Various

“ Possibly, too, the real disease,—the genuine, virulent, contagious foulbrood, did not exist, and the boasted cure consisted merely in the apparent arrest and removal of some simple malady which, in the course of nature, would speedily have run its harmless course and disappeared, and with the cure of which the medicaments or treatment employed had, in reality, no connection whatever. How indeed can it be possible to devise and apply an efficient remedy for a disease of the origin and nature of which entire ignorance has still prevailed. ”

“ The winter management, of a necessity, involves some things that must be done in the fall; and let me premise by saying that almost, if not all of the operations and manipulations of bees, are quite simple, when the natural habits and requirements of the insect are well understood, and with a reasonable amount of intelligence and perseverance the object is accomplished. Let me assure new beginners, and those that have not begun, that the honey will much more than compensate for the labor bestowed upon them, as I know of no branch of rural pursuits that, in dollars and cents, pays as well. ”

“ John found a Pakatan named Japer, who accompanied him, a storehouse of information. He had a thorough faith in ghosts and spirits, and told of many an adventure with them, and of the Antus who caused the death of the wax-hunters, by pushing them off the mengiris or tapang tree. When the unfortunate men, from inefficient preparations, as their companions not keeping up a great fire under the trees to stupefy the bees, are so stung as to let go their hold, the natural explanation is never taken; they fly to their superstitions. ”

“ Hence, yearly, there are introduced to the public several “best hives in the world,” which, however, prove to be either bungling attempts at an imitation of some good hive, or a worthless throwing together of timber, embracing in its construction not one scientific principle, but often many features directly opposed to the nature and wants of the bees. Their fanciful shape, novel construction, and the many advantages they are said to possess, often cause a number of them to be sold to unsuspecting bee-keepers, who are not educated in the science of bee-culture. ”

“ It requires cool and deliberate courage to take a bee-hive at so great an elevation, where, in case of being attacked by the bees, the almost naked man would fall and be dashed to atoms. They depend upon the flambeaux they carry up with them, as, when the man disturbs the hive, the sparks falling from it cause, it is said, the bees to fly down in chase of them instead of attacking their real enemy, who then takes the hive and lowers it down by a rattan string. The bees escape unhurt. ”

“ I am satisfied, however, that queens bred from young queens are not equal, in several desirable points, to those bred from mothers a year old. In experimenting with black bees, I became satisfied on this point several years ago. I have never known a young black queen, after becoming fertile, to lead out a swarm, no matter how populous the stock might be; and indeed apiarians have considered it the best method of preventing swarming, in order to secure surplus honey, to remove the old queen and install one of the current year. ”

“ The bees, in order to hatch brood, as the weather becomes warm in the spring, will cluster at the larva end of said combs, and keep up the temperature from bottom to top, because of two combined reasons, the combs being the long way perpendicular, and the natural tendency of heat being to rise, it ascends throughout the entire length of the combs, and thus the proper temperature is attained throughout the hive. It is a settled principle too, that a given quantity or number of bees can produce animal heat only sufficient in amount to rarify the air in a given space to a given temperature. ”

“ Though the Italians will sometimes sting a pint of them to death around a single hive, not an Italian can be found among the slain.
In spite of all this, to which we have repeatedly called the attention of others, many are busy in accusing the Italians of driving the innocent common bees out of the land. One neighbor in particular, who cannot afford to take the Bee Journal, has been very busy in telling how our Italians have taken all his surplus honey, and had he not used great care, they would have carried off all his honey, hives, bees and all. ”

“ If the bee is guided by instinct alone, and the production of a queen depended on the depositing of a peculiar egg by the queen in a royal cell (an egg, differing from the worker or drone eggs) , it would follow that, on the loss or removal of the queen when no such eggs existed in the hive, no young queens could be produced.
Small queens may be produced in nuclei where the requisite food is limited, and where from want of bees the larva is exposed to repeated changes of temperature, which is detrimental. When reared in full stocks in times of great scarcity, nearly the same results follow. ”

“ In selecting honey-producing plants, it should be the aim of the bee-keeper to plant such as would be of benefit to stock or poultry as well as bees. Now I find that my poultry will eat the seed of the Polanisia in a short time as readily as buckwheat; and there is no plant on my farm that stands the drouth equal to it. At present (July 25th) we are having a very severe drouth and extreme heat, yet with the temperature ranging from 90° to 108° in the shade, not a leaf of the Polanisia wilts; on the contrary, it is making a very rapid growth. ”

“ I lay down the proposition that the moth never materially injured a good swarm in a decently made hive.
In this connection, I lay down another proposition, that without some explanation may seem as strange as the one above alluded to, (that a swarm of bees may have too much honey.) I think I may assert that the moth is or may be an advantage. We always act from one or more motives moving us to a particular point. Amongst other things, I stated that the moth never materially injured a good swarm of bees. Now, one of the requisites of a good one is strength. ”

“ An active person can examine twenty hives in a day with an assistant. This examination may be performed out of door at the stands, were it not for the fact that it is a season of the year when the robbers are most persistent. In performing these operations, it will be found advantageous to blow in a little smoke at the time of opening the hive.
We now have our bees in clean hives with plenty of honey—not too much—and without too much drone comb. But perhaps a few queens may have died a natural death during the winter, or there may be some drone layers. ”

“ We examine the hive to determine if the queen is living, and if so, if she may not be a drone layer. The question will be asked by some how we determine if she is living, or is a drone layer. If there is no queen there will be no brood, and vice versa, and if the brood be all drone, there would be no doubt of her being a drone layer. In either case, the swarm should be doubled up with a swarm that has a normal queen; the drone layer should first be killed. ”

“ We have now our hives properly examined, those that need it fed, the honey taken away if too much, the queenless doubled up, the weak stimulated, equalized or doubled up. There are now but few things to be done, the hive should be made as tight as possible with no upward ventilation, the fly-hole opened but a trifle, and as the swarm increases, which we can determine by the steam, or rather dampness, on the bottom board at the fly-hole in the morning, we will enlarge the fly-hole. ”

“ Editor, in our locality this is simply impossible. That amount of honey is not to be had within the flight of our bees. Still, we seem to have flowers enough. Is the country overstocked? There are probably not more than 150 swarms, our own included, within a circle of one mile from our place. All of our pastures seem covered with white clover in its season; and it lasted, in many places, this season, until buckwheat came into bloom. The old raspberry is said to be an excellent honey producing plant, and its cultivation for bee pasturage is often recommended. ”

“ It is a matter of very great importance in the success of an apiary, that our stocks are supplied with the right kind of queens, and in order to effect this desirable result, something more is necessary to a full understanding of the subject, than simply to know that bees, when deprived of their queen, will attempt to supply her place. I find little difficulty in rearing fine queens, with the following conditions: 1st. a suitable queen mother; 2d. fair weather and good pasturage; 3d. a full stock, in which honey and pollen are abundant (not a nucleus where starvation stares them in the face) . ”

“ In breeding all our domestic animals, regard is always had (and wisely we think) to the age of the parents. It may be thought that the life of the bee is so short that it would allow but little latitude in this direction; but it should not be forgotten that the queen usually lives three and sometimes four years, during which time there is doubtless a period of fertility and hardiness, or power of endurance, not common to the whole of her life. ”

“ Early and continued stimulation to activity, by feeding the bees, causes the colony to become strong in numbers. If therefore we wish for handsome profits from the labors of the bees, we must have them in great numbers, at all times in the hive. If we expect great quantities of honey from weak colonies, we are doomed to disappointment. In almost every locality there is a time, during the spring or summer, when bees cannot gather nectar from the flowers. ”

“ Perhaps his secret incantations have no attractions for bees that live in a hive; and, I may say and, for bees that live in a tree! Allow me to say to my bee-keeping friends that all the bee drugs or bee charms are bee humbugs. If any person is pretending to teach or to do what is stated above, he is either a knave or a fool, perhaps both.
To say the least, all such persons should be arrested, for obtaining money under false pretences. If bee-keepers would be safe, let them take a reliable Bee Journal or agricultural paper, where they will find such impositions exposed ”

“ Suppose, therefore, we leave from thirty to fifty pounds of honey in the hive, is it not evident we have trenched that amount of space upon the breeding territory? Then, if the season is a good one for honey, this room is constantly being diminished by the bees depositing honey in the cells as soon as the brood leaves, the result of which will be your young swarms will be too small, and by winter the old ones, for the want of breeding room, are too few to raise sufficient animal heat to winter. ”

“ There is still another reason why bees should have a hive long up and down. In cases of long continued extreme cold weather, the bees cannot move in a lateral direction to obtain food. But the warmth of the bees will aid them in obtaining it from above, from the fact that their warmth will ascend and keep the frost melted at a greater distance from the bees above them, than on the sides. And, further, when spring came, or in the month of April, my bees almost always became nearly extinct in the low flat form of hive. ”