Thomas Nutt

“ To excite our admiration of the industry and ingenuity of Bees, we need only take into our hands a piece of honey-comb, and examine it attentively. Its neatness, its beauty, its construction, the similarity and exact proportion of its double web of cells, for a honey-comb is, in fact, a web of cell-work on both sides, are most admirable, and calculated to lead the contemplative mind from nature's work up to nature's God. ”

“ I have no wish to depreciate the inventions and labours of others, nor to offend any man, and particularly that man who has exerted himself so much to better the condition of the Honey-Bee. If he has been mistaken in the means to be employed to gain so desirable an end, and in my humble opinion he certainly has been mistaken, every praise is due to him for his good intentions. ”

“ The generality of apiarians have yet to be taught that Bee-management is a system;—that it is something more than merely stocking a hive or box with a swarm of Bees, and then leaving it to chance alone to prosper or to perish; and, if to prosper, it is only until the time for its final doom—the reckless destruction of every Bee—arrives. They have yet to learn that the whole, or at least, the greater part of the contingencies, to which Bee-colonies are subject, may be averted; that the casualties of Bees are analogous to those of other descriptions of stock ”

“ We have all exerted our best abilities to become the favourites of our patrons and friends. How much each of us deserves the honours conferred on us, is best known to those who have been most benefited by our unceasing endeavours to improve and extend apiarian science. My great object is—not to dispute with the naturalist, the philosopher, or with the apiarian, how the Queen-Bee becomes impregnated: because, be that as it may, it is, no doubt, consistent with the law of nature,—it is, no doubt, a part of that all-prevailing law ”

“ I have been asked—"Of what use is ventilation in the domicil of Bees?" I answer—one of its uses has already been described, and much more of its use, I may say, of its necessity, in the humane management of Bees will be told presently. Many treatises on the management of these valuable insects have appeared, but in none of them do I find any allusion to this important point—important in my practice at least, and essentially necessary in it. Therefore—
To works of Nature join the works of man,
To show, by art improved, what Nature can. ”

“ And should Bees be tempted by food, or urged by hunger, to descend into these currents in sharp, frosty weather, but few of them will get away alive; the keen air acting upon them whilst feeding, paralyzes and kills them. I am an advocate for keeping Bees cool in winter—yes, cool and still also: let them not be disturbed nor disunited,—let them not be forced nor tempted to (if I may so say) uncluster themselves. I have no objection to a current of air passing through the lower part of a hive in winter, provided the Bees be not disturbed—be not exposed singly to its nipping influence ”

“ I say, then,—-disturb not this hive—this pavilion of nature: weaken not its population; but support its influence, and extend to it those accommodations which no practice, except my own, has yet put into operation, or made any adequate provision for. This humane practice partakes not of the driving, nor of the fumigating, nor of the robbing system. It is a liberal principle of Bee-cultivation founded on humanity. And it is by such practice that we must succeed, if we hope to be benefited by the culture of Honey-Bees. ”

“ When a Queen dies and the Bees are left without the means of raising another, that is—when there are no eggs nor young brood of a proper age in the hive, the Bees cease working, consume the honey, fly about at random, and if not supplied with another Queen, soon dwindle away; but if supplied with a new Queen, they revive, and exercise their labour with new and increased activity. The Queen is, as it were, the very soul of the hive. It has been computed that the ovary of the Queen contains above 5000 eggs at once, and that in the space of two months she may produce 10 or 12,000 Bees. ”

“ The combs of the Bee-hive comprise a congeries of hexagonal cells, formed by the Bees, as receptacles for honey or for embryo Bees. A honey-comb is allowed to be one of the most striking achievements of insect industry, and an admirable specimen of insect architecture. It has attracted the admiration of the contemplative philosopher in all ages, « 217 » and awakened speculation, not only in the naturalist, but also in the mathematician: so regular, so perfect, is the structure of the cells, that it satisfies every condition of a refined problem in geometry. ”

“ She well knows she cannot live in a state subjected to a suffocating heat, amidst an overgrown population. So she leaves the royal cradle, impregnated with the royal larva, and withdraws from the hive, reluctantly, one may suppose, though accompanied by thousands of her subjects. The Queen-Bee leads the swarm to seek a place of comfort, and to establish another home, where not one cell nor drop of honey exists. ”

“ To ventilate an apiary or colony of Bees, when their interior temperature is under 60 degrees, would be ruinous to them,—because contrary to the prosperous progress of their natural labours. From upwards of fifteen hundred observations in the summer of 1825, I am fully satisfied on this point. Their nature is to keep up at least that, and sometimes a much higher, degree of temperature by their indefatigable labours; and as the temperature of the hive rises, so does it invigorate and encourage an increase of population, as well as an increase of their treasured sweets. ”

“ The preservation of the Bees unhurt, uninjured, very many of them undisturbed at all,—the quantity of honey that may be had,—and the very superior quality of that honey, are advantages of Mr. Nutt's mode of Bee-management, over the barbarous, stifling system, « 89 » that cannot fail to recommend it to the adoption of every friend of humanity,—to every lover of the delicious sweet,—and to every apiarian who has nothing beyond self-interest in view. ”

“ In this little insect are performed all those chemical processes of life, by which nature is kept in the equanimity and beauty of existence—here composition and decomposition, solution and precipitation, sublimation, volatilization, distillation, and absorption, through the agency of heat and attraction, take place on the minutest matters, secreted by the plants and collected by the Bees; and in the hive, by the concentration of their individual efforts, is elaborated that immense quantity of those important products, which constitute such useful commodities in the arts and economy of life. ”

“ Though no advocate for suffocating Bees, but the contrary—a decided opponent to it, I agree in opinion with my correspondent that suffocation at once is preferable to the very reprehensible practice of "driving a hive," inasmuch as an instantaneous death is preferable to a lingering and unnatural one by starvation, which, whatever may befal the driven Bees, is the hard, untimely fate of the brood and young larvæ of a hive when the Queen and commoners are driven from them into a new and empty domicil. ”

“ Neither should we overlook the singular services of the short-lived drones in other circumstances of the colony; for most essential is their presence in the hive during the months of May, June, and July. Do we not in those months behold the extraordinary rapidity with which the working Bees leave their hive in search of materials for their various works? So indefatigable are these admired insects, after enriching their commonwealth, that in the time of honey-dews, scarcely a mechanical labourer is left in the hive. ”

“ Still a review of their proceedings will lead to the conclusion, as Huber has observed, that, "the geometrical relations, which apparently embellish the productions of Bees, are rather the necessary result of their mode of proceeding, than the principle by which their labour is guided." "We must therefore conclude, that Bees, although they act geometrically, understand neither the rules nor the principles of the arts which they practise so skilfully, and that the geometry is not in the Bee, but in the great Geometrician who made the Bee, and made all things in number, weight, and measure. ”

“ In a few minutes you will be in possession of a box of honey, and all your Bees will be in safety and harmonizing with their beloved parent—the Queen of the hive. Take from them the box your humanity entitles you to, minding that the tin-slide is safe to the middle-box. You will then empty the full box, and return it empty to its former place; then draw up your tin, and you again enlarge their domicil, having gained a rich reward for your operation, at the expense of their labour. A child of twelve years of age may be taught to do this without the least danger ”

“ Some few there may be in the higher ranks of life, who cultivate bees from motives of curiosity—for the gratification of witnessing and examining the formation and progress of their ingenious and most beautiful works, and with a view to study the instinct, habits, propensities, peculiarities, or, in one word, the « 2 » nature, of these wonderful, little insects, in order to improve their condition, and to gain additional knowledge respecting their natural history, hitherto, it must be confessed, enveloped in much uncertainty, and very imperfectly understood. ”

“ There are few persons, who are managers of Honey-Bees under the old hive system, who, if they have not seen a comb constructed and suspended in the manner just described, have not, however, beheld these little creatures, when oppressed with the internal heat of their crowded domicil, and straitened for want of room in it, unhappily clustering and hanging at the door, or from and under the floor-board of their hive, in a ball frequently as large as a man's head, and sometimes covering all the front part of it, for sixteen or twenty days together ”

“ But this mischief is corrected by ventilation: can then any reasonable man deny its powerful and useful effects in the management of Bees?
The Queen-Bee is but seldom seen by the most acute observer; she loves to propagate her young in secrecy, at the regular temperature of the hive at her own birth. If she can possibly avoid it, she will not lay her eggs where man can overlook and examine her movements; consequently the ventilation in the side-boxes prevents her extending her works of nature beyond the limits of her native hive. ”

“ Every cottager must know that the richer his Bees are in spring, the sooner they will swarm. Then, to make them rich, he must not neglect to place his hives out of the influence of the sun during winter,—in a dry, cold, and quiet situation. He will find by this practice, that not more than five or six pounds of honey will be consumed by a good stock; but if he suffer his Bees to remain fronting the south, they will in a mild winter, if they survive it at all, become paupers before spring. ”

“ If, however, working Bees be as long-lived as Queen-Bees, and I think it will be difficult to assign a good reason why they should not, they may live to be three or four years of age, and perhaps more than that. The ample provision they make for life seems to me to be a natural indication that they expect at least to live to have occasion for it. Sometimes fierce, destructive battles take place between the Bees of different hives in an apiary, and when the Queen of one hive is killed, the war ceases, and the surviving Bees of the two hives unite and become one peaceable stock. ”

“ A mild, open winter, every body knows, « 240 » renders unconfined Bees poor—and when kept in a state of perpetual agitation and alarm by the restless enemies that surround them and nestle in their straw covering, and tempted by the faint, wintery sun-beams that gleam upon their floor-board through the unclosed entrance of their hives, they will, no doubt, sometimes sally forth. ”

“ When you close the drawer thus prepared with Bee-food, you must draw out the tin placed over the semi-lunar aperture, which will open to the Bees a way to their food in the drawer beneath. The heat of the hive follows the Bees into the feeding apartment, which soon becomes the temperature of their native-hive. Here the Bees banquet on the proffered boon in the utmost security, and in « 24 » the temperature of their native domicile. Under such favourable circumstances it is an idle excuse, not to say—a want of humanity, to suffer your Bees to die for want of attention to proper feeding. ”

“ It is no other than that most cruel and destructive one of depriving Bees of their honey and of every thing else, by 'driving them out of a full hive into an empty one, so early in the season as to afford the Bees sufficient time to provide themselves with another stock of winter food before the bad weather begins.' Very considerate this, certainly! ”

“ Does not she that is a kind mother know the wants and desires of her children? Take the lovely offspring from its mother's care and protection, and imprison it before her eyes, and will she not impatiently cry aloud for its release and restoration to liberty? ”

“ This strengthens the population of rich stocks, and causes them to swarm early in the ensuing spring, it preserves the Bees, which is of itself, independently of the advantages accruing from it afterwards, a consideration that never should be lost sight of,—it leaves the contents of the fumigated hive, as absolutely in the possession of the Bee-owner, as if the Bees had been suffocated and destroyed,—and in most cases it entirely does away with the necessity of feeding. ”