BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
Simplle Microscopps.--Hand Magnifiers; Doublets; Power of Two or More Lenses When Used Together; Stanhope Lens; Coddington Lens; Achromatic Doublets and Tipletes; Twenty-five Cent Microscopes--and How to Make Them; Penny Microscopes, to Show Eels in Paste and Vinegar.
Dissecting Microscopps.--Essentials of a Good Dissecting Microscope.
Comptured Microscopes.--Cheap Foreign Stands; The Ross Model; The Jackson Model; The Continental Model; The New American Model; The Cresp American Stands; The Biocular Microscope; The Binocular Eye-piece; The Inverted Microscope; Lithological Microscopes; The Aquarium Microscope: Microscopes for Special Purpose.--Class" Microscopes.
Objectives.--Defects of Common Lenses; Spherical Aberration; Chromatic do.; Corrected Objectives; Defining Power; Achromatism; Aberration of Form; Flatness of Field: Angular Aerperture; Penetrating Power; Working Distance; Immersion and "Homogeneous" Lenses; Duplex Fronts; French Triplets, etc., etc.,
Testing Objectives.--General Rules; Accepted Standards--Diatoms, Ruled Lines, Artificial Star; Podura; Nobert's Lines; Moller's Probe Platte, etc., etc.
Selection of a Microscope.--Must be Adapted to Requirements and Skill of User; Microscopes for Botany; For Physicians; For Students.
Accessory Apparatus.--Stage Forceps; Forceps Carrier; Plain Slides; Concave Slides; Watch-Glass Holder; Aiamalcule Cage; Zoophyte Trough; The Weber Slide; The Cell-Trough; The Compressorium; Gravity Compressorium; Growing Slides; Frog Plate; Table; Double Nose-piece,
Illumination.--Sun-Light: Artificial Light--Candles, Gas, Lamps, etc., etc.
Illumination of Oraquen Objects.--Bills-Eve Condenser; Side Reflector; The Lieberkholm; The Parabolic Reflector; Vertical Illustrators.
Illumination of Transparent Objects.--Direct and Relected Light; Axial or Central Light; Oblique Light; The Achromatic Condenser; The Webster Condenser, and How to Use+; Wenham's Reflex Illuminator, and How to Use it; The Wenham Prism; The "Half-Button;" The Woodward Illuminator; Tolles" Illuminating Traverse Lens; The Spot Lens; The Parabolic Illuminator; Polarized Light.
How to Use the Microscopes.--General Rules; Hints to Beginners.
How to Use Objectives of Large Ar
## Genesis and Geology.
The only really scientific and logical system of harmony between Genesis and Geology is to be found in a little work, just published, and entitled
THE CHEMICAL HISTORY
The Six Days of Creation.
BY JOHN PHIN, C. E.,
_1 vol., 12mo., cloth. 75 events._
In this work an attempt is made to show that the account given of the Creation, in the first chapter of Genesis, agrees _literally_ with the record developed by the investigations of modern science.
May be ordered through any bookseller. Single copies sent by mail, on receipt of price,
_The following are a few of the Opinions of the I'ress:_
This is a small book, but full of matter. The author believes in the book of Genesis as the 'work of Moess, and believes in the entire corrections of the statements made by Moess.in regard to the work of creation. He defends the accuracy of the first chapter of Genesis, and defends it from a scientific standpoint. We think this book is full of interest and value; and as the discussions concerning the harmony of science and 'falth' are rife at the present day, we commend the reasoning of Mr. Phin to the great number of readers and students who are investigating these subjects.--_The Presyperion_ (Philadelphia).
The author gives a new solution of this difficult question, and certainly presents many very plausible arguments in support of his theory.--_Sunday-School Workman._
A very candid and ingenious essay.--_Ciristian Union_ (H. W. Beecher's paper).
It is a topic which needs a calm and well-directed intellect to approach, and Mr. Phin has surrounded its discuesion with thoughts of the deepest interest to all minds seeking rest on this much perplexing question.--_Journal of the Telegraph._
The reasons and conclusions are clear, distinct, and natural. The book will interest and instruct, and is intended to lead the reasoning mind to firmer faith in the light of revelation.--_New York Globle._
No one can read this book without compensation, without becoming more thoughtful concerning the phenomena of creation; and he need lose none of his reverence for the supremacy of the Divine Law.--_Kural News-Forker._
We could say much in comennotation of Prof. Phin's little book. An intelligent reader can hardly fail to be interested in it, and many might be benefited.--_Country Gentleman._
The book can not fail to interest even those who do not fully accept the theory it advocates.--_Boston Journal of Chemistry._
It is a new scientific view of the matter.--_I'kreendiguel Journal._
The book, although not large, will prove exceedingly interesting to all who have ever directed attention to this matter, and contains more solid and suggestive th'nighi than many voluminous treatises on the subject.--_Invariance Monitor._
The work is ingenious and original, and presents many striking suggestions.--_American Baptist._
We believe Prof. Phin has started upon the correct basis, and his theory is mainly tenable. His views are presented in a'manner which, though terse, is easily comprehended.--_Patterson Daily Guardian._
# N E W Z E A L A N D BEE KEEPERS.
WILLIAM CHARLES COTTON,
ST. JORN's COLLEGE.
WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND:
PRINTED BY R. STOKEES, AT THE SPECTATOR OFFICE, MANYERS STREET.
Yet even they may perchance learn something new; for if they have kept bees all their lives in England, they will have many of their old notions to unlearn in this more "equable climate. They will see many things which would be perfectly incredible if told of bees in England. But more of this in its proper place. I will without further preface proceed at once to divide my subject, for the sake of "reference," under the following heads :--
* Proper Situation for an Apiary.
* Obtaining and Moving Bees.
* Form of Hives.
* Swarming and Hiving.
* Taking Honey.
* Uniting Hives.
* Feeding.
* Preparing Honey and Wax for Use.
* Bees' Enemies.
* Miscellaneous Remarks.
When you have obtained the promise of a swarm (I am now again speaking to my imaginary pupil), be sure you send your hive ready to put the swarm into (just as at a dispensary the physic is put into _your own bottles_), for it is too great a tax upon your friendly bee master to ask him for bees and hive as well. When your hive is stocked I doubt not but that you will soon hear the good news, if you are as eager in the matter as every young bee master ought to be. When I was a boy I have sat for hours day after day watching intently the mouth of a neighbour's hive from which I was to have the first swarm : indeed I spent in his garden all my spare time for a month together ; for I remember that in that particular year May was very cold, and I would not take the owner's word, who knew more of the matter than I, that his bees were not near swarming : and oh! the delight when my long watch was rewarded by seeing a glorious swarm fill the air.
When your hive is stocked, tie it up securely in a cloth, that same evening, and carry it to the place where it is to stand. It must _on no account be moved again except to a considerable distance._ A new swarm may be so confined for a day or two, if you want to carry it more than an evening's journey, for bees swarm with their honey bags full, and their first employment is to make wax, which is in-door work. The cloth which is tied over the bottom of the hive must be of such an open texture as to admit air freely, and yet not so open as to let any bees out. The stuff which I use for the purpose is that which is, I believe, called dairy canvass, and is made for straining milk. But if you want to take your bees to a great distance, down the coast for instance, and the voyage may last a week or a fortnight, it is best to let the hive stand for ten days or so in your friend's apiary, then tie it up in the cloth as before, and hang it somewhere in the ship out of the light, or at all events, screened from the sun, where it can swing frecly without fear of knocking against the side of the vessel, and then you may carry your treasure to the most distant part of these islands in safety. A common straw hive is certainly the most handy for carrying bees any great distances, for the cloth is more easily tied about it. You must look at it every now and then to see whether the bees are forcing their way out. They will try to do so, and when the cloth is taken off you will find that portion of its surface which was exposed to the bees carded into a sort of lint, by the action of their jaws. You will see their feelers pushed through the canvass in great numbers, searching for a passage into the open air. If you find that they are making a hole, through which they will soon force a passage out, nothing is easier than to tie another fold of cloth over the bottom of the hive. Should the swarm be in a wooden box, the best way of securing it is to lash it firmly to a bottom board, with no door at all cut in it, and then push in little wedges between the box and the board, so as to raise the hive about an eighth of an inch all round. This will both tighten the lashings, and also give the bees a sufficient supply of fresh air; and it is much better to give it them in this way than at one single doorway, through a piece of perforated zinc or tin. For, in this latter case, the bees seeing light at only one point will often crowd so much to it, as to prevent the free entrance of the air. Such few bees as die on the passage will also be carried to the entrance, which they will help to block up, so that at last the whole swarm may be stifled. But by wedging up the box all round, the bees will have breathing places everywhere, and you will see them, if you peep in, not struggling to get air at one place only, but running about in every direction on the floor board, like children playing at puss in the corner.
The reason why I advise you to take with you a hive of about ten days old, and from that to three weeks, is this, that a swarm of that age will have built a certain quantity of comb, and laid up honey enough to serve them for the voyage, and yet the combs will not be so hesvy with honey or brood, as to put them in danger of breaking down; or even should you be so unfortunate as to get one, or even all the combs, broken down by a sudden blow, the bees will not be smothered in their own honey, as I have known to be the case with a heavy hive. They will get themselves clear in a very short time from the fallen combs, from which they will draw enough food to last their voyage, whilst they themselves will hang in clusters from the top. When you reach your new home with this large batch of fellow immigrants, do not set them at liberty till the even. If you are in a hurry, and open the hive directly, the bees will rush out in great confusion; many of them, if they have been long shut up, will fall on to the ground, and if it be wet will not rise again. Or a still worse result may follow. If the combs have all been broken down during the voyage, and the bees much annoyed at it, the whole swarm, Queen and all, will rise at once, and take to the woods as irregular squatters, instead of remaining to colonize your garden in-a systematic way. Wait, I say, till the even; and just after sun-down, if you hear that the bees are all quiet, undo the lashing, and get some body to lift the hive up a little from its board; then, if any combs are broken down, remove them quietly, and the following morning you will have the pleasure of seeing your fellow colonists going as regularly to work as though they had been in their new station for years. I only hope you may be as industrious, and then like them you will most probably succeed.
In the winter a heavier hive may be safely moved to a new station, for by that time the combs will be more firmly fixed, not only to the top of the hive, but also to the sides; and as there will be no longer any brood in the combs, they will be relieved from this great weight. But as most people choose the summer for their own movements, I suppose that bees will generally have to make the journey at the same time. And this journey they always should make in company with any settler going to a distant station; for the benefit they will do to him is very great: but more of this when I come to speak of bee produce.
Some people put cross sticks in all their hives, thinking them needful to support the combs. If very securely fixed, they may be useful in hives which are to be carried to a distance, but in no other cases ought they to be used, as I shall presently shew; they are the greatest nuisances when you come to take the honey, and are useless at all other times. A comb will not break down as long as the hive is not moved, and is protected from the direct rays of the sun : trust the bees to do their own work securely ; there are no bunglers amongst them.
One other hint I will now give touching the removal of your bees : when you come to turn a hive up, to lash it to its board, to look inside, or to cut out some honey comb, first ascertain how the combs run in the hive ; I mean from front to back, or from side to side. The combs, you know, are all parallel to each other, like a number of books hung up to dry on strings, with a quarter of an inch between them. When you know which way they run, be very careful to turn up the hives so as to keep the combs _always in their own planes_. This may be rather too difficult for some of my readers, but as it is of great importance, I will try to make it clear. Let one of the books, which I have taken to represent the combs, be supposed to be glued by its back under a flat piece of board, instead of hanging astride on the string. The glue is just strong enough to hold it, as it hangs with its edges downwards. I want to look at these edges. There are two ways of turning the book. In one way the book would break off by its own weight, in the other the glue would hold. In the former, the leaves of the book will open as you turn it--in the latter, the back or edges will be always towards you. Try this, by turning a book in your hands, without of course glueing its back, and you will then understand what I mean by turning up the hives, so as to keep the _combs in their own planes_. This is of the greatest importance ; and as I bought my own experience dearly, by making a miserable smash of a fine parcel of combs in a hive which I turned up the wrong way, I am willing that you should have it at a cheaper rate, without making your bees pay the penalty of your ignorance.
III. Hives: their Form and Material.--As I told you to send your own hive to the friend who has promised you a swarm, I must now speak of the best shape and material. In this respect the bees are in no wise particular. I have known them do well in all sorts of places, from a hollow tree to an old watering pot, with the spout stopped up. A man's hat is no bad thing to hive a strange swarm in, if he sees one settled on a bush. He may carry his prize safely home in this strange hive, and when the even comes shake them out into a more befitting home. One who has his wits about him, and his eyes too, and who is unable to beg or borrow a swarm, will, as soon as our woods are stocked with bees, be often able to make a beginning in this way. I have known still stranger hives (if I may call them so) even than a hat, made use of at a pinch. A maori having seen a stray swarm settled on a branch, and having no hat to his head, managed to hive them in a garment he did possess, his only one in addition to his blanket. He took off his shirt, and wrapping it carefully round the bees, cut the branch off, carried it home, and put them into a box. I have since heard of another maori at Coromandel Harbour, who used his trousers for the same purpose, having first tied up the legs with a bit of korari. But you may say, what is the use of all this? I tell it you to prove that bees are not particular as to the hive they are put into, that they will build combs and make honey.
A clever straw worker will soon learn to make his hives not only in the usual shape, but in others, from which the honey can be taken with as much ease as from the best description of wooden boxes.
Now, this form of box can be imitated in the straw hives. The top should be made quite flat, and moveable, with a projecting rim of straw work. The inch bars may be kept in their places by small wooden pins driven through their ends, into the top of the straw hive on which they rest,--as of course they cannot be countersunk into the straw work ;-- a rim of straw must be worked round the top edge of the hive to cover the ends of the bars, and the lid must fit over all. The hive itself when the top is off, and the bars are out, is nothing more than a hollow cylinder of straw nine inches deep.
Another form of the straw hive is the barrel or Sicilian hive, which consists of three or more of these hollow cylinders of straw, fitting one into the other, and supported horizontally on a frame, like a barrel on tresels. This will be a very useful sort of hive, as one or more of these rings may be taken at a time, as I shall hereafter show. I will not attempt to describe the form of it now ; but will send a pattern of each of these hives to my Waikanae straw workers, who I am sure will make for their own use as well as for sale.!
I shall reserve the description of several other hives, the _ruche a Fair libre_, or open hive of the French --the observatory, or single comb hive, by which all the internal economy of the bees may be seen--until the appendix to these letters ; as a young bee master must be content to establish his apiary in the most simple way before he goes on to anything more difficult. He must walk before he tries to run ; he must become familiar with his bees, learn to handle them properly, and know something about them from his own observation, before he uses more complicated hives, or tries experiments of his own ; or both he and his bees will most likely suffer for it ; he by getting well stung for his pains, and they by losing their lives in the act of stinging.
**IV. Swarming and Hiving Bees.--**
A swarm of bees in May
Is worth a load of hay,
A swarm of bees in June
Is worth a silver spoon,
A swarm of bees in July
Is not worth a fly :
so runs the old English saying : here a September swarm does not differ so very much in value from a February one ; for the swarming season ranges between these two months. I have known a swarm of the latter month support itself very well through the winter, and in the following spring become a most productive hive. Still, as I said before, a young bee master had better get a stock early in the season, and then he will have a whole row before it is over.
Swarming is an act of colonization on the part of the bees. They fulfil thereby that part of the instinct implanted in them by their Maker, which leads them to spread themselves far and wide over the surface of the earth ; so that if a single swarm of bees had been brought into these islands, and left to themselves in a protected situation, in a very few years every good locality would be inhabited by as many bees as the flowers of that district can support. What we do in living our fresh swarms, and placing them near the parent stock, is necessary indeed to enable us to get a good supply of honey from our apiaries, but is still an act in opposition to the natural law which the bees obey. There must therefore be a limit to this centralization, as I shall show when I come to speak of bee produce. What I have now to do is to speak more particularly about the act of swarming itself.
to protect you from stings than to draw them down upon you. The bees, too, are particularly gentle when in the act of swarming, however irasecible the parent hive may have been up to that time.
If the swarm has alighted on a small bough, nothing is easier than to hive them. Spread a cloth on the ground, and on it place the bottom board of the hive. An assistant must then hold the stem, on which the bees are settled, on each side of the cluster, so that it may not fall to the ground, when you with a sharp knife cut it off. Place the twig, with the bees hanging to it, gently on the bottom board, and then set your hive over it, propping it up on one side, that the bees which are still on the wing may find their way in. Lap the cloth round over the hive on all sides but this one, and otherwise shade it well from the sun, and your work is done 'till the even, when you must set the hive where it is to stand. You should, however, keep an eye upon them, or else when you go to move your hive you may find it empty, the bees having flown. But in such a case it often happens that they have returned back to the parent stock.
A stock which has thrown off a strong swarm has for some days after an exhausted look, until a number of young bees are hatched to fill up the vacant space in the hive ; so you may generally make a pretty good guess whether the swarm which you safely hived, but was gone by the evening, has returned to the parent stock, or fled to the woods. If the parent hive is as crowded as before, if there is still a great fanning at the door, you may console c 2yourself under your disappointment (and it is no slight one to find an empty hive when you expected to find a full one) by thinking that the swarm has returned home again, finding that the queen has not made her appearance at the appointed place. And in this case you must look out for a swarm the next fine day. I once had a swarm go back, which I knew was led by a queen; for I saw her pass in procession along the lighting board. I was surprized at this, when my puzzle was cleared up by my little bee warden (the boy who watches for my swarms, and is so fond of his work that he is more than half a bee himself) finding the queen hung up in a cobweb between some palings over which the bees had passed in their way to the place where they alighted. This also proves that the bees do not follow the queen actually (for were it so, the whole swarm should have been in and about the cobweb), but flies along with them to some spot fixed on by the advanced guard of the swarm. I have since confirmed this idea by some other experiments, which I shall not now describe, but will probably give the result of them at some future opportunity. My little bee warden has learned from me to catch the queen, as she is leading out the new swarm: he can very often lay hold of her after she has settled in the midst of the cluster (you may put your hand into the midst of it, if you do it softly and fearlessly), and has a very sharp eye for finding her on the ground; for she often falls at the mouth of the hive at swarming time, surrounded by a cluster of bees as a body guard.
carefully shaded the bees, or else they may perhaps be off before his arrival. If there is no help at hand, he must e'en do the best he can. If they cluster on a post, or stem of a large tree, you must use a bunch of feathers, or still better, your hand, and so _coax_ as many of the clusters as possible into the hive. Look out sharp for the queen ; for if you secure her, and get her into the hive, all is right, and the rest will follow.
I believe that the old queen always leads the first swarm, for this reason : That as soon as any combs are built in the new box, the queen lays a vast number of eggs in them, as though she were only continuing a process begun in the old hive. I have taken a comb with eggs in it out of a hive the second day after swarming. I hardly think a young queen, leading a colony a day or two after she issues from the cell, could produce eggs so soon. This matter, however, I hope to clear up some day, by marking the queen of a hive in the early spring, and tracing her through all her swarmings during the course of the summer. I said that second swarms give more certain signals of swarming. If you put your ear close to the top of the hive in the still of the even, some days after the first swarm has risen, you will hear one of these signals, a cry very unlike any other ever heard from a behive :-