Bee hive

“ For this reason, when people wish a swarm to settle, after it has left the hive, they hasten to cover it; because the shade induces them to rest, while a hot sun annoys them, and inclines them to take flight again. When we wish to disperse a cluster of bees off the front of a hive, we have only to expose it to the rays of the sun in the heat of the day. ”

“ Neighbour and Son of Holborn and Regent Street, exhibit, amongst a collection of the most approved bee hives and apparatus, a glass hive, stocked with a colony of Italian Alp bees. The hive is so constructed as to admit of easily seeing the queen surrounded by the working bees. Contrary to the long-established notion that the bees work only in the dark, this hive is completely open to broad daylight. The bees do not manifest the least dislike to the exposure, and they are not discomfited when light is occasionally admitted for inspecting them. ”

“ The bees then retreat under the hive, on the side, or behind it. They thrive well in thick forests, and delight in them; because there they find a uniform temperature and a propitious shade. How often, during the dog-days, have we not seen the honey running down, and the combs melting, in those hives exposed to the heat of the sun. In one hour, sometimes, a whole apiary will be destroyed. It is also a mistake to suppose hives exposed to the sun produce the earliest and strongest swarms. I have oftener than once experienced the reverse. ”

“ Poised in air, in the neighbourhood of some hive, they watch the issuing and returning stream, and, making swift choice of a victim, sweep, like the wingéd furies that they are, upon him. There is a sharp, shrilly sound, as the bee’s wings vibrate, for a moment, more rapidly, then the fatal legs wrap her round, and, pressed tightly to the oppressor’s body, she is borne to some shrub or flower, in the shade or pleasant fragrance of which the juices of her body are sucked out, through a hole specially made to allow of their passage. ”

“ The antipathies of the bee are very curious. I have known one individual who was chased perpetually round the garden, and I have seen him obliged to rush through a hedge to escape his little tormentors. Their feuds were sometimes most violent, and I have had to remove a hive from one apiary to the other, a distance of half a mile, to preserve the bees. Your plan of the super-hives is excellent. Most of our hives were square, and all of wood. The straw hives proved a harbour for insects, and deprived us of the pleasure of watching the bees at work. ”

“ Let there be no sugared ale nor honey put inside the hive, but let it be as clean and dry as possible; and when it is fixed where it is to remain let there be no mortar or clay put round to fasten it to the floor-board—the Bees themselves will do this more effectually. Clay or mortar tends very much to decay the hives by retaining moisture, and is a harbour for moths and other insects. On the depriving system, a hive may be expected to stand for fifteen or even twenty years, if properly managed. ”

“ This kind of hive is usually made of straw, resting on a circular wooden board, with part of the board or floor projecting in front as a lauding place for the bees, which enter under the edge of the straw by means of a sinking in the floor.
Taylor's Amateur's Bee-Hive consists of three small square boxes, one above another, with a roof over the top story; the ventilation being effected by perforations under the eaves; each side of every story has a window and shutter. The landing place is in front of the bottom story, and the entrance to the hive is a long slit about 3⁄4 inch high. ”

“ The hive must be inverted, and the bees smoked out of the way. Our attention is to be directed to the breeding cells; with a sharp-pointed knife, proceed to cut off the ends of some of them that appear to be the oldest; bearing in mind that young bees are always white, until some time after they take the chrysalis state. Therefore, if a larva is found of a dark color, it is dead! Should a dozen such be found, the stock should be condemned at once, and all the bees driven into an empty hive. ”

“ Is the hive to be cleaned? A general assessment is commanded, and the people instantly obey. A throng of labourers remove the dead, carry out the little bits of wax that are on the board, which would otherwise serve to feed the moths. Each of these crumbs costs them a journey; and that toil is spared them when care is taken to scrape and sweep the board from time to time.
Another scheme of agreement that indicates a language, is where a bee finds honey, whether in a room, where it may have been deposited without shutting the windows, or in a stranger hive, where it has gained entrance. ”

“ The facility of hiving depends altogether upon the place chosen by the cluster for settling. From the end of a bough, or from a low shrub or bush, there is no difficulty in securing the swarm. Taking a clean skep in one hand, and holding it just under the mass of insects, a sharp shake is given with the other hand to the branch, and nearly the whole of the - 179 - bees will fall into the hive. Comparatively few will fly, the vastly larger proportion having clung too tightly to one another readily to disengage themselves. ”

“ Although the hive has now become comparatively quiet and the work goes on without excitement, yet every single bee is employed in some way, either out of doors or about the hive. Besides the honey collectors and the nurses, a certain number of bees are told off to ventilate the hive. You will easily understand that where so many insects are packed closely together the heat will become very great, and the air impure and unwholesome. And the bees have no windows that they can open to let in fresh air, so they are obliged to fan it in from the one opening of the hive. ”

“ This is the time when the low, rustling roar of wing-music can best be heard, and one of the most wonderful phases of bee-life studied. The problem of the ventilation of human hives is attacked commonly on one main principle—unstinted ingress for fresh air and a like abundant means of outward passage for the bad. But, if the bees are to be credited, modern sanitary scientists are trimming altogether on the wrong tack. A colony of bees will allow one aperture, and one alone, in the hive, to serve all and every purpose. ”

“ The best method is to watch the Swarm in silence, and after it has once collected, to lose no time in hiving it into a new, clean and dry Hive. Much time and trouble may be spared the Bees, if the loose straw be removed from the interior of the hive, the best method of effecting which, is to singe them off with a wax taper, and afterwards to remove them with a hard brush. ”

“ The fresh bees in the upper hive, attracted by the scent of the bees besmeared with honey, go down and commence licking off the sweets from the sleepy ones. The latter gradually revive, when all get mingled together and ascend in company to the upper hive, where they live as if they had not been separate families. ”

“ One of the chief objects of my researches has been, to ascertain what shape of hive is the most profitable; and, with this view, I have tried all the different kinds in my apiary, and I have invariably remarked, that bees thrive better in low hives than in high ones; that, in general, those which are broad and flat, or extended horizontally, amass more honey, thrive better, and give out stronger and earlier swarms, than those which are high, and of several stories, and for the following reasons. ”

“ The breath of a person inside the hive, or among them, when clustered outside, is considered in the tribunals of their insect wisdom as the greatest indignity. A sudden jar, sometimes made by carelessly turning up the hive, is another. After being once thoroughly irritated in this way, they remember it for weeks, and are continually on the alert; the moment the hive is touched, they are ready to salute a person's face. When slides of tin or zinc are used to cut off the communication between the hives and boxes, some of the bees are apt to be crushed or cut in two. ”

“ We know that when a natural swarm issues forth it has its impregnated queen, and when located in a new abode commences building worker combs, and leaves the building of the few drone combs to a later period; but if a division of the hive should be made by putting half the combs in one hive and half in another, the hive containing the queenless or embryo queen will busy itself with building only drone comb, thus a number of receptacles for useless bees is provided, which tends to weakness, and eventually to loss of the hive. ”

“ More smoke will now make them crowd among the combs out of your way while you examine. It is very common for the bees to set up a buzzing, and rush up the sides of the hive, but a little smoke will drive them back; get them out of the way as much as possible, and look on the edges of the combs for the queens' cells, where most of them are. If the hive is fully supplied with honey, they will be near the bottom, if not, farther up among the combs; in some hives they cannot be seen even where they exist. ”

“ In single-hiving, if rainy weather occur at the time the bees are prepared to throw off a swarm, and the hive be filled with comb to its utmost - 114 - limit, all the bees must remain idle till the return of fine weather; whereas if more room be given, as upon the storifying plan, they will, by embracing every opportunity for collecting, and by constructing fresh combs by means of the stores already collected, be enabled to diminish that check to their activity, which wet weather always occasions. ”

“ The young bees will many of them take to the upper hive—if not they must be enticed into it by food—and when there are sufficient of them, a brood comb with adhering bees must be inserted and the connection closed. After a few days this nucleus hive may be removed, a few steps at a time, and another, if desired, take its place and be raised in - 247 - the same way. Queen-rearing operations must be confined to warm weather and when drones are abundant.
Royal cells are often built so close together that it is difficult to remove one without injuring another. ”

“ If however, from want of forethought or from any other causes, a swarm have been allowed, for a longer period, to occupy a hive from which it is desirable to dislodge it, in that case I would recommend the apiarian, towards night, to place the hive upon a middle board with a divider underneath it, to lute the junction with clay, so as to prevent the bees from escaping, and to invert the whole upon a stool that has had an opening made in it of sufficient size to allow the hive to sink about half-way through it. ”

“ As if impatient for sport, the insect goes forth soon after its birth, and it is said that it may be seen returning to the hive, loaded with wax, the same day that it became a bee!
While the young bees are in the larva state, the utmost care is taken of them. If any member of the hive is rude or careless toward the egg, or worm, or the yet unhatched pupa, the nurses are very angry. But when the pupa has gnawed his way through his covering, he seems to be regarded as of age, and able to take care of himself. ”

“ Pollen gathers at Hive Door
The fanning is very hard work, and so, if we watch, we see that as a bee grows tired her place is taken by a fresh worker, and so the ventilating is constantly kept up.
During the hot nights of summer, in the busiest time, the hive is thronged with workers who have come home from the fields to shelter from the dew and cold of the night. The city then becomes very crowded and hot, and a large army of bees must be kept at work ventilating. ”

“ Where economy of room is a consideration we fit up bee-houses with a double row of hives, one above the other. Our illustrations show respectively the front and back of a house of this kind for twelve hives, having an ornamental zinc gutter to prevent the wet from dripping on to the alighting-board. When a number of hives are thus together we colour the alighting-boards differently, so as to provide the bees with a distinctive mark by which each may know its own home, and not wander into its neighbour's house. Bees readily enough receive a honey-laden labourer into a hive ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those who have come forth first fly about the hive waiting for the others, who have not yet collected, to join them. When the bee keeper notices this he has only to throw dust on them and at the same time beat upon some copper vessel to collect them, thoroughly frightened, where he desires in some nearby place on which he has smeared erithacen and bees' balm and other things in which they delight. When they have settled down he should place near them a hive smeared within with the same baits, and then, by blowing a light smoke around them, compel them to enter the hive. ”

“ The third hive, which should resemble the old one even in colour, is intended to be placed on the stand formerly occupied by the stock, so as to retain the few returning bees which had been absent in the fields. Care must be taken that all crevices through which it is possible for the bees to escape from the united hives should be effectually closed. ”