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

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 172, 22 January 1848, Page 2

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

HONEY AND WAX. As you take the honeycombs out of the hive, separate those which are quite full from such as are only partly «o — thosa which are pure virgin combs, from ludi as are dark in color, or have some of the cells filled with bee bread. This separation may easily be made, by having seve al dishes or milk pans by you in which to lay the different sorts of comb ai they come to hand. By making this division at once, you will save a good deal of honey, for if all the combs are heaped together in one vessel, the dark combs, which aie the hardest, will crush and otherwUe'injure the pure virgin combs — (as in the ways of the world the weakest go to the wall, and these weakest are not seldom the belt,) in them the war is very thin and fragile, hardly able to bea' tbe weight of the honey which they contain, and sinking immediately under the weight of any external I pressure. Often you will find two sorts of honeycomb, the pure and the impure in the same c»ke — separate them at once with a sharp knife— every subsequent hrndling of the combs is attended with a considerable loss of honey, to say nothing of its being at best but a sticky job, so that it it as well to (jet it done at once and make one handling do fur all If you take a cop box, or a glass entirely full of pure honey, you need not be in any hurry to cut it out, it wM keep better where it is, if only you place it in security, where no bee on a foraging excursion can possibly find it out. If once a single scout reach it, he will soon be succeeded by a whole fatigue party, who carry <ff their prize in double quick time. If you doubt this, leave twenty pounds ot honey comb before your apiary, in the middle of a warm day, come again in an hour or two, and if you expect to had much, you will be gloriously disapoointed. Af er a large take of honey, when all the dishes as they are filled, are carried into the house, then there will be a noble sight to see. When describing that event so important m a farm house, viz., killing the great bacon-hog, Cobbett says iv his graphic style — •• Now the house is full of meat," and lie forthwith proceeds to wisen with the good housewife, ai to tiie disposal to the best advantage of every part of the hog. from the pettitoes up to the noble fliicn. So, now, 1 must teach yon how to dispose of '• your house full of hjney.' 1 Ihepure virgin combs fetch the highest price and are more wholesome to eat. If you are in the neighborhood of an English town, you will find a ready sale for ai much as you choose to take in for some time to come, but to sacure this sale, they must be peifectly clean and unbroken, fit to set upon an Emperor's table. Who like* to see a pat of butter with the print obliterated by that of a great thumb ? and believe ccc, this owner's mark, is still leis sightly in the midst of a piece of honey comb, especially as the honey cannot, like butter, be made up again, so as to get rid of the ugly print. If you have more pure honey comb than you can sell or use yourself, run out iv thii way— give two cuts to each comb with a sharp knife, so as to slice off the covers of every cell; this is in fact uncorking all the bottles in which the bees have stored their honey : then set the sliced combs in a colander to drain, w,th a vessel below to catch the honey as it ru is. If you have large earthenware pots to store your honey in, it is best to let it drum from the 6ieve or colander into them at once, you will thus avoid having to pour it from vessel to vessel, which as I luve said before is always bad, as honey must be lost by every such transfer. When all the virgin honry has run from the virgin combs, and almost every drop will drain from them if you cut them sufficiently, place the comb in the mid die of the apiary on some fine day, and the bees will take care that none of it is lost ( they will extract every atom of honey from the wax — nil that man can do is to p ess out the dropi— the instruments with which he works are not so fine as those of the bees, and 10 he cannot make such a nsat job of it. Don't think it is a waste to put your drained honey combs before your bees for them to lick clean, or fancy that by pressing the combs you mgut have got more honey from them, you would have got foul honey by pressure — the bees only lick up what is perfectly pure, and nothing is wasted, for the bees do not consume any more because they bave their hive well stored : you only pour honey from one pot into another— you lay up sixpences in a

savings' bank from which you may draw pounds in a proper time. The virgin lioney is the easiest to extract, and ii of courie the finest, because you get it purest fram the comb. Honey equally pure is stored by tlie bees iv foul combs — -the question is how to get it out, it it like pouring off liquor from a bottle which has a great sediment iv it. You must do it carefully, or a muddy stream will flow, instead of a pure one. Remember what it ii ; hat has made the cells foul : young bees have been bred in tome cells, and bee bread has been stored ia others. The old carelesi way of pressing all the combs together, good, bad, and indifferent, gives you nothing but second rate honey, mixed with a great deal of stuff which it will not do to name, or even to think of while you are eating it : hear what good Sir John More said 140 years ago, of this careless way of extracti ng honey— •' In Hampshire, where there are great quantities of bee gardens well stocked, the bee man does not take the care as is here set down, but takes all the honeycombs out of the hive with a light shovel ; he puts all into a tub and pounds 'em all together, and then putting it confusedly into a strong hair bag, does violently pregi out all that will run, and this (having first it* season of heat over the fire,) they put in barrels or other vessels to work. This done, they put what re. mains in the bag, into a trough or other vessel, and wash it for meath. When the sweetest is all washed out, being crushed dry, they try for wax." (To be continued.)