

vicinity of sugar-houses, confectionaries, or other tempting places of

bee resort, he will find the population of his colonies very seriously

diminished, and will have to break up the most of the nuclei which he

had formed, and incur the danger of losing nearly the whole of his

stock. I lay it down as a fundamental principle in my nucleus system,

that the old stocks must never be so much weakened by the removal of

brood-comb and bees that they are not able to keep their numbers

sufficiently strong to refill rapidly all the vacancies among their

combs. If the Apiarian attempts to multiply his stocks so rapidly that

this cannot be done, I will ensure him ample cause to repent at leisure

of his folly. If however, the attempt at very rapid multiplication is

made only by those who are favorably situated, and who have skill in the

management of bees, a very large gain may be made in the number of

stocks, and they may all be strong and flourishing.

If a strong stock of bees in a hive of moderate size, which admits of

thorough inspection, is examined at the height of the honey harvest,

nearly all the cells will often be found filled with brood, honey or

bee-bread. The great laying of the queen, according to some writers, is

now over, not however as they erroneously imagine, because her fertility

has decreased, but merely because there is not _room_ in the hive for

all her eggs. She may often be seen restlessly traversing the combs,

seeking in vain for empty cells, until finding none, she is compelled to

extrude her eggs only to be devoured by the bees. (See p. 52.) If some

of the full combs are removed, and empty ones substituted in their

place, she will speedily fill them, laying at the rate of two or three

thousand a day! When my strong stocks are from time to time deprived of

one or two combs, if honey can easily be procured,[19] the bees proceed

at once to replace them, and the queen commences laying in the new combs

as soon as the cells are fairly started. If the combs are not removed

_too fast_, and care is taken not to deprive the stock of so much brood

that the bees cannot keep up a vigorous population, a queen in a hive so

managed, will lay her eggs in cells to be nurtured by the bees, instead

of being eaten up; and thus, in the course of the season, she may become

the mother of three or four times as many bees, as are reared in a hive

under other circumstances. By careful management, brood enough may, in

this way, be taken from a single hive, to build up a large number of

nuclei. Towards the close of the season however, as such a hive has been

constantly tasked in building comb and feeding young bees, almost all

its honey will have been used for these purposes, and although it may be

very populous, unless it is liberally fed, it will be sure to perish.

Since the discovery that unbolted rye flour will answer so admirably as

a substitute for pollen, we can supply the bees not only with honey,

when none can be obtained from the blossoms, but with an abundance of

bee-bread, when pollen is scarce. As I am writing this chapter, (March

29, 1853,) my bees are zealously engaged in taking the flour from some

old combs in front of their hives, and they can be seen most beautifully

moulding the little pellets on their thighs. By my movable combs, I can

give them the flour at once in their hives, as it can easily be rubbed

into an empty comb. The importance of Dzierzon's discovers of a

substitute for pollen, can hardly be over-estimated. If he had done

nothing more for the cause of Apiarian science, no true-hearted

bee-keeper would ever allow his name to be forgotten.

In the Chapter on Feeding, I shall give more specific directions as to

the way in which the cultivator must feed his bees, when he aims at

increasing, as rapidly as possible, the number of his stocks. Unless

this work is done with great judgment, he will find often that the more

he feeds, the less bees he has in his hives, the cells being all

occupied with honey instead of brood. Such is the passion of bees for

storing away honey, that large supplies of it will always most seriously

interfere with breeding, unless the bees are sufficiently numerous to

build new comb in which the queen can find room for her eggs.

I have no doubt that some who have but little experience in the

management of bees, are ready to imagine that they could easily strike

out a simpler and better way of increasing the number of colonies. For

instance: let a full hive have half its comb and bees put into an empty

hive, and the work of doubling, is without further trouble, effectually

accomplished. But what will the queenless hive do, under such

circumstances? Why, build of course, queen cells, and rear another. But

what kind of comb will they fill their hives with, before the young

queen begins to breed? Of that, perhaps, you had never thought. Let me

now lay down the only safe rule for all who engage in the multiplication

of artificial swarms. Never, under _any_ circumstances, take so much

comb and brood from your stock hives, as seriously to reduce their

numbers. This should be to the Apiarian, as "the law of the Medes and

Persians, which altereth not."

Suppose that I divide a populous stock, about swarming season, into four

or five colonies; the strong probability is, that not one of them, if

left to themselves, will be strong enough to survive the Winter. If fed

in the ordinary way, and yet not supplied with combs and bees, their

ruin will often be only accelerated. If, on the contrary, I had taken,

from time to time, combs sufficient to form three or four nuclei, and

had strengthened the new colonies, in such a way as not to draw too

severely upon the resources of the parent stock, I might expect to see

them all, in due time, strong and flourishing.

In the Spring of the year, if I desire to determine the strength of a

colony principally to raising young bees, I can easily effect it by the

following plan. A box is made, of the same inside dimensions with the

lower hive, into which the combs and bees of a full hive can all be

transferred, as soon as the bees are gathering honey enough to build new

combs. This box is now set over the old hive, which contains its

complement of frames with guide combs, or better still, with empty

combs. As soon as the bees begin to build, they take possession of the

lower hive, through which they go in and out, and the queen descends

with them, in order to lay her eggs in the lower combs. As soon as the

old apartment becomes pretty well filled, a large number of combs with

maturing bees, may be taken from the upper one, and when the hive below

is full, they may all be safely removed. If none of the upper combs are

removed, they will be filled with honey, as soon as the brood is

hatched; and as they will contain large stores of bee-bread, they will

answer admirably for replenishing stocks which have an insufficient

supply. In no other way, so far as I know, can so much honey be secured,

and if quantity, not quality, is aimed at, or if the test of quality is

its fitness for the use of the bees, I would recommend this mode as

superior to any other. If two swarms are hived together, or a very

powerful stock is lodged in a hive, so that at once they can have access

to the upper apartment, an extraordinary quantity of honey can be

secured, and of a very excellent quality. As soon as the bees have

raised one generation of young, in the combs of the upper box, or rather

in a part of them, they will use it chiefly for storing honey, and all

that it contains may be taken from them. In flavor, it will be found to

be nearly as good as honey stored in what is called "virgin comb."

In the Chapter on the Requisites of a good hive, I have said that in

size it should be adapted to the natural instincts of the bee, and yet

admit of enlarging or contracting, according to the wants of the colony

placed in it. I never use a hive, the main apartment of which, holds

less than a Winchester bushel. If small colonies are placed in such a

hive, it must be temporarily partitioned off, to suit the size of its

inmates; for if bees have too much room given to them, they cannot

concentrate their animal heat, and are so much discouraged that they

often abandon their hive. I am aware that many judicious Apiarians

recommend hives of much smaller dimensions, and I shall now give my

reasons for using one so large. If a hive is too small, then in the

Spring, the combs are soon filled with honey, bee-bread and brood, and

the surprising fertility of the queen bee, can be turned to no efficient

account. If the honey-harvest in any year, is deficient, such a colony

is very apt to perish in the succeeding Winter; whereas in a large hive,

the honey stored up in a fruitful season, is a reserve supply, in time

of need. In very large hives, I have seen large accumulations of honey

which have been untouched for years, while on the same stand, stocks of

about the same age, in small hives have perished by starvation. A good

early swarm in any situation at all favorable, will fill, the first

season, a hive that holds a bushel: and if there is any location in

which they cannot do this, a doubled swarm should be put into the hive,

or bee-keeping may, as far as profit is concerned, be abandoned. But it

may be objected that if the swarm was not sufficiently strong to fill

their hive, the bees often suffer from the cold in Winter, and become

too much reduced in numbers, to build early and rapidly in the ensuing

Spring. This is undoubtedly true, and hence the great importance of

putting a generous allowance of bees into a hive at the first start,

unless, as on my plan, the requisite strength can be given to them, at a

subsequent period. The hive, if large, should be all the more carefully

protected from extremes of cold, in order to give the bees an

opportunity of developing their natural powers of re-production, to the

best advantage.

In such a hive, the queen will be able to breed almost every month in

the year, even in the coldest climates where bees flourish, and on the

return of Spring, thousands of young bees will be found in it, which

could not have been bred in a small, or badly protected hive. The Polish

hives described by Mr. Dohiogost, have already been referred to. Some of

these hold about three bushels, and yet the bees swarm from them with

great regularity, and the swarms are often of immense size. These hives

are admirably protected, and at the time of hiving at least _four_ times

the number of bees are lodged in them, that are ordinarily put into one

of our hives. The queen bee, in such a hive, has ample room to lay her

three thousand eggs, or more, daily: and a prodigious colony is raised,

which often stores enormous supplies of honey. As all the frames in my

hives are of the same dimensions, the size of the hive may be

conveniently varied, to suit the views of different bee-keepers; for

they may be large or small, according to the number of frames designed

to be used. I hope, before long, to experiment with hives as large

again, as those that I now use; or rather, with such, as by containing

an upper box, may be made to accommodate twice as many bees. This whole

subject of the proper size of hives, certainly needs to be taken

entirely out of the region of conjecture, and to be put upon the basis

of careful observations. Unquestionably the size will require, in some

respects, to be modified by the more or less favorable character of the

country for bee-keeping; but I am satisfied that small hives will be

found of but little profit, and that large ones, unless well stocked

with bees, from the first, and thoroughly protected, will often fail to

answer any good end. If I should find on further experiment, that the

very large hives of which I have spoken, are better, my hives are at

present so constructed that without any alteration of existing parts,

they can easily be supplied with the required additions. I have already

mentioned that I sometimes build my hives, three in one structure, in

order to save expense in their construction. I do not however, wish to

be considered as recommending such hives as the best for general use.

For some purposes a single hive is unquestionably the best, as it can be

easily moved by one person; and this, will many times be found to be a

point of great importance. The double hives, or two in one, are for most

purposes, decidedly the best, as well as the cheapest. I have quite

recently contrived a plan of constructing my wooden hives in such a

manner as to give them very great protection against extremes of heat

and cold, while at the same time they can be easily and cheaply made, by

any one who can handle the simplest mechanical tools.

It has been previously stated that the queen bee cannot be induced to

sting, by any kind of treatment however severe. The reason of this

strange unwillingness to use her natural and powerful weapon, will be

obvious, when we consider how indispensable the preservation of her life

is to the very existence of the colony, and that her single sting, the

loss of which would be her death, could avail but little for their

defence, in case of an attack. She never uses her weapon, except when

engaged in mortal combat with another queen. As soon as the two rivals

come together, they clinch, at once, with every demonstration of the

most vindictive hatred. Why then, are not both of them often destroyed?

and why are not hives, in the swarming season, almost certain to become

queenless? We can never sufficiently admire the provision so simple and

yet so effectual, by which such a calamity is prevented. The queen bee

never stings unless she has such an advantage in the combat, that she

can curve her body under that of her rival, in such a manner as to

inflict a deadly wound, without any risk of being stung herself! The

moment that the position of the two combatants is such that neither has

the advantage, and that both are liable to perish, they not only refuse

to sting, but disengage themselves, and suspend their conflict for a

short time! If it were not for this peculiarity of instinct, such

combats would very often terminate in the death of both the parties,

and the race of bees would be in danger of becoming extinct.

The unwillingness of a swarm of bees, which has been deprived of its

queen, to receive another, until after some time has elapsed, must

always be borne in mind, by those who have anything to do with making

artificial swarms. About 24 hours must elapse before it will be safe to

introduce a strange mother into a queenless hive; and even then, if she

is not fertile, she will run a great risk of being destroyed. To prevent

such losses, I adopt the German plan of confining the queen, in what

they call, "a queen cage." A small hole, about as large as a thimble,

may be gouged out of a block, and covered over with wire gauze, or any

other kind of perforated cover, so that when the queen is put in, the

bees cannot enter to destroy her. Before long, they will cultivate an

acquaintance, by thrusting their antennæ through to her; so that, when

she is liberated the next day, they will gladly adopt her in place of

the one they have lost. If a hole large enough for her to creep out, is

closed with wax, they will gnaw the wax away, and liberate her

themselves, from her confinement. Queens that seem bent on departing to

the woods, may be confined in the same way, until the colony has given

up all thoughts of forsaking its hive. A small paste-board box with

suitable holes, or a wooden match-box thoroughly scalded, I have found

to answer a very good purpose.

I shall here describe what may be called a _Queen Nursery_ which I have

contrived to aid those who are engaged in the rapid multiplication of

colonies by artificial means. A solid block about an inch and a quarter

thick, is substituted for one of my frames; holes, about one and a half

inches in diameter, are bored through it, and covered on both sides,

with gauze wire slides; the wire ought to be such as will allow a

common bee to pass through, but should be too small to permit a queen to

do the same. Any kind of perforated cover may be made to answer the same

purpose as the gauze wire. If a number of sealed queens are on hand, and

there is danger that some may hatch, and destroy the others, before the

Apiarian can make use of them in forming artificial swarms, he may very

carefully cut out the combs containing them, and place them each in a

separate cradle! The bees having access to them, will give them proper

attention, and as soon as they are hatched, will supply them with food,

and thus they will always be on hand for use when they are needed. This

Nursery must of course, be established in a hive which has no mature

queen, or it will quickly be transformed into a slaughter house by the

bees. I have not yet tested this plan so thoroughly as to be _certain_

that it will succeed; and I know so well the immense difference between

theoretical conjectures and practical results, that I consider nothing

in the bee line, or indeed in any other line, as established, until it

has been submitted to the most rigorous demonstrations, and has

triumphantly passed from the mere regions of the brain to those of

actual fact. A theory on any subject may seem so plausible as almost to

amount to a positive demonstration, and yet when put to the working

test, it is often found to be encumbered by some unforeseen difficulty,

which speedily convinces even its sanguine projector, that it has no

practical value. Nine things out of ten may work to a charm, and yet the

tenth may be so connected with the other nine, that its failure renders

their success of no account. When I first used this Nursery, I did not

give the bees access to it, and I found that the queens were not

properly developed, and died in their cells. Perhaps they did not

receive sufficient warmth, or were not treated in some other important

respects, as they would have been if left under the care of the bees.

In the multiplicity of my experiments, I did not repeat this one under a

sufficient variety of circumstances, to ascertain the precise cause of

failure; nor have I as yet, tried whether it will answer perfectly, by

admitting the bees to the queen cells.

Last Spring, I made one queen supply several hives with eggs, so as to

keep them strong in numbers while they were constantly engaged in

rearing a large number of spare queens. Two hives which I shall call A

and B, were deprived at intervals of a week, each of its queen,[20] in

order to induce them to raise a number of young sealed queens for the

use of the Apiary. As soon as the queens in A, were of an age suitable

to be removed, I took them away and gave the colony a fertile queen from

another hive, C; as soon as she had laid a large number of eggs in the

empty cells, I removed the queen cells now sealed over, from B, and gave

them the loan of this fertile mother, until she had performed the same

necessary office for them. By this time, the queen cells in C, were

sealed over; these were now removed, and the queen restored; she had

thus made one circuit, and laid a very large number of eggs in the two

hives which were first deprived of their queens. After allowing her to

replenish her own hive with eggs, I sent her out again on her

perambulating mission, and by this new device was able to get an

extraordinary number of young queens from the three hives, and at the

same time to preserve their numbers from seriously diminishing. Two

queens may in this way, be made in six hives to furnish all the

supernumerary queens which will be wanted in quite a large Apiary.

It will be perfectly obvious to every intelligent and ingenious

Apiarian, that the perfect control of the comb, is the _soul_ of an

entirely new system of practical management, and that it may be modified

to suit the wants of all who wish to cultivate bees. Even the advocate

of the old fashioned plan of killing the bees, can with one of my hives,

destroy his faithful laborers, by shaking them into a tub of water,

almost, if not quite as speedily as by setting them over a sulphur pit;

while after the work of death is accomplished, his honey will be free

from disgusting fumes, and all the labor of cutting it out of the hive,

may be dispensed with.

I am now prepared to answer an objection which doubtless has been

present in the minds of many, all the time that they have been reading

the various processes on which I rely for the multiplication of

colonies. A very large number of persons who keep bees, or who wish to

keep them, are so much afraid of them that they object entirely even to

natural swarming, because they are in danger of being stung in the

process of hiving the bees. How are such persons to manage bees on my

plan, which seems like bearding a lion in its very den! The truth is

that some persons are so very timid, or suffer so dreadfully from the

sting of a bee, that they are every way disqualified from having

anything to do with them, and ought either to have no bees upon their

premises, or to entrust the care of them to some suitable person. By

managing bees according to the directions furnished in this treatise,

almost any one can learn, by using a bee-dress, to superintend them,

with very little risk; while those who are favorites with them, may

dispense entirely with any protection. I find in short, that the risk of

being stung is really diminished by the use of my hives; although it

will be hard to convince those who have not seen them in use, that this

can be so.

There is still another class who either keep bees or can be induced to

keep them, and who are anxiously inquiring for some new hive or new plan

by which, with little or no trouble, they may reap copious harvests of

the precious nectar. This is emphatically _the_ class to seize hold of

every new device, and waste their time and money to fill the coffers of

the ignorant or unprincipled. There never will be a "royal road" to

profitable bee-keeping. If there is any branch of rural economy which

more than all others demands care and experience, for its profitable

management, it is the keeping of bees; and those who have a painful

consciousness that the disposition to put off and neglect, was, so to

speak, born in them, and has never been got out of them, will do well to

let bees alone, unless they hope, by the study of their systematic

industry, to reform evil habits which are well nigh incurable.

While I feel very sanguine that my system of management will be used

extensively and very advantageously, by careful and skillful Apiarians,

I know too much of the world to expect that it will, with the masses,

very speedily supercede other methods, even if it were so absolutely

perfect, as to admit of no possible improvement. I hope, however, that I

may, without being charged with presumption, be permitted to put on

record the prediction, that _movable frames_ will in due season, be

almost universally employed; and this, whether bees are allowed to swarm

naturally, or are increased by artificial means, or are kept in hives in

which they are not expected to swarm at all.

NOTE.--The very day on which I first contrived the plan, so

perfectly simple, and yet so efficacious, of gaining the control of

the combs by these frames, I not only foresaw all the consequences

which would follow their adoption, but wrote as follows, in my

Bee-Journal. "The use of these frames will, I am persuaded, give a

new impulse to the easy and profitable management of bees; and will

render the making of artificial swarms an easy operation."

FOOTNOTES:

[17] I have often spent more than ten minutes in opening and shutting a

single frame in the Huber hive, and even then, have sometimes crushed

some of the bees.

[18] The scent of the hives, during the height of the gathering season,

will usually inform us from what sources the bees have gathered their

supplies.

[19] If they cannot obtain it, the Apiarian must himself furnish it.

[20] The queens taken from such hives may be advantageously used in

forming artificial colonies.

CHAPTER XI.

THE BEE-MOTH, AND OTHER ENEMIES OF BEES. DISEASES OF BEES.

Of all the numerous enemies of the honey-bee, the Bee-Moth (Tinea

mellonella,) in climates of hot Summers, is by far, the most to be

dreaded. So wide spread and fatal have been its ravages in this country,

that thousands have abandoned the cultivation of bees in despair, and in

districts which once produced abundant supplies of the purest honey,

bee-keeping has gradually dwindled down into a very insignificant

pursuit. Contrivances almost without number, have been devised, to

defend the bees against this invidious foe, but still it continues its

desolating inroads, almost unchecked, laughing as it were to scorn, at

all the so-called "moth-proof" hives, and turning many of the ingenious

fixtures designed to entrap or exclude it, into actual aids and comforts

in its nefarious designs.

I should feel but little confidence in being able to reinstate

bee-keeping in our country, into a certain and profitable pursuit, if I

could not show the Apiarian in what way he can safely bid defiance to

the pestiferous assaults of this, his most implacable enemy. I have

patiently studied its habits for years, and I am at length able to

announce a system of management founded upon the peculiar construction

of my hives, which will enable the careful bee-keeper to protect his

colonies against the monster. The CAREFUL bee-keeper, I say: for to

pretend that the careless one, can by any contrivance effect this, is "a

snare and a delusion;" and no well-informed man, unless he is steeped to

the very lips, in fraud and imposture, will ever claim to accomplish any

thing of the kind. The bee-moth infects our Apiaries, just as weeds take

possession of a fertile soil; and the negligent bee-keeper will find a

"moth-proof" hive, when the sluggard finds a _weed-proof_ soil, and I

suspect not until a consummation so devoutly wished for by the slothful

has arrived. Before explaining the means upon which I rely, to

circumvent the moth, I will first give a brief description of its

habits.

Swammerdam, towards the close of the 17th century, gave a very accurate

description of this insect, which was then called by the very expressive

name of the "bee-wolf." He has furnished good drawings of it, in all its

changes, from the worm to the perfect moth, together with the peculiar

webs or galleries which it constructs and from which the name of Tinea

Galleria or gallery moth, has been given to it by some entomologists. He

failed, however, to discriminate between the male and female, which,

because they differ so much in size and appearance, he supposed to be

two different species of the wax-moth. It seems to have been a great

pest in his time; and even Virgil speaks of the "dirum tineæ genus," the

dreadful _offspring_ of the moth; that is the worm. This destroyer

usually makes its appearance about the hives, in April or May; the time

of its coming, depending upon the warmth of the climate, or the

forwardness of the season. It is seldom seen on the wing, (unless

startled from its lurking place about the hive,) until towards dark, and

is evidently, chiefly nocturnal in its habits. In dark cloudy days,

however, I have noticed it on the wing long before sunset, and if

several such days follow in succession, the female oppressed with the

urgent necessity of laying her eggs, may be seen endeavoring to gain

admission to the hives. The female is much larger than the male, and

"her color is deeper and more inclining to a darkish gray, with small

spots or blackish streaks on the interior edge of her upper wings." The

color of the male inclines more to a light gray; they might easily be

mistaken for different species of moths. These insects are surprisingly

agile, both on foot and on the wing. The motions of a bee are very slow

in comparison. "They are," says Reaumur, "the most nimble-footed

creatures that I know." "If the approach to the Apiary[21] be observed

of a moonlight evening, the moths will be found flying or running round

the hives, watching an opportunity to enter, whilst the bees that have

to guard the entrances against their intrusion, will be seen acting as

vigilant sentinels, performing continual rounds near this important

post, extending their antennæ to the utmost, and moving them to the

right and left alternately. Woe to the unfortunate moth that comes

within their reach!" "It is curious," says Huber, "to observe how

artfully the moth knows how to profit, to the disadvantage of the bees,

which require much light for seeing objects; and the precautions taken

by the latter in reconnoitering and expelling so dangerous an enemy."

The entrance of the moth into a hive, and the ravages committed by her

progeny, forcibly remind one of the sad havoc which sin often makes of

character and happiness, when it finds admission into the human heart,

and is allowed to prey unchecked, upon all its most precious treasures;

and he who would not be so enslaved by its power, as to lose all his

spiritual life and prosperity, must be constantly on the defensive, and

ever on the "watch" against its fatal intrusions.

Only some tiny eggs are deposited by the moth, and they give birth to a

very delicate, innocent-looking worm; but let these apparently

insignificant creatures once "get the upper hand," and all the fragrance

of the honied dome, is soon corrupted by their abominable stench; every

thing beautiful and useful, is ruthlessly destroyed; the hum of happy

industry is stilled, and at last, nothing is left in the desecrated

hive, but a set of ravenous, half famished worms, knotting and writhing

around each other, in most loathsome convolutions.

Wax is the proper aliment of the larvæ of the bee-moth: and upon this

seemingly indigestible substance, they thrive and fatten. When obliged

to steal their living as best they can, among a powerful stock of bees,

they are exposed, during their growth, to many perils, and seldom fare

well enough to reach their natural size: but if they are rioting at

pleasure, among the full combs of a feeble and discouraged population,

they often attain a size and corpulency truly astonishing. If the

bee-keeper wishes to see their innate capabilities fully developed, let

him rear a lot for himself among some old combs, and if prizes were

offered for fat and full grown worms, he might easily obtain one. In the

course of a few weeks, the larva like that of the silk-worm, stops

eating, and begins to think of a suitable place for encasing itself in

its silky shroud. In hives where they reign uncontrolled, this is a work

of but little difficulty; almost any place will answer their purpose,

and they often pile their cocoons, one on top of another, or join them

in long rows together: but in hives strongly guarded by healthy bees,

this is a matter not very easily accomplished; and many a worm while it

is cautiously prying about, to see where it can find some snug place in

which to ensconce itself, is caught by the nape of the neck, and very

unceremoniously served with an instant writ of ejection from the hive.

If a hive is thoroughly made, of sound materials, and has no cracks or

crevices under which the worm can retreat, it is obliged to leave the

interior in search of such a place, and it runs a most dangerous

gantlet, as it passes, for this purpose, through the ranks of its

enraged foes. Even in the worm state, however, its motions are

exceedingly quick; it can crawl backwards or forwards, and as well one

way as another: it can twist round on itself, curl up almost into a

knot, and flatten itself out like a pancake! in short, it is full of

stratagems and cunning devices. If obliged to leave the hive, it gets

under any board or concealed crack, spins its cocoon, and patiently

awaits its transformation. In most of the common hives, it is under no

necessity of leaving its birth place for this purpose. It is almost

certain to find a crack or flaw into which it can creep, or a small

space between the bottom-board and the edges of the hive which rest upon

it. A _very_ small crevice will answer all its purposes. It enters, by

flattening itself out almost as much as though it had been passed under

a roller, and as soon as it is safe from the bees, it speedily begins to

give its cramped tenement, the requisite proportions. It is utterly

amazing how an insect apparently so feeble, can do this; but it will

often gnaw for itself a cavity, even in solid wood, and thus enlarge its

retreat, until it has ample room for making its cocoon! The time when it

will break forth into a winged insect, depends entirely upon the degree

of heat to which it is exposed. I have had them spin their cocoons and

hatch in a temperature of about 70°, in ten or eleven days, and I have

known them to spin so late in the Fall, that they remained all Winter,

undeveloped, and did not emerge until the warm weather of the ensuing

Spring!

If they are hatched in the hive, they leave it, in order to attend to

the business of impregnation. In the moth state, they do not actually

attack the hives, to plunder them of food, although they have a "sweet

tooth" in their head, and are easily attracted by the odor of liquid

sweets. The male, having no special business in the hive, usually keeps

himself at a safe distance from the bees: but the female, impelled by an

irresistible instinct, seeks admission, in order to deposit her eggs

where her offspring may gain the readiest access to their natural food.

She carefully explores all the cracks and crevices about the

bottom-board, and if she finds a suitable place under them, lays her

eggs among the parings of the combs, and other refuse matter which has

fallen from the hive. If she enters a feeble or discouraged stock, where

she can act her own pleasure, she will lay her eggs among the combs. In

a hive where she is too closely watched to effect this, she will insert

them in the corners, into the soft propolis, or in any place where there

are small pieces of wax and bee-bread, which have fallen upon the

bottom-board, and which will furnish a temporary place of concealment

for her progeny, and also the requisite nourishment, until they have

strength and enterprise enough to reach the main combs of the hive, and

fortify themselves there. "As soon as hatched,[22] the worm encloses

itself in a case of white silk, which it spins around its body; at first

it is like a mere thread, but gradually increases in size, and during

its growth, feeds upon the cells around it, for which purpose it has

only to put forth its head, and find its wants supplied. It devours its

food with great avidity, and consequently increases so much in bulk,

that its gallery soon becomes too short and narrow, and the creature is

obliged to thrust itself forward and lengthen the gallery, as well to

obtain more room as to procure an additional supply of food. Its

augmented size exposing it to attacks from surrounding foes, the wary

insect fortifies its new abode with additional strength and thickness,

by blending with the filaments of its silken covering, a mixture of wax

and its own excrement, for the external barrier of a new gallery, the

_interior_ and partitions of which are lined with a smooth surface of

white silk, which admits the occasional movements of the insect, without

injury to its delicate (?) texture. In performing these operations, the

insect might be expected to meet with opposition from the bees, and to

be gradually rendered more assailable as it advanced in age. It never,

however, exposes any part but its head and neck, both of which are

covered with stout helmets or scales impenetrable to the sting of a bee,

as is the composition of the galleries that surround it." As soon as it

has reached its full growth, it seeks in the manner previously

described, a secure place for undergoing its changes into a winged

insect.

Before describing the way in which I protect my hives from this deadly

pest, I shall first show why the bee-moth has so wonderfully increased

in numbers in this country, and how the use of patent hives has so

powerfully contributed to encourage its ravages. It ought to be borne in

mind that our climate is altogether more propitious to its rapid

increase, than that of Great Britain. Our intensely hot summers develop

most rapidly and powerfully, insect life, and those parts of our country

where the heat is most protracted and intense, have, as a general thing,

suffered most from the devastations of the bee-moth.

The bee is not a native of the American continent; it was first brought

here by colonists from Great Britain, and was called by the Indians, the

white man's fly. With the bee, was introduced its natural enemy,

created for the special purpose, not of destroying the insect, on whose

industry it thrives, and whose extermination would be fatal to the moth

itself, but that it might gain its livelihood as best it could in this

busy world. Finding itself in a country whose climate is exceedingly

propitious to its rapid increase, it has multiplied and increased a

thousand fold, until now there is hardly a spot where the bees inhabit,

which is not infested by its powerful enemy.

I have often listened to the glowing accounts of the vast supplies of

honey obtained by the first settlers, from their bees. Fifty years ago,

the markets in our large cities were much more abundantly supplied than

they now are, and it was no uncommon thing to see exposed for sale,

large washing-tubs filled with the most beautiful honey. Various reasons

have been assigned for the present depressed state of Apiarian pursuits.

Some imagine that newly settled countries are most favorable for the

labors of the bee: others, that we have overstocked our farms, so that

the bees cannot find a sufficient supply of food. That neither of these

reasons will account for the change, I shall prove more at length, in my

remarks on Honey, and when I discuss the question of overstocking a

district with bees. Others lay all the blame upon the bee-moth, and

others still, upon our departure from the good old-fashioned way of

managing bees. That the bee-moth has multiplied most astonishingly, is

undoubtedly true. In many districts, it so superabounds, that the man

who should expect to manage his bees with as little care as his father

and grandfather bestowed upon them, and yet realize as large profits,

would find himself most wofully mistaken. The old bee-keeper often never

looked at his bees after the swarming season, until the time came for

appropriating their spoils. He then carefully "hefted" all his hives so

as to be able to judge as well as he could, how much honey they

contained. All which were found to be too light to survive the Winter,

he at once condemned; and if any were deficient in bees, or for any

other reason, appeared to be of doubtful promise, they were, in like

manner, sentenced to the sulphur pit. A certain number of those

containing the largest supplies of honey, were also treated in the same

summary way: while the requisite number of the _very best_, were

reserved to replenish his stock another season. If the same system

precisely, were now followed, a number of colonies would still perish

annually, through the increased devastations of the moth.

The change which has taken place in the circumstances of the bee-keeper,

may be illustrated by supposing that when the country was first settled,

weeds were almost unknown. The farmer plants his corn, and then lets it

alone, and as there are no weeds to molest it, at the end of the season

he harvests a fair crop. Suppose, however, that in process of time, the

weeds begin to spread more and more, until at last, this farmer's son or

grandson finds that they entirely choke his corn, and that he cannot, in

the old way, obtain a remunerating crop. Now listen to him, as he

gravely informs you that he cannot tell how it is, but corn with him has

all "run out." He manages it precisely as his father or grandfather

always managed theirs, but somehow the pestiferous weeds will spring up,

and he has next to no crop. Perhaps you can hardly conceive of such

transparent ignorance and stupidity; but it would be difficult to show

that it would be one whit greater than that of a large number who keep

bees in places where the bee-moth abounds, and who yet imagine that

those plans which answered perfectly well fifty or a hundred years ago,

when moths were scarce, will answer just as well now.

If however, the old plan had been rigidly adhered to, the ravages of the

bee-moth would never have been so great as they now are. The

introduction of _patent hives_ has contributed most powerfully, to fill

the land with the devouring pest. I am perfectly aware that this is a

bold assertion, and that it may, at first sight, appear to be very

uncourteous, if not unjust, to the many intelligent and ingenious

Apiarians, who have devoted much time, and spent large sums of money, in

perfecting hives designed to enable the bee-keeper to contend most

successfully against his worst enemy. As I do not wish to treat such

persons with even the appearance of disrespect, I shall endeavor to show

just how the use of the hives which they have devised, has contributed

to undermine the prosperity of the bees. Many of these hives have

valuable properties, and if they were always used in strict accordance

with the enlightened directions of those who have invented them, they

would undoubtedly be real and substantial improvements over the old box

or straw hive, and would greatly aid the bee-keeper in his contest with

the moth. The great difficulty is that they are none of them, able to

give him the facilities which alone can make him victorious. No hive, as

I shall soon show, can ever do this, which does not give the complete

and easy control of all the combs.

I do not know of a single improved hive which does not aim at entirely

doing away with the old-fashioned plan of killing the bees. Such a

practice is denounced as being almost as cruel and silly as to kill a

hen for the sake of obtaining her feathers or a few of her eggs. Now if

the Apiarian can be furnished with suitable instructions, and such as he

will _practice_, for managing his bees so as to avoid this necessity,

then I admit the full force of all the objections which have been urged

against it. I have never read the beautiful verses of the poet

Thompson, without feeling all their force:

"Ah, see, where robbed and murdered in that pit

Lies the still heaving hive! at evening snatched,

Beneath the cloud of guilt-concealing night,

And fixed o'er sulphur! while, not dreaming ill,

The happy people, in their waxen cells,

Sat tending public cares;

Sudden, the dark oppressive steam ascends,

And, used to milder scents, the tender race,

By thousands, tumble from their honied dome!

Into a gulf of blue sulphureous flame."

The plain matter of fact however, is, that in our country, as many bees,

if not more, die of starvation in their hives, as ever were killed by

the fumes of sulphur. Commend me rather to the humanity of the

old-fashioned bee-keeper, who put to a speedy and therefore merciful

death, the poor bees which are now, by millions, tortured by slow

starvation among their empty combs! At the present time, (April 1853,) I

am almost daily hearing of swarms which have perished in this way,

during the last Winter; and I know of only one person who was merciful

enough to kill his weak stocks, rather than suffer them to die so cruel

a death.

If the use of the common patent hives could only keep the stocks strong

in numbers, and if the bee-keepers would always see that they were well

supplied with honey, then I admit that to kill the bees would be both

cruel and unnecessary. Such however, are the discouragements and losses

necessarily attending the use of any hive which does not give the

control of the combs, that there will be few who do not continually find

that some of their stocks are too feeble to be worth the labor and

expense of attempting to preserve them over Winter. How many colonies

are annually wintered, which are not only of no value to their owner,

but are positive nuisances in his Apiary; being so feeble in the Spring,

that they are speedily overcome by the moth, and answer only to breed a

horde of destroyers to ravage the rest of his Apiary. The time spent

upon them is often as absolutely wasted, as the time devoted to a sick

animal incurably diseased, and which can never be of any service, while

by nursing it along, its owner incurs the risk of infecting his whole

stock with its deadly taint. If, on the score of kindness, he should

shut it up, and let it starve to death, few of us, I imagine, would care

to cultivate a very intimate acquaintance with one so extremely original

in the exhibition of his humanity!

Ever since the introduction of patent hives, the notion has almost

universally prevailed, that stocks must not, under _any_ circumstances,

be voluntarily broken up; and hence, instead of Apiaries, filled in the

Spring, with strong and healthy stocks of bees, easily able to protect

themselves against the bee-moth, and all other enemies, we have

multitudes of colonies which, if they had been kept on purpose to

furnish food for the worms, could scarcely have answered a more valuable

end in encouraging their increase. The simple truth is, that improved

hives, without an improved system of management, have done on the whole

more harm than good; in no country have they been so extensively used as

in our own, and no where has the moth so completely gained the

ascendency. Just so far as they have discouraged bee-keepers from the

old plan of killing off all their weak swarms in the Fall, just so far

have they extended "aid and comfort" to the moth, and made the condition

of the bee-keeper worse than it was before. That some of them might be

managed so as in all ordinary cases, to give the bees complete

protection against their scourge, I do not, for a moment, question; but

that they cannot, from the very nature of the case, answer fully in all

emergencies, the ends for which they were designed, I shall endeavor to

prove and not to assert.

The kind of hives of which I have been speaking, are such as have been

devised by intelligent and honest men, practically acquainted with the

management of bees: as for many of the hives which have been introduced,

they not only afford the Apiarian no assistance against the inroads of

the bee-moth, but they are so constructed as positively to aid it in its

nefarious designs. The more they are used, the worse the poor bees are

off: just as the more a man uses the lying nostrums of the brazen-faced

quack, the further he finds himself from health and vigor.

I once met with an intelligent man who told me that he had paid a

considerable sum, to a person who professed to be in possession of many

valuable _secrets_ in the management of bees, and who promised, among

other things, to impart to him an infallible remedy against the

bee-moth. On the receipt of the money, he very gravely told him that the

secret of keeping the moth out of the hive, was to keep the bees strong

and vigorous! A truer declaration he could not have made, but I believe

that the bee-keeper felt, notwithstanding, that he had been imposed

upon, as outrageously, as a poor man would be, who after paying a quack

a large sum of money for an infallible, life-preserving secret, should

be turned off with the truism that the secret of living forever, was to

keep well!

There is not an intelligent, observing Apiarian who has been in the

habit of carefully examining the operations of bees, not only in his own

Apiary, but wherever he could find them, who has not seen strong stocks

flourishing under almost any conceivable circumstances. They may be seen

in hives of the most miserable construction, unpainted and unprotected,

sometimes with large open cracks and clefts extending down their sides,

and yet laughing to defiance, the bee-moth, and all other adverse

influences.

Almost any thing hollow, in which the bees can establish themselves, and

where they have once succeeded in becoming strong, will often be

successfully tenanted by them for a series of years. To see such hives,

as they sometimes may be seen, in possession of persons both ignorant

and careless, and who hardly know a bee-moth from any other kind of

moth, may at first sight well shake the confidence of the inquirer, in

the necessity or value of any particular precautions to preserve his

hives from the devastations of the moth.

After looking at these powerful stocks in what may be called log-cabin

hives, let us examine some in the most costly hives, which have ever

been constructed; in what have been called real "Bee-Palaces;" and we

shall often find them weak and impoverished, infested and almost

devoured by the worms. Their owner, with books in his hand, and all the

newest devices and appliances in the Apiarian line, unable to protect

his bees against their enemies, or to account for the reason why some

hives seem, like the children of the poor, almost to thrive upon

ill-treatment and neglect, while others, like the offspring of the rich

and powerful, are feeble and diseased, almost in exact proportion to the

means used to guard them against noxious influences, and to minister

most lavishly to all their wants.

I once used to be much surprised to hear so many bee-keepers speak of

having "good luck," or "bad luck" with their bees; but really as bees

are generally managed, success or failure does seem to depend almost

entirely upon what the ignorant or superstitious are wont to call

"luck."

I shall now try to do what I have never yet seen satisfactorily done by

any writer on bees; viz.: show exactly under what circumstances the

bee-moth succeeds in establishing itself in a hive; thus explaining why

some stocks flourish in spite of all neglect, while others, in the

common hives, fall a prey to the moth, let their owner be as careful as

he will, I shall finally show how in suitable hives, with proper

precautions, it may always be kept from seriously annoying the bees.

It often happens, when a large number of stocks are kept, that in spite

of all precautions, some of them are found in the Spring, so greatly

reduced in numbers, that if left to themselves, they are in danger of

falling a prey to the devouring moth. Bees, when in feeble colonies,

seem often to lose a portion of their wonted vigilance, and as they have

a large quantity of empty comb which they cannot guard, even if they

would, the moth enters the hive, and deposits a large number of eggs,

and thus before the bees have become sufficiently numerous to protect

themselves, the combs are filled with worms, and the destruction of the

colony speedily follows. The ignorant or careless bee-keeper is informed

of the ravages which are going on in such a hive, only when its ruin is

fully completed, and a cloud of winged pests issues from it, to destroy

if they can, the rest of his stocks. But how, it may be asked, can it be

ascertained that a hive is seriously infested with the all-devouring

worms? The aspect of the bees, so discouraged and forlorn, proclaims at

once that there is trouble of some kind within. If the hive be slightly

elevated, the bottom-board will be found covered with pieces of

bee-bread, &c. mixed with the _excrement of the worms_ which looks

almost exactly like fine grains of powder. As the bees in Spring, clean

out their combs, and prepare the cells for the reception of brood, their

bottom-board will often be so covered with parings of comb and with

small pieces of bee-bread, that the hive may appear to be in danger of

being destroyed by the worms. If, however, none of the _black_ excrement

is perceived, the refuse on the bottom-board, like the shavings in a

carpenter's shop, are proofs of industry and not the signs of

approaching ruin. It is highly important, however, to keep the

bottom-boards clean, and if a piece of zinc be slipt in, (or even an old

newspaper,) by removing and cleansing it from time to time, the bees

will be greatly assisted in their operations. As soon as the hive is

well filled with bees, this need no longer be done.

Even the most careful and experienced Apiarian will find, too often,

that although he is perfectly well aware of the plague that is reigning

within, his knowledge can be turned to no good account, the interior of

the hive being almost as inaccessible as the interior of the human body.

The way in which I manage, in such cases, is as follows.

Having ascertained, in the Spring, as soon as the bees begin to fly out,

that a colony although feeble, has a fertile queen, I take the

precaution at once to give it the strength which is indispensable, not

merely to its safety, but to its ability for any kind of successful

labor.

As a certain number of bees are needed in a hive, in order as well to

warm and hatch the thousands of eggs which a healthy queen can lay, as

to feed and properly develop the larvæ after they are hatched, I know

that a feeble colony must remain feeble for a long time, unless they can

at once be supplied with a considerable accession of numbers. Even if

there were no moths in existence to trouble such a hive, it would not be

able to rear a large number of bees, until after the best of the

honey-harvest had passed away: and then it would become powerful only

that its increasing numbers might devour the food which the others had

previously stored in the cells. If the small colony has a considerable

number of bees, and is able to cover and warm at least one comb in

addition to those containing brood which they already have, I take from

one of my strong stocks, a frame containing some three or four thousand

or more young bees, which are sealed over in their cells, and are just

ready to emerge. These bees which require no food, and need nothing but

warmth to develop them, will, in a few days, hatch in the new hive to

which they are given, and thus the requisite number of workers, in the

full vigor and energy of youth, will be furnished to the hive, and the

discouraged queen, finding at once a suitable number of experienced

nurses[23] to take charge of her eggs, deposits them in the proper

cells, instead of simply extruding them, to be devoured by the bees.

While bees often attack full grown strangers which are introduced into

their hive, they never fail to receive gladly all the brood comb that we

choose to give them. If they are sufficiently numerous, they will always

cherish it, and in warm weather, they will protect it, even if it is

laid against the outside of their hive! If the bees in the weak stock,

are too much reduced in numbers, to be able to cover the brood comb

taken from another hive, I give them this comb with all the old bees

that are clustered upon it, and shut up the hive, after supplying them

with water, until two or three days have passed away. By this time, most

of the strange bees will have formed an inviolable attachment to their

new home, and even if a portion of them should return to the parent

hive, a large number of the maturing young will have hatched, to supply

their desertion. A little sugar-water scented with peppermint, may be

used to sprinkle the bees, at the time that the comb is introduced,

although I have never yet found that they had the least disposition, to

quarrel with each other. The original settlers are only too glad to

receive such a valuable accession to their scanty numbers, and the

expatriated bees are too-much confounded with their unexpected

emigration, to feel any desire for making a disturbance. If a sufficient

increase of numbers has not been furnished by one range of comb, the

operation may, in the course of a few days, be repeated. Instead of

leaving the colony to the discouraging feeling that they are in a large,

empty and desolate house, a divider should be run down into the hive,

and they should be confined to a space which they are able to warm and

defend, and the rest of the hive, until they need its additional room,

should be carefully shut up against all intruders. If this operation is

judiciously performed, the bees will be powerful in numbers, long before

the weather is warm enough to develop the bee-moth, and they will thus

be most effectually protected from the hateful pest.

A very simple change in the organization of the bee-moth would have

rendered it almost if not quite impossible to protect the bees from its

ravages. If it had been so constituted as to require but a very small

amount of heat for its full development, it would have become very

numerous early in the Spring, and might then have easily entered the

hives and deposited its eggs among the combs, without any let or

hindrance; for at this season, not only do the bees at night maintain no

guard at the entrance of their hive, but there are large portions of

their comb bare of bees, and of course, entirely unprotected. How does

every fact in the history of the bee, when properly investigated, point

with unerring certainty to the power, wisdom and goodness, of Him who

made it!

If there is reason to apprehend that the combs which are not occupied

with brood, contain any of the eggs of the moth, these combs may be

removed, and thoroughly smoked with the fumes of burning sulphur; and

then, in a few days, after they have been exposed to the fresh air, they

may be returned to the hive. I hope I may be pardoned for feeling not

the slightest pity for the unfortunate progeny of the moth, thus

unceremoniously destroyed.

Bees, as is well known to every experienced bee-keeper, frequently swarm

so often as to expose themselves to great danger of being destroyed by

the moth. After the departure of the after-swarms, the parent colony

often contains too few bees to cover and protect their combs from the

insidious attacks of their wily enemy. As a number of weeks must elapse

before the brood of the young queen is mature, the colony, for a

considerable time, at the season when the moths are very numerous, are

constantly diminishing in numbers, and before they can begin to

replenish the exhausted hive, the destroyer has made a fatal lodgment.

In my hives, such calamities are easily prevented. If artificial

increase is relied upon for the multiplication of colonies, it can be so

conducted as to give the moth next to no chance to fortify itself in the

hive. No colony is ever allowed to have more room than it needs, or more

combs than it can cover and protect; and the entrance to the hive may be

contracted, if necessary, so that only a single bee can go in and out,

at a time, and yet the bees will have, from the ventilators, as much air

as they require.

If natural swarming is allowed, after-swarms may be prevented from

issuing, by cutting out all the queen cells but one, soon after the

first swarm leaves the hive; or if it is desired to have as fast an

increase of stocks, as can possibly be obtained from natural swarming,

then instead of leaving the combs in the parent hive to be attacked by

the moth, a certain portion of them may be taken out, when swarming is

over, and given to the second and third swarms, so as to aid in building

them up into strong stocks.

But I have not yet spoken of the most fruitful cause of the desolating

ravages of the bee-moth. If a colony has _lost its queen_, and this loss

cannot be supplied, it must, as a matter of course, fall a sacrifice to

the bee-moth: and I do not hesitate to assert that by far the larger

proportion of colonies which are destroyed by it, are destroyed under

precisely such circumstances! Let this be remembered by all who have any

thing to do with bees, and let them understand that unless a remedy for

the loss of the queen, can be provided, they must constantly expect to

see some of their best colonies hopelessly ruined. The crafty moth,

after all, is not so much to blame, as we are apt to imagine; for a

colony, once deprived of its queen, and possessing no means of securing

another, would certainly perish, even if never attacked by so deadly an

enemy; just as the body of an animal, when deprived of life, will

speedily go to decay, even if it is not, at once, devoured by ravenous

swarms of filthy flies and worms.

In order to ascertain all the important points connected with the habits

of the bee-moth, I have purposely deprived colonies in some of my

observing hives, of their queen, and have thus reduced them to a state

of despair, that I might closely watch all their proceedings. I have

invariably found that in this state, they have made little or no

resistance to the entrance of the bee-moth, but have allowed her to

deposit her eggs, just where she pleased. The worms, after hatching,

have always appeared to be even more at home than the poor dispirited

bees themselves, and have grown and thrived, in the most luxurious

manner. In some instances, these colonies, so far from losing all spirit

to resent other intrusions, were positively the most vindictive set of

bees in my whole Apiary. One especially, assaulted every body that came

near it, and when reduced in numbers to a mere handful, seemed as ready

for fight as ever.

How utterly useless then, for defending a queenless colony against the

moth, are all the traps and other devices which have been, of late

years, so much relied upon. If a single female gains admission, she will

lay eggs enough to destroy in a short time, the strongest colony that

ever existed, if once it has lost its queen, and has no means of

procuring another. But not only do the bees of a hive which is

hopelessly queenless, make little or no opposition to the entrance of

the bee-moth, and to the ravages of the worms, but by their forlorn

condition, they positively invite the attacks of their destroyers. The

moth seems to have an instinctive knowledge of the condition of such a

hive, and no art of man can ever keep her out. She will pass by other

colonies to get at the queenless one, for she seems to know that there

she will find all the conditions that are necessary to the proper

development of her young. There are many mysteries in the insect world,

which we have not yet solved; nor can we tell just how the moth arrives

at so correct a knowledge of the condition of the queenless hives in the

Apiary. That such hives, very seldom, maintain a guard about the

entrance, is certain; and that they do not fill the air with the

pleasant voice of happy industry, is equally certain; for even to our

dull ears, the difference between the hum of the prosperous hive, and

the unhappy note of the despairing one, is sufficiently obvious. May it

not be even more obvious to the acute senses of the provident mother,

seeking a proper place for the development of her young?

The unerring sagacity of the moth, closely resembles that peculiar

instinct by which the vulture and other birds that prey upon carrion,

are able to single out a diseased animal from the herd, which they

follow with their dismal croakings, hovering over its head, or sitting

in ill-omened flocks, on the surrounding trees, watching it as its life

ebbs away, and stretching out their filthy and naked necks, and opening

and snapping their blood-thirsty beaks that they may be all ready to

tear out its eyes just glazing in death, and banquet upon its flesh

still warm with the blood of life! Let any fatal accident befall an

animal, and how soon will you see them, first from one quarter of the

heavens, and then from another, speeding their eager flight to their

destined prey, when only a short time before, not a single one could be

seen or heard.

I have repeatedly seen powerful colonies speedily devoured by the worms,

because of the loss of their queen, when they have stood, side by side

with feeble colonies which being in possession of a queen, have been

left untouched!

That the common hives furnish no available remedy for the loss of the

queen, is well known: indeed, the owner cannot, in many cases, be sure

that his bees are queenless, until their destruction is certain, while

not unfrequently, after keeping bees for many years, he does not even so

much as believe that there is such a thing as a queen bee!

In the Chapter on the Loss of the Queen, I shall show in what way this

loss can be ascertained, and ordinarily remedied, and thus the bees be

protected from that calamity which more than all others, exposes them to

destruction. When a colony has become hopelessly queenless, then moth or

no moth, its destruction is absolutely certain. Even if the bees

retained their wonted industry in gathering stores, and their usual

energy in defending themselves against all their enemies, their ruin

could only be delayed for a short time. In a few months, they would all

die a natural death, and there being none to replace them, the hive

would be utterly depopulated. Occasionally, such instances occur in

which the bees have died, and large stores of honey have been found

untouched in their hives. This, however, but seldom happens: for they

rarely escape from the assaults of other colonies, even if after the

death of their queen, they do not fall a prey to the bee-moth. A

motherless hive is almost always assaulted by stronger stocks, which

seem to have an instinctive knowledge of its orphanage, and hasten at

once, to take possession of its spoils. (See Remarks on Robbing.) If it

escape the Scylla of these pitiless plunderers, it is soon dashed upon a

more merciless Charybdis, when the miscreant moths have ascertained its

destitution. Every year, large numbers of hives are bereft of their

queen, and every year, the most of such hives are either robbed by other

bees, or sacked by the bee-moth, or first robbed, and afterwards sacked,

while their owner imputes all the mischief that is done, to something

else than the real cause. He might just as well imagine that the birds,

or the carrion worms which are devouring his dead horse, were actually

the primary cause of its untimely end. How often we see the same kind of

mistake made by those who impute the decay of a tree, to the insects

which are banqueting upon its withering foliage; when often these

insects are there, because the disease of the tree has both furnished

them with their proper aliment, and deprived the plant of the vigor

necessary to enable it to resist their attack.

The bee keeper can easily gather from these remarks, the means upon

which I most rely, to protect my colonies from the bee-moth. Knowing

that strong stocks supplied with a fertile queen, are always able to

take care of themselves, in almost any kind of hive, I am careful to

keep them in the state which is practically found to be one of such

security. If they are weak, they must be properly strengthened, and

confined to only as much space as they can warm and defend: and if they

are queenless, they must be supplied with the means of repairing their

loss, or if that cannot be done, they should be at once broken up, (See

Remarks on Queenlessness, and Union of Stocks,) and added to other

stocks.

It cannot be too deeply impressed upon the mind of the bee-keeper, that

a small colony ought always to be confined to a small space, if we wish

the bees to work with the greatest energy, and to offer the stoutest

resistance to their numerous enemies. Bees do most unquestionably,

"abhor a vacuum," if it is one which they can neither fill, warm nor

defend. Let the prudent bee-master only keep his stocks strong, and they

will do more to defend themselves against all intruders, than he can

possibly do for them, even if he spends his whole time in watching and

assisting them.

It is hardly necessary, after the preceding remarks, to say much upon

the various contrivances to which so many resort, as a safeguard against

the bee-moth. The idea that gauze-wire doors, to be shut daily at dusk,

and opened again at morning, can exclude the moth, will not weigh much

with one who has seen them flying and seeking admission, especially in

dull weather, long before the bees have given over their work for the

day. Even if the moth could be excluded by such a contrivance, it would

require, on the part of those who rely upon it, a regularity almost akin

to that of the heavenly bodies in their courses; a regularity so

systematic, in short, as either to be impossible, or likely to be

attained but by very few.

An exceedingly ingenious contrivance, to say the least, to remedy the

necessity for such close supervision, is that by which the movable doors

of all the hives are governed by a long lever in the shape of a

hen-roost, so that the hives may all be closed seasonably and regularly,

by the crowing and cackling tribe, when they go to bed at night, and

opened at once when they fly from their perch, to greet the merry morn.

Alas! that so much ingenuity should be all in vain! Chickens are often

sleepy, and wish to retire sometime before the bees feel that they have

completed their full day's work, and some of them are so much opposed to

early rising, either from ill-health, or downright laziness, that they

sit moping on their roost, long after the cheerful sun has purpled the

glowing East. Even if this device were perfectly successful, it could

not save from ruin, a colony which has lost its queen. The truth is,

that almost all the contrivances upon which we are instructed to rely,

are just about equivalent to the lock carefully put upon the stable

door, after the horse has been stolen; or to attempts to prevent

corruption from fastening upon the body of an animal, after the breath

of life has forever departed.

Are there then no precautions to which we may resort, except by using

hives which give the control over every comb? Certainly there are, and I

shall now describe them in such a manner as to aid all who find

themselves annoyed by the inroads of the bee-moth.