MODERN BEE-KEEPING
We have already seen that straw hives were formerly used to keep bees
in. They had many disadvantages, and perhaps the greatest was that
sections could not be put on to collect the extra honey. The only
way in which it could be obtained was to kill the bees and to take
the honey they had stored for themselves. The bees were generally
suffocated by the fumes of burning sulphur, and so you will see that
besides being inconvenient this method of bee-keeping was also very
cruel. The hives with the greatest number of bees were the healthiest,
and they were selected for treatment in this manner, for they had
more honey stored away than the weaker ones. In this way all the best
bees were killed off, and those that we have at the present time are
descended from poor ancestors. It will be many years before they have
been brought back to their former state of excellence.
After the bees had been suffocated, the old bee-keepers took out the
combs. These were not built in frames as are those of the present day,
but were just made inside the skep in any way the bees liked. The honey
was then extracted from them, but it was of very poor quality, for
pieces of broken comb, pollen, and even dead grubs, or parts of the
bees themselves, were mixed up with it. How different this is from the
beautifully clear honey obtained by the modern methods.
[Illustration: PLATE XXXII
From a photograph by] [E. Hawks
Sealing over the Honey Cells]
After the cells have been filled with honey the bees leave them
uncovered for a little time, so that the water in the honey may
evaporate. The honey then ripens, and the chemist bees place a tiny
drop of formic acid in each cell. When all is ready, the cells are
sealed over, and in Plate XXXII. we may see the bees at work doing
this. You will be interested to know that the English bees do not quite
fill the cells, and so the colour of the honey does not show. Foreign
bees, however, fill the cells quite to the brim, which gives the comb a
dark and dirty appearance.
Nowadays the straw skeps are very seldom seen, for their place is taken
by the wooden hives we have already considered. The frames containing
the combs are all of the same size, so that they may be transferred
from one hive to another. For instance, should a certain hive have
collected a large quantity of honey for winter use, and another hive
not have sufficient, the bee-keeper may take one or two frames of this
honeycomb from the rich hive and put it into the poor one, and in this
way both lots of bees will live throughout the winter. In many other
ways the frame hives are useful, besides being much more healthy. The
bees need not be killed in order to get the honey, as was necessary
with the skeps, for a puff or two of smoke is all that is required, and
while they are frightened we may remove the sections.
You will understand that the sooner the queen sees pollen coming into
the hive in the early spring, the sooner will she commence laying
eggs. The sooner the eggs are laid, the more bees will there be ready
for the summer flowers. So the bee-keeper sprinkles pea-flour in a box
of shavings near the hive in the early days of spring. The bees soon
find the flour, and, thinking it is pollen, they commence to carry it
into the hive. When the queen sees it coming in she is deceived, and
thinks summer is at hand; so she commences to lay eggs. This gives the
hive a start, so that when spring really comes, there are large numbers
of bees ready to gather honey from the early flowers.
We have already mentioned that a great quantity of honey has to be
consumed before wax can be made, and this is a serious loss to the
bee-keeper, for it not only reduces the stores, but also wastes
valuable time as well. So the bees are now provided with a thin sheet
of wax, a piece of which hangs downward in each frame. On it is stamped
the exact design of the cells, so that not only is material provided
for the bees, but the architects are saved the trouble of having to map
out where each cell shall be. A piece of this “foundation,” as it is
called, is shown in Plate XXXIII. The bees readily take to it, and as
soon as the work of building is to commence they knead the wax and draw
it out from the foundation, until it is a complete cell. In this way a
great deal of time is saved.
[Illustration: PLATE XXXIII
From a photograph by] [E. Hawks
Foundation, showing the Pattern for Cells]