BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
Inexperienced persons will seldom find it profitable to begin bee-keeping on a large scale. By using movable-eomb hives, they can rapidly increase their stocks after they have acquired skill, and have ascertained, not simply that money can be made by keeping bees, _but that they can make it_. While large profits can be realized by careful and experienced bee-keepers, those who are otherwise will be almost sure to find their outlay result only in vera large knife for cutting out the combs; vessels for the honey; a table or board, on which to lay the brood combs; cotton-twine or tape, for fastening them into the frames; and water for washing off, from time to time, the honey which will stick to your hands. Having selected the working combs, carefully cut them rather large, so that they will just _erosed_ into the frames, and retain their places in their'natural position until the bees have time to fasten them. It will be well to wind some twine or tape, which should be subsequently removed, around the upper and lower slats of the frames, as an additional security. Small pieces of empty comb may be fastened with melted wax and resin (p.?2).* When the hive is thus prepared, the bees may be put into it and confined, water being given to them, until they have time to make all secure against robbers. When the weather is cool, the transfer should be made in a warm room, to prevent the brood from being fatally chilled. An expert Apiarian can easily complete the whole operation--from the driving of the bees to the returning of them to their new hive--in about half an hour, and with the loss of very few bees, old or young. The best time for transferring bees is about ten days after a swarm has issued or been forced from the old hive. The brood will then be sealed over, and able to bear considerable exposure. Until the feasibility of transferring bees by movable frames had been thoroughly tested, I felt irreconcilably
## Chapter 23 C HATP XVI.
That honey is a vegetable product, was known to the ancient Jews, one of whose Rabbins asks : "Since we may not eat bees, which are _unclean_, why are we allowed to eat honey?" and replies : "Because bees do not _make_ honey, but only _gather_ it from plants and flowers."
Bees often obtain a saccharine substance from the honey-dows, which are found on the foliage of many trees, and are sometimes merely an exudation from their leaves, though ofener a discharge from the bodies of small _apphidea_ or " plant-lice."
Messra. Kirby and Spence, in their interesting work on Entomology, have given a description of the honey-dew furnished by the aphides:
"The loves of the ants and the aphides have long been celebrated ; you will always find the former very busy on those trees and plants on which the latter abound ; and, if you examine somewhat more closely, you will discover that the object of the ants, in thus attending upon the aphides, is to obtain the saccharine fluid secreted by them, which may well be denominated their milk. This fluid, which is scarcely inferior to honey in sweetness, issues in limpid drops from the abdomen of these insects, not only by the ordinary passage, but also by two setiform tubes, placed one on each side, just above it. Their sucker being inserted in the tender bark, is, without intermission, employed in absorb
## Honer.
* The following extract from the week of Bir J. More, London, 1707, will show the extravapant estimate which the old writers set upon bee-products:
* Natural was in altered by distillation into an oj of marrellous vertau: H is rather a Diffuse medicine than humans, because, in wounds or invaried diseases, it worked miracles. The bee helpful to cure all your diseases, and in the beat little fied a man has in the world.
Honey is of subtl parts, and therefore 30th pierce as oj,and easily passed the parts of the body; it openeth obstructions, and clearly the heart and lights of those humors which fill from the bead; it purgeth the foulness of the body, enrich phlegmatic matter, and sharpeneth the stomach;To drain honey from virgin combs, bring it to the boiling point in any clean vessel, and, when cool, the wax will float on the top, and the honey may be strained and poured into bottles or jars, which should be tightly covered, to exclude the air. Should it candy, these may be put into cold water, and brought to the boiling-point, when the honey will be as nice as ever. Combs which contain bee-brend should be kept separate from the others, as the honey from them is of an inferior quality.*
Empty comb which cannot be used in the hivo or space honey-boxes (p. 71), may be put into water and boiled, when the pure wax will float upon the top, and harden if poured into cold water. If melted again, and run into vessels slightly greased, the impurities will settle at the bottom. Combs which have been so long used by bees for breeding that they will not readily part with their wax, may be put into a coarse wool bag, with a flat-iron on the top to make it sink, and boiled until the wax has risen to the top of the kettle, _Very old brood-combs_ are seldom worth rendering into wax.
New swarms, unless very large, ought not to be admitted to the surplus honey receptacles until they have been hired three or four days. Old stocks should have access to them quite early in the season. If the hives stand in the sun, and the weather is warm, ample ventilation should be given, while bees are storing honey.
Figure 56: Flats XIX.
The surplus honey may be taken from my hives in a great variety of ways:
(1st.) The hive may be made so long that it can be taken from the ends on frames; and if these ends be separated from the main body of the hive by movable or permanent partitions, the purest honey will be deposited in them. The partitions should be kept about a quarter of an inch from the top and bottom, to allow the bees to pass freely into the ends.*
(2d.) The surplus honey may be stored in large or small frames, put in an upper box or hive (see Plates III., V., and VII., Figs. 6; 16; and 20). Such a box,* when full, may, by a little smoke, be easily removed, and the bees driven from it.* Its contents may be sold in gross, or by the single frame.
In all my hives, any additional storage-room may be given, which the season or locality can ever require. The experienced bee-keeper well knows that bees will make much more honey in a large box, than in several small ones whose united capacity is the same. In small boxes, they cannot so well maintain their animal heat, and their effective force is thus often wasted at the height of the honey.harvest, when time is, to the last degree, precious.*
* Each a hive, holding a dozen frames in the central apartment, and its its each of the end ones may be cheaply made. The side apartments may be rubeded so as to recover short frames running from the ends to the partitions, or long once from front to rear. + In a favorable season, T have taken two such boxes, each holding over fifty pounds, from a ten-warting hive, sad, in good locations, still larger returns may often be realized. The boxes may be setover the main hive, and, as the bees can pass into them without being obliged to travel over the combs, the unusual height will not annoy them. + I am not aware that the attention of Agtarians has ever been called to the loss incurred by compelling bees to store their surplus honey in small receptacles. The bee-keeper cannot afford to sell honey stored in small receptacles, except at a considerable advance over its value in large boxes. By movable frames, the usual collections to large boxes are removed, as honey may be conveniently taken from them for sale or use.
No metallic slides are needed for removing surplus honey-boxes. By blowing smoke into them, before they are taken off, most of the bees will retreat to the main hive, and, if removed early in the morning, or late in the afternoon, and placed on a sheet fastened to the hive, the bees, attracted by the hum of their companions, will speedily leave them, but not until they have swallowed all that they can hold. When gorged, they are very reluctant to fly, and this is the reason they are so long in leaving when boxes are carried from the hive. The sooner the bees are driven from them the better, and care must be taken to protect them from robbers, who would soon carry their contents to their own hives. If any of the frames contain brood, they may be returned to the bees. Should the queen be in the box, many bees will refuse to leave it until she is returned to the hive.
(**?d.)** Glass vessels, of almost any size or form, make beautiful receptacles for the spare honey; they should have a piece of comb fastened in them, and should be covered with something warm if the weather is cool.*
(**?d.)** If small boxes are used for surplus honey, the one shown in Plate X., Fig. 24, the dimensions of which are given in the Explanation of Hives, will probably be found the simplest, cheapest, and best.+
Footnote : margin: **Howey, stored in multiplex just large enough to receive one comb, may be placed in an elegant form upon the table. While all small receptacles waste the time of the bees, the shallow cells, so many of which must be made in any cylindrical vessel, reqoring as large a consumption of time and materials for their corona, and bottoms as those which hold more than twice as much honey. + Such a box, which should be furnished either with golden or pleess of comb, will hold three store-combs, weighing together over four pounds, and, by removing a glass, one may be cut out without disturbing the others. If all the plants of a box are made air-tight by a metal mixture of wax and resin, the bees will be saved much labor in stepping them with propoliths; and, when the entrance is closed and covered with the same mixture, the honey may be transported without leakage, even if the combs are broken. Boxes containing honey should be very carefully packed, and lifted without the slightest jarring.**
## Chapter Chapter 3 Hee-Fast storage -- over-stocking.
Every bee-koeper should carefully acquaint himself with the honey-resources of his own neighborhood. My limits will allow me to mention only some of the most important plants from which bees draw their supplies. Since Dzierzon's discovery of the use which may be made of rye flour, early blossoms, producing pollen _only_, are not so important.
All the varieties of willow abound in both bee-bread and honey, and their early blossoming gives them a special value :
"First the gray willow"s glossy pearls they steal,
"Or rob the haxel of its golden meal,
While the gay crocus and the violet blue,
Tield to their flexible trunks ambrosial dew."--E\({}_{
m rAss}\).
The sugar-maple (_Acer saccharions_) yields a large, supply of delicious honey, and its blossoms, hanging in graceful fringes, will be alive with bees.
Of the fruit trees, the apricot, peach, plum, cherry, and pear, are great favorites ; but none furnishes so much honey as the apple.
The dandelion, whose blossoms furnish pollen and honey, when the yield from the fruit trees is nearly over, is worthy of a high rank among honey-producing plants.
The tulip tree (_Liriodendron_), often called "polar" and "white wood," is one of the greatest honey-producing trees in the world. As its blossoms expand in succession, new swarms will sometimes fill their hives from 'thissource alone. The honey, though dark,* is of a good flavor. This tree often attains a height of over one hundred feet, and its rich foliage, with its large blossoms of mingled green and yellow, make it a most beautiful sight.
Footnote *: The honey of Hymettus, which has been so celebrated from the most ancient times, is of a fair golden color. The lightest-colored honey is by no means always the best.
The linden, or bass-wood (_Tilia Americana_) yields an abundance of white honey of a delicious flavor, and, as it blossoms when both the swarms and parent-stocks are usually populous, the weather settled, and other bose-forage scarce, its value to the bee-keeper is very great.+
Footnote : *: The honey of Hymettus, which has been so celebrated from the most ancient times, is of a fair golden color. The lightest-colored honey is by no means always the best.
This majestic tree, adorned, so late in the season, with beautiful clusters of fragment blossoms, is well worth attention as an ornamental shade-tree. By adorning our villages and country residences with a fair allowance of tuilip, linden, and such other trees as are not only beautiful to the eye, but attractive to bees, the honey-resources of the country might, in process of time, be greatly increased.
The common loeust is a very desirable tree for the vicinity of an Apiracy, yielding much honey when it is peculiarly needed by the bees. In many districts, locust and bass-wood plantations would be.valaable for their timber alone.
Hives in the vicinity of extensive beds of seed-onions will speedily become very heavy; the offensive odor of the freshly-gathered honey disappears before it is sealed over by the bees.
Of all the sources from which bees derive their supplies, white clover is usually the most important. It yields large quantities of very pure white honey, and wherever it abounds, the bee will find a rich harvest. In most parts of this country, it seems to be the chief reliance of the Aptary. Blossoming at a season of the year when the weather is usually both dry and hot, and the bees gathering its honey after the sun has dried off the dew, it is ready to be sealed over almost at once. This clover ought to be much more extensively cultivated than it now is. The Hon. Frederick Holbrook, of Brattleboro', Vermont, one of New England's ablest practical farmers and writers on agricultural subjects, thus speaks of its value :
* "Red-top, red clover, and white clover seeds, sown together, produce a quality of hay universally relished by stock. My practices is, to seed all dry,* sandy, and gravelly lands with this mixture. The red and white clover pretty much make the crop the first year ; the second year, the red clover begins to disappear, and the red-top to take its place ; and after that, the red-top and white clover have full possession, and make the very best hay for horses or oxen, mileh cows or young stock, that I have been able to produce. The crop per acre, as compared with herds-grass (timothy) is not so bulky ; but, tested by weight and by spending quality in the Winter, it is much the more valuable."
For years \(\mathbf{I}\) sought in vain to procure a cross between the red and white clover, having the honey and hayproducing properties of the red, with a short blossom, into which the domestic bee might insert its probocision. Such a variety, originating in Sweden, has been imported* [15] by Mr. B. C. Rogers, of Philadelphia. It grows as tall as the red clover, bears many blossoms on a stalk, in size resembling the white, and, while it answers admirably for bees, is said to be preferred by cattle to almost any other kind of grass. It is known by the name of Alsike, or Swedish white clover. Mr. Wagner thus speaks of it: [16] The views of the value of Swedish white clover, presented by reports from twelve different agricultural societies in the district of Dreaden, are the result of careful experiments, made in localities differing greatly in soil and exposure. We recapitulate the chief points : [17] "1. That Swedish white clover is not so liable as red clover to suffer from cold and wet weather. 2. That on dry and sandy soils it is not so certain or valuable a crop as common white clover, but succeeds admirably on more loamy soils, and, on such, surpasses either of the other kinds. 3. That, in any rotation, it may safely follow the common red clover. 4. That the yield per acre of the first mowing is not inferior to that of the red clover, but that, ordinarily, the aftermath, or rowen, is not so abundant. 5. That, for soiling purposes, it should not be known till it is in full bloom. 6. That, when cured, it is, as hay, a highly nutritious fodder, and is preferred, by cattle and milch cows, to that made from red clover. 7. That the aftermath is followed by a dense and excellent growth, furnishing most valuable pasturago till late in the season. 8. That it yields an abundance of seed, easily threshed out by flail or machine, three or four days after mowing. 9. That Swedish white clover is fed to most advantage after it has fully matured its blossoms; whilst red. clover, if allowed to stand to this stage, will have already lost a considerable portion of its nutritive properties. [17] E. Furst, the editor of the _Fruanedorfer Blatter_, says that this clover is pre-eminent, both in quality and quantity of product, and in especially valuable for the continued succulency of the stalk, even when the plant is in full bloom. It requires a less fertile soil than the red clover, and is less liable to be thrown out by frost in Winter. It also yields a heavier second crop than the common white elover.7
Footnote 7: This money is usually gathered when the atmosphere is moist, and in wet seasons, is somewhatable to occur in the cells. Honey gathered when the atmosphere is dry is actually of the thickest consistency.
The blossoms of backwheat often furnish, late in the season, a very valuable bee-food.8
Footnote 8: The secretion of honey in plants, like the flow of the app from the sugars-maple, depends on a variety of causes, many of which eiale our chemost scrutiny. In some seasons the saccharine juices around, while in others they are so deflected that bees can obtain scarcely any food from fields all white with clover. A change in the secretion of honey will often take place so suddenly; that the bees will, in a few hours, pass from plateaus to great activity.
The cloossoms of backwheat often furnish, late in the season, a very valuable bee-food.8
Footnote 8: Different says: "In the stubble of Winter grain, backwheat might be soven, whereby ample forage would be secured to the bees, late in the season, and a remnue-rating crop ofgrain garnered besides. This plant, growing so rapidly and insulating as soon, so productive in favorable seasons, and so well adapted to cleanse the land, certainly deserves more attention from farmers than it, receives 1, and its more frequent and general culture would greatly enhance the pedula of bee-keeping. Its long-continued and frequently-renewed blossoms yield honey so abundantly, that a popalons celebrly may easily collect fifty pounds in two weeks, if the weather is favorable."
The Canada thistle yields copious supplies of very pure honey, after the white clover has begun to fail. If farmers will tolerate its growth, it is interesting to know that it can be turned to so good an account.
The raspberry furnishes a most delicious honey. In flavor it is superior to that from the white clover, while its delicate comb almost melts in the mouth. The sides of the roads, the borders of the fields, and the pastares of much of the "hill-country " of New England, abound with the wild red raspberry, and, in such favored locations, numerous colonies of bees may be kept. When it is in blossom, bees hold even the white clover in light esteen. Its drooping blossoms protect the honey from moisture, and they can work upon it when the weather is so wet that they can obtain nothing from the upright blossoms of the clover. As it furnishes a succession of flowers for some weeks, it yields a supply almost as lasting as the white clover. The precipitous and rocky lands, where it most abounds, might be made almost as valuable as some of the vine-clad terraces of the mountain districts of Europe.
"Dr. Bevan suggests the use of lemon-thyme as an edging for garden walks and flower beds. No material good, however, can be done to a large colony by the few plants that can be sown around a bee-house. The bee is too much of a roamer to take pleasure in trim gardens." It is the wild tracts of heath and furao, the broad acres of bean-fields and buckwheat, the lime avenues, the hedge-row flowers, and the clover meadows, that furnish her haunts and fill her cells. To those who wish to watch their habits, a plot of beefwerts is important, and we know not the bee that could refuse the following beautiful invitation of Professor Smythe :
"You cheerful Beel come, freely come,
And travel round my woodbine bower :
Dolight me with thy wandering hum,
And rouse me from my musing hour :
On! try no more those tedious fields ;
Some, taste the sweets my garden yields :
The treasures of each blooming mine,
The buds, the blossoms--all are thin!
And, careless of this noontide heat,
Ill follow as thy ramble guides,
To watch the pause and chafe thy feet,
And sweep them o'er thy downy slides ;
Then in a flower's bell nestling lie,
And all thy envider arder ply!
Then o'er the stem, though fair it grow,
With touch rejecting, glance and go,
\(\star\) I should almost as soon expect; from a small grass-plot, to furnish food for a herd of cattle, as to be overlion bees from garden plants.
If there is any plant which would justify cultivation exclusively for bees, it is the borage (_Borago officinalis_). It blossoms continually from June until severe frost, and, like the raspberry, is frequented by bees even in moist weather. The honey from it is of a superior quality, and an acre would support a large number of stocks.
The golden-rod (_Solidago_) affords a late and very valuable pasturage for bees, yielding, in some regions and seasons, an important part of their Winter stores. Some of the earlier-flowering varieties are of no value to bees; but those which blossom in September abound in honey of a superior quality.
The numerous species of asters, lining, in many districts, the road-sides and the borders of fields, are almost as valuable to the bees as the golden-rod. Where these two plants abound, bees should not be fed until they have passed out of bloom, as light but populous stocks will often obtain from them all the Winter stores they need.
The following catalogue of bee-plants, which might easily be enlarged, is taken from Nutt, an English Aparian:
when numbers can be turned to the best account. If his stocks become strong only when they can do nothing but consume what little honey has been previously gathered, he is like a farmer who suffers his crops to rot on the ground, and then hires a set of idlers to eat him out of house and home.
There is probably _not a square rule_ in this whole country which is overstocked with bees, unless it is so unsuitable for bee-keeping as to make it unprofitable to keep them at all. Such an assertion may seem unguarded, but I am happy to be able to confirm it by the following letter from Mr. Wagner, showing the experience of the largest cultivators in Europe :
"Dear Sir :=In reply to your inquiry respecting the _over-stocking_ of a district, I would say, that the present opinion of the correspondents of the _Bienuzzelung_, appears to be, that it cannot _readily be done_. Dierzon says, in practice at least, 'it never is done_,'and Dr. Radikofer, of Munich, the President of the second Apiarian Convention, declares that his apprehensions on that score were dissipated by observations which he had opportunity and occasion to make when on his way home from the Convention. I have numerous aeeounts of Apiaries in pretty close proximity, containing from 200 to 300 colonies each. Ehrenfels had a thousand hives, at three separate establishments, indeed, but so close to each other that he could visit them all in half an hour's ride ; and he says that, in 1801, the average net yield of his Apiaries was two dollars per hive. In Russia and Hungary, Apiaries numbering from 2,000 to 5,000 colonies are said not to be unfrequent; and we know that as many as 4,000 lives are oftentimes congregated, in Autumn, at one point on the heaths of Germany. Hence, I think we need not fear that any district of this country, so distinguished for abundant natural vegetation and diversified culture, will very speedily be overstocked, particularly, after the importance of having stocks populous early in the Spring comes to be appreciated. A week or ten days of favorable weather at that season, when pasturage abounds, will enable a _strong_ colony.
comparatively isolated positions? and, at this distance from the scene it would obviously be impossible to give a perfectly satisfactory answer.