THE SIGNS BY WHICH TO ASCERTAIN
WHETHER A HIVE REQUIRES TO BE RENEWED.
As long as a hive produces honey and swarms, it is needless to touch
it; but, when it ceases to be productive,--when, during several months,
the bees form clusters, without swarming, I then think it necessary to
renew, or, properly speaking, to prune it; the directions for which
will be best understood by my simply relating how I managed my two
first experiments.
The first time I performed this operation was on a pretty large-sized
straw-hive, which, for ten years, was very productive. One year alone,
it yielded me seventy-two pounds of very fine honey-comb in the capes,
mentioned in Chapter X. The eleventh and twelfth years it made me no
return, though it was heavy and very populous. About the beginning of
the thirteenth year, I gave it a little tobacco-smoke, with my pipe,
and proceeded to prune the combs away with my knife, until I came to
brood. There remained only four in front, in which the bees always
begin to lay their eggs in the spring. They were very black, and
contained little honey, but I saved them, that the population might
not be destroyed. The honey that I took out was hard and candied,
but I melted it with a little wine; and, filling some bits of empty
combs with it, gave them a part of it two or three times a-week, being
careful to place them in the hive in the evening, and take them out
again in the morning, for fear of attracting thieves.
I thus fed the bees with their own store; the combs were always empty
in the morning. By the month of April, they began to build in the
space I had left. By the middle of May, they had completely filled it
with beautiful white combs, like those of a new swarm; and the same
year, on the 9th of June, it gave me, contrary to my expectation, an
excellent swarm. Next year, by the end of March, I took away the four
black combs that I had left, and in which was no brood. The brood was
by this time deposited in the middle combs; thus my hive was completely
renewed.
Encouraged by this success, I performed the same operation next spring,
on a common sized hive, which, during eleven years, had annually
yielded me honey or swarms: one year I took from it forty pounds
of beautiful honey-comb; but, for two years, it had been languid
and unproductive. On the 4th of March, I pruned away all the combs,
excepting two in front, containing brood; and I nourished the bees, by
giving them a little of the liquid honey every evening, upon a bit of
comb, until they could get out to gather food for themselves.
In the month of May, all the combs that I had cut out were replaced
with the most beautiful new ones. This hive, which was weaker than the
other, gave out no swarm the same year, but it filled a cape with some
pounds of honey-comb, which I took possession of.
The following year, on the 4th of March, I cut away the two black combs
that were left in front, and thus this hive was also entirely renewed;
after which it produced me four swarms, and nearly forty pounds of
honey-combs in the capes: this I consider a clear profit, there not
being the smallest doubt that the hive would have perished, had it not
been renewed.
These two examples may suffice to shew the advantage to be derived from
the renewing of old hives. What would mine have yielded had I resorted
to the common method of suffocating the bees? A little indifferent
honey; for that of candied combs is very inferior to that of new ones.
As to the wax, I should have had no more, since I took away all that
the hives contained, and the exchange gave me good strong colonies,
which are more valuable than the best swarms.
The advantage of my plan will be better understood, if we shall
suppose two neighbouring apiaries, equally good, and in all respects
equally well taken care of. Suppose one of them shall be managed in
the ordinary way, and that, every year, the owners shall suffocate the
heaviest swarms for the sake of the honey, and that they also destroy
the old hives that have too little provision for the winter. Let the
other apiary be managed according to the principles I have detailed,
that not one bee shall be put to death, and that, in the autumn, the
swarms that are too light, as well as the old hives that are scarce of
food, shall be united, and that the latter shall be renewed when they
cease to prosper.
At the end of fifteen years, compare these two apiaries, and see
which has the strongest hives, the greatest number, and in the best
condition. It would be surprising indeed, if they preserved their
original equality.
Will these operations be objected to, on account of the difficulties
attending the performance of them? Will it be said that every one has
not the courage to run the risk of being stung, or the dexterity to set
about handling the bees?
In all countries there are people to be found who are accustomed to
gather swarms, and to put joinings on hives. Let them be employed, and
directed in every part of the work that the proprietors do not like
to perform themselves. This practice is common in Lusatia, a country
celebrated in the history of bees, by the very useful discoveries of
M. Shirach, and where they make annually, according to his principles,
a great quantity of artificial swarms. The country people, of whom the
greater number understand nothing of these complex operations, which
take more time, and are much more difficult than the union of swarms,
or the renewing of hives, employ people who are bred to the business,
and who, in the proper season, go from village to village, making
swarms, and are paid for their trouble.
From the result of my experiments, it is evident that the duration
of hives is indefinite; and here a multitude of questions present
themselves. How long does a queen live? Would she live twenty years and
more? Is the term of her existence prolonged beyond that of the working
bees? I cannot answer; but I have reason to think that bees live only
one year, and that those which have lived over the winter, and have
assisted at the work during the spring and summer, and which do not
perish by accident, die of age in the month of August. By that time,
they seem to become paralytic; and, unable to fly, they fall down in
the neighbourhood of the hives, and creep about until they expire from
fatigue and exhaustion.
One then sees many of them, with their wings fringed, which is a sign
of decrepitude, similar to the wrinkles of an old person; while the
young-bees may be discerned by their grey ashy colour, which becomes
darker, approaching to black, as they get older. I do not believe that
the queen (on whose existence depends that of the colony), lives ten,
fifteen, or twenty times longer than the working bees. But they have
the means of filling her place when she comes to die. M. Shirach has
completely demonstrated, by very varied and multiplied experiments,
that they require only for that purpose a common bee-worm that has been
hatched within two or three days, and that this worm becomes a queen,
and a fruitful queen, in less than a fortnight, by means of a thicker,
more roomy, and differently formed cell, which they construct expressly
for her, and by a different sort of pap with which she is nourished. I
have repeated the experiment oftener than once.
Forty days after I had put a bit of brood-comb into a wired box, after
the manner of M. Shirach, I saw young bees come out; and the young
queen I had made be hatched, was the mother of my artificial swarm. It
is therefore probable that a hive, from twenty to twenty-five years
old, has not always the same queen, but that the queen has, from time
to time, been replaced. Moreover, every time that a swarm comes off, it
is the old queen that emigrates with it.
The sudden decline of a hive that has lost its queen, and which never
long survives the loss, when it has not young brood to create another,
proves that bees live but one year, as the depopulation would be less
rapid if the lives of the individuals extended beyond that term.