BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
After the breeding season is over, that is about the end of February or March, the bees will fill the empty brood comb with honey, and when the cells are all sealed over, will often almost entirely desert the richly stored box, which may then be taken with very little trouble. During the breeding season, the loss of the queen, should any accident happen to her during the operation, is easily supplied. There will generally be young queen grubs ready to take her place; or if there happens to be none in the hive, the common egg may have its prospects in life changed from that of a maid of all work to a reigning queen. After the breeding season of course this cannot be done; and the loss of the queen is necessarily followed by the gradual extinction of the whole hive.
The season of the year at which the greatest quantity of honey may be taken will vary of course in the different parts of these islands, as they extend over so many degrees of latitude. In the northern districts they work during the entire winter (though in the English sense this is not an appropriate word.)The question rests from her maternal toils, though the workers make no pause in their honey gathering; so the very purest honey may be taken during the winter months.
In the latitude of Auckland the work of a hive is suspended for a month or so, varying of course with the season; whilst in the south, I think their state of torpor will be found to extend over a longer period, and the habits of the bee will differ less from those of their English brethren. Experience, therefore, must teach bee masters what season is the best for a great take of honey.
By means of bell glasses, or in lack of them, small straw caps, pure honey may be got in the height of the breeding season. Put your glass on the top of your box the very day the swarm is put into it; and if it be a strong one, they will immediately take possession of the glass, and store up honey there; while the queen will confine her breeding operations to the box below. It is a very good plan to fix a bit or two of pure comb in the lower part of the glass, as a foundation or beginning for them. This may be done by holding the glass to the fire till it becomes as hot as the hand can bear; then steadily, yet firmly, press a piece of pure comb to it, which will melt where it touches the glass, and setting again almost immediately, will firmly fix the whole comb in its place. Take care not to put the comb topsy turvy, but in its natural position, as it stood in the hive where it was made. The cells of a comb which is built expressly to receive honey, are often not perfectly horizontal, but a little higher at the mouth.
actually shifting the position of the comb ; for they went on, day after day, sluening it round, till at last the surface of the comb was brought within a quarter of an inch of the surface of the glass. What mechanical means they used I never could discover. How they got purchase enough to haul the comb round, having only the slippery glass to stand upon ; whether they nibbled away the comb on the side towards which it was bent, whilst they proportionately added to it on the other, moulding it as a modeller does his clay ; all these are wonders which are beyond me. I should hardly have dared to have recorded this on a single operation ; but I have several times repeated it. Take the glass off directly it is full, and all sealed over. The bees always swarm with their honey bags full, as I told you before ; and they often take the greatest part of the honey from a bell glass, as provision for their journey, leaving nothing but empty combs where the day before there was plenty of honey. I like the bell glass to stand, as I have said, on the bars themselves, and not on the lid, with small holes cut in it, which is the common way of putting them in, for the bees have a freer passage to the glass. The manner of taking them when full is very simple : I have one of the rims which run round the top board pinned to it, and not nailed : this is removed whcn a glass is to be taken, and a thin carving knife passed under the top, to separate the comb and the glass from the bars, to which they are generally firmly united. In no other way is it possible to take away a full glass, without certainly breaking the comb, and possibly the glass itself.
The bees which happen to be in the glass at the time it is taken are easily got out of it by the means recommended for the top boxes. N. B. Have the hole in the top board cut so large, that the glass may pass freely through, or else the contraction of the wood, and consequent narrowing of the hole will split the glass.
Glass is now so cheap as to be within the reach of almost every bee master. A barrel containing twelve -- one large size, five holding about 15 fb of honey when full, and six of a smaller size -- can be supplied by Mr. Powell, from the glassworks, Whitefriars, London, for under 22. They are so carefully packed in an oaken barrel, that I have lately received two sets without a single breakage.
Honey may be easily taken from the Sicilian hives, which is a very good form of the straw hive, by blowing some smoke in at the doorway ; and when the bees are driven into the back part of the hive, single combs may be cut out till you reach the brood comb, or later in the season a complete section may be removed.
The Ruche a l'air libre will yield its supply much in the same way. Blow a few puffs of smoke in the doorway, take down the shutters, and after driving the bees away by smoke from the part where you intend to commence your operations, cut out comb after comb.
It is impossible to state how much honey may be taken from a well stocked apiary in the course of the year; for it will depend so much upon the sitution and the number of bee masters who happen to be near together. A country may be overstocked with bees, just as a paddock may be overstocked with cattle, and the practical bee master must determine for himself what is the greatest number of hives he can keep with profit.
Where a number of bee masters are living in the same village or district, and each wishes to have a very large stock, it is possible for none of them to get a single ounce of honey; their bees being unable to do more than just rear their young, which is their first instinct, without laying by any surplus, which is their second. So in many countries, therefore, immemorial custom has been called in to regulate the number of stocks each bee master is allowed to keep, and which is proportional to the number of acres which he holds. Some such arrangement as this will perhaps be necessary here in the cultivated districts ; experiment and a mutual good understanding must determine the ratio which it is for the interest of all to adopt. But there is hardly any limit to the quantity of honey which may be procured from an isolated apiary, favourably situated near an extensive tract of wood land. I will give an example :--
A single swarm was placed in such a situation as this in the summer of 43-44 ; by September 44 it had yielded 311b of honey : as it was a single stock, it was not taxed severely. The following little table gives the amazing produce of it and E :its offspring, up to the respective dates annexed to the weight of honey :--
September 44................ 31fb
* 45................ 205
* 46................ 721
* 47................ 1,211
If this, the produce of a single hive, does not make English bee keepers open their eyes with astonishment, I shall be surprised. It certainly should encourage New Zealand bee masters to study the gentle craft. Nor do I think the limit of productiveness has, even in that locality, been reached as yet. In the neighbourhood of towns, or wherever a number of people are living near together, it is idle to think they all can keep large apiaries. I never like to give a swarm to a friend living in such a situation. Often when I state my reason for refusing to send my pets where I am sure they would be starved, I am met by such an answer as this: " I have a nice little garden with plenty of flowers in it, and I always see a number of bees there, who seem to do very well." " That's it," I reply. "There are plenty of bees every day, and all day, in your garden, and those of all your neighbours; and although you may call a piece of ground your own, and your flowers your own, you cannot establish such an exclusive privilege in favour of your bees. Every bee has a free right of common wherever its wings can carry it. There is no trespass ordinance which can touch those small cattle; and so I should advise you not to try to keep bees in town, except to a very limited extent for the sake of observation. If you go into the country, you shall have bees, and welcome."
Indeed one of the greatest pleasures of bee keeping lies in dispersing them as widely as possible. From the apiaries thus established in all parts of the country, some swarms are sure to escape, and take to the bush. And when our woods are fully peopled, then will be the time for honey without stint, and wax in such plenty as to become an article of export. The maories will make capital bee hunters; their accurate power of observation exactly fits them to track a bee to its home; and their ingenuity, to adopt the best method of preparing honey and wax. I, for one, will do my best to put them in the right way, as well as to supply them with swarms. And I trust every bee keeper who reads this will do the same. We have hollow trees in abundance. Many of them at the Bay of Islands district are already tenanted by bees, and honey in considerable quantities has been brought in by the maories for sale. I have heard of an American captain, who ought to have known better, who set about taking honey from a tree by firing a blunderbuss loaded with small shot at the place where he saw the bees the thickest. A little smoke and a toma-haw will be more efficient weapons in the hands of the maories; and they will learn to track the bees to their home after the American fashion, which is this: They put a piece of honey comb in an open space in their woods as a bait or line to the bees, e 3who are soon attracted to it if their hive is within a reasonable distance. They gorge themselves, and then their instinct leads them to make the best of their way homewards. The direction of their flight is accurately marked; the same operation is performed in another place at right angles to the line of the first bees' flight, and the intersection of these two lines leads the hunter to his prize. Others, I have heard, catch the bees while feeding on the bait, and with a little gum attach a small piece of swan's down to its body, which, without materially impeding its flight, makes its course through the air more easily observed. By hook or by crook the maories will find the wild bees readily enough when the woods are full of them. They, rather than the pakehas, will be the bee hunters; and I only mention the subject here, to show that the woods, those bee houses of nature, and not private apiaries, will yield the greatest supply of bee produce.
One more point remains in connection with the subject. When an apiary is fully stocked, and a district contains as many bees as it can profitably support, what is to be done with the increase? Shall we suffer all the swarms to fly away in the swarming season, or shall we revert to the barbarous old English custom of putting down our stocks in autumn; that is, basedy murdering with a sulphur match those who have worked for us all the summer? It has been the way of the English bee keepers from the time of Shakespeare; second part Henry rv, 4th act, 4th scene: yet, though a time honoured practice, I trust it will never obtain in this new country.
But the remedy belongs more properly to the subject of my next letter--the union of stocks--rather than to this present one ; though by their union the greatest part of the yearly yield of honey will be obtained.
VI. Uniting Hives. -- The union of stocks is a branch of the craft which does not so much belong to the young bee master as to those who are in possession of fully stocked apiaries. The former is of course anxious to multiply his stocks as much as possible ; the object of the latter is rather to increase the produce of his hives than their number. The former may easily obtain his object ; for one hive this year he may have from ten to twenty next, if he hive each swarm separately : I have known as many as five and twenty in a year. The latter, if he is to attain his end, must use a directly contrary course ; which I am now going to speak about : We will suppose he is living in a district which will not feed above a hundred hives, and that he begins the swarming season with his twenty five old stocks. The average increase of ten to one would give him far too many, even after he has dispensed (remember, the physic in one's own bottles) to his friends, acquaintances, and others, all that they require. What is he to do? Is he to kill the young swarms, as I have heard some New Zealand bee masters seriously propose ; or is there any means of preventing such an excessive swarming? The first remedy would be barabrous in the extreme : the second remedy is impracticable, at least to any great extent. It is not true that a great increase of temperature, and a
They have no time to lay up surplus honey, and in a very dry summer will even chance to die, if they are not well fed. Had they all been kept together, 5,000 bees who are engaged as nurses to the grubs of one queen in the weak hive would do the same in the strong one, while 5,000 more would be continually engaged in storing honey. So my practice is as follows : I keep all my hives as strong as possible, by preventing their swarming as much as I can ; and by choosing to have my fresh stocks of the year few in number and powerful in bees. So I unite all the swarms which rise on the same day. Often it will happen that whilst the first swarm is in the air the second will rise, and they will join together without any care on your part, lighting on the same bough. Old bee masters give long directions as to the mode of separating them again into two swarms. I shall do no such thing, but be glad of their voluntary union. The two queens will most probably settle the matter between themselves ; in that case the weakest, who goes to the wall, will be seen lying dead before the mouth of the hive the following morning. Sometimes, however, a swarm will the next day rise from this new hive, which I think is occasioned by one of the queens rushing out of the hive, from fear of her more powerful rival, and being followed by her own party. To prevent this I always capture one of the queens of a self united swarm, if I can see her, though it is of no great consequence, as it is not often that a self united stock again separates, if you give them a hive sufficiently roomy.
When two swarms which have risen on the same day, and which you intend to unite, are each safely lived, leave them for the evening near the place where they lighted, remembering to screen them well from the direct rays of the sun ; for, as I told you in my letter on swarming, the action of the direct rays of the sun is the usual cause which makes swarms run away after they are safely lived. After sundown the same evening spread a cloth on the ground, near where the hive stands which you wish to double ; then take the other steadily in your hands away from its bottom board, and strike it with a smart blow upon the cloth ; this will knock all the bees out in a mass ; they will not take wing, but will remain lying on the cloth whilst you steadily and carefully place the other hive over them. Three or four pieces of wood must previously be placed on the floor where you strike the bees down, that they may not be crushed by the edges of the box which you put over them ; then lap up the corners of the cloth, and your part of the work is done. You will hear a loud humming noise, and the bees whom you have dislodged will ascend into the new hive, and peaceably amalgamate with the other swarm. Just at dusk, carefully unlap the cloth, and if any considerable cluster of bees is gathered outside of the box, as is sometimes the case, brush them gently down with a feather, or with your finger, if you prefer it, and guide them under the hive ; for bees are tractable creatures, and gentle withal, if they are gently handled ; but they are not deficient in courage ; if you provoke them through ignorance or carelessness, you must take the consequences. When they have all gone up into the hive, put them quietly on their bottom board, and move them into your apiary where they are to stand, or else make this your first work the following morning. Give the double stock sufficient room, and they will set to work vigorously. Two contiguous hives in my apiary united themselves this year; one swarm deserting four or five combs which they had begun to build. It may be that they had no queen, for I found no grubs in the cells which' they left. This double hive has since received a fresh accession of strength, a large portion of another swarm having joined them, going "promiscuous like" into the hive, where they were, to my surprise, well received. Had a single bee pokanoad into the hive, she would have been immediately seized, and put to death. And now this stock is the very best I have in my apiary, filling four boxes, and working away vigorously too in a glass, which I put on the top of the original hive the day it swarmed. Fifty strong hives are worth more, and will give more honey, to their owner than two hundred and fifty weak ones.
Stocks may be united in this same way, though they do not swarm exactly on the same day. In this case you will of course knock the fresh swarm on to the cloth, and place over it the hive in which the combs are already begun. It is as well previously to turn up the latter hive (in the plane of the combs, remember), and give the cluster of bees a good sprinkling with syrup. The new comers will be at once attracted by the smell of the syrup; will mingle freely with the daubed bees, who have something else to think of than to repel intruders ; they will help to set them to rights, by licking off the syrup ; and though you may call it a selfish act of kindness, it will cement a friendship between those whom you wish hereafter to be peaceable inmates of one home.
The union of swarms in this manner will to a certain extent prevent your apiary from growing to an outrageous size. Such hives as exhaust themselves by swarming, should have their old black combs cut out, and they will then be ready to have a new swarm put into them. Don't let an exhausted stock stand doing comparatively nothing in your bee house, when you have daily fresh swarms ready to tenant the house, if you take the trouble to put them in possession. It may be done, not by the eigetment of the original holders, but by reinforcing them by a fresh colony. The number of your hives may be brought still more within limits in the autumn, in the following way :--If you have ninety hives which you wish to reduce to thirty, you must join to every hive which you intend to leave its right and left hand neighbour. I think May is about the best season for doing this ; but the proper time will vary in different districts. It should be after the breeding season is over, and when the hives are the heaviest. Cut out the combs entirely from the side hives by the aid of your three instruments, the smoke-bellows, the bee knife, and the bunch of feathers, and return the bees, as directed above, into their now impoverished hive. Place it where it stood before, till the evening, when they will have formed a large cluster inside the hive, just as if they were a new swarm. A stranger coming to see your apiary, and not knowing what you had done, would think this your very strongest stock ; for the entrance will be crowded by bees rushing in and out, carrying away broken bits of comb, and doing their best to set their pillaged house in order. They are nothing discouraged by what has happened ; but, like a sensible man under similar circumstances, make the best of it, and always seem to me to be singing all day long, that song which I wish were better known, or rather more generally acted upon, by us men creatures--"Try, try, try again." More than once I have allowed them to make the trial. I have fed them for a day or two with the refuse combs, which they thankfully accepted, in lieu of the thirty pounds or so which I took from them ; the feeding was necessary to enable them to get their new combs built with as little delay as possible. The season proved favourable for honey gathering, though this experiment was made in the beginning of winter ; in fact, the trial succeeded, and this family of persevering bees are now one of my best stocks.
But the object of the bee master who has a fully stocked apiary, should be not only to take a large quantity of honey by this process, but also to reduce his stock to the number which he wishes to swarm the following spring. So at sunset he should unite the bees of this deprived hive to its next neighbour in the mode last described. The doubled hive should be moved midway between the places lately occupiedby the two. If three hives are united, do not displace the middle one, but take away altogether those which you have emptied. The bees will then have no difficulty in finding their new home, especially if, for a day or two after, you prop up the front of this hive with some little wooden wedges, so as to make the doorway much handier. But the greatest confusion and loss will be occasioned by the attempt to join bees from different parts of the apiary -- " For bees that have not swarmed voluntarily return to the place they have been accustomed to, even after having been shut up for months. The same thing happens if you unite swarms distant from each other. Next day, or the day after, you would have the modification to see the bees return by hundreds to their old residence, flutter about for a length of time, and lose their lives, either by falling down from fatigue, or throwing themselves into the neighbouring hives, where they are put to death. Not having left their new dwelling with the same precaution that a swarm uses to reconnoitre the one it has chosen, or that has been given to it, and supposing themselves at home in spite of the disorder of the night before, they rush out on a rapid flight, and returning from their excursion, go back to the place of their ancient domicile; and thus the purpose of fortifying your hives, and of preserving them by uniting them, is defeated. I have frequently tried to unite distant hives, and always met with this result."