"I have seen the workers lavish the most tender care on such a queen,
and, after her decease, surround her inanimate body with the same
respect and homage as they had paid to her while living, and in the
presence of these beloved remains refuse all attention to young and
fertile queens who were offered to them."
These are two facts noticed and recorded by the two most eminent and
careful apiarian naturalists. They are, in the judgment of everyone
able to appreciate weight of evidence, conclusive disproofs of the
material and mechanical theory, and no less decisive confirmations of
all I ventured to state in your columns.
The senses of the bee are no less clear protests against the
mechanical theory so acceptable to "our transatlantic brethren."
The bee leaves her house, traverses fields a mile or two distant, and
returns to her home--one amid twenty contiguous ones--with unerring
certainty.
The sense of touch through its antennæ is so exquisite, that in total
darkness it carries on its architecture as perfectly as by day.
Its smell is possessed of unrivalled sensibility. Odours from afar
are directly scented. Huber thinks it is the scent, not the colour of
flowers, that attracts them.
Their power of memory is illustrated by Huber. He placed a supply of
honey on the sill of an open window in autumn. The bees feasted on it
for weeks. He removed the honey and closed the window during winter.
Next spring the bees came to the same window, looking for supplies.
Here was memory of place and circumstances lasting during half a bee's
lifetime.
Huber mentions a species of moth that attacks and plunders bee-hives;
it is called the death's-head moth. Finding out its daring
depredations, he lessened the apertures of some of his hives, leaving
sufficient room for the exit and entrance of the bees, but not for the
entrance of the moth. This succeeded perfectly. But several hives he
left undefended. In each of these undefended hives the bees raised a
Avail of wax and propolis right behind their doors of entrance, making
embrasures for exit and entrances through the solid wall. As soon as
spring arrived and all danger was at an end, these Royal Engineers
threw down their fortifications.
I need not refer to the perfect and well-known geometrical
construction of the cells of a hive as evidences of design and
high instinct; they combine the maximum of strength with the least
expenditure of substance and the largest capacity in a given space.
The equilateral triangle, the square, and the hexagon, were the only
three forms of tubular cells that would leave no interstices: in the
first there would be lost space in each angle; a similar disadvantage
would be found in the second. The bees, by an instinct surely Divine,
or in the exercise of engineering powers demonstrative of mind, have
adopted the last.
Having thus disposed of your correspondent, will you allow me to
select one or two of the most important practical inquiries which
I have received in upwards of twenty additional letters addressed
to "_The Times_ Bee-master?" Your universal circulation is the
cause of my extraordinary visitation of correspondence, and this
unexpectedly-wide practical interest in bees will justify you to your
readers. One asks, "How am I to begin an apiary?" Let me tell him.
Buy a stock this month or next for 20_s._, taking care that it is not
old, and weighs (inclusive of straw hive) not less than 30 lbs. Erect
a shed with sloping roof projecting sufficiently to carry the rain
beyond the alighting-board of the bees. The length may be 12 feet, the
height about 6 feet, and width 2-1/2 feet. Divide it into six equal
sections or chambers. Make an exit in each, three inches long by two
inches high. Place each hive in the centre of one of them, with its
opening directly opposite the opening in the chamber. Fix below each
opening in the shed a bees' landing-board sloping at an angle of 25°.
If you can afford it, buy six stock-hives. Next May cut out the top
of each, as I directed in a previous letter. Place on it a board with
circular hole, and a bell-glass rather narrower at the lower part than
at the centre; cover each with its plaid nightcap, and you will have
plenty of delicious honey in 1865.
If, however, you do not mind loss of time, build your shed this
autumn, make it smooth inside to discourage spiders, and next April
send round the country to cottagers keeping bees, and engage six good
swarms, which ought not to cost more than 10_s._ each. In carrying
them home, pin over the entrance-hole a piece of gauze, tie a towel or
napkin underneath, fastening the four corners at the top, and do not
jolt the young family unnecessarily. If the swarms can be had in May,
and if it prove a fine summer, you may place a glass on each about the
end of June. Do not forget the old adage--
"A swarm in May
Is worth a load of hay;
A swarm in June
Is worth a silver spoon;
A swarm in July
Is worth a fly."
If your swarm is an early June one, you may save it by pushing three
or four sticks of barley-sugar into the hive by the exit aperture once
a fortnight till next March. Any little expense in feeding introduces
you to your bees and helps them wonderfully, and is never a loss.
If you want to tempt the bees to feed in your own garden, sow
mignonette, salvia, and sanfoin; plant plenty of raspberry,
gooseberry, and currant bushes. They like lime poplars,
apple-blossoms, thyme, and, above all, borage. Bees never touch
double flowers. Should the early summer prove very dry, place near
your bee-shed two or three soup-plates half-full of water, taking
care to put in as many pebbles as each will hold. The bees require
stepping-stones for their tiny feet, and otherwise they are necessary
to save them from drowning.
I am giving directions to those who desire to work economically.
But if you can lay out a little as an investment, and you desire
to combine interest and pleasure with profit, you cannot do better
than call on Neighbour, either in Regent-street or Holborn, where
I have seen many varieties of hives of different prices and all of
good workmanship. In answer to numerous inquiries about the Ayrshire
hives, I am sorry to be obliged to answer that I have to send to
Scotland for them. They may be had of Air. Bruce Taylor, Post-office,
Mauchlin, Ayrshire; or of Messrs. Craig, Stewarton, Ayrshire. The
three boxes in the lower or stock hive, with two supers exactly
corresponding, cost me 20_s._ But they last for ever. Their chief
value is their productiveness. Neighbours' and Pettitt's are far more
interesting for experimental uses. The collateral system is the most
elegant, but least productive; its bee-boxes are also expensive.
Your correspondent's hive (which I ought previously to have referred
to) is no improvement, and its architect has so bad an opinion of
the moral character of bees, that were they to know it was his, they
would desert it. There are people to whom bees never take, and there
are hives they invariably sicken in. I do not like the nadir system
recommended in _The Times_ by "A Rector." Bees naturally ascend or
traverse the same plane, but mostly preferring ascent. "Excelsior"
is their favourite aspiration. In answer to another inquiry, do I
approve using stupifying fumes, as of puff-ball, &c., in order to
expel the bees from supers full of honey?--I say, certainly not. It
may not injure the bees if judiciously administered. Some highly
recommend it. But it is not necessary. The bees will leave the super
on its being detached from the hive and carried to a little distance,
and will return in an hour or two to their home and their queen. The
only case in which I have recourse to fumigation is when any portion
of the comb, through accidental admission of wet, has become mouldy.
A few whiffs of puff-ball may be injected, by means of an instrument
sold for this purpose, during five minutes. As soon as the humming
noise ceases, lift the hive and cut out the mouldy portion of the
comb, replace it, and in twenty minutes the bees will again be at
work. This is the only case in which I like to employ either this or
tobacco-smoke, which answers as well if not too long continued.
Your apiary or bee-shed should be placed as near your dwelling as
possible, sheltered from the north and northeast winds, and at the
greatest possible distance from poultry. Frequently, but quietly
and unobtrusively, visit your bees, watch them at work in your
bee-glasses, or by windows in your bee-boxes. Let your children
play beside them. They are fond of children, and unless violently
irritated they will not injure them. I can state this from very ample
experience. At the same time, it is proper to state, that some few
persons are so offensive to bees that they must not approach them.
Plenty of soap and water and fastidious cleanliness are essential to a
bee-master's continued popularity with his apiarian family.