[Illustration: Temple Bee-hive, closed. (Showing the entrance).]
"Temple Bee-hives, for the humane treatment of honey-bees, are got
up in a tasteful and substantial manner; and when placed upon a
lawn, in a flower-garden, or on a balcony, have a most picturesque
appearance. They need no shade or shelter from extreme solar heat
in summer, or from humidity and cold during winter, but afford of
themselves a sufficient protection to the industrious tenants. Each
hive is furnished with four bell-glasses, from which the drones are
effectually excluded, and the temperature of the interior can be
so regulated by the use of the ventilators and thermometers, as to
prevent the necessity of swarming."
I add also a drawing of the same Temple opened from behind, with his
observations.
[Illustration: Temple Bee-hive, open. (Showing the interior.)]
"This plate shows the interior of the Temple Hive on the preceding
page, with four glass supers upon the top. Owing to the difficulty
some persons have experienced in getting the bees to work in the
glasses, we have introduced small wooden boxes with glass windows;
and it is quite certain that the bees will collect a larger quantity
of honey in these small supers than they will in the glasses,
particularly in uncertain and unsettled seasons."
Pettitt also constructs a wooden hexagonal hive; but he uses the top as
a mere cover to the glasses, and of course perforates the top with four
holes, on which he places the glasses. If he will adopt my amendments, he
will give us a hive in all respects perfect. First, he must use the top
half purely as a super for the honey available to the master. Secondly,
he must make half-a-dozen parallel slits from front to back, with
corresponding removable slides, made by a rabbet-plane, to be withdrawn
in May, when it is desirable that the bees should ascend, and to be
reintroduced when the super is full and is to be removed. From this hive I
would banish glasses entirely.
I have introduced six slides into this hive, the ends of which are shaped
as shown in the following drawing. On removing the slides, very small
ones, about an inch long, must be substituted, to prevent bees coming out
at the apertures. On removing the super or top half in July, the little
slides are removed in succession, and the long ones introduced, in
order to shut off the connection between the upper hive, or bee-master's
portion, and the lower, or the queen's. When you remove your portion, a
zinc plate eighteen inches square is pressed in between the upper and
lower boxes, and the upper carried away on it. But this is not always
necessary, as I will subsequently show in describing the Ayrshire hive.
[Illustration]
I prefer the hexagonal shape, not from any theory, but from practical
experience; and if this hive can be constructed at less expense, it
will prove alike popular and profitable. Its price maybe reduced by
substituting a plain glass window in each section, with a slide shutter
instead of door and hinges, retaining all its seasoned wood and thorough
workmanship, while lessening its merely decorative features.
The hive-box I have found unfailing in results is the Scotch or Ayrshire
hive. It is octagonal in shape; the lowest box is six inches high, and
rather wider than a large common straw hive. There are three octagonal
boxes in all, the top of each having parallel slits from back to front,
with slides corresponding, and withdrawn when required. In May, you place
your first super box on the top of the lowest or stock hive, fitting
and corresponding in all respects; you withdraw backward each slide,
introducing as you do so a little slide about an inch in length, to
prevent the egress of the bees behind. There is no possibility of escape
in front, from the end of each slide being filled up by the wood of the
box.
As soon as this first super is filled, you place on it another, or third;
withdraw the slides on the top of the second as you did from the top of
the first, and let the bees ascend still higher. A small glass window in
each, with a sliding shutter, enables you to report progress. At the honey
harvest, you remove each super as I have previously directed; and it must
be a very bad summer that does not end as the bee-master would prefer.
[Illustration]
Of all straw hives. Neighbours' is the most beautiful and lasting. With
the super hive lifted up, you see three bell-glasses on the flat top
of the stock hive, the zinc slides being withdrawn. The cost is thirty
shillings. Preferable to three glasses is one flat glass, about six or
eight inches deep. Bees prefer united to separate action in treasuring up
their stores. But either with three small glasses or one large one, it is
a very elegant and serviceable hive.
The collateral system of bee-hives has, however, many able and
enthusiastic advocates. Nutt is the great advocate, if not the inventor,
of this bee-box. As a system for ventilation and facility of deprivation
it is unrivalled. His collateral hive, suitable to be placed in a
bee-shed, is as below.
[Illustration]
A is the stock hive, into which the swarm is introduced and the queen
resides; the glass window is open. B B are the side boxes, right and left,
having, either in the sides nearest the central box or in the floor,
extending right and left, a subterranean communication. C is the cover of
a bell-glass: so far in deference to the storifying system. D D D D D are
means of ventilation,--above by perforated zinc cupolas, and beneath by
drawers, which may be opened or shut as required.
But for every excellence and capability of which the collateral hive is
susceptible, Pettitt's is undeniably the happiest and best. I give his own
description and woodcut:--
"A is a block front to open for ventilation, also for the egress
of the bees from the box F when filled. B Feeding apartment. C C
Ventilating slides. D D D Dividers. E 'Pavilion of Nature.' F Surplus
box. G G G Ventilators. H H H H Glass surplus hives. The finest
specimen of glass honey in the Great Exhibition was taken from one of
these hives. They are of such easy and safe access, that they can be
approached at the back at mid-day, when the bees are in full work,
without giving them any disturbance whatever. The parent hive is
provided with apertures for four glasses upon the top, through which
the drones cannot pass. These hives are intended for the inside of the
apiary, gentleman's library, or attic."
[Illustration]
The apertures on the top, which is the retention of the storifying system
grafted on the collateral, are all he describes, and a real and valuable
device. The price, two guineas, is, for so excellent a bee-box, most
reasonable. I can testify from experience that the material is thoroughly
seasoned, and the workmanship perfect.
But I still retain my conviction that the collateral system is not
productive. The objection to the storifying system, that the bees have
more fatigue in climbing than in travelling on the same level, is not
tenable. The bee prefers to ascend; it traverses the roof as easily as
the floor; it begins its work on the roof, and evidently ignores the
difficulty which Nutt and others have invented. The side boxes, also, are
too cold; the heat of the pavilion, or stock hive, ascending more easily
than radiating sideways. Comb-building requires a certain temperature,
without which it is impracticable. Hence, in storifying and collateral
hives both, when the weather is cold and ungenial, I cover up as much as
possible with brown paper, in order to keep in all the heat generated by
the bees. Taylor, the most sensible and practical of apiculturists, thus
describes his experience of collateral hives:--
"Another point on which Nutt laid much stress may be mentioned, viz.,
the supposed advantage to the bees in working on one level, without
the necessity of _climbing_, as in storified hives. I long thought
this was indisputable. Further consideration led me more minutely to
examine the habits of the bee in this respect, and I became convinced
that nature had given it equal facilities for moving in every
direction. A scientific correspondent thus writes on this subject:--'I
once propounded the question to a very eminent mathematician, and his
reply was, that, if any, the difference was too minute to admit of
calculation between the horizontal and the perpendicular movement; it
was, in the language of the present day 'infinitesimal.' Although few
of Nutt's positions have been found to stand the test of practice, it
ought not to be said that his crude speculations and rash assertions
have been altogether without useful results, as they undoubtedly led
to farther investigation, and several modern improvements had thus
their origin."
I do not wish to take up space by explaining the nether or nadir system.
The simplest description would be:--The common straw hive placed on a
square box, six inches in depth and twelve inches square, having a window
behind for observation. An aperture is in the floor of the box, having a
movable zinc slide, to be withdrawn when the bees are required to descend.
This they will do when room is denied above. But the nadir-box is apt to
be cold, and the queen is apt to treat it as part of the stock hive when
it becomes warm, and to lay her eggs and rear her young in it, and so
spoil your harvest.
[Illustration]
A is the nadir-box, on which the hive B--the common straw hive--stands; C
is a pane of glass, and A is a moveable zinc slide for opening or shutting
communication between the nadir and the hive. It is not a wise or useful
plan.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]