M. M. M. a traveller in Russia, communicates, through the Gentleman’s
Magazine of 1785, a remarkable method of cultivating bees, and
preserving them from their housebreakers, the bears. The Russians of
Borodskoe, on the banks of the river Ufa, deposit the hives within
excavations that they form in the hardest, strongest, and loftiest trees
of the forest, at about five-and-twenty or thirty feet high from the
ground, and even higher, if the height of the trunk allows it. They
hollow out the holes lengthways, with small narrow hatchets, and with
chisels and gouges complete their work. The longitudinal aperture of the
hive is stopped by a cover of two or more pieces exactly fitted to it,
and pierced with small holes, to give ingress and egress to the bees. No
means can be devised more ingenious or more convenient for climbing the
highest and the smoothest trees than those practised by this people, for
the construction and visitation of these hives. For this purpose they
use nothing but a very sharp axe, a leathern strap, or a common rope.
The man places himself against the trunk of the tree, and passes the
cord round his body and round the tree, just leaving it sufficient play
for casting it higher and higher, by jerks, towards the elevation he
desires to attain, and there to place his body, bent as in a swing, his
feet resting against the tree, and preserving the free use of his hands.
This done, he takes his axe, and at about the height of his body makes
the first notch or step in the tree; then he takes his rope, the two
ends whereof he takes care to have tied very fast, and throws it towards
the top of the trunk. Placed thus in his rope by the middle of his body,
and resting his feet against the tree, he ascends by two steps, and
easily enables himself to put one of his feet in the notch. He now makes
a new step, and continues to mount in this manner till he has reached
the intended height. He performs all this with incredible speed and
agility. Being mounted to the place where he is to make the hive, he
cuts more convenient steps, and, by the help of the rope, which his body
keeps in distension, he performs his necessary work with the
above-mentioned tools, which are stuck in his girdle. He also carefully
cuts away all boughs and protuberances beneath the hive, to render
access as difficult as possible to the bears, which abound in vast
numbers throughout the forests, and in spite of all imaginable
precautions, do considerable damage to the hives. On this account the
natives put in practice every kind of means, not only for defending
themselves from these voracious animals, but for their destruction.
The method most in use consists in sticking into the trunk of the tree
old blades of knives, standing upwards, scythes, and pieces of pointed
iron, disposed circularly round it, when the tree is straight, or at the
place of bending, when the trunk is crooked. The bear has commonly
dexterity enough to avoid these points in climbing up the tree; but when
he descends, as he always does, backwards, he gets on these sharp hooks,
and receives such deep wounds, that he usually dies. Old bears
frequently take the precaution to bend down these blades with their
fore-paws as they mount, and thereby render all this offensive armour
useless.
[Illustration: ~Russian Tree-Climbing and Bear Trap.~]
Another destructive apparatus has some similitude to the catapulta of
the ancients. It is fixed in such a manner that, at the instant the bear
prepares to climb the tree, he pulls a string that lets go the machine,
whose elasticity strikes a dart into the animal’s breast. A further mode
is to suspend a platform by long ropes to the farthest extremity of a
branch of the tree. The platform is disposed horizontally before the
hive, and there tied fast to the trunk of the tree with a cord made of
bark. The bear, who finds the seat very convenient for proceeding to the
opening of the hive, begins by tearing the cord of bark which holds the
platform to the trunk, and hinders him from executing his purpose. Upon
this the platform immediately quits the tree, and swings in the air with
the animal seated upon it. If, on the first shock, the bear is not
tumbled out, he must either take a very dangerous leap, or remain
patiently in his suspended seat. If he take the leap, either
involuntarily, or by his own good will, he falls on sharp points, placed
all about the bottom of the tree; if he resolve to remain where he is,
he is shot by arrows or musket balls.
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