This is a very sensible letter, and well worth the attention of every
bee-master.
* * * * *
From the Hon. and Rev. Orlando Forrester.
_Dover ridge, Derby, August 26th._
Sir,--Last autumn I saved from a cruel and unnecessary death a very
old stock of bees belonging to a neighbour, the parent one of all his
colony, full of black comb; I gave him seven or eight shillings for
it. I fed it, and it just lived through the winter. I gave it a box on
the lateral plan, which it filled with a quarter of a hundredweight of
honey,--so rewarding my interference.
At the time I took my box from this stock, a neighbour destroyed two
of his hives, bees, &c., for the honey (I think he will not do so
ungrateful a thing another year). Happening to go into his garden the
morning after, he told me he had found the queen that morning dead. On
showing her to me, we found she was alive, but of course none the more
lively for the sulphuring of the previous night.
I begged her, took her home, and put her under a finger-glass with
a little honey. I then got down from my store-closet my box of
honey-comb untouched, cut away a good bit of honey, leaving sixteen
or seventeen pounds. I carried it back to its old spot, opened the
communication, and soon had a good number of the little manufacturers
in their old quarters. Towards night I closed the communication again,
stopped them in, and carried the old hive away about fifty yards. This
done, I opened the ventilator at the top of the box, and inserted
the strange queen, and put the inverted finger-glass over to see
the effect. They seemed in a moment to be in a strange commotion,
apparently receiving her majesty with hurrahs, as the popular
candidate at an election is received.
The next morning they seemed quite satisfied, and I noticed pollen
taken in, and a struggle once or twice with a drone which had
remained--there may have been seven or eight of these gentlemen in
my experimental colony. Of course, the carrying in pollen was soon
discontinued, as there was no brood to feed; the material, weighing
sixteen pounds, being all honey and wax. I also saw them active in
defence of their homes against the wasps; and although some wasps
contrived to enter, I have seen the bees bring out their corpses now
and then since, showing that they appear right.
To-day, the sun shining very bright and the temperature being warm, I
am flabbergasted by seeing crowds of drones going in and out, and no
slaughtering of these now unnecessary mouths. I say, can all be right?
Is the queen still alive? My little friends fight the wasps, and go in
and out; but what meaneth this crowd of drones?
Will you excuse my putting my case to you? for I am a lover of bees,
but not very learned in the matter.
I should like to make my one cast-off stock two for next year by this
artificial means, besides getting my honey; and so be in a good
position to preach to the bee-killers the folly as well as cruelty of
bee-murder.