BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
The Combination hive and the Long Idea are synonymous names for the same hive. Mr. W. T. Seabrook claims to have introduced this hive into New South Wales, and has added several useful improvements to that made by Mr. Abbott. The cover of Mr. Seabrook's improved combination hive is flat, and made in two equal sections. The first section of the cover is placed over the brood, and the second over the honey. With this arrangement the operator, whilst inspecting the honey-chamber, can do so without disturbing the brood. His other improvement is a side entrance in addition to the one in front of the hive. This side entrance acts as a bee-escape. When the honey is to be extracted, the lid covering the brood-chamber is drawn slightly back, a plain division-board or dummy is slipped down in front of the queen excluder. This cuts off direct communication between the honey and the brood; the lid being replaced, the side entrance is opened, and the imprisoned bees gradually escape. These operations are usually done about noon, and the work of extracting begun the following day. When the full combs are removed, and their places occupied with empty ones, the side entrance is opened, the dummy removed, and the work of the bees again goes on as heretofore. This side entrance does away with the trouble of shaking and brushing the bees from the comb. Mr. Seabrook claims that the Long Idea hive, with his improvements, is far better adapted for raising well-finished sections than any other hive in the market. It is also better suited for wintering than those in general use. In winter the brood-comb is put in the centre of the hive, and a dummy placed on either side of it. The dummy in front of the brood has a bee entrance in it, and a tunnel is made from it to the main entrance; the spare space both in front and rear of the brood is then filled with chair, and the bees are thus made snug till spring.
## Chapter 32e-keeping in Bar-frame Hives.
The Beginner's Kit.
Bees :--Bar-framed hives, bar-frames, full-size and shallows; bar-frame block; bee brush; a few carpenter's tools; foundation comb; gloves; honey extractor; smoke-bellows; swarm catcher; 1 lb. sections; uncapping knife; veil; solar wax-extractor.
If the bees are established in a tree or log, they will have to be cut out by the method known to every bushman. You want the bees, not the honey. Let the bees be primary, and the honey secondary. If you can reach the bee-entrance to their nest, take the smoke-bellows and blow in a fairly good supply of smoke. Sometimes the comb is some distance from the entrance. In such cases more smoke is required than if it be nearer. The smoke and the jarring caused by the axe in cutting into the tree frequently causes the majority of the bees to leave the comb, and retire into some other portion of the hollow, where they will be found clustered, as they are frequently seen hanging on a branch. Ofttimes to dislodge them requires patience. If they are easily reached, lay open the cavity in which they are clustered by cutting away the tinaber. Place the open end of an empty box over the bees. A few puffs of smoke from the bellows will often cause them to shift their quarters, and enter the box that has been placed for their reception. If it be found that they cannot be dislodged in the way described, they can be taken out with the hand or a tea-cup. Care must be taken not to crush any of the bees, as it may cause them to lose their temper.
In taking a swarm of bees from a tree, always, if possible, see that you have the queen. She is easily recognised by her size. When you have once seen a queen bee, you will soon learn to pick her out. Should you be so fortunate as to see her, take her up by the wing or the shoulders (she will not sting you), and put her into the box with a few workers. The other bees will soon find out where she is, and follow on like a flock of sheep.
The bee-brush is used for the purpose of removing the bees from the comb when you wish to have the comb entirely free from occupants. A bunch of leaves, especially fern froms, makes a very good one. With it brush the bees lightly from the comb back into the hive. For the purposes of observation, enough of them can be removed by holding the frame of comb over the hive, and giving it a sudden jerk.
Carpenters' bench tools, not a complete set, will be necessary, only in the case when you prefer to make all the woodwork ''on the premises.''
**FOUNDATION COMB.--**This can be bought from dealers at from 1s. 9d. to 2s. per lb. There is what is termed brush foundation. With a little practice this can be home-made. To do so, it will be necessary to obtain from a dealer a plaster cast.
is the way to produce it from the cast : Soak the cast in soap-suds for a few minutes before using. Have a glue pot or other vessel containing molten wax, which should be kept at almost boiling point. A fair sized paint brush, with the bristles not too long, should be kept in the wax during the time it is melting. With this brush paint the molten wax over the plaster slab by one or two rapid strokes. The fewer the strokes made with the brush the neater and more even will be the foundation. It soon cools, and is then easily peeled from the plaster cast. This brush foundation will answer very well as a substitute for mill-made.
**GLOVES.--There are gloves made expressly for the handling of bees. They are seldom, if ever, used by the practical bee-keeper. Nevertheless, timid beginners may be excused for so doing, more especially if they are ladies. Rees can sting through any ordinary wearing glove. Proper bee gloves are made of indiarubber. Nevertheless it is better to handle bees without gloves.**
**HONEY EXTRACTOR.--There are several different kinds of honey extractors in use, both two and four-frame. Some are reversible,** \(i.e.\)**, the comb can be reversed without removing it from the extractor. It will not be necessary to purchase one when you begin bee-keeping.**
They are rather expensive. When you have fairly started in the industry, it will pay to buy one. Remember, every time comb is destroyed, it is a loss of profit. Wax is a secretion, and is produced from honey. It is estimated that 1 lb. of wax costs the bees from 15 to 20 lbs. of honey to produce. I have seen some very serviceable extractors made by amateurs.
**THE QUILT.--This is a piece of American leather the full size of the top of the hive, and is placed over the frames next to the lid. During summer the enamelled side should be placed immediately over the frames, but in winter the cloth side should occupy that position. In placing it between the cover of the hive and the bees, it has the advantage of confining the bees to the hive after the cover has been removed until they have been subdued.
THE SMOKE BELLOWS.--There are hot and cold-blast bellows. In the first-named, the air is blown through the fire, and thus becomes heated. Beginners unacquainted with this fact frequently injure some of their bees by holding the bellows too near them. A bellows on the hot-blast principle produces a greater volume of smoke, and therefore more readily subdues the irritability of the bees, but too frequently sparks of fire are carried with the smoke into the bees. The cold blast is the safer, especially in the hands of a novice. No bee-keeper can do without a smoker. The smokers in the market are the ''Root'' and the ''Bingham,''
both of which are on the hot-blast method. As a cold blast, the ''Clark'' has had a good innings, but is rapidly being superseded by the ''Pender.'' This is also a cold blast, and can be used with the greatest safety by the most inexperienced. The materials used for charging the smoker are various--semi-decayed wood chips, and saw-dust from the wood heap, discarded cotton-waste, old bags, cow droppings, etc. Anything that will shoulder is suitable. The last-named must be perfectly dry, and has the advantage that it is almost impossible to blow it into flame.
SWARM CATCHER.--This is a very useful appliance. A bug made of mosquito net, and sewn to a hoop of about 15 inches in diameter, makes a very good one. It should be fixed to the end of a long, light pole, and at right angles to it. With such an instrument when a swarm settles on a tree out of ordinary reach, they can be secured by such an appliance and brought to the ground.
An open box, the remaining sides having three or four 1-inch auger holes pierced in them, and fixed to a stand of about 10 feet or 15 feet high, in the form of a tripod, is a first-rate appliance for bees to settle in, especially if a dead queen be fixed within. When the swarm is on the wing, this box, stood up in the midst of them, is almost sure to attract them to settle therein, and, if so, it will save a deal of trouble in following them.
ONE POUND SECTIONS.--These can be bought very cheaply. They are, when nicely and evenly filled, very saleable. There is not so much profit in producing sections as there is in extracted honey,--but they are very nice for table purposes. (See page 228).
THE UNCAPPING KNIFE.--These are required only when you have a honey extractor. As the name implies, they are used for the purpose of removing the caps from the honey cells before placing the frame in the extractor. For uncapping, two knives should be employed. These should be placed in a tin billy of hot water, or some other such vessel, and used alternately. The water can be kept hot by means of a small lamp placed under the tin billy. When uncapping, cut downwards. This will cause the cappings to fall more readily and clear from the comb.
BEE VEILS.--These are a great protection to the face whilst working among the bees. A bag made with mosquito net, and open at both ends, is the usual thing. A broad-brimmed hat, with such a bag sewn to its edge, is the most convenient. Let it be long enough to come well over the shoulders. It will be found difficult to see through the ordinary white netting; therefore, for the face, a small square of black Brussels net should be inserted for the purpose of obtaining a clearer vision of the work. Some veils have gauze wire fronts, others glass. As you obtain confidence, the veil will be discarded.
THE SOLAR WAX EXTRACTOR.--This is a very handy thing--a sort of save-all. A shallow box, with glass lid, is the thing required. A convexed, semicircular false bottom, made of bright tin, is fixed within. The deepest part should not be more than 6 inches from the glass. One end of the false bottom should be made of gauze wire to act as a strainer, the other of tin. Room should be left at one end of the box to receive a vessel to catch the wax as it drips through the gauze wire. The cover should be easily removed. Place the box at an angle of about 20 degrees, facing the sun. All pieces of waste comb should be thrown into it. Always keep the cover on, night and day. It will soon pay for itself. Waste bits of comb lying about encourages the bee moth.
The best time to manipulate bees is when the day is brightest. The best site for your bees will be the most convenient, so long as they are sheltered from the cold winds of winter. Put the hive about 3 or 4 inches from the ground, resting on bricks, with a platform having a gentle slope, inlining from the alighting board to the ground, and be sure to make the roof water-proof. The cement floor as advocated, you will find far better than wood. Bee-keeping will pay if it be properly looked after, if it be only one or two lives to supply honey for your own table.
The principal diseases of bees are foul brood and moth. If the hives are examined occasionally, diseased comb or moth larvae can be removed and destroyed.
## Chapter 23.1. WINTERING BEES.
"While the earth remaint, summer and winter shall not cease" is a Divine promise; but, notwithstanding, New South Wales beeepers find, as far as the honey flow is concerned, that, at least, in some parts of this State we have no winter--that is, winter such as necessitates the taking of extra precautions to guard against the severity of the cold. With the bees,'summer and winter" are only relative terms, known to them by the extension or contraction of light and darkness. That is the only sense in which that Scriptural promise to them holds good. They do not know it by the abundance or cessation of the honey flow. Nay, if such were the case, the bees' winter would be when the sunshine is most intense and the days longest. Often in summer time, in this State of floods and droughts, the little busy bee is put to her wit's end to find the means of livelihood, to say nothing of a surplus for storage on which to raise the ever-increasing brood. In some years, what other countries would term the best for a honey flow, with us it is the worst. Indeed, in some parts of this State, while some beeepers are gloating over their great profits for the season others are entertaining the thought of Jeremiah's wish, 'Oh! that my head were water and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might sweep," because I have to feed back to my bees, this summer, the profits of last.
"Apiology." if I may be permitted to coin a word, because it is more expressive for my purpose than apiculture, in this country requires the study of the laws of bee-life far more acutely than that of any other bee-keeping country with which I am acquainted. Other bee countries are not subjected to the great changes, in season and out of season, than we are here. The bee-keeping people in Europe and America have their Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter with utmost regularity, the periods differing but little year after year. I do not mean to say that each year or season is equally resultant, but I do mean to say that within a week or so they know what will follow, and can prepare for it accordingly. I have known a midwenter season when the honey-bearing flora were so advanced, the honey flow so good, the brood so plentiful, and circumstances,
huge warm and dry nests, wherein they sleep till the warm days of spring awake them.
Are not these, collectively, analogous of the requirements of bees, and has not Nature taught our bees how to act? Has she not implanted in them an instinctive knowledge how to overcome the obstacles of winter in the various climatic zones of the earth? Nevertheless, they have an instinct that will never leave them--that of storing. In those parts of the State where ''never-ending spring abides,'' they store with all the energy and prudence as in the northern world, and that trait of storing will never forsake them. If left to their own instinct they will store food sufficient to overcome almost any winter. But the bee-keeper, with that selfish greed for gain, too often extracts the last pound of honey, in the hope that his bees will be able to weather the winter's storms. By so acting, spring will show him that he has ''killed the hen that laid the golden egg.'' I do not mean to say that it is always the bee-keeper's fault that the bees die. Sometimes our summers and autumns are cruel and unkind to our bees, withholding the honey flow, and they die from natural want.
Can you not gather from what I have already said, what are the essentials necessary for wintering bees; a sufficiency of food, perfectly dry quarters, the heat obtained by density of clustering, fresh air and ventilation; for in all the cases mentioned air is to be noted as one of the constituents.
A sufficiency of food; but what kind of food, and what quantity? The quantity of food necessary for a strong colony to pull through winter, and to come out in spring healthy and vigorous, is about 25 lb. This will depend on the length of the winter and its severity. It is far better to leave a pound too much than an ounce too little. The winter's supply should be of capped comb, and so distributed that the two outer combs on either side should have about equal quantities; and where the winters are most severe, pop-holes should be made through the combs to save the bees the danger of coming in contact with the cold air surrounding the inner side of the walls of the hive.
The kind of food. ''What is good for the gouse is good for the gander.'' What is good for the babe is good for the parent; but not all that is good for the parent is good for the babe. No mother would fill the stomach of a week-old babe with corned beef, pickled onions, and boiled cabbage; but where is the adult who would not live and thrive on baby food? Indeed in cases of physical decay, caused by starvation or disease, human sufferers have to return again to babyhood as it regards food, before the strength of manhood can be regained. Why baby-food for a starving or physically weak man! Because it is the most nutritious. We all, as beekeepers, know the food of young bees differs as their age increases, and that queens, during their baby days, are fed with the same baby-food throughout. Why! I think this is something we have yet to learn. What is this clyle food--this bee-milk fed to young bees. What are its constituent parts? Honey, pollen, water, semi-digested by the nurse bees. This is fed to the young bees in a similar way, and for the same purpose, as young mammals are fed by the dam, or, as St. Paul puts it, ''fed by milk that they may grow thereby.''
The Americans assert that the only food necessary to bring bees through the winter is honey or sugar, and if pollen be excluded from the bill of fare, dysentery and other abdominal complaints will not occur. I am not so sure of that. In the Old Land, in the days of my youth, when I kept bees in the old straw skip--when we used to smother a certain proportion of the stocks with sulphur, leaving the rest for the next season's increase, I noticed that the bees that came out in the warmer parts of the winter days were those that were starving, and when these were fed on sugar, as a rule, dysentery followed ; but the strong stocks that were left with plenty of pollen and honey were the healthiest in the spring, and gave the earliest swarms. All animals know by instinct the most fitting food. Pollen to bees is nothing new. They know their two principal foods, pollen and honey, and how to choose the beneficial and eschew the deleterious. Bees consume honey to produce heat and energy ; pollen to build up the waste of nerve and muscle. They know which to select by the dictates of Nature. So in leaving the winter supply of honey see that there is proportionately a sufficient supply of pollen. In this Colony, in winter or summer, I have never lost bees by starvation, because I never interfere with the food supply of the brood-chamber. Do not do it; there is nothing to be gained by it, but frequently a great loss. Your bees will come out better in the spring ; they will swarm earlier, all else being equal ; there will be less mortality. The old and infirm will be sure to die, but the young will be healthy and strong so as to commence the new season's duties with vigour.
The temperature : Bees can endure great extremes of temperature, even below freezing point. Francis Huber immersed a swarm of bees for three hours in water, and they revived. I once found a gin-case of bees that had been brought down the river during a flood, and they were as active as if they had just swarmed therein. I cannot tell from whence they came. Iut with these experiments health is too much interfered with. The question with us is not what extremes of heat, or what extremes of cold, bees can best endure, but how can we best protect our bees by administering to their wants that they may best serve ours. Heat may be produced and conserved in various ways. A full stomach is as good as an extra blanket. That man who has put up his bees for winter, and has given them a sufficiency of food and a little over, has taken the bull by the horns- the first and best step of producing and keeping the required warmth in his hive during the winter months. The hive itself should be free from open joints and cracks. Ventilation in winter is as requisite as in summer, but not to the same extent; but then that ventilation must be systematic and judicious. The bees, by their constant breathing, will keep the oxygen in circulation. There must therefore be a means of escape of the heated air so that the fresh invigorating air may take its place and so benefit the minutes of the hive.
The numerical strength of the colony is another important factor in producing and retaining the warmth of the stock. When bees cluster closely together, they are in a condition to maintain about 65 degrees of heat in winter, and if a closely fitting division board has been inserted so as to keep the bees and their supplies handy and well together, the outer circle of bees will be as warm as those in the centre of the cluster. On the other hand, if the space they occupy be too large, there will be a greater amount of mortality than if they have only sufficient room and no more. Empty or unused combs should be most religiously removed. These absorb heat, and that is so much taken from the inmates. Even if they do not absorb the heat, they will absorb moisture, and mildew, thus militating against the health of the colony.
Paper is a first-class non-conductor of heat; therefore, in our coldest districts, if the hives are lined with cardboard, and sheets of paper placed over the top bars, it would conduce greatly in retaining the natural heat of the bees. Further, outside protection should by no means be neglected, but whatever material be used it must be impervious to rain.
If the hives have flat tops, a sheet of well-trimmed bark half as long and broad again as the hive may be used. It should be well and evenly weighted down, or fastened, to prevent the wind blowing it off. In exposed situations it would be well not to use weights, but drive in a couple of stout pegs at each side of the hive,and 'lash the bark with cord. For the purpose nothing could be better than a clothes-line (such as is usually procurable for about 4d.), and for a shilling or two length enough could be obtained to do a great many hives. Where the cover is only an inch or so beyond the top of the hive, water dribbles under. For gable-roofed hives a cover of bagging which has received a coat of paint or tar will do. Cornstacks coated in this way would last for several winters.
Internal dampness must be avoided, and floor-boards kept clean. These are better renewed during the middle part of warm days. By no means attempt to winter weak stocks. Far better carry one strong colony through the winter than half a dozen weak cones; in proportion, they consume far less food.
But, above all, do not be avaricious. and rob your bees of the last ounce of honey, and then expect them to pull through the winter.
## Chapter 30 Notes on Honey.
When Virgil said honey was "'Heaven's gift, food fit for the gods," he must have meant gods celestial and gods terrestial. Honey is as essential as salt for a food constituent. It contains both sucrose (cane sugar) and glucose (fruit sugar), not the manufactured article sold under that name, but the pure fruit sugars from Nature's laboratories. "Heaven's gift" is also more or less flavoured with the volatile oils of the flowers upon which the bees work ; hence the justly celebrated boneys of Crete, Minorca, and Narbonne are due to the flavour of the volatile oils of rosmeary. The ancients loudly sang the praises of the honey from IIynettus; its celebrated flavor was due to the oils of the flowers of thyme. The grateful flavour of the honey of Provens is produced from the flowers of lavender. The delicious flavour and pleasant aroma of Cuban honey is the result of the oil of neroli, which is obtained by the bees from the blossoms of the various members of the citrus family, chiefly that of the orange. Cuba, an island in size one-sixth less than England, in one year exported honey and was to the value of PS130,000. This amount does not include the honey and wax consumed and used on the island.