INVERTED-HIVE.
Many useful discoveries have been made by accident;--and to some
of the greatest and grandest of those discoveries even philosophers and
men of science have been led by accidents apparently the most trifling
and insignificant.
To the playful tricks of some little children that astonishing and most
scientific instrument--the telescope, it is said, owes its origin; and it
is said also that that great and good man--Sir Isaac Newton was led to
investigate the laws of gravitation by accidentally observing an apple
topple to the ground from the twig that had borne it. One of the sweetest
of our poets, however, informs us--that
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee,
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see.
If, therefore, a beautifully delicate honey-comb suspended from the
stool of a hive first led me to discover the utility of ventilation in a
colony of Bees, though there may be nothing very surprising, there is, I
trust,--nay, I am convinced, and therefore I assert--there is something
very useful in it: and if an accident of another description induced me
to endeavour to turn it to advantage, there is nothing to be greatly
wondered at. So, however, it happened; and here follows the account of it.
On rising early one morning in July 1827, and walking into my apiary, as
my custom then was, and still is, I discovered that some malicious wretch
had been there before me, and had overturned a fine colony of Bees. The
reader may judge how much my indignation was aroused by that dastardly
act of outrage against my unoffending Bees. My feelings of vexation soon,
however, subsided into those of pity for my poor Bees; and fortunately
for them, no less than for me, their overturned domicil, which consisted
of a hive eked or enlarged by a square box upon which I had placed it
some weeks previously, was so shaded from or towards the east by a thick
fence, that the rays of the sun had not reached it;--this compound-hive,
and the countless thousands that were clustering around it, were
prostrate in the shade. I viewed my distressed Bees for a considerable
time, and studied and planned what I might best do to relieve them, and,
if possibly I could, rescue them from the deplorable situation into which
they had been thrown. At length I determined to reverse the whole, which
I effected by first carefully drawing the box as closely as I was able to
the edge of the hive, and then placing the hive upon its crown, so that,
in fact, the whole domicil was inverted. I shaded, protected, shored-up,
and supported the Bees, their exposed works, and their hive, in the best
way I could, and afterwards reluctantly left them for the day, being
under the necessity of going from home a distance of almost twenty miles,
viz. to Wisbech. On my return in the evening I could discern evident
proofs of the willingness of the Bees to repair the sore injury they
had sustained; and on the third day afterwards I was highly pleased
to witness the progress their united efforts had made to rescue their
dilapidated habitation from the ruin that had threatened it and them too,
and which, I confess, I had anticipated. I was particularly attentive to
their movements. I assisted them by every means I could devise. They
gradually surmounted all the difficulties to which they had been exposed.
In short, they prospered; and from that malicious trick of some miscreant
or other I first caught the idea of an _inverted-hive_, which I have
since studied and greatly improved.
Every Bee-master will have had opportunities of observing--that this
curious, I may say--intelligent, little insect--the Bee, is ever alive to
the most ready methods of extricating itself from difficulties, and of
bettering the condition of the state, whenever accident or misfortune has
placed it in jeopardy: and, I will add--that the timely assistance of the
Bee-master will frequently save a stock from that ruin, or at least from
that trouble and inconvenience, which apparently trivial circumstances,
such for instance as uncleanliness, excessive heat in summer, intense
severity of winter, too contracted an entrance at one season, a too
extended and open one at another, or wet lodged on and retained by the
floor-board, may, and very often do occasion.
The subjoined cut is a representation of an INVERTED-HIVE fixed in its
frame, trellised, roofed, completely fitted up, and just as it appears
when placed in an apiary and stocked with Bees.
[Illustration]
EXPLANATION OF AN INVERTED-HIVE.
A. is a stout octagon-box, in which is to be placed an _inverted
cottage-hive_ containing the Bees. Its diameter within the wood, I mean
its _clear diameter_, is seventeen inches, and its depth, or rather
its height, is fifteen or sixteen inches, or just sufficient to reach
to, and be level with, the edge of the inverted cottage-hive, when
placed within it: in fact, the octagon-box (A.) is a strong case or
cover for the inverted-hive; and, if made an inch or two deeper than
the hive to be placed in it, it is an easy matter to pack the bottom,
so that the edge of the hive and the top-edge of the octagon-box (A.)
may be exactly on a level. Fitted and fastened to this is a top or
floor, made of three-fourths-inch deal, which top should sit closely
upon the edge of the hive all round. The centre of this top is cut out
circularly to within an inch and a half of the inner circumference or
edge of the hive upon and over which it is placed. Upon this floor is
a box, made of inch or inch-and-quarter deal, seventeen inches square
within, and four inches deep. This I call the ventilation-box, because
through two of its opposite sides are introduced horizontally two
cylinder ventilating-tubes, made of tin, thickly perforated, and in all
respects similar to those described in page 20. The top of this box is
the floor upon which nine glasses are placed for the reception of honey,
namely--a large bell-glass in the centre, and eight smaller ones around
it. By a _large_ bell-glass I mean--one capable of containing twelve
or fourteen pounds of honey, and by _smaller_ ones--such as will hold
about four pounds. The Bees of an inverted-hive in a good situation
will work well in glasses of these sizes, and soon fill some or all of
them: but, if in an unfavourable situation, lesser glasses, down to
one-half the abovementioned sizes, will be more suitable. Situation,
season, and strength of the stock,--strength, I mean, as respects the
number of Bees, must, after all, guide the apiarian in this matter.
The floor abovementioned should be made of three-fourths-inch deal. Of
course proper apertures must be cut through this floor under each of
the glasses to admit the Bees into them from the box beneath. Around
and over the glasses is placed another neat box or case, made like the
ventilation-box, upon which it rests or stands. The lid of this box is
made to open and shut. It is represented in the foregoing cut as opened
at B. an inch or two, and may be so retained at pleasure by a proper
weight attached to a cord passed over a pulley fixed in the inside of the
roof (C.) and fastened to the edge of the lid above B. The depth of the
box or cover for the glasses must of course be regulated according to
their different sizes. The alighting-board is on the front-side, directly
opposite to the latticed doors, and on a level with the upper-side of the
first floor; so that the entrance for the Bees must be cut through the
lower edge of the ventilation-box; and is made there most conveniently
for them to pass either into the inverted pavilion below, or into the
glasses above such entrance, as their inclinations may direct.
The octagon-cover placed upon the pavilion-hive, as represented in the
view of the closed boxes (in page 29) if _inverted_, would be a tolerably
good model of part A. of the inverted-hive.
I advise that every part be well-made--the floors and the boxes
particularly so; and that the whole exterior be well painted too,
previously to being exposed to the sun and to the weather. This advice
has reference to all my boxes and hives, collateral as well as inverted.
The stocking of this hive may be effected in the following manner.
Having made choice of a good, healthy, well-stocked, cottage-hive,
you may, at any time between the beginning of March and the end of
October, _carefully invert and place it in the octagon below the
ventilation-box_, that is, in the apartment (A.) then fasten the floor
with four short screws to the top of the octagon, taking especial care
that this floor sits upon the edge of the inverted-hive all round. It
will be necessary to keep the Bees from annoying you whilst adjusting
this floor and the other parts of the hive, by putting a sheet of tin
over the open circular space in the floor; by which tin every Bee may be
kept in the hive below. When the boxes, ventilators, glasses, and all
things, are duly adjusted, the dividing-tin may be withdrawn; and the
operation of stocking will be then completed.
Another method of accomplishing the same object, i. e. of stocking an
inverted-hive, is this:
Take the floor that is to rest upon, and be fastened to, the top of the
octagon A. and that is to rest also upon the hive when inverted, and
with a sheet of tin cover and securely close the circular space made by
cutting out its centre: then invert it, that is--let the tinned side
be undermost, and place upon this floor, thus prepared, the hive you
intend to be inverted. Return it to, and suffer it to occupy, its usual
place in your apiary; and _there_ for two or three weeks let it work in
which time the Bees will have fastened the hive to their new board with
propolis. Then, early in the morning, or late in the evening, when all
the Bees are in the hive, make up the entrance, and, having two doors
made in opposite panels or sides of the octagon (A.) ten inches by six,
or sufficiently commodious for the admission of your hands, _steadily
invert_ your hive and prepared board upon which it has been standing,
and, without sundering from the hive the board that will now be at its
top, _carefully_ place them in the octagon; which, with the help of an
assistant, and by the facility afforded by the two little doors in the
panels of the octagon for staying and properly supporting and adjusting
the hive and its attached floor, may be performed without the escape of a
single Bee. As soon as this, which is properly the inversion of the hive,
is completed, proceed with the ventilation-box, glasses, &c. as before
directed; and, lastly, be careful to liberate the Bees by withdrawing
the tin that has kept them prisoners since the entrance was closed. In
inverting a hive by this method an expert apiarian need not confine the
Bees five minutes.
The Bees will commence their labour by filling the square box between the
pavilion and the glasses; they will then extend their beautiful combs
into the glasses above. The appearance of their most curious works in
this stage of their labour is highly interesting--nay, gratifying, to
the apiarian observer; and, moreover, proves the extraordinary influence
and utility of ventilation in the domicil, or, rather let me say, in
the store-house apartment of Bees; for in the pavilion, or breeding and
nursing apartment, it is seldom wanted.
The method of taking off the glasses, whether large ones or small ones,
when stored with honey, is in every respect the same as that of which a
particular account has been already given, (in pages 37 and 38): to that
account, therefore, I beg to refer the reader, instead of here repeating
it.