Chapter III: Part 3

"In this case, the sting of the virgin was buried so deep in the flesh
of her opponent, that she found it impossible to withdraw it, and any
attempt to do so by direct force would have been fatal to her. After
many fruitless efforts, she at length adopted the following ingenious
expedient with complete success. Instead of exerting her force on the
sting by a direct pull, she turned herself round, giving herself a
rotatory motion on the extremity of her abdomen where the sting had
its insertion, as a pivot. In this way she gradually unscrewed the
sting."

Another very interesting incident is related by Huber. It is described by Lardner:--

"The first work which the population undertakes, after being assured
of the loss of its queen, is directed to obtain a successor to her. If
there be not royal cells prepared, they set about their construction.
While this work was in progress, and in twenty-four hours after their
queen had been taken from them, Huber introduced into the hive a
fruitful queen in the prime of life, being eleven months old. Not
less than twelve royal cells had been already commenced and were in a
forward state. The moment the strange queen was placed on one of the
combs, one of the most curious scenes commenced which was probably
ever witnessed in the animal world, and which has been described by
Huber.

"The bees who happened to be near the stranger approached her, touched
her with their antennæ, passed their probosces over all parts of
her body, and presented her with honey. Then they retired, giving
place to others, who approached in their turn and went through the
same ceremony. All the bees who proceeded thus clapped their wings
in retiring, and ranged themselves in a circle round her, each, as
it completed the ceremony, taking a position behind those who had
previously offered their respects. A general agitation was soon
spread on those sides of the combs corresponding with that of the
scene here described. From all quarters the bees crowded to the spot,
and each group of fresh arrivals broke their way through the circle,
approached the new aspirant to the throne, touched her with their
antennæ and probosces, offered her honey, and, in fine, took their
rank outside the circle previously formed. The bees forming this sort
of court circle clapped their wings from time to time, and fluttered
apparently with self-gratification, but without the least sign of
disorder or tumult.

"At the end of fifteen or twenty minutes from the commencement of
these proceedings the queen, who had hitherto remained stationary,
began to move. Far from opposing her progress or hemming her in, as in
the cases formerly described, the bees opened the circle on the side
to which she directed her steps, followed her, and, ranging themselves
on either side of her path, lined the road in the same manner as is
done by military bodies in state processions. She soon began to lay
drone eggs, for which she sought and found the proper cells in the
combs which had been already constructed.

"While these things were passing on the side of the comb where the
new queen had been placed, all remained perfectly tranquil on
the opposite side. It seemed as though the bees on that side were
profoundly ignorant of the arrival of a new queen on the opposite
side. They continued to work assiduously at the royal cells, the
construction of which had been commenced on that side of the comb,
just as if they were ignorant that they had no longer need of them;
they tended the grubs in those cells where the eggs had been already
hatched, supplying them as usual, from time to time, with royal jelly.
But at length the new queen in her progress arriving at that side of
the comb, she was received by those bees with the same homage and
devotion of which she had been already the object at the other side.
They approached her, coaxed her with their antennæ and probosces,
offered her honey, formed a court circle round her when she was
stationary, and a hedge at either side of her path when she moved, and
proved how entirely they acknowledged her sovereignty by discontinuing
their labour at the royal cells, which they had commenced before her
arrival, and from which they now removed the eggs and grubs, and ate
the provisions which they had collected in them.

"From this moment the queen reigned supreme over the hive, and was
treated in all respects as if she had ascended the throne in right of
inheritance."

THE WORKER-BEE.

The Worker-Bee is an imperfectly developed queen or female. The worker-bees vary in number in a prosperous hive from ten to twenty thousand. They are divided into orders or sections. Some produce wax; others build combs; others feed the young; others ventilate the hive; others, as sentinels, guard the entrance; while the great body traverses gardens and commons, gathering honey for themselves and the bee-master. There are various estimates of the age of the worker-bee. Dr. Bevan thinks the limit of their life is six or eight months. Probably this is the average, from taking into account the accidents of a laborious life, the battles they must wage with enemies, and the wear and tear of ceaseless toil. About the end of August they appear exhausted; their wings become ragged, and the stroke of the sting feebler.

THE DRONE.

The Drone is a male bee, fat, round, and lazy, like an old abbot in mediæval times, who preferred the cellar to his cell. Huber remarks:--

"Naturalists have been extremely embarrassed to account for the number
of males in most hives, and which seem only a burden on the community,
since they appear to fulfil no function. But we now begin to discern
the object of nature in multiplying them to such an extent. As
fecundation cannot be accomplished within the hive, and as the queen
is obliged to traverse the expanse of the atmosphere, it is requisite
that the males should be numerous, that she may have the chance of
meeting some one of them. Were only two or three in each hive, there
would be little probability of their departure at the same instant
with the queen, or that they would meet in their excursions; and most
of the females might thus remain sterile."

The queen selects a drone for her husband, who dies invariably at the end of the honeymoon or wedding-trip in the air. But the widowed queen does not marry a second husband. Her whole mind from that day to her death, though surrounded by two thousand suitors, is devoted to the interests and order and government of her realm. During May, and not later than June, the massacre of the drones takes place. They have become at this date encumbrances only. Their mission is ended, and their extermination becomes the duty of the industrious bees. I stated, in my letters to _The Times_, that I believed the drones had a value additional to that usually assigned to them--viz., that they sustained the temperature of the hive during the chief breeding season. Mr. Cotton--no mean authority--states what substantially confirms all I said:--

"I have watched the drones for many years very attentively, and I will
freely give you the result. I will tell you, in the first instance,
the facts I have seen, and what I have drawn from them. The drones are
hatched just before the new swarms rise; very few go off with them. I
for a long time thought that none did; but I am free to confess that I
was wrong. They do not fly out early in the day, but about two o'clock
they go out to take the air, and make a fine buzzing, which joins very
prettily with the milder hum of the bees. Many people kill the drones
directly they see them; but they are quite wrong, as the bees know
best when they have done their duty, and so we may leave to them the
unpleasant task of killing them, though they do not do it in the most
merciful way.

"Why do the drones stay in the hive all the morning? Most of the bees
are then out gathering honey, so the drones have to stay at home to
keep up the heat of the hive by their great fat bodies, just as a
gadding wife leaves her husband to look after the children, while she
is out taking her pleasure."

It does seem a too great excess of provision to furnish two thousand drones out of whom the queen may select her consort. It looks like unusual waste. It leads to a massacre on a larger scale than is necessary.

The average number of excursions made by each bee is probably ten or twelve, over an area of half a mile; but fewer, of course, in proportion to the greater distance of suitable pasture. Kirby calculates that during a good season a hundred pounds of ponderable material is carried by these tiny workers into their hive. He justly observes:--

"What a wonderful idea does this give of the industry and activity of
those useful little creatures! and what a lesson do they read to the
members of societies that have both reason and religion to guide their
exertions for the common good! Adorable is that Great Being who has
gifted them with instincts which render them as instructive to us, if
we will condescend to listen to them, as they are profitable."

VIII.--BEE ENEMIES.

The toad is a lazy, ugly-looking enemy of the bee. His capabilities, however, are not equal to his will and wants. He squats under the bee landing-board, and seizes every too heavily laden or wing-weary labourer that accidentally drops. This is really very cruel. The bee that has finished the longest journey, and gone through the hardest work, and borne the heat and brunt of the hot, long summer day, takes a rest on a leaf just before entering the hive, or comes short of the door of his home by an inch, and is seized by the unclean monster and devoured. The only way of getting rid of this unfeeling destroyer, who sits "seeking whom he may devour," is to pay a visit to your hives soon after sunrise and an hour before sunset; and on finding him on his wicked watch, seize him by the hind leg and throw him to as great a distance across your hedge as you well can. But if the "bee-master" be a lady--if I may use the phrase--let her empty on him a snuff-box full of strong snuff, and he will reflect a few days before he returns to his old quarters. I give this prescription to ladies, because they do not like to seize the cold-blooded creature and fling him to a respectable distance. How favoured our Irish bee-masters must be in this matter!--they have no toads. I also wish they had no riots. But troubles must come in some shape. Still, I would rather have toads than Belfast navvies and ship-carpenters, and any day I would prefer being _The Times_ Bee-master to be Mayor of Belfast.

We are also exempt in this island of ours from the bear, unless one should break loose from the strolling menageries that occasionally infest Tunbridge Wells Common. "The bear," remarks a Yankee, "is the knowingest varmint for finding out a bee-tree in the world. They'll gnaw for days together at the trunk, till they make a hole big enough to get in their paws, and then they'll haul out the honey, bees and all."

The moth is a dangerous enemy. During the day there is no risk of his attacks. But during the night he is, like other thieves and burglars, alive and active. "He loves the darkness rather than the light, because his deeds are evil." As no bee-master can do without sleep, I cannot expect of the most enthusiastic and devoted that he will watch his hives the whole night. The only preventive measure of a mechanical sort I can recommend is that of lessening the entrance door. For this purpose he must apply a zinc slide, such as Mr. Neighbour, in Holborn, will supply, which will keep out the moth and yet let out the bees. Besides, the narrower the door, the more closed up the rank of the bee-sentinels becomes, and the more able they are to repel the death's-head moth, or any similar intruder. But the most vigorous prophylactic measure you can take is to keep your bees in full strength; and as the time selected by these depredators is the early autumn, you cannot do better than give your bees a cup of good strong ale, boiled up with sugar, which will cheer up your whole family, and enable them to put forth their whole strength in grappling with their enemies. Don't mind teetotal objections. These are all very good for drunkards; but for sober, industrious bees, determined to defend their property, a cup of good ale is as kind as it is useful. The _Acherontia Atropos_, or death's-head hawk-moth, not only robs the hive of its honey, but frightens and all but paralyses the bees. Huber gives an account of the exertions of his bees to guard against this formidable foe. It is here quoted from Lardner:--

"When he found his hives attacked and their store of honey pillaged
by these depredators, he contracted the opening left for the exit and
entrance of the bees to such an extent as, while it allowed them free
ingress and egress, it was so small that their plunderers could not
pass through it. This was found to be perfectly effectual, and all
pillage was thenceforward discontinued in the hives thus protected.

"But it happened that in some of the hives this precaution was not
adopted, and here the most wonderful proceeding on the part of
the bees took place. Human contrivance was brought into immediate
juxtaposition with apiarian ingenuity.

"The bees of the undefended hives raised a wall across the gate of
their city, consisting of a stiff cement made of wax and propolis
mixed in a certain proportion. This wall, sometimes carried directly
across and sometimes a little behind the door, first completely
closed up the entrance; but they pierced in it some openings just
large enough to allow two bees to pass each other in their exits and
entrances.

"The little engineers did not follow one invariable plan in these
defensive works, but modified them according to circumstances. In
some cases a single wall, having small wickets worked through it at
certain points, was constructed. In others several walls were erected
one within the other, placed parallel to each other, with trenches
between them wide enough to allow two bees to pass each other. In each
of these parallel walls several openings or wickets were pierced, but
so placed as not to correspond in position, so that in entering a bee
would have to follow a zigzag course in passing from wicket to wicket.
In some cases these walls or curtains were wrought into a series of
arcades, but so that the intervening columns of one corresponded to
the arcades of the other.

"The bees never constructed these works of defence without urgent
necessity. Thus, in seasons or in localities where the death's-head
moth did not prevail, no such expedients were resorted to. Nor were
they used against enemies which were open to attack by their sting.
The bee, therefore, understands not merely the art of offensive war,
and can play the part of the common soldier, but is also a consummate
military engineer; and it is not against the death's-head moth alone
that it shows itself capable of erecting such defences."

A correspondent of _The Times_, writing on naval guns, who signs himself "Z," alluded to my letters, and drew a happy illustration from them. Let me here inform the Admiralty of a new arm which in extremity--for otherwise it would be the sacrifice of too many bee combatants--may be used in naval warfare. But perhaps Lord Clarence Paget may find some difficulty in securing its adoption. It is related in "The Naturalist's Library:"--

"A small privateer with forty or fifty men, having on board some
hives made of earthenware full of bees, was pursued by a Turkish
galley manned by five hundred seamen and soldiers. As soon as the
latter came alongside, the crew of the privateer mounted the rigging
with their hives, and hurled them down on the deck of the galley. The
Turks, astonished at this novel mode of warfare, and unable to defend
themselves from the stings of the enraged bees, became so terrified
that they thought of nothing but how to escape their fury; while the
crew of the small vessel, defended by masks and gloves, flew upon
their enemies sword in hand, and captured the vessel almost without
resistance."

But as many of my recent correspondents in _The Times_ were clergymen, I can recommend to the ministers of Belfast an admirable prescription for the extreme case of a Belfast mob sacking their rectories and manses. The Mayor of Belfast also might take it into his grave consideration, should the citizens, instead of trying to convert each other by arguments or Scripture, have recourse to those fashionable weapons which they lately wielded with so much effect:--

"During the confusion occasioned by a time of war in 1525, a mob of
peasants assembling in Hohnstein, in Thuringia, attempted to pillage
the house of the parish minister, who, having in vain employed all his
eloquence to dissuade them from their design, ordered his domestics to
fetch his bee-hives and throw them in the middle of this furious mob.
The effect was what might be expected; they were immediately put to
flight, and happy to escape unstung."

Is not this worthy of the consideration of every peaceful vicar in Belfast?

The spider is also a very mischievous pest in bee-houses. He builds his web in nooks and corners, under the eaves and about the landing-boards, and in the track of the outgoing and incoming bees. When a bee is inveigled, its efforts to extricate its captive limbs serve only to involve it in the toils more hopelessly. I have seen half-a-dozen working-bees thus caught and scooped out by the ravenous jaws of the spider. These webs are constructed so rapidly, that nothing short of daily attention will get rid of them. The best thing is, to have the bee-house as smooth inside as it can be made, with as few projecting edges and points as possible; and in the next place, the daily use of a hard, dry painter's brush will sweep them away as fast as they are made, and probably their weavers with them.

Finally, the worst enemy of bees is man. There is the barbarous, cruel, and ungrateful treatment of the brimstone match. The little innocents have toiled all the summer. They have thrown off a swarm--after the example of the Church of Scotland, which, by way of showing its internal strength, threw off a capital swarm in 1843--they have recovered all the effects of their secession, and amassed abundance for future days. The bee-cide felon, called man, digs a pit, lights four ounces of brimstone inside of it, and deliberately sets fifteen thousand bees, queen and all, above its really and truly infernal fumes--suffocates and burns the unhappy martyrs, and then subscribes to various charities in winter, and calls himself a philanthropist! He ought to be sent to the treadmill. Why does the Society for Preventing Cruelty to Animals take up the case of cab-horses, and overlook the murdered bees? But there are regular inquisitors who do not use sulphur. Those scientific crinkum-crankum hives, from which bees with difficulty get out, and with more difficulty get in, are little purgatories, over which the inquisitors preside. Vivisection is no worse. Yet these men complain that all who advocate simple, easily accessible, and comfortable homes for bees are behind the age, and ignorant of apiarian progress! There are not more than three sorts of hives that are humane. All the others bewilder the brains, weary the legs, and spoil the tempers of the best bees that ever dwelt in a hive. I have no objection whatever to ornamental bee-sheds; but the hives which are the dwelling-places of my bees should be as plain as possible, comfortable, warm, and easy of exit and entrance. A very gifted preacher said it took all his learning to make his sermons plain: it ought to take all a bee-master's to make his hives simple. When I hear a fine preacher expressing himself in grand words and glittering figures, I always feel--I hope not uncharitably--that he cares more about displaying himself than serving his Master or feeding his flock. Even so I am tempted to think of the ingenious inventors of intricate labyrinths they intend for hives,--that their own fame as apiarians is their chief thought, and the comfort of their bees their last and least consideration. A careless, inattentive bee-master is criminal. He ought to see that his bees have a sufficiency of food at the close of the year. In fine October weather he may place several soup-plates filled with ale and sugar well boiled together, and covered with perforated wooden floats, which sink as the bees sip the contents, opposite his hives. I never find any quarrel ensue, though I have seen thousands of bees from different hives feed together for hours. After October till March no liquid food should be offered; but a stick of barley-sugar may be thrust in now and then. The bees will not descend to taste it in too cold weather, and during a warm day they will enjoy such a dessert. In case of damp within the hive, which, when a glass is retained, may be seen inside of it, select a warm day, remove the glass, and close the aperture in the hive. Wipe the interior of the glass with a linen cloth till perfectly dry, and replace it as before. But a little artificial ventilation on a dry, warm day is still better.

Do not let your bees find by painful experience that their bee-master is their worst enemy.

For an account of wasps, see my letter to _The Times_, page 157.

THE BEE-MASTER'S LETTERS TO "THE TIMES."

So many and so urgent have been the requests of my correspondents to reprint these letters, that I have carefully gone over them, corrected clerical errors, and reproduced them. They may amuse as well as teach. I append them in the order of their appearance. They were unfortunate enough to provoke the wrath of two or three hive-inventors or patentees, the merits of whose crooked and uncomfortable productions the writer could not appreciate; but they have received the warmest eulogies of great numbers to whom they conveyed new and interesting information.

It is a pity that petty jealousies should distill their poison on so pleasant a theme, and that bees should in this case turn wasps.

A very curious coincidence occurred in the course of the correspondence on bees which appeared in _The Times_. A succession of letters appeared in various more or less obscure newspapers, beginning at Exeter and moving northward to the Orkneys, each, _mutatis mutandis_, the repetition of the first. They invariably began by a laborious attempt to prove that the writer knows nothing of apiculture or prophecy, but in no one instance disproving a single position or showing the author's ignorance of apiculture, but in more than one instance deploring the writer's oversight of this or that hive. Every one of these writers--plainly under the inspiration of one--assumes that because the writer did not allude to his mode of treatment, he was ignorant of bee-management. The Bee-master had no idea there was such concert among bee-keepers, or that, in giving an account of his intercourse with his bees, he was putting his hands into hornets' nests. But wasps have been a terrible plague this autumn.

One writer in a Scotch paper, who gives bees no credit for any ordinary virtue, and regards them purely as mechanical toys, writes thus:--

"This Bee-master says that 'the bee leaves her house, traverses a mile
or two distant, and returns to her home--one amid twenty contiguous
ones--with unerring certainty.' This was the general opinion up till
lately--that the bee always returned to its own hive--in fact, there
was no means of proving the contrary until the introduction of the
Ligurian variety of bee. For the information of 'A Bee-master,' I must
tell him that they do not at all times go back to their own home,
but make a mistake and enter their neighbour's. This fact I soon
ascertained after I got the Ligurians, as in a short time I saw them
going into all my other common hives, more or less, and a neighbour
nearly a mile away from this found the Ligurians had joined one of
his swarms when in the act of swarming. These are facts which cannot
be controverted, and prove that 'A Bee-master' ought to make himself
master of his subject before he attempts to teach others. Queens, too,
are frequently killed by entering into other hives when placed near
each other, through their mistaking the one for the other; but these
facts were not known to the generality of bee-keepers until they used
the bar hives, when all the economy of the interior could be examined
at pleasure."

This foolish logician introduces foreigners to an English hive. They do not act like English bees--in short, they are not acquainted with a country in which they are not acclimatised; and from the blunders of the Ligurian foreigners he infers the ignorance of the British bee. This is a specimen of the rubbish printed from Devon to Haddington.

Another position of this Scotchman with a bee in his bonnet is as follows:--

"In removing a super--that is, a top or bonnet--he says they should
be taken one hundred yards away from the hive, and the bees will fly
back to the hive in about an hour. This I think a very bad plan. In
the first place, if taken off in a fine day the bees would not leave
it in an hour, and if there were any bees near, they would find it out
in that time, their scent or sense of smell being so strong, and he
would never get them away; and, besides, he would be very apt to take
the queen away also, she being often found in the top, and she might
not be able to fly back. It is certainly a bad plan in this part of
the country, especially when the weather is cold in the autumn. When
removing the heather honey, blow a few puffs of smoke from a burning
rag into a super, and take it off, turning it upside down, putting
on it another empty super of the same size, with cloth wrapped round
where they meet, to keep out light. Next give the super containing the
honey and the bees a few taps with a piece of stick at intervals. The
bees, when filled with honey, which they will do as soon as disturbed,
will ascend into the empty super, and if the queen should be there she
will lead them at once, and they can all be put back into the hive.
Any top can be emptied of bees in fifteen minutes by doing it in this
way, and without running risk of losing the queen."

Now, in ninety-nine cases in a hundred the queen is not in the super, and an intelligent bee-master can take care she is not there before he removes the super; and, in the next place, _The Times_ Bee-master expressly stated his entire aversion to smoking bees for such a purpose; and earlier than August there is no risk of corsair bees. Besides, preference of one plan to another is not necessarily proof of ignorance.

This mere copyist of Devon remarks:--

"What can be the necessity for subjecting sugar to the temperature of
300 degrees, and rendering it so hard that weak hives are not able to
take as much as keep them alive, when the same amount of sugar made
to the consistency of their natural food would enable them to live?
Common sense would indicate to anyone that in artificial feeding the
nearer we approach their natural food the better; but it may be that
it is hard honey which this wiseacre's bees gather for him, and that
the flowers in Kent give different food than those in Scotland! Let
anyone observe the time a bee takes to fill itself on barley-sugar and
the time from sugar Syrup, and the labour spent on the former to that
of the latter, and he will soon see the difference between the two.
And the only reason the writer gave, in answer to a correspondent,
for giving the barley-sugar is, 'that the other clogged the feet and
smeared the wings of the bees.' Now, everyone must be aware that a few
straws in the dish prevents this. Again, he says that 'the only vice
among bees is their passionate liking for rum and strong ale; but the
tee-totallers would fairly reply that they never care about either
unless it is pressed upon them.' And I say they would reply truly, for
I maintain that the bees will not touch either rum or ale unless they
are saturated with sugar or honey. But why be at the expense of the
one or the other, when they will take it made with pure water before
either?"

* * * * *

He must be in the habit of bolting his oatmeal pottage, or he never would have inferred that sipping its food in ten minutes is more conducive to the health and digestion of the bee than sipping it in half an hour. His remarks on ale and rum are merely a translation of the nonsense spoken by his original. But, in common with his co-partners in criticism, he thinks the Bee-master's sole design in writing the letters in _The Times_ was to puff his forthcoming work on bees. This mean and contemptible charge is best met by the simple and truthful answer, that the Bee-master had no more idea of writing a book on bees than of describing Mount Radnor or Yester Gardens. His purpose to do so arose from the urgent request of literally hundreds of correspondents.

On my suggestion as to the purpose and object of two thousand drones or male bees being produced, when there is only one perfect female--the queen--the writer observes:--

"In one of his letters in answer to correspondents, 'Why there are
so many drones in a hive, and only one princess?' he confesses it a
hard problem. But one part seems to him very clear--'When the queen's
countless eggs come to be hatched, the temperature of the hive must
be raised to 85° or 95°. The fat, round, and lazy drones are really
the fuel. They accordingly give out great heat.' Had the writer really
known anything about bees, he could never have made such a statement.
If the drones are the fuel to keep up the heat, why is it that they
are never found in the hives till May or June--in this part of the
country, at least--after thousands of bees have been hatched? If they
were the fuel, surely one would expect them to be the first eggs which
were laid by the queen, according to his theory; but a queen will
begin laying workers' eggs in January, and yet lay no drone eggs till
May, just when the warm weather commences. Now, if they were required
for heat, naturally Ave would expect them to be found before May, and
they commence killing them in August, when the cold weather begins."

Now, the fact is, it is in May and June that drones are wanted to keep up the heat. Half the bees are out at work, the means of maintaining the temperature are therefore diminished. The drones remain at home, unless during the noonday heat, when they take an airing, and can best be spared.

* * * * *

My first letter to _The Times_ was a report of the prospects of the honey harvest, as follows:--

I have ten stock-hives. I never destroy or kill my bees. I look on the
system of the sulphur match as barbarous and unprofitable. I leave
each family on an average not less than twenty-five pounds of honey
for their winter stores, and the surplus only I take away. Should any
hive swarm, which I can generally prevent, and the remaining stock
be therefore deficient in provision for the winter, I feed them in
the course of the early spring with barley-sugar. This and other
little attentions endear the bee-master to his bees, as they are very
susceptible of gratitude and have long memories.

A hive is very like a church: when, in May, it increases rapidly in
numbers and the temperature rises inside, you either increase their
accommodation in area or in height, or you will have a secession.
Should a secession take place, bees set an example ecclesiastics might
copy. The new church never falls out with the old one. Side by side
they work in perfect harmony, believing there is plenty of food for
both. The only incidental mischief-maker is the wasp; whether he be
prelate or presbyter I cannot say, but I know well he is a thief and
intruder, and after a fight, the bees, who in this matter are rigid
non-intrusionists, eject, maim, or kill him--and he deserves it.
Queen Victoria's Court is modelled on the apiarian queen's. You may
see the queen-bee, by means of my glass windows, going her rounds and
giving orders, with her royal ladies, who never turn their backs on
her majesty. The exceptional instance occurred on one occasion when it
became necessary to give a rather sickly establishment rum and sugar,
of which they drank to excess and got drunk. As long as the stimulus
lasted, the monarchy became a fierce democracy, and queen and subjects
were confounded in the _mélée_.

The only vice among bees is their passionate liking for rum and strong
ale. But the teetotaller would fairly reply, that they never care
about either unless it is pressed upon them.

My bees at present have begun the massacre of the drones. These are
a sort of Benedictine monks, who, like Brother Ignatius, prefer
enjoyment to hard work. They are round, fat, and lazy, making much
noise, and eating of stores to which they do not contribute.... But
you want to hear about the harvest?

In one square box there are forty pounds of honey, and in a
corresponding super rapidly filling up, there is likely to be for me
as much more.

In three Scotch or Ayrshire octagonal hives, which I have found to
answer best of any, the three supers are in two almost full; and in
one there is at least forty pounds weight in the super, and over the
super is a bell-glass with seven or eight pounds additional.

In one of Neighbours' very beautiful straw hives I have two
bell-glasses almost full, and a month ago I removed from this hive a
very beautiful glass of honey.

In one of Pettitt's lateral hives, the bees passed through the
subterranean archway a month ago, and have nearly filled this
compartment. On this, also, I have placed a super bell-glass, which is
beautifully stored.

From a common cottage straw hive I removed a bell-glass super three
weeks ago weighing eighteen pounds.

This season I shall have nearly two hundred pounds weight of surplus
honey, and yet leave in each hive more than enough to last the
producers till April, 1865. Why should not cottagers cultivate bees?
There is nothing to pay for pasture, very little labour is required,
and that labour amusing, in taking care of them, and for very early
virgin honey there may be had one shilling and sixpence or two
shillings and sixpence a pound. The poor cottager might thus easily
pay his rent. If landlords could only convince them that the old
system of burning the bees in order to get the stock honey--which
is at best inferior--is not only cruel but unprofitable, they would
do an essential service. The poor peasant would have an interesting
amusement after his day's work, and a contribution towards his rent on
the year's end.

* * * * *

Bees and Bee-hives.

_To the Editor of "The Times."_

Sir,--Since my letter appeared in your columns on "the Honey Harvest,"
I have received from yourself various communications from rectors,
vicars, curates, &c., who feel a very great interest in bee-keeping
as a social and commercial question. I have also received letters
addressed to me as "_The Times_ Bee-master," which the postman,
guided by some remarkable instinct, has placed in my hands. Most
of these letters invite confidential and personal communication on
this subject, and record a variety of questions, difficulties, and
perplexities which have injured or arrested the apiarian enterprises
of the writers. I prefer to answer some of their inquiries through
your columns, believing that the interest and importance of all
that tends to benefit the cottager will ever find a place or a
defence in _The Times_. The most urgent questions in the letters of
my correspondents refer to the hives I employ, and which I briefly
described in my letter. The first I mentioned is the Scotch or
Ayrshire octagonal hive. It is made of thoroughly seasoned deal, in
the form of a hexagon, about eight inches in height, and sixteen
inches diameter. On the top is a series of parallel slits, extending
from front to back, which I open or shut by a series of corresponding
deal slides. On receiving a swarm in April or May, I introduce the
slides, and thereby close up the top of the box. On finding--as in
fine weather I am sure to find in three or four weeks--that the box is
full, I place on the top another hexagonal box, in all respects the
same in size and shape, and draw out the slides, and thereby introduce
the bees to the vacant upper chamber. As each box has a window, I
am thus able to ascertain progress. When this upper box is filled
with honey, I may place on the top of it another precisely the same,
drawing out the slides on the top of the second box, and introducing
the bees to a third story But usually I prefer, for the sake of the
beauty of it, a bell-glass, greater or less as the season may suggest.
I have found this hive by far the most successful. It seems the bees,
who construct their cells in the form of hexagons, prefer the house
in which they work to be very much of the same shape. A cottager may
very easily make these boxes in the long winter evenings. The second
kind of hive I alluded to is made of straw, and may be purchased at
Neighbours', in Holborn. The greatest disadvantage is its expense,
costing, as it does, thirty shillings. But it is so well made that
it will last very long. I have had one in constant use during ten
years, and it is still as good as when it was bought. Its top is
flat, with three longitudinal apertures, closed till full with zinc
slides. About the end of May, in a good year, I draw out the slides,
after placing over each a good-sized bell-glass; and in July I have
often had in each glass seven or eight pounds of honey. The reason
of the failure of this hive is the coldness of the glass, which
Neighbours' additional super straw hive or cover does not mend. But
if my correspondents will get a piece of thick Scotch plaid made like
a nightcap, and case each glass with this, they will find the bees use
it as readily as a wood or straw hive, and there will be no moisture
from condensation of the bees' breath inside.

The third sort of hive is Pettitt's, of Snargate, Dover. It is worked
on the lateral system, and of its kind is a perfect gem. Two boxes
are placed on one floor, with a subterranean communication between
them. On stocking the box on the right, a zinc slide is introduced,
which shuts off the communication. As soon as the box is full, the
slide is withdrawn and the communication laid open. The bees take
possession of the other box on the left, and fill it with pure honey.
When my harvest comes, I shut off the communication, and remove the
left-hand box full of honey. You will perceive that my principle of
action proceeds on the notion that the bottom box of the Ayrshire
or Scotch hive, the straw box of Neighbours', and the right-hand
box of Pettitt's, are each the sacred property of my bees, which I
feel it larceny to lessen or disturb, and that the surplus is the
tithe or portion of the bee-master. The ruinous blunder of country
bee-keepers is their taking honey from the former--honey, too, mixed
with brood and bees' bread and the films of the young grubs. In
this, the department I never touch, the queen presides with her
ladies-in-waiting; and in any one of these, if the bees have filled
the additional supers or laterals, there is abundance for all her
subjects during the winter.

In some of the letters you have been good enough to send me, the
expense of these hives is urged as a fatal objection as far as the
cottager is concerned. Let me therefore explain my last and cheapest
plan--not best, but cheapest.

Place the swarm in a common shilling straw hive. When you ascertain,
either by its weight or the busy working of the bees, that it is
full, take a square board, about a foot square; cut in the centre
of it a round hole three or four inches in diameter; place on it a
bell-glass, or what is cheaper, a smaller straw hive. Take a sharp
table-knife, and go to the hive about twelve o'clock at noon, when
most of the bees are out working; cut out the top of the straw hive,
making a round aperture of four or five inches in diameter, and place
on it the board with the bell-glass, or lesser straw super, covering
the glass with its nightcap, and you have everything you can desire.
If, in cutting the hole on the top of the stock hive, you hesitate or
lose your self-possession, the watcher bees will attack you. Decision
invariably paralyses them for the moment, and secures your safety.
These glasses or supers are removed by cutting through between the
board and the lower edge of the super with a zinc plate, on which you
carry off the super full of surplus honey, placing over the hole at
the top of the stock a flat board or an empty super. From one straw
hive treated in this way I carried off eighteen pounds of honey at
the beginning of July this year. I ought to add, that I keep my hives
of every sort under cover of wooden sheds, accessible from behind by
means of doors that let down. During the winter, I cover up the hives
in the sheds each with paper, and thereby I keep them warm. As the
spring approaches, I give the lightest an occasional half-pound of
barley-sugar. This barley-sugar I get at Kilner's, in Hanway-street,
Oxford-street, before it is mixed with scent or lemon-acid. Common
sugar is of no use. To be available to the bee, to suit a lambent
insect, it must have been exposed to a heat of 300° Fahrenheit, in
order to reduce crystallisable to uncrystallisable sugar. As I am
answering your and my correspondents, I had better add a few useful
hints.

Get acquainted with your bees; they are naturally very affectionate. I
have frequently hived swarms, filling each hand with clusters of bees,
and rarely have I received a sting. I have sat in the midst of them
for hours, and weary bees have rested on me, and have entered their
homes singing a song of thanks.

They have several bitter enemies besides the wasp. I used to see
toads frequently sitting under the landing-board, and only recently
discovered they were there "seeking whom they could devour." On one
of these ugly visitors being laid open, his maw was found filled
with bees which he had sucked into his ugly jaws. The tom-tit, also,
is a dangerous little enemy. He perches on the landing-place of the
bees on a wet day, taps with his bill, apparently inquiring after
the health of the inmates; a watcher bee comes out to reconnoitre,
and is instantly snapped up by the wicked hypocrite. The spider,
also, catches weary bees in his web; but the occasional use of a
brush disposes of this peril. The snail, attracted by the warmth,
occasionally creeps in. The bees successively attack him, but find
their stings blunted and broken by the shell, as shot is by our
iron-sides. Failing to injure or remove the intruder, they have
recourse to a plan which indicates more than instinct They cover
him up with propolis, a kind of gum which they use for stopping
up crevices; and not only does he die from want of air, but he is
prevented from giving forth offensive odour by the air-tight case or
shroud.

The most attentive bee-master occasionally gets stung. I have
discovered a cure not found in the pharmacopœia. Press a watch-key
hard on the place after removing the sting--this prevents the poison
from spreading; then apply moist snuff or tobacco, rubbing it well in,
and in five minutes all pain is gone. This is a never-failing remedy.

I have entered into these details, because from the correspondence
you have sent me, and from letters that have reached me, it is
evident that a great interest has been excited by my communication,
and because it is of great social importance. Many a poor curate and
ill-paid vicar, and many a cottager with time to spare and his rent
to pay, may thus add to their income. My bees feed over an area of
six miles, improving every flower they touch, and robbing nobody.
Tunbridge Wells is one of the best bee-districts in England, and this
alone is evidence of its being a healthy district. Bees never get on
in unhealthy places.

Apologising for this long communication, I am, &c.,

A Bee-master.

Tunbridge Wells, July 27.

* * * * *

Bees and Bee-hives,

_To the Editor of "The Times!"_

Sir,--The letters that reach me addressed to "_The Times_ Bee-master"
are legion. I can now form some idea of the weight of the load that
must press on your shoulders every day; but I confess I had no notion
of the extent of the interest that these letters prove to exist in
apiarian culture. I select such difficulties from the letters before
me as I have not disposed of, and these I would endeavour to overcome.

A very often repeated question is--What is the best way of hiving bees
or securing a swarm? Let me at once state that the old and inveterate
habit in Kent of beating a kettle, striking the tongs with the poker,
and raising similar discordant sounds, is utterly absurd. They do not
affect the bees. In swarming, the old queen abdicates and heads the
swarm, and a young queen mounts the throne in the hive. The outgoing
queen, followed by five thousand or six thousand bees, either _ex
proprio motu_, or guided by pioneer scouts, selects a rose-bush, or a
cozy opening in a laurel-hedge, and all her subjects hang on, forming
a cluster of bees as large as the largest bunch of grapes. As soon as
they have nearly all settled, take your empty hive or bee-box, which
must be thoroughly dean, as bees hate dirt and slovenliness; turn
the hive or box bottom upwards, hold it in your left hand under the
cluster of bees, lay hold of the branch on which the bees hang with
your right hand, and shake down the swarm into your empty hive. Place
the hive bottom downward on a bee-board laid on the grass close by,
raise up the edge by inserting a wedge or stone about two inches in
size, and cover the top of the hive with a cloth or a few branches to
keep off the sun heat. If the queen is inside, which is usually the
case, the bees will steadily enter and remain. If by your awkwardness
you have left her in the hedge with her ladies-in-waiting, the bees
will return to the hedge, and you will have all to begin anew. As soon
as they are comfortably housed, carry the hive to the shed under which
it is to stand, and do not look at it or touch it for three days.

You need not be afraid of stings unless you rudely and violently
meddle with the queen. If you thus interfere with her, the watcher
bees will sound the alarm, and a thousand stings, like swords, will be
unsheathed; but, otherwise, they are so absorbed with her majesty that
they do not fly at a prudent and fearless bee-master.

A very important inquiry, repeated in several letters, is, on removing
the super, whether of glass or straw, how are the bees to be
expelled, that the honey alone may thus be secured?

All the plans of tapping, beating, and smoking are bad. Tobacco-smoke,
and smokers generally, bees have a mortal hatred to. Bees have
other personal antipathies, but the horrid scent of a tobacco-pipe
in a visitor's pocket either induces them disdainfully to shun all
acquaintance, or provokes them to make an attack.

Your best way of removing a super full of honey, with bees, of course,
in the spaces not full of comb, is to carry it about one hundred
yards away from the hive. Wedge up the glass on one side from the
zinc plate on which you have carried it, and the bees will leave in
the course of an hour or two, and fly home. They very soon discover
their separation from their queen, and under this feeling they lose
all courage, and give up defending the very property they would have
died fighting for when connected with the parent hive. The exceptional
case is where there may be, what is very rare in a super, a portion
of young brood--always in such cases drone-brood. This they refuse to
desert. They do not attack, but, as if placed sentries by their queen,
they insist on continuing at their post. The only course in such a
case is to cut out the brood cells and put them away, as they are not
likely to be wanted, and the bees will then return to the stock hive,
report, I suppose, and receive future orders. In removing a super in
August, when the bee ceases to accumulate in Kent, you must take care
not to do so on the windward side of your hives, as the scent of honey
will bring your visitors from every hive, who will rob you of all.

If in this month you find it difficult to escape the robbers, carry
your super into your cottage, near a window, and expose one side of
the super to the window--the side having egress for the bees. Very
soon great numbers will fly to the window-panes, and by opening it for
a few minutes they will rush out, and robber bees will have no time to
enter.