BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
To ascertain the degree of heat in a colony of Bees, and to regulate that heat by means of ventilation, as circumstances may require, recourse should be had to the use of the thermometer, as will be explained presently. But first I would ask my worthy Bee-keepers, whether, in the course of their experience, they have at any time beheld a honey-comb suspended beneath the pedestal of any of their hives--a circumstance that not unfrequently occurs under old stools!* The beautiful appearance of a comb suspended in so singular a situation is, as it were, the finger of Providencepointing out the effects of ventilation, and teaching us by an example the necessity there is for it in a crowded, busy hive. Belold the purity of a comb so suspended,--examine the cause of that purity, and you will find that it is owing--solely and undoubtedly owing--to the influence of VENTILATION.
An occurrence of this description, I mean--the discovery of a beautiful comb suspended from the stool of one of my hives, having excited my curiosity and my admiration, led me to inquire into the cause of it, and to study to discover, if by any means I could, why my skilful, little Bees should have constructed a comb in that particular situation. My observations soon satisfied me that one of these two causes, viz. either a want of room in the hive,--or a disagreeable and oppressive heat in it,--or, most probably, a combination of these two causes, had rendered it necessary for them, if they continued working at all, to carry on their work in that exposed and houseless situation. My next step was to endeavour to prove the truth of my reasonings and conclusions, in which, I flatter myself, I have fully succeeded, after no inconsiderable labour,and many contrivenes to accommodate
that saccharine substance is most plentifully secreted by the vegetable world. And--why? Because they want an enlargement of their domicil--an extension of the dominion, or (if it may be so termed) of the territory of the Queen; by which enlargement _kept at a proper temperature_ swarming is superseded, and the Royal Insect, relieved from the necessity of emigrating, retains her home, continues and extends the propagation of her species in that home,and of course increases the busy labours of her innumerable subjects. _This accommodation is provided for Bees in my collateral-boxes._
Ancient as well as modern Bee-keepers have frequently adopted the plan of eking, that is--placing three or four rounds of a straw hive (called an eke) under their hives. This method of enlarging'a hive does in many instances prevent swarming during that one season. Notwithstanding, from all that I can see in it, it tends only to put off the evil day for a shorttime,and to accumulate greater numbers of Bees for destruction the following year. This is certain,because on minute examination of the middle-box, we find an increase of wealth, as well as an increase of numberstherein ; but there is no provision or contrivance in the common hive for dividing the wealthy produce of the labours of those increased numbers : eking will not do it,--eking enlarges the hive, and that is all it does; consequently to get at their honey, the necessity for destroying the Bees follows, and the suffocating fumes of brimstone at length bring them to the ground--to the deadly pit in which they are first suffocated, then buried, and are, alas, no more! a few minutes close the existence of thousands that had laboured for their ungrateful masters ; and their once flourishing and happy domicil becomes a scene of murder, of plunder, and of devastation, which is a disgrace to Bee-masters, and ought by all means to be discountananced and discontinued. Assuredly Bees are given to us by the gracious Giver of all good things for a better purpose than that of being recklessly destroyed by thousands and by millions. Are we not instructed by the sacred writings to go to the Bee and to the ant, and learn wisdom! We are not told, neither are we warranted, by this language, to go and destroy them and their ininitable works,--to disobey the commands of their, no less than of our Maker,who has given Bees to us for our edification and comfort, and not wantonly to commit a species of murder, in order to procure their delicious treasure. _Nor is there the slightest necessity for destroying Bees_ in this cruel manner, because an act of humanity will obtain for us their purest honey, and secure to us their lives for future and profitable labour. Surely, then, an act of humanity to Bees cannot be displeasing to any one, especially when we are taught by the beneficial results of many years' experience, that their lives _may be preserved,_ and their labours for us thereby may be continued.
Apiarian reader, take this subject into thy serious consideration : in the busy hive behold the curious works of God's creatures--the Bees: misuse not, then, the works of his hands; but improve upon this lesson from nature: and for a moment pause before thou lightest the deadly match,--before thou appliest it with murderous intent to the congregated thousands in thy hive.
It's he who feels no re'rence for God's sacred name, That lights the sulphur up to cause the deadly flame: Alas! I think, viewing the monster's busy hand Taking the dreadful match, I see a murderer stand.
These insects' indefatigable labours should humanize our feelings for them, and induce us to spare their lives, for the rich treasures which they first collect, and then unresisingly yield up to us when operated upon by the healthy influence of ventilation.
Why should we lay the axe to the root of the tree that produces such delicious fruit? Rather let us gather from its pure branches, and let the root live. Examine the nature and effects of my Bee-machinery, and you will discover its utility and its value in the management of Bees. By the proper application of that machinery you may instantaneously divide the treasures of the Bees, even in the most vigorous part of their gathering season, without the least danger to the operator, and without the destruction of a single Bee, except by mere accident. Is not this, then, a rational and humane practice? I trust it wants only to be properly understood in order to be universally adopted.
Again : 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 call aloud for its release and restoration to liberty! and will not the child's screams show its affection for its fond parent? and when its liberty is restored, does not mutual consolation quickly follow? The lost child being once more under its mother's care, both mother and child are again happy. Similar facts are exemplified by the mother of the live, who loves her multi-tudinous offspring, and lives in harmony and affection with them. She evidently dislikes a separation from her subjects, who seem to be, and doubtless are, most devotedly attached to her : for when, on taking off a glass or a box, they are divided only for a few minutes, we witness their agitation, and hear their plaintive lamentations in the live,--the Queen-mother piteously calling for her children, who are anxious on their partto be released; and as soon as an opportunity is afforded them of effecting their escape, they embrace it;--the moment they regain their liberty, they gladly take advantage of it, and return to the pavilion in multitudes, so that in a short time tranquillity is restored, and peace and happiness are again enjoyed by the previously unhappy mother of the live,--her subjects crowd around her, and the place that had lately been their prison, now becomes their palace, and a magazine for future treasure, which the humane apiarian will in due time be again entitled to.
Much has been said on the piling or storifying mode of managing Bees ; and I admit that it possesses advantages which we do not meet with in the codtage-hive system. It is, notwithstanding, imperfect in the design,--it is founded in error,--in practice it is liable to many difficuties,--and it is particularly disadvantageous to the labours of these valuable insects, as will be more fully shown when I come to state my objections to it.
We have only to study the nature and habits of Bees, and to attend particularly to their wants. They alone will teach us the lesson. But follow them through their movements during a summer's day, and you will behold them, as it were, piteously asking for the assistance of man, according to the varying state of the thermometer.
## Chapter 1.
As I have been frequently asked to explain the utility of ventilation in a hive or colony of Bees, so have I as frequently been asked, sometimes with civility and politeness, sometimes jeeringly and in contempt,--"What has the thermometer to do with Bees?" I answer --We shall see presently; and I trust, see enough to convince the veriest sceptic on the subject, that the thermometer is an instrument that is indispensably necessary in the management of Bees according to my plan. Such inquires might as reasonably ask what the mainspring of a watch has to do with the movements of that machine? Without the mainspring the watch would not work at all; and without the thermometer we cannot ascertain with any degree of accuracy the interiortemperature of a colony of Bees; the knowledge of which temperature is of the utmost consequence in the humane and scientific management of Honey-Bees. The thermometer is the safest, if not the sole guide to a real knowledge of their state and condition. To ventiate a 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 a continued series of observations in the summer of 1825, and from innumerable observations and experiments since that year, I am fully satisfied on this point. Their nature is to keep up at least that--viz. a temperature of 60 degrees, and sometimes a much higher temperature in the workshop of their indefatigable labours; and as the temperature of the hive rises, so does it invigorate and encourage an increase of population, which naturally occasions an increase of their treasures,--\(i\).\(e\). of honey. As the hive fills, so will the thermometer rise to 100 and even to 110 degrees, before the Bees will by overheat be forced to leave their wealthy home. When the thermometer is at the above height, they will have arrived at the highest state of per fection,--every store-house will be completely filled with their treasures, and they, as it were, petitioning the observer of their too limited store-house for more room. Thus circumstances then give them a fresh room, accommodate them with such a store-house as either of my collateral-boxes will, and is intended to afford them. _Force then not to steam_ : an emigration from a prosperous colony of one-half, or perhaps of three-fourths of its population, cannot fail of being very disadvantageous, both to those that enigrate, who must necessarily be poor, however great their number, because they have, as it were, to begin the world afresh, and to those that remain, on account of the great diminution of their number, be that diminished number ever so industrious.
When, therefore, you discover your thermometer rising rapidly, and, instead of standing, as it generally does, in a well-stocked colony, at about 80 degrees, getting up in a few hours to 90, and perhaps to 96, or even to 100, you may conclude that ventilation is _then_ highly necessary. The more you ventiate, when their temperature gets to this oppressive and dangerous height, the more you benefit the Bees living in and labouring under it; for when they find a comfortable temperature within, they evidently enjoy it, and, instead of enigrating, will proceed to fill every vacant comb.
Nature has provided the Queen of Bees with the power of multiplying her own royal species, and of providing against any casualty which in so numerous a state may frequently happen. That all seeing eye that neither slumbers nor sleeps, but constantly superintends alike the affairs of insects and of men, has, doubtless, long beheld themismanagement or neglect of man, which is the main cause of the distress of the hive, and which _forces_ it to swarm. Let man, then, learn to remedy the distress and mischief which he occasions, _by preventing it_. It is the Queen-Bee that emigrates; were she not to lead, none would lead; nor would any follow were another than the Queen to lead, to seek and settle in some place more congenial to them than an overheated, over-stocked, though rich hive. She well knows she cannot live in a state subjected to a suffocating heat, amidst an overgrown population, unaccommodated with convenient room for the prosperous continuance of their works. She, therefore, leaves in an undeveloped state in cells peculiarly constructed, and called _royal cells,_ several embryo Queens; which are assiduously attended to, and nursed up to maturity by the Bees that do not emigrate with the swarm. Having made this wondrous provision for a successor, the old Queen* withdraws from the hive,
* It is here said--" the old Queen withdraws from the hive, reluctantly, one may suppose:" Bagster, in page 29, of his "Management of Bees," says--" the first swarm is invariably conducted by the old Queen:" Sir William Jardine, in the Naturalist's Library, vol. 6, page 139, says--" the first swarm is invariably led off by the old Queen;" and that " this has been ascertained by actual observation:" Mr. H. Taylor, in his " Bee-keeper's Manual," page 6, speaking of first swarms, states--that " on these occasions the old Queen leads forth the future colony:" Dr. Bevan, in page 40 of his book on Bees, published in 1838, says--" a first swarm is always led off by the old Queen:" the Rev. W. C. Cotton, M. A. of Oxford, and Chaplain of the Bishop of New Zealand, in page 286 of " My Bee Book," an elegant, costly, prosy, concern--says," when the old Queen is almost ready to lead off the fresh swarm, which she always does," &c. and last, not least, in a long, _light_ article on " The Honey-Bee and Bee Books," in the Quarterly Review-- a pretty good authority on most subjects; but, softly be it said, not infallible, No. 141, page 38, it is stated that--" the old Queen always accompanies the first swarm," In short, all the apiarian authors since the time of Huber, who have made express mention of this matter, have published, and consequently reluctantly, one may suppose, though accompanied by myriads of her subjects. The propagated the doctrine (if it may be so termed) that the old Queen "_invariably,always_," &c. goes off with the first swarm. Notwithstanding the above-quoted authorities, the writer of this note still demurs; and cannot but express his astonishment that among so many shrewd authors, not one of them, not even Dr. Bevan, with the superior advantage of at least six or seven pairs of eyes," and one of those pairs the eyes of a _scientific_ observer too, should have perceived that the fact (if it be a fact) of the old Queen's _always_ going off with the first swarm, involves an absurdity,--may, more,--an impossibility, unless the Queen-Bee be immortal. First swarms are by Bee-keepers considered to be the most valuable: even Dr. Bevan himself observes (page 144) that "first swarms are the most important to the preservation of the species, which in all probability renders them instinctively more careful of themselves than after-swarms." But, if the life of the Queen-Bee be limited to two, three, or even to four years,! the value of first swarms must be very precarious indeed; for the old Queen cannot go off with more than two or three first swarms on account of her age : if then first swarms be the most valuable, and they no doubt are, other than old Queens, _i, e._ young Queens, must occasionally and frequently lead them. By way of exemplifying the absurdity of the opinion that the old Queen _invariably_ emigrates with the first swarm,--suppose a person purchases a first swarm of this year, with which the old Queen, no matter how old, has gone off: suppose this swarm to prosper through the summer,--to survive.
* See the Advertisement to Dr. Bevan's Book.! Dr. Bevan, page 253.
1 Old Queen leads the swarm to seek a place of comfort, and to establish another home, the next winter,--and to swarm early next spring ; of course the old Queen must go off again. Well, let her go; this is only the second going since we took notice of her. Having got another prime swarm let us keep it for a stock, as we did the swarm of last year from which it issued; and let this very best of all practice for keeping up an apiary be persevered in for twenty, forty, sixty years, aye, for ever; and it will be evident that the Queen-Bee, if she _always_ leads the first swarm, must be immortal. This absurdity arises from apiarian authors implicitly adopting the theoretic view of a blind guide; for poor Huber had the misfortune to be blind, and could not possibly have ocular proof of what he advanced theoretically on this subject; nor can the matter be fully tested without subjecting stocks from which first swarms issue to the destructive operation of being fumigated, dissected, and thoroughly examined, as soon as the first swarms have left them--an operation which not one perhaps of the above-quoted gentlenen, critics included, ever performed in order to verify their, or rather, Huber's theory.
It is not here meant to be asserted that the old Queen never goes off with a first swarm; but only that it is not "_always_, _invariably_," the case. Why, as Queen-regnant--the undisputed, uncontrolled sovereign of the hive, may she not be allowed to exercise her own royal pleasure, and either emigrate with a first swarm, or retain her dominion, and send out a junior Queen to be the leader and ruler of a new colony, as best suits her inclination?
To this it may be added, that by reference to Mr. Cotton's book, page 207, 208, it will be found that Mr. R. Sydserff of Leigh, on Mendij, who in 1792 published "a Treatise on Bees, being the result of upwards of thirty years' experience,"where not one cell nor one drop of honey exists.
To establish the truth of these assertions, and to prove the utility of ventilation and of the thermometer, in regulating the degree of ventilation in the management of Bees, I will now give my reader an account of some interesting experiments that I made in 1826, and then add a few extracts from my thermometrical journal of that summer, which in fact guided me in those experiments, for without the assistance of my thermometer I could not have made then ; from which, taken together, it will, I think, be sufficiently evident that ventilation and the thermometer are highly necessary,--are alike important,--in short, are _indispensable_ in the humane management of Honey-Bees.
makes the old Queen go off with a swarm,--and in the very next page complacently informs his readers that the old Queen answers the _piping_ of the young Queen previously to a second swarm. And, to crown the whole, Mr. Cotton himself--the lauded in the Quarterly--after dispatching the old Queen with the fresh swarm, which he says, "_she always leads,_" within two pages actually makes the old Queen, " in a gruff note," answer the " people, people, of the young Queen!! " One word of comment on such inconsistent statements is unnecessary.--Edron.
" My Bee-Book, pages 286 & 288,
On the 26th of June, 1826, I suffered a colony of Bees to swarm, in order to prove the truth of the foregoing statements. It was a very fine colony : the thermometer had been standing at 110 for six days previously, in one of the collateral boxes ; on the eighth day it rose suddenly to 120. I was then forcing my Bees to leave their home ; I could have lowered their temperature, and by so doing I could have retained my worthies in theinative boxes : but I was then about to prove a fact of the greatest moment to apiarians. On the ninth day, at half-past twelve o'clock, the finest swarm I ever beheld towered above my head, and literally darkened the atmosphere in the front of my apiary. After remaining about five minutes in the open air, the Queen perched upon a tree in my garden, where she was exposed to the rays of a scorching sun ; but her loyal subjects quickly surrounded her, and screened her from its influence. I immediately did what I could to protect my grand prize, by hanging a sheet before it, to ward off the intense heat of the sun. I allowed the Bees to hang in this sheltered situation until the evening. During the absence of the swarm from the colony, my employment was to observe the parent-stock, in order that I might, if I should think it advisable, return the Bees of this very fine swarm to their native hive, which they had been forced to leave. Curiosity and a desire to solve a doubtful problem, for the good of future aparians, led me to act as already related, at the expense of much inconvenience to the Bees. The Bees remaining in the hive continued to labour during the remainder of the day ; and in the evening of that same day, the thermometer was standing at 90 degrees in that stock ; so that the absence of the swam had lowered the temperature of the pavilion 30 degrees ; and I was quite sure I could reduce it in the collateral boxes to that of the exterior atmosphere, which after the sun had gone down, was only 65.
To effect this, I resolved at once to take off a fine top-glass filled with honey. I did so : its weight was fourteen pounds. This operation reduced the interior heat of the colony to 75. But looking at my grand swarm, and intent as I was upon re-uniting it to the parent-stock, I thought it impossible for the vacant space conveniently to hold all the Bees. I had one, and only one, alternative left, and that was to take from my colony a collateral-box. I therefore took it; and a beautiful box it was: its weight was fifty pounds. I immediately put an empty box in the place the full one had occupied. I then drew from the side of the pavilion the dividing tin-slide, and the whole of the colony was shortly at the desired temperature of 65, that being the exterior heat of the evening. I was now fully convinced of the propriety of returning the swarm. I commenced operations for accomplishing that object at ten o'clock in the evening, by constructing a temporary stage near the mouth of the parent-stock. I then procured a sheet, and laid it upon the table or temporary stage, and in a moment struck the swarm from the hive into which the Bees had been taken from the bough in the evening, so as to fall directly upon the sheet aforesaid. My next difficulty was to imprison the Queenbee; but with a little labour I succeeded in discovering her, and quickly made her my captive. No sooner was she my prisoner than the Bees seemed to be sensible of their loss. But so near were they placed to the mouth of the parent-stock that they soon caught the odour of the hive, and in the space of about fifteen minutes the whole swarm, save only the Queen, were under the roof of their parent-hive. The following morning increased my anxiety about the welfare of my stock. Fearful lest my anticipations should meet with a disappointment, at sun-rise in the morning I released from her imprisonment the captive Queen. I placed her on the front-board, near the entrance of her hive, in order to ascertain, if possible, whether there was with-in the state one greater than herself. But no visible sign of such being the case presented itself. The influence of the cheery sun soon caused her to move her majestic body to the entrance of her native domicil, where she was met, surrounded, and no doubt welcomed, by numbers of her subjects, who soon conducted her into the hive, and, it may be presumed, re-instated her on the throne, which the day before she had been compelled to abdicate. The Bees afterwards sallied forth with extraordinary aacrity and regularity, and, beyond my most sanguine expectations, filled a large glass with honey in the short space of six days. That glass of honey was exhibited at the National Repository, with a model of my apiary, and was much admired by many of the members and visitors of that noble institution.