No Drone.
That he is no honey-bee is plain. If not a drone he must be a spider or
earwig, creeping by stealth into the old Romish Benedictine hive, to which
he does not really belong.
* * * * *
_Stoke-upon-Trent, July 29th._
Dear Sir,--I have long been hoping against hope, and trying to
persuade my friends to interest themselves in that courageous little
insect, the _apis mellifica_; but the drawbacks appear to me to be
rather disheartening. In the first place, the ladies dread the stings
of my little friends; and in the next place, they lose the pleasure
of investigation into the habits of the bees by not being enabled to
procure hives that will enable one to observe the operations of the
industrious little creatures. Your letter, however, in yesterday's
_Times_ enlightens us somewhat as to where the best-constructed
hives may be obtained; and I am sure you have my hearty thanks for
the information you have so kindly spread abroad through the medium
of _The Times_. The common straw hive may not be very conveniently
"tolled" without being in mortal fear of an accident; and to destroy
the bees seems very cruel and wasteful, in order to take the honey
from them. For my part, I have never yet had the courage to attempt to
interfere with a straw hive, nor have I ever yet destroyed one, but
kept them for my amusement and observation. Last year I constructed a
wooden hive--say a square box, divided in the middle by a slide--and
I introduced a young swarm into it, and they soon filled the bottom
half of the box. This year they have had one swarm only, which I have
put into a newly-constructed hive with a moveable bottom and front,
with glass to look through and doors to protect the glass: the size
is 12 by 14 and 16 inches, and they have very nearly filled it since
they were swarmed, on the 6th June. It contains ten large parallel
combs or plates, which are beautifully full of virgin honey, carefully
covered with fine films of wax, to prevent it from either running out
or becoming damaged, I presume, from the atmosphere. I have a small
box _to fit underneath_ the full one; but I cannot induce the bees
to come down by easy means--that is, by shaking the box or drumming
upon it: the vibrations only cause them to run about, but they will
not descend. Pray what means would you adopt to cause them to leave
the spaces between the combs, and go into the lower box, to enable me
to take a portion of the combs and their contents without destroying
or injuring the queen or the other bees? With regard to the box-hive
first named, and which is divided in the middle by a wooden slide,
which has a hole cut into its centre about 6 by 4 inches, and which
was covered by a zinc slide, which I removed in June, after the swarm
came from the box. In a few days after I could only observe about a
dozen which had passed into the top part of the hive. I then tried to
frighten them by shaking the box, in order to induce them to leave
the combs in the bottom half, and pass through the hole into the top,
but without success. I afterwards reversed the box, thinking that I
might induce them to descend, and so shut them out; but they would not
budge an inch. I afterwards placed the box in its proper position,
and closed the entrance-holes for two days, thinking by that means
to cause them to ascend in order to find a way out, but without any
result, save the destruction of _eight hundred_ drones in those two
days, from the anger of the little workers; for, as they could not go
abroad to collect food, the drones cleared every comb that contained
any honey, and now I can see them all as empty as when just made; so
you see I am really nonplussed. Pray what would you do? for if I smoke
them, they will come down, not go up; and I am afraid that brimstone
or tobacco would destroy them.
Yours very faithfully,