HINTS ON THE MANAGEMENT OF BEES. By the Rev. W.C. Cotton, m.a. (Continued.)

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 170, 15 January 1848, Page 2

HINTS ON THE MANAGEMENT OF BEES. By the Rev. W.C. Cotton, m.a. (Continued.)

— - • Y. TAKING HONEY. By means of bell-glassei, or in lack of them small itraw caps, pure honey may be got in the height of the breeding season. Put your glass on the top of your box on the very day your swarm is put into it, and if it be a strong one, they will immediately take pouessioa of the glass, 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 ot 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 pmc comb to it, which will melt where it touches the gian, and letting again almost immediately, willl firmly fix the whole comb in its place. Take care not to put the comb topsy turvy, but in its natural position ai 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 : the ii - stinct of the bees leads them to cons tret them in this way, that the honey if thin in quality may have no inclination to run out. Now if the piece of comb be fixed upside-down in the glais, the bees will immediately perceive that it is man s clumiy w rk, and not fieir ownj It is like holding a quart- bottle with its m uth downwatd , and telling your seivaiifc to fill it whilst in ihat position. The decoy-combs, so to call them, should be Hush with the lower rim of the glass, 10 that when it is standing on theinck-bais, they may come close to where the bees are clustering. The bees seem to know the proverb— 'Well begun is half done/ or to have some equivalent to it ; in their bee notions they seem to think it wrong to leave unfinished a work which they perhaps think they have begun in the glass, and so these decoy-combs often tempt the bees up into a glass which otherwise they would have been loath to work in. The following is a remarkable instance of the power of the bees over the material in which they work — 1 fixed a piece of new comb in a glass at right angles with the surface— l mean so that the comb stuck out from the glass toward* the centre — it was put on a fine young swarm and the bees took possession of the glass diiectly. The following day, I noticed that the comb was not in the same position, it no longer pointed to the middle of the glass but inclined toward one side. Ac first I thought I must have been mistaken as to its former position, but the next day I was convinced that my memory had not played me false, the bees were actually shifting the position of the comb, for they went on day after day sluemg 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 glasi off directly it is full and all sealed over. The bees always swartn with their honey-ba^s full, ai I told you before, and they often take the greatest part of the honey from a bell-glass as a provision for their journey, leaving nothing but empty combs, where the day before there was plenty of honey. I like the bell -glass ta 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 on, for the bees hare 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 *nd not nailed— this is removed when 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 generally ara 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 theglais at the time it is taken, are easily got cut of it by the means recommended for the top boxes. jj.B. Have the hole in the top board cut so large that the glass may pass freely through, or elss the contraction of the wood, and consequent narrowing of the hole will split the gUss. .... , , 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 almost fifteen pounds of honey when full, and six of a smaller size, can be supplied by William Powell, from the glasi-works, Whitefriars, London, for under £2. They are so carefully packed in an oaken barrel, that I have lately received two setts without a single breakage. Honey may easily be 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 I'air Hire will yield its supply muc'll 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 pait where youuvend 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 situation and the number of bee-mascers who happen to be neat together. A country may be overstocked with bees, just as a run 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 t number of bee-mnsters arehvmg in the same village ordUtrict, 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 ia-

stinct, without laying by any surplus, which is their second. 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 he holds. Some such arrangement at this will perhaps be necessary 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 favorably situated, near an extensive tract of woodland— l will give one example— A tingle swarm was placed in such a situation as this in the summer of '43— '44: by September 1844, it had yielded 311b of honey— as it was a single stock it w.is not taxed severely. The following little table gives the amazing produce of it and its offspring, up to the respective dates annexed to the weight of honey—

If this, the produce of a single hive, does not make English bee-keepers open their eyes with astonishment, I .hall 1)6 surprised. It certainly should encourage New Zealand bee-masters to study the gentle craft, nor do I think the limit of productiveness has, even m that locality, been reached as yet. lathe neighborhood of towns, or wherever a number of people are living near together, it is idle to think they all can keep large apiaries— l 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 to where I am sure they would be starved, lam met by such answer as thii— " 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 yourne ghbours, and though you may callia piece of ground y( ur own, and the flowers your own, you cannot establish such an exclusive privilege in favor of your bees, e?ery bee has a free right of common whereever its wings can carry it, there is no trespasi-ordin-ance which can touch these small cattle, and so I should advise you to try and not keep bees in the 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 beekeeping lies in dispensing them as widely as possible. From the apiaries thui 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 Maoties will make capital bee-hunters, their accurate powers of observation exactly fit them to track a bee to its home, and their ingenuity to adopt the beßt 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 Mdories 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 tomahawk will be more efficient weapons in the Iwnds of the Maories, and they will learn to track the bees to their home in the American fashion, which is this— they put a piece of hoaey comb in anopen spare in their woods, as a bait or line to the bees, who are soon attracted to it if their hive is within a reisonable distince. They gorge themselves, and then their instinct leads them to make the best of thetr way homewards— the direction of their flight is accurately marked, the same operation is performed in ano'her place, at right angles to the line of the first bees' flight, and the intersection of these two lines leadt the hunter to his prize. Others, I have heard, catch the bees while feeding on the bait, and attach with a little gum, a small piece of swan's down to its body, which without materially impeding its flight, makes its course through the air moi c easily o served. By hookj or by crook the Maories will find the wild bees readily enough when the woods are full of them. Tliey rather than the Pakeha will be the bee hunter, and I only mention the subject here to show that the woods, thoie bee houses of Nature, and not private apiaries, will yield the greatest supply of bee produce. One more point remains in conection with the subject — where an apiary is fully stocked, and a district contains as many as it can profitably support, what is to be done with the increase ? Shall we suffer all the swarms tofly away in the swarming season ? or shall we return to the barbarous old English custom of putting down our stocks in autumn ? That is, basely murdering with a sulphur match, those who have worked for us all the summer I It has been the way of English beekeepers from the time of Shakspeare, second part of Henry IV, act 4, scene 4. Yet, though a time-honored 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 this present one, though by their union, the greatest part of the yearly yield will be obtained. (To be continued.)

Sep. it M it '44, '45, '46, '47, IDS. 31 205 1721 1211 2168