Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee Part 8

32. It should permit the surplus honey to be taken away, in the most convenient, beautiful and salable forms, at any time, and without any risk of annoyance from the bees.

In my hives, it may be taken in tumblers, gla.s.s boxes, wooden boxes small or large, earthen jars, flower-pots; in short, in any kind of receptacle which may suit the fancy, or the convenience of the bee-keeper. Or all these may be dispensed with, and the honey may be taken from the interior of the main hive, by removing the frames with loaded combs, and supplying their place with empty ones.

33. It should admit of the easy removal of all the good honey from the main hive, that its place may be supplied with an inferior article.

Bee-Keepers who have but few colonies, and who wish to secure the largest yield, may remove the loaded combs from my hive, slice off the covers of the cells, drain out the honey, and restore the empty combs, into which, if the season of gathering is over, they can first pour the cheap foreign honey for the use of the bees.

34. It should allow, when quant.i.ty not quality is the object, the largest amount of honey to be gathered; so that the surplus of strong colonies may, in the Fall, be given to those which have not a sufficient supply.

By surmounting my hive with a box of the same dimensions, the combs may all be transferred to this box, and the bees, when they commence building, will descend and fill the lower frames, gradually using the upper box, as the brood is hatched out, for storing honey. In this way, the largest possible yield of honey may be secured, as the bees always prefer to continue their work below, rather than above the main hive, and will never swarm, when allowed in season, ample room in this direction. The combs in the upper box, containing a large amount of bee-bread and being of a size adapted to the breeding of workers, will be all the better for aiding weak colonies.

35. It should compel, when desired, the force of the colony to be mainly directed to raising young bees; so that brood may be on hand to form new colonies, and strengthen feeble stocks. (See Chapter on Artificial Swarming.)

36. It ought, while well protected from the weather, to be so constructed, that in warm, sunny days in early spring, the influence of the sun may be allowed to penetrate and warm up the hive, so as to encourage early breeding. (See Chapter on Protection.)

37. The hive should be equally well adapted to be used as a swarmer, or non-swarmer.

In my hives bees may be allowed, if their owner chooses, to swarm just as they do in common hives, and be managed in the usual way. Even on this plan, the great protection against the weather which it affords, and the command over all the combs, will be found to afford great advantages. (See Natural Swarming.)

Non-swarming hives managed in the ordinary way are liable, in spite of all precautions, to swarm very unexpectedly, and if not closely watched, the swarm is lost, and with it the profit of that season. By having the command of the combs, the queen in my hives can always be caught and deprived of her wings; thus she cannot go off with a swarm, and they will not leave without her.

38. It should enable the Apiarian, if he allows his bees to swarm, and wishes to secure surplus honey, to prevent them from throwing more than one swarm in a season.

Second and third swarms must be returned to the old stock, if the largest quant.i.ties of surplus honey are to be realized. It is troublesome to watch them, deprive them of their queens, and restore them to the parent hive. They often issue with new queens again and again; and waste, in this way, both their own time, and that of their keeper. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." In my hives, as soon as the first swarm has issued, and been hived, all the queen cells except one, in the hive from which it came, may be cut out, and thus all after-swarming will very easily and effectually be prevented.

(See Chapter on Artificial Swarming, for the use to which these supernumerary queens may be put.) When the old stock is left with but one queen, she runs no risk of being killed or crippled in a contest with rivals. By such contests, a colony is often left without a queen, or in possession of one which is too much maimed to be of any service.

(See Chapter on the Loss of the Queen.)

39. A good hive should enable the Apiarian, if he relies on natural swarming, and wishes to multiply his colonies as fast as possible, to make vigorous stocks of all his small after-swarms.

Such swarms contain a young queen, and if they can be judiciously strengthened, usually make the best stock hives. If hived in a common hive, and left to themselves, unless very early, or in very favorable seasons, they seldom thrive. They generally desert their hives, or perish in the winter. If they are small, they cannot be made powerful, even by the most generous feeding. There are too few bees to build comb, and take care of the eggs which a healthy queen can lay; and when fed, they are apt to fill with honey, the cells in which young bees ought to be raised; thus making the kindness of their owner serve only to hasten their destruction. My hives enable me to supply all such swarms at once with combs containing bee-bread, honey and brood almost mature. They are thus made strong, and flourish as well, nay, often better than the first swarms which have an old queen, whose fertility is generally not so great as that of a young one.

40. It should enable the Apiarian to multiply his colonies with a certainty and rapidity which are entirely out of the question, if he depends upon natural swarming. (See Chapter on Artificial Swarming.)

41. It should enable the Apiarian to supply dest.i.tute colonies with the means of obtaining a new queen.

Every Apiarian would find it, for this reason, if for no other, to his advantage to possess, at least, one such hive. (See Chapters on Physiology, and loss of Queen.)

42. It should enable him to catch the queen, for any purpose; especially to remove an old one whose fertility is impaired by age, that her place may be supplied with a young one. (See Chapter on Artificial Swarming.)

43. While a good hive is adapted to the wants of those who desire to enter upon bee-keeping on a large scale, or at least to manage their colonies on the most improved plans, it ought to be suited to the wants of those who are too timid, too ignorant, or for any reason indisposed, to manage them in any other than the common way.

44. It should enable a single individual to superintend the colonies of many different persons.

Many would like to keep bees, if they could have them taken care of, by those who would undertake their management, just as a gardener does the gardens and grounds of his employers. No person can agree to do this with the common hives. If the bees are allowed to swarm, he may be called in a dozen different directions, and if any accident, such as the loss of a queen, happens to the colonies of his customers, he can apply no remedy. If the bees are in non-swarming hives, he cannot multiply the stocks when this is desired.

On my plan, gentlemen who desire it, may have the pleasure of witnessing the industry and sagacity of this wonderful insect, and of gratifying their palates with its delicious stores, harvested on their own premises, without incurring either trouble or risk of injury.

45. All the joints of the hive should be water-tight, and there should be no doors or slides which are liable to shrink, swell, or get out of order.

The importance of this will be sufficiently obvious to any one who has had the ordinary share of vexatious experience in the use of such fixtures.

46. It should enable the bee-keeper entirely to dispense with sheds, and costly Apiaries; as each hive when properly placed, should alike defy, heat or cold, rain or snow. (See Chapter on Protection.)

47. It should allow the contents of a hive, bees, combs and all, to be taken out; so that any necessary repairs may be made.

This may be done, with my hives, in a few minutes. "A st.i.tch in time saves nine." Hives which can be thoroughly overhauled and repaired, from time to time, if properly attended to, will last for generations.

48. The hive and fixtures should present a neat and attractive appearance, and should admit, when desired, of being made highly ornamental.

49. The hives ought not to be liable to be blown down in high winds.

My hives, being very low in proportion to their other dimensions, it would require almost a hurricane to upset them.

50. It should enable an Apiarian who lives in the neighborhood of human pilferers, to lock up the precious contents of his hives, in some cheap, simple and convenient way.

A couple of padlocks with some cheap fixtures, will suffice to secure a long range of hives.

51. A good hive should be protected against the destructive ravages of mice in winter.

It seems almost incredible that so puny an animal should dare to invade a hive of bees; and yet not unfrequently they slip in when the bees are compelled by the cold to retreat from the entrance. Having once found admission, they build themselves a nest in their comfortable abode, eat up the honey, and such bees as are too much chilled to make any resistance; and fill the premises with such an abominable stench, that on the approach of warm weather, the bees often in a body abandon their desecrated home. As soon as the cold weather approaches, all my hives may have their entrances either entirely closed, or so contracted that a mouse cannot gain admission.

52. A good hive should have its alighting board constructed so as to shelter the bees against wind and wet, and thus to facilitate to the utmost their entrance when they come home with their heavy burdens.

If this precaution is neglected, much valuable time and many lives will be sacrificed, as the colony cannot be encouraged to use to the best advantage the unpromising days which so often occur in the working season.

I have succeeded in arranging my alighting board in such a manner that the bees are sheltered against wind and wet, and are able to enter the hive with the least possible loss of time.

53. A well constructed hive ought to admit of being shut up in winter, so as to consign the bees to darkness and repose.

Nothing can be more hazardous than to shut up closely an ill protected hive. Even if the bees have an abundance of air, it will not answer to prevent them from flying out, if they are so disposed. As soon as the warmth penetrating their thin hives tempts them to fly, they crowd to the entrance, and if it is shut, mult.i.tudes worry themselves to death in trying to get out, and the whole colony is liable to become diseased.

In my hives as soon as the bees are shut up for Winter, they are most effectually protected against all atmospheric changes, and never _desire_ to leave their hives until the entrances are again opened, on the return of suitable weather. Thus they pa.s.s the Winter in a state of almost absolute repose; they eat much less honey[12] than when wintered on the ordinary plan; a much smaller number die in the hives; none are lost upon the snow, and they are more healthy, and commence breeding much earlier than they do in the common hives. As some of the holes into the Protector are left open in Winter, any bee that is diseased and wishes to leave the hive can do so. Bees when diseased have a strange propensity to leave their hives, just as animals when sick seek to retreat from their companions; and in Summer such bees may often be seen forsaking their home to perish on the ground. If all egress from the hive in Winter is prevented, the diseased bees will not be able to comply with an instinct which urges them "To leave their country for their country's good."

54. It should possess all these requisites without being too costly for common bee-keepers, or too complicated to be constructed by any one who can handle simple tools: and they should be so combined that the result is a simple hive, which any one can manage who has ordinary intelligence on the subject of bees.

I suppose that the very natural conclusion from reading this long list of desirables, would be that no single hive can combine them all, without being exceedingly complicated and expensive. On the contrary, the simplicity and cheapness with which my hive secures all these results, is one of its most striking peculiarities, the attainment of which has cost me more study than all the other points besides. As far as the bees are concerned, they can work in this hive with even greater facility than in the simple old-fashioned box, as the frames are left rough by the saw, and thus give an admirable support to the bees when building their combs; and they can enter the spare honey boxes, with even more ease than if they were merely continuations of the main hive.

There are a few desirables to which my hive makes not the slightest pretensions! It promises no splendid results to those who purchase it, and yet are too ignorant, or too careless to be entrusted with the management of bees. In bee-keeping, as in other things, a man must first understand his business, and then proceed on the good old maxim, that "the hand of the diligent maketh rich."

It possesses no talismanic influence by which it can convert a bad situation for honey, into a good one; or give the Apiarian an abundant harvest whether the season is productive or otherwise.

It cannot enable the cultivator rapidly to multiply his stocks, and yet to secure, the same season, surplus honey from his bees. As well might the breeder of poultry pretend that he can, in the same year, both raise the greatest number of chickens, and sell the largest number of eggs.

Worse than all, it cannot furnish the many advantages enumerated, and yet be made in as little time, or quite as cheap as a hive which proves, in the end, to be a very dear bargain.

I have not constructed my hive in accordance with crude theories, or mere conjectures, and then insisted that the bees must flourish in such a fanciful contrivance; but I have studied, for many years, most carefully, the nature of the honey-bee; and have diligently compared my observations with those of writers and practical cultivators, who have spent their lives in extending the sphere of Apiarian knowledge; and as the result, have endeavored to adapt my hive to the actual wants and habits of the bee; and to remedy the many difficulties with which I have found its successful culture to be beset. And more than this, I have actually tested by experiments long continued and on a large scale, the merits of this hive, that I might not deceive both myself and others, and add another to the many useless contrivances which have deluded and disgusted a credulous public. I would, however, most earnestly repudiate all claims to having devised a "perfect bee-hive." Perfection can belong only to the works of the great Creator, to whose Omniscient eye, all causes and effects with all their relations, were present, when he spake, and from nothing formed the universe and all its glorious wonders. For man to stamp upon any of his own works, the label of perfection, is to show both his folly and presumption.

It must be confessed that the culture of bees is at a very low ebb in our country, when thousands can be induced to purchase hives which are in most glaring opposition not only to the true principles of Apiarian knowledge, but often, to the plainest dictates of simple common sense.

Such have been the losses and disappointments of deluded purchasers, that it is no wonder that they turn from everything offered in the shape of a patent bee-hive, as a miserable humbug, if not a most bare-faced cheat.