THE BEE-BURNERS
COUNTRY wanderings towards the end of summer, even now when the twentieth
century is two decades old, still bring to light many ancient and curious
things. Within an hour of London, and side by side with the latest
agricultural improvements, you can still see corn coming down to the old
reaping-hook, still watch the plough-team of bullocks toiling over the
hillside, still get that unholy whiff of sulphur in the bee-gardens where
the old-fashioned skeppists are “taking up” their bees.
Burning-time came round usually towards the end of August, sooner or
later according to the turn of the season. The bee-keeper went the round
of his hives, choosing out the heaviest and the lightest stocks. The
heaviest hives were taken because they contained most honey; the lightest
because, being short of stores, they were unlikely to survive the winter,
and had best be put to profit at once for what they were worth. Thus a
complete reversal of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest was
artificially brought about by the old bee-masters. The most vigorous
strains of bees were carefully weeded out year by year, and the
perpetuation of the race left to those stocks which had proved themselves
malingerers and half-hearts.
There was also another way in which this system worked wholly for the
bad. If a hive of bees reached burning-time with a fully charged
storehouse, it was probably due to the fact that the stock had cast no
swarm that year, and had, therefore, preserved its whole force of workers
for honey-getting. Under the light of modern knowledge, any stall of
bees that showed a lessened tendency towards swarming would be carefully
set aside, and used as the mother-hive for future generations; for this
habit of swarming, necessary under the old dispensation, is nothing else
than a fatal drawback under the new. The scientific bee-master of
to-day, with his expanding brood-chambers and his system of supplying his
hives artificially with young and prolific queens every third year, has
no manner of use for the old swarming-habit. It serves but to break up
and hopelessly to weaken his stocks just when he has got them to prime
working fettle. Although the honey-bee still clings to this ancient
impulse, there is no doubt that selective cultivation will ultimately
evolve a race of bees in which the swarming-fever shall have been much
abated, if not wholly extinguished; and then the problem of cheap English
honey will have been solved. But in ancient times the bee-gardens were
replenished only from those hives wherein the swarming-fever was most
rampant. The old bee-keepers, in consigning all their heavy stocks to
the sulphur-pit, unconsciously did their best to exterminate all
non-swarming strains.
The bee-burning took place about sunset, or as soon as the last
honey-seekers were home for the night. Small circular pits were dug in
some quiet corner hard by. These were about six or eight inches deep,
and a handful of old rags that had been dipped in melted brimstone having
been put in, the bee-keeper went to fetch the first hive. The whole fell
business went through in a strange solemnity and quietude. A knife was
gently run round under the edge of the skep, to free it from its stool,
and the hive carefully lifted and carried, mouth downwards, towards the
sulphur-pit, none of the doomed bees being any the wiser. Then the rag
was ignited and the skep lowered over the pit. An angry buzzing broke
out as the fumes reached the undermost bees in the cluster, but this
quickly died down into silence. In a minute or two every bee had
perished, and the pit was ready for the next hive.
That this senseless and wickedly wasteful custom should have been almost
universal among bee-men up to comparatively recent times is sufficiently
a matter for wonder; but that the practice should still survive in
certain country districts to-day well-nigh passes belief. If the art of
bee-driving—a simple and easy method by which all the bees in a full hive
may be transferred unhurt to an empty one, and that within a few
minutes—were a new discovery, the thing might be condoned as all of a
piece with the general benightedness of mediæval folk. But bee-driving
was known, and openly advocated, by several writers on apiculture at
least a hundred years ago. By this method, just as easy as the old and
cruel one, not only do the entire stores of each hive fall into the
undisputed possession of the bee-master, but he retains the colony of
bees complete and unharmed for future service. He has secured all the
golden eggs, and the goose is still alive.
Those who desire to make a start in beemanship inexpensively might do
worse than adopt a practice which the writer has followed for many years
past. As soon as the time for the bee-burners’ work arrives, a bicycle
is rigged up with a bamboo elongation fore and aft. From this depend a
number of straw skeps tied over with cheese-cloth. A bee-smoker and a
set of driving-irons complete the equipment, and there is no more to do
than sally forth into the country in search of condemned bees.
It is usually not difficult to persuade the cottage apiarist to let you
operate on his hives. As soon as he learns that all you ask for your
trouble is the bees, while you undertake to leave him the entire
honey-crop and a _pour-boire_ into the bargain, he readily gives you
access to his stalls. The work before you is now surprisingly simple. A
few strong puffs of smoke into the entrance of the hive under
manipulation will effectually subdue the bees. Then the hive is lifted,
turned over, and placed mouth upwards in any convenient receptacle—a pail
or bucket will do, and will hold it as firmly as need be. Your own
travelling-gear now comes into use. One of the empty skeps is fitted
over the inverted hive. The two are pinned together with an ordinary
meat-skewer at one point, and then the skep is prised up and fixed on
each side with the driving-irons, so that the whole looks like a box with
the lid half-raised. Now you have merely to take up a position in front
of the two hives, and begin a steady gentle thumping on the lower one
with the palms of the hands.
At first, as the combs begin to vibrate, nothing but chaos and
bewilderment are observable among the bees. For a moment or two they run
hither and thither in obvious confusion. But presently they seem to get
an inkling of what is required of them, and then follows one of the most
interesting, not to say fascinating, sights in the whole domain of
bee-craft. Evidently the bees arrive at a common agreement that the
foundations of their old home have become, from some mysterious cause or
other, undermined and perilous; and the word goes forth that the
stronghold must be abandoned without more ado. On what initiation the
manœuvre is started has never been properly ascertained; but in a little
while an ordered discipline seems to spread throughout the erstwhile
distracted multitude. In one solid hurrying phalanx the bees begin to
sweep up into the empty skep. Once fairly on the march, the process is
soon completed. In eight or ten minutes at most, the entire colony hangs
in a dense compact cluster from the roof of your hive. Below,
brood-combs and honey-combs are alike entirely deserted. There is
nothing left for you to do now but carefully to detach the uppermost
skep: replace the cheese-cloth, thus securing your prisoners for their
journey to their new home; and to set about driving the next stock.