HINTS ON THE MANAGEMENT OF BEES. By the Rev. W. Cotton, M. A. (Continuued from our last.)

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume III, Issue 162, 17 February 1847, Page 3

HINTS ON THE MANAGEMENT OF BEES. By the Rev. W. Cotton, M. A. (Continuued from our last.)

.111. Hives. Their Form and Material. — Having told you to send your own hives to the friend who has promised you your bees, I must now speak of the best shape and material. In this respect the bees are in no way 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 thiug to hive a strange swarm in, if he sees one settled on a bush, which has run away from its proper owner 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 * stray swarm settled pn 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, cariied it home, and put the bees into a box. 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 anywhere. The advantage, therefore, which one hive has over another is not so much in its material, straw or wood, as in the greater or less ease with which your honey may be taken from it. The old English way of " putting down" so many stocks with the brimstone match at the end of the season has, indeed, the one recommendation of simplicity, just as the robber's pistol and dagger are simple ways of getting money, but a rent willingly paid by a prosperous tenantry is a better way, though it be more complicated. I can show that the " putting down" plan is both wasteful and needless: I hope it will never become common in these islands ; for the roughest bee master cannot " put down" his hives hi autumn, without feeling that he is doing a cruel deed, which he would gladly avoid if he knew how. Even the common straw hives may be so managed as to yield a large return without your having recourse to the suljthur match. But lam now to teach you how to make your hives, not how to take the honey from them. There is no prettier object in a cottage garden than a well made sfaw hive, daintily capped by its neatly plaited hackle : and it is so easy for a man who has the thorough use of his fingers to make these hives, and the materials are so ready for his use, that although the wooden boxes which I shall presently describe have many advantages, they will never drive the old straw hive out of the field. A man must be something of a carpenter to make a bee box, he need only be a handy fellow to make a straw hive. Carpenter's tools are wanted for the former, whilst the only things he needs for the latter are a leathern pipe of three inches long and an inch and a quarter in diameter, for working the straw through, and a large curved awl of hard wood or bone, for piercing the bands of straw as they are sewn. As Cobhett well said in his Cottage Economy "he must be a stupid countryman indeed who cannot make a bee hive, and a lazy one indeed who will not if he can." No man perhaps ever learnt to make a straw hive by reading how it is made, but by seeing another man working at one, so I will not take up a page or more in a long description of the stitch, if I may so call if, but beg any one who keeps bees to learn as soon as possible, and not to rest content with his work till he can sew a hive so tight that he can stand on it without bending it in at all, so close, that not a ray of light •an be seen through it, and so neatly that not a stitch can be found out of its place. Your first attempt may be a rude one, but be not daunted — go on — till you can turn out a master piece, and when you have done this, you need not keep yourself to hives alone, there are many things you may make in this straw work. Corn baskets for the threshing floor, market baskets for your wife, a cradle for your child, and above all, a bee hive arm chair for your old father or mother, to sit by your chimney corner. It is a nice thing to see a settler's home with plenty of good iurniture in it, but I can fancy none so ornamental as the wife with her basket, the child in its cradle, and the old father in his chair, all your own handy work. I lately shewed the stitch, and the mode of using the leathern pipe to some Maories at Otaki, and I had not to spend long about it ; in an hour I was fairly beaten by my pupils, and before evening several of them had finished their first hive. At Waikanae I did the same, and the old man who has the care of the bees in that pla'-e was so ready at the work, that his second trial produced as strong and handsome a beehive,as I have ever seen in any country, and I doubt not, but that before long Maori made hives will be sold at eighteen pence or two shillings each in this place, if at the beginning of the swaming season any storekeeper will be kind enough to lake them in and let one hang at his door. The straw which is used should not be broken with a flail, but carefully pulled and prepared as for thatching, though with still greater care. It must be damped, to make it work freely, as must the split kareo (supple jack) with which you may sew it. In England I have seen withy, hop vines, or bramble made use, of for this purpose ; we shall soon have plenty of the two first in this country, but the kareo makes a capital substitute. Till you have thoroughly mastered the stitch, you may use the split flax to employ youi " prentice hand," but do not use it afterwards. You should have several pipes of different sizes by you, as baskets, small caps for putting on the tops of your hives, and other fine work should be made with a pipe of smaller gage than a full sized hive. 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 greater ease, so I will now try to

describe what I believe to be one of the simplest and best forms for wooden bee boxes,' and then show how the straw hive can be modified so as to answer the same purpose. I do not know whether I shall be able to make my description clear, without the aid of a woodcut, but at all events it may serve to show what part of the hive must be made exactly in one way, and in no other, and what parts are unimportant, and may be modified according to the fancy of the owner. At one time I was an advocate for the system of side boxes, and the application of ventilation to them, but I have had reason to think that boxes on the storyfying system are better adapted to this country, that the honey may be taken from them more easily than from almost any other form of hive, and that they are both the cheapest and the best. Do not however go away with the idea that there is any magic in the form of box which I recommend, or that bees will make more honey in them, than in a hive of the rudest form, — an old candle I'ox, or tea chest I have seen full of honey — all I wish to do is to point out the form of box from which the honey may be obtained with the greatest ease The box should be made of ]| inch stuff, which will plane down to inch and a quarter. It should be fourteen inches over all, which will leave 115 inches in the clear. The top is a moveable board prevented from slipping sideways by a projecting fillet which fits over the side of the box , loosely, like the lid of a hat box. If the bees were hived in this box, as it is now, they would fasten their combs to the lid and to the sides, and there would be no means of getting them out, except those in use for a common hive. But ten bars made of quarter of an inch stuff and exactly one inch wide, are to be countersunk in the sides of the box, so that the bars may be flush, and the top fit down close upon them. These bars are to befitted with exactly a quarter of an inch between them, and one eighth of an inch between the outside bars and the sides. The width of the bars, and their arrangement is a matter of the greatest consequence, and that which is most frequently overlooked. A common carpenter, when he has an order for one of these hives, and has a pattern to make it by, will often say to himself, " there are these bars on the top. I will make them an inch and a half broad, or two inches, and put them half an inch apart; it will save me trouble, and I dare say do quite as well." He will then take the box home, and" if the box was made for a novice in the craft, the bees will be put into it, and all will seem to go on well, till the time comes to take some honey, and then the error will be plain enough, as I will show when I come to speak of taking honey. The box should be about nine inches deep ; with other boxes having similar bars across the top, but of a less depth, say four inches and a half 01 five inches, to fit on the top. One lid of course will do for a set. Windows you may put iuto the sides of these boxes of any size, and covered wi h shutters of any pattein, if you wish to see the bees at work ; — but when you have a great many boxes made, you will like to get them as cheap as possible, and the windows may be omitted altogether, for an experienced bee-master will tell by the weight of his hives, when they have honey to spare for him. The bottom hoard should project at hast an inch round the hive, and pieces clamped across the ends to prevent it twisting. The entrance for the bees should be countersunk in the bottom board, four inches wide, and a quarter of au inch deep, running up to nothing ; a semicircular lighting-board live inches wide should be under this door- way. A drawing or a model would be much more useful than this description, and I hope to send down from the apiary at St. John's College patterns of the different forms of hives which I should recommend my pupils in this place to adopt. At present they had better be content with hives of the above farm. I have had some made for the Maori bee-keepers at Otaki and Waikanae by a carpenter of this place, who gave me satisfaction in the work which he did under my directions, and he has promised me to be equally careful in making any others which may be ordered of him. Give your wooden hives several coats of paint before the bees are put into them, and they will then last many years, if they are substantially made. I have still some boxes in use which I had thirteen years ago, and they are likely with care to last twice that time more. 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 tre 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 bar* rel 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 tresseh. 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 youitg 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 thsm 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. (To be continued.)