BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
The method of transferring bees, etc., from a log or a gin case hive is of the utmost importance, especially with beginners, and in the bush. No hive, other than the bar-frame will admit of this. Transferring is dealt with elsewhere.
1. It should permit the safe and easy dislodgment of bees from the hive.
This advice is of the utmost importance, and at once shows the superiority of the Langstroth hive and others of bar-frame construction over the old straw skip and other artificial bee homes. To be able to regulate the numerical strength of the innates of a hive is the key to success. A frame of brood from a well-to-do hive is not much missed, and in about three weeks is replaced; but the importance of giving a frame of nearly fully developed brood to a weak colony cannot be over-estimated. To do so from other than bar-framed hives is an impossibility.
1. It should allow the bees, together with the heat and odour of the main hive, to pass in the freest manner to the surplus honey receptacles (supers).
If the supers are difficult of access, or are divided from the main hive pierced by holes, as is the case in the Berlepsch hive, this necessary condition cannot be maintained. Thus the importance of the frames of the super being placed directly over those of the brood chamber is at once realised, and also the advantage of shallows over full size supers. In the supers there must be a sufficiency of heat maintained for the necessary secretion of wax.
1. It should permit the surplus honey to be taken away in the most convenient, attractive, and valuable forms, and without risk of annoyance from the bees.
**Undoubtedly '''honey in the comb'' is the most attractive form in which it can be placed upon the table; but it is at the same time the most expensive way. The reconstruction of the comb is a loss entailed upon both bees and bee-keeper when we consider it is estimated that it requires about 15 lb. to 20 lb. of honey to produce 1 lb. of wax. The invention of the extractors has done away largely with sending honey to market in the comb.**
1. It should admit of the easy removal of good honey from the main hive, when in its place there can be supplied to the bees an inferior article.
What Langstroth means here is that good honey should be taken from the bees, and replaced by an inferior article.
In a country like New South Wales, where we have honey in different seasons of such various grades, this is a great advantage. In nearly every part of the State we have an occasional flow of unmarketable honey that is looked upon as a loss; at other times there is a flow of a superexcellent article. We can from bar-frame hives store the unsaleable article, and feed it back to the bees, taking the better article in return.
1. When quantity and not quality is the object sought, it should allow the greatest yield, that the surplus of strong colonies may be given, in the Fall, to those which have an insufficient supply.
To feed weak colonies at the expense of stronger ones is a mistake. Far better to unite two or three weak colonies; it is far cheaper.
1. It should be able to compel the force of a colony to be mainly directed to raising young bees that brood may be on hand to form colonies and strengthen feeble stocks.
A regular supply of brood must be maintained above the death-rate, not so much for strengthening feeble stocks as to leave a sufficient number of workers on hand for a coming honey harvest. When artificial swarming is necessary strong colonies only will admit of division for the purpose.
1. It ought to be so constructed that, while well protected from the weather, the sun may be allowed in early spring to encourage breeding by warming up the hive.
It is not so much in the construction of a hive as its situation or location. It certainly should be so constructed as to be free from damp, which is one of the greatest drawbacks to early brood production. The site chosen should admit of the morning rays of the early spring sun.
1. The hive should be equally well adapted to be used as a swarmer or non-swarmer.
That is to say, it should be available for natural or artificial swarming. Natural swarming, to my mind is far preferable to artificial; at the same time there are conditions when artificial swarming may be carried out to an advantage. There are now in the market devices for controlling swarming.
1. It should enable the apiarian to prevent a new swarm from forsaking its hive.
For this purpose the bar-frame hive has an advantage over all others. The introduction of a frame of brood in all stages of development, put in the hive before placing the new swarm therein, greatly checks the desire for leaving; or a piece of queen-excluding zinc placed at the entrance so as to prevent the queen from leaving is a certainty.
1. It should enable the apiarian, if he allows his bees to swarm, and wishes to secure surplus honey, to prevent their swarming more than once in a season.
Cent. per cent. is a very fair profit, and no one that is not extra avaricious would wish for more. Some strains of bees seem to have a mania for swarming. When a swarm leaves a colony it carries with it at least a week's supply of honey. The more frequently bees swarm the greater the shrinkage of honey. If the object is to simply multiply colonies, then only should frequent swarming be permitted.
* 41. It should enable the apiarian who relies on natural swarming and wishes to multiply his colonies as fast as possible, to make vigorous stocks of all his small after-swarms.
This can only be done at the expense of the honey-crop. These after-swarms have young queens, and they occur most frequently during good seasons. If combs containing all the requisites for brood-raising--bee-bread, honey, and developing brood be taken from strong colonies to strengthen weak ones, it must be done judiciously, and as early in the season as possible, otherwise the strong colony may become the weak one.
* 42. It should enable the apiarian to multiply his colonies with a certainty and rapidity which are impossible if he depends on natural swarming.
As before stated, this should only be done when the multiplication of colonies is required, rather than the production of honey.
* 43. It should enable the apiarian to supply destitute colonies with the means of obtaining new queens.
Under the cld skip and box system of bee-keeping, bees could supply themselves with queens, providing there were eggs or brood of the proper age, but the bar-frame hives opened up a new era in this respect. Prior to this the _manufacture_ of queens was not under the control of the bee-keeper.
* 44. It should enable him to catch the queen for any purpose especially to remove an old one whose fertility is impaired by age.
Colonies die out too frequently through the infertility of the queen either through old age or mismating. In both cases they become drone breeders. With the bar-frame this can at once be remedied, and a fertile queen can be introduced to take the other's place, and thus a colony of bees can be perpetuated indefinitely.
* 45. While a complete hive is adapted to the wants of those who desire to manage their colonies on the most improved plans, it ought to be suited to the wants of those who, from timidity, ignorance or any other reason, prefer the common way.
There is not nearly the danger to be apprehended from bar-frame as from the skip or box-hive.
46. It should enable a single bee-keeper to superintend the colonies of different individuals.
Bee-keeping has now become an industry. In the large beefarms of New South Wales it is the work of more than one man to look after his own. One of the principal objects of Bee-keepers' Associations was for the purpose of mutual aid, and these associations are now spread over the civilised world. It is represented in this State by many societies, the central one being the National Bee-keepers' Association, Sydney.
47. All the joints of the hive should be water-tight, and there should be no doors or shutters liable to shrink, swell, or get out of order.
The Langstroth hive, as now constructed--that is to say, if it be made of well-seasoned timber--never suffers from the troubles here catalogued. The hive of to-day differs considerably from those of earlier patterns in this respect.
48. It should enable the bee-keeper to entirely dispense with sheds or costly apiaries as the hive itself should alike defy heat or cold, rain or snow.
In the more temperate zones hives may go without sheds, and, indeed, in the sub-tropics; but the attendant requires some protection from the more direct rays of the sun. The best time to work among bees is the hottest part of the day, when the manipulator requires the protection--not the bees. See ''Summer and Winter Protection.''
49. It ought not to be liable to be blown down in high winds.
Place the hive low, on bricks, about 3 inches from the ground, so that a current of air can pass underneath the hive.
50. A complete hive should have its alighting-board constructed so as to shelter the bees against wind and wet, thus facilitating to the utmost their entrance with heavy burdens.
The modern Langstroth hive is constructed with a movable bottom-board, and the alighting-boards in most cases, are attached thereto; the entrance is cut into the solid wood, and is an incline plane, so that all moisture runs away from the hive. This formation also protects the bees against high winds. In this respect the concrete floor is far above all others.
1. A complete hive should be protected against the destructive ravages of mice in winter.
Mice do not appear to trouble bees in this colony to the extent they seem to both in Europe and America. Perhaps the improvements in the bee entrance to the hives has much to do with it. Entrances now are made long and narrow--a little more than bee space; thus, a mouse would find a difficulty in obtaining ingress other than gnawing his way in, when the noise made thereby would surely rouse the anger of the bees.
1. It should permit bees to pass over their combs in the freest manner both in summer and winter.
In Langstroth's original pattern, the combs were arranged parallel with the entrance or front of the hive. Although this may facilitate the manipulation, freedom of ingress and egress was not so easy as in the modern hive, in which the combs run fore and aft, or parallel with the sides of the hive.
1. It should permit the honey, after the gathering season is over to be concentrated, where the bees will most need it.
No honey should be allowed to remain in the supers during winter, and all empty combs should be removed and the winter's supply of honey, when the bees are put up for the season, should be placed as near to the young brood as possible; and if there be not sufficient bees and honey to fill the hive, a division board should be placed so as to keep the whole as compact as possible.
1. It should permit a generous supply of honey to be left in the fall of the year in the hive without detriment either to the bees or the owner.
From 30 lb. to 40 lb. is sufficient for a fairly good colony. If more is left it is not wasted, but rather an advantage. It will be wanted in the spring for brood raising.
1. It should permit the apiarian to remove such combs as cannot be protected by the bees, to a place of safety.
Spare, or over-plus combs, should be placed in a zinc-lined case, the lid made almost air-tight and occasionally fumigatedwith sulphur-smoke, to destroy the larvac, etc., of the bee moth, and other enemies.
56. It should permit the space for spare honey to be enlarged or contracted at will, without any alteration or destruction of the existing parts of the hive.
The space for spare honey (super) of modern hives in no way interferes with the brood chamber. Supers can be expanded or contracted from a single row of one pound sections to one equal to a full-sized hive. Sections as we now have them, were not known till some years after the invention of the Langstroth hive.
57. It should be so compact as to economise, if possible, every inch of material used in its construction.
58. The hive, while presenting a neat appearance should admit, if desired, of being made highly ornamental. See 'Bush-houses as Apiaries," page 179.
59. It should enable an apiarian to lock up his hives in some cheap and convenient way.
This is for the purpose of preventing the honey from being stolen ; but I have known cases where thieves have taken honey, bees and hive.
60. It should allow the contents of the hive, bees, combs, and all, to be taken out when it needs any repairs.
Not only when it needs repairs, but everything in a Langstroth hive being movable all the fittings should be occasionally taken out, and the hive thoroughly cleansed, which is an accommodation not to be met with in the old fashioned box, etc.
61. A complete hive, while possessing all these requisites, should if possible, combine them in a cheap and simple form, adapted to the wants of all who are competent to cultivate bees.
In these sixty odd advantages, etc. of the bar-frame hive over every other description of hive that has been in use since the day that bees were first brought under the control of man, Langstroth has not referred to his own particular style of hive, or lauded it to the disadvantage of other bar-frames, but by universal consent, and its general adoption by the bee-keeping pub lie it stands at the head of all other bar-frames that have been placed before the bee-keeping world; and therefore it is the first style or pattern hive that demands our attention. The internal measurement of the hive, no matter what name it bears, or of its form, is of the greatest importance\(-\)exactness is the one word applicable, so that the fittings or parts may be used with equal facility to any and every hive in the apiary, and not only in those belonging to one bee-keeper but each piece of a hive should be equally adaptable to other hives in the district.
Langstroth hives are generally made to contain eight or ten frames. The ten-frame hive is by no means suitable to all districts. It should only be used in localities where there is a large honey-flow. The eight-frame is handier, nd far more fitted for general use, and is conceded by the most experienced bee-keepers to be the easiest workable. A queen-bee must be wonderfully super-excellent that can lay in more than eight frames of the brood chamber; even in these the outer combs of the two extreme frames are seldom seen with brood; and as it regards the supers, there is no advantage in the larger size. Any number of these can be used if the honey is coming in too quickly or time is not available to extract. For brood purposes, the queen confines herself as much as possible to the centre of the lower chamber. If, just at the beginning of the honey harvest the bottom frames are filled with brood--and for profitable bee-keeping, they should be--there cannot, of course, be empty cells in any number; then and only then will the bees be obliged to put their store where the bee-master can most conveniently get at it--that is, in the super; therefore the eight-frame for brood and also eight-frame supers are the ones most strongly recommended.
Material\(:-\)Wood, light, well-seasoned, and free from cracks and knot holes, the same as that advised for the frames.
The hives generally supplied by dealers in bee goods are dovetailed. This makes extra strong corners. There are cheap ones lately put in the market, the corners being nitred and fastened with nails, but the little extra cost of the dovetailed ones makes them cheaper in the long run. The hives obtained from supply dealers are made by steam power. Where only a few hives are required, or there is a difficulty in obtaining machine made ones, home-made, with the corners square cut and put together with nails, will do as well as the best machine constructed, for all practical purposes. If the hive maker is handy in the use of carpen ters' tools the corners are much better halved in. It is not only neater, but, being put together with nails, the joints are more secure than when the wood is cut on the square, and put together flush.
The body of the modern complete hive, other than super and frames is composed of three sections or parts, the hive proper or brood chamber, the floor-board, and the cover. A brood chamber is synonymous with a full-size super, or _vice versa_. These three parts are indispensable. Bees may be kept without super or even without frame, but then that would take us back to the gin-case age of bee-keeping.
The diagrams of the Langstroth live and the various sectional parts thereof will greatly facilitate the hive maker in constructing home-made hives.
The American measurements, as stated by Root in his ''A B C of Bee Culture'' are now generally adopted. The body of the hive is 912 inches deep, 133 inches wide, and 20 inches long. There are outside measurements. These cannot be followed unless the wood of which they are constructed is of uniform thickness, and that gauge always adhered to. The thickness of the wood of these hives when dressed is 78 inch; therefore, to get the inside measure, which is always best to follow especially in home-made hives, where the wood obtainable is of various thicknesses, 78 inch will have to be subtracted from the dimensions above given --that is, 85 inches deep, 13 inches wide and 191 inches long. The modern Langstroth Simplicity Hives are now generally made with bevelled edges, so that the lower edge of the super fits closely over the upper of that of the brood chamber. In this case the floor-board should have a corresponding convex bevel for the lower side of the brood-box to fit thereto, otherwise the space is too great underneath the sides, and, is therefore liable to be utilised by the bees for storage purposes when pressed for room. The advantage is that the rain cannot drive in through the connections; but as machinery is necessary for forming correct junctions between the two parts (brood-box and super), home-made hives are excluded from that advantage. Provided they are carefully and accurately worked, there is no reason why the square edges should not be almost as impervious to the weather as bevelled ones. In the Heddon Hive it is so, the one portion of the hive merely resting on the upper portion of the other. The ones I have in use are in no way damper than those bevelled. Where the flat or square edges are used there is not the objection met with where the bevelled edges give extra and unrequired space immediately between the lower bevelled edge and the bottom board; and what is more to the purpose, a more simply constructed floor board can be used when the edges on the sides are cut on the square. Occasionally there is a little bee-glue used, which certainly is a little extra labour for the bees; but I have more than once found propolis used in the conjunctions of bevled-edged hives.
Elsewhere I have advocated the need of light wood for use in all parts of hives and their adjuncts, but even here we must draw a line of demarcation. Some of our Colonialpine, when it is exposed to the weather, is liable to quickly perish, especially so if it has been lying in the open, when, more or less, the grain opens, and permanent cracks are the result. On one occasion I saw a hive thoroughly collapse when being removed, and the frames, hive, and its contents fall to the ground in one confused heap. And, further, some of our soft timber acts as a splendid hunting ground for white ants. I once saw a large apiary, where sawn hardwood blocks of uniform height were used for hive stands, on which the hives had become a prey to white ants, and their sides were so riddled as to necessitate substitution; and in one case the ants had built a gallery from the side of the hive to one of the frames ready to commence work thereon. The apiary referred to was in the bush, and surrounded by standing and fallen timber. "What has been is likely to be," and I do not think by any means this is likely to be an isolated case. I have always advocated that hives should stand on bricks. In all locations these are not always obtainable, and recourse must be given to a substitute. Where wood is used for a hive-stand, paint it with coal-tar, or, better still, cover it with a piece of tin or sheet-iron; although, if report speaks truly, white ants have been known to eat their way through sheet-lead. I wonder if they would try it on sheet-iron!
Perhaps, after all, the best gauge for carrying out the internal measurements of a hive is to be guided entirely by the frame. If the frames are made true to the standard gauge, and each of uniform pattern and size, the necessary size for a hive is more easily obtained therefrom than in any other way. Allowing bee-space, \(\downarrow\) inch is usual (true bee-space is \(\tau_{\xi}\) inch), on all sides between the hive and the frame must be right, also bee-space between the bottom bar of the frame and the bottom board of the hive. The space between the top bar of the frame and the cover of the hive will depend on the construction of the cover itself. "Many men of many minds' applies to covers or roofs of hives as well as to other matters. In the covering for hives we have many patterns: flat roofs, hip roofs, gable end or cottage roofs, skillion roofs, &c. Whatever their name or pattern, they must be water-tight and afford bee space between the top bar of the frame and cover of the hive. Suitable covers for hive will be described further on.
Perhaps it will be as well, where timber has to be purchased, to bear in mind that a board of inch stuff, 12 feet x 10 inches, will work up into two bodies--_i.e._, a brood chamber and a full-size super or two half supers; shallow boards, 10 inches wide, are difficult to obtain, unless specially ordered, but 12 feet x 1 foot is a very common measurement, and I strongly advise such a board to be obtained. In the first place, it will allow for shrinkage in seasoning prior to being cut up and put together. The overplus strip that must be cut off comes in grandly for frame-making or for making cleats for bottom-boards, or flanges for covers. In cutting up the board, it is best to cut off the strip, which will be about \(1\frac{1}{2}\) inch wide, or a little more, according to the shrinkage; then cut off the four ends in one piece. It will be found more convenient to work out the rabbet in one length than if cut into the four necessary ends. An iron American plough, used by carpenters, is one of the best tools I know of for this purpose.
If the hives are constructed to allow bee-space between the bottom bar of the frame and the bottom board it will save a lot labour in working out the rebate. If bee-space is left between the top bar of the frame and the cover, then the rebate must be \(\frac{1}{2}\)-inch deep--that is, bee-space and the thickness of the shoulder of the frame; but if it is intended to work the hive with the frames flush to the top of the hive, which is by far the best, then the rebate should only be \(\frac{1}{4}\) inch deep, or sufficient for the shoulder of the frame to come flush with the top of the hive. In this case the cover must be constructed to allow the required space necessary. If metal is to be used in the rebates, due allowance must be made for their reception. A piece of wood (the thicker the better) 13 inches x \(19\frac{1}{8}\) inches, all the angles cut perfectly true, will be found very useful gauge in putting hives together. It should be of some very light material. Iron frame gauges, expressly for working hives correctly, are procurable from houses (Pender, Maitland, Lassetter & Co., A. Hordern & Sons), where bee-keepers' supplies are sold. They are true to measurement, and so constructed that all the angles of the hive must be right angles.
If it is intended to dress the timber for the hives (planned wood always takes the paint better than rough), do so in the full length. When the four ends have been cut off the 12 feet board there will be a little less than 7 feet left; from this cut the four sides. Allowing for saw-cuts, the waste from the full-length board will be found to be next to nothing.
Fixed gauges for making the various parts of the hive will be found very useful tools.