HINTS ON THE MANAGEMENT OF BEES By the Rev. W. C. Cotton, M.A.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 267, 19 February 1848, Page 3

HINTS ON THE MANAGEMENT OF BEES By the Rev. W. C. Cotton, M.A.

(Continued from No. 265 J When two swarms which have risen on the same day, and which you intend to unite, are each safely hived, leave them for the evening near the place where they lighted, remembeiing to screen them well from the direct rays of the sun ; for, as I told you in my letter on swarming, the action of the direct rays of the sun is the usual cause which makes swarms run away after they are safely hived. After sun-down the same evening, spread a cloth on the ground, near where the hive stands which you wish to double ; then take the other steadily in your hands away from its bottom board,'*and strike it with a smart blow upon the cloth ; this will knock all the Bees out in a mass ; they will not take wing, but will remain lying on the cloth whilst you steadily and carefully place the other bive over them. Three or four pieces of wood must previously be placed on the floor where you strike the Bees down, that they may not be

crushed by the edges of the box which you put over them ; then lap up the corners of the cloth, and your part of the work is done. You will hear a loud humming noise, and the Bees whom you have dislodged will ascend into the new hive, and peaceably amalgamate with the other swarm. Just at dusk, carefully unlap the cloth, and if any considerable cluster of Bees is gathered outside the box, as is sometimes the case, brush them gently down with a feather, or with your finger, if you prefer it, and guide them under the hive ; for Bees are tractable creatures, and gentle withal, if they are gently handled ; but they are not deficient in courage; if you provoke them through ignorance or carelessness, you must take the consequences. When they have all gone up into the hive, put them quietly on their bottom board, and move them into your apiary where they are to stand, or else make this your first work the following morning. Give the double stock sufficient room, and they will set to work vigorously. Two contiguous hives in my apiary united themselves this year ; one swarm deserting four or five combs which they hail begun to build. It may be that they had no queen, for I found no grubs in the cells which they left. This double Hve has since received a fresh accession of strength, a large portion of another swarm having joined them, going *' promiscuous-like" into the hive, where they were, to my surprise, well received. Had a single Bee pokanoad into the hive, she would have been immediately seized and put to death. And now this stock is the very best I have in my apiary, fi ling four boxes, and working away vigorously too in a glass, which I put on the top of the original hive the day it sv/armed. Fifty strong hives are worth more, and will give more honey to their owner than two hundred and fifty weak ones. Stocks may be united in this same way, though they do not swarm exactly on the same day. In this case you will of course knock the fresh swarm on to the cloth, and place over it the hive in which the combs are already begun. It is as well previously to turn up the latter hive (in the plane of the comers, remember), and give the cluster of ! Bees a good sprinkling with syrup. The new combs will be at once attracted by the smell of the syrup; will mingle freely with the daubed Bees, who have something else to think of than to repel intruders ; they will help to set them to rights, by licking off the syrup ; and though you may call it a selfish act ot kindness, it will cement a friendship between those whom you wish hereafter to be peaceable inmates of one home. The union of swarms in this manner will to a certain extent prevent your apiary from growing to an outrageous size. Such hives as exhaust themselves by swarming, should have their old black combs cut out, and they will then be ready to have a new swarm put into them. Don't let an exhausted stock stand doing comparatively nothing in your Bee-house, when you have daily fresh swarms ready to tenant the house, if you take the trouble to put them in possession. It may be done not by the ejectment of the original holders, but by reinlorcing them by a fresh colony. The numbsr of your hives may be brought still more within limits in the autumn, in the following way : — If you have ninety hives which you wish to reduce to thirty, you must join to every hive which you intend to leave its right and left hand neighbour. I think May is about the best season for doing this : but the proper time will vary in different districts. It should be after the summer season is over, and when the hives are the heaviest. Cut out the combs entirely from the side hives by the aid of your three instruments, the smoke-bellows, the Bee-knife, and the bunch of feathers, and return the Bees as directed above into their now impoverished hive. Place it where it stood before till the evening, when they will have formed a large cluster inside the hive, just as. it they were a new swarm. A stranger coming to see your apiary, and not knowing what you had done, would think this your very strongest stock; for the entrance will be crowded by Bees rushing in and oourt r carrying away broken bits of comb, and doing their best to set their pillaged house in order. They are nothing discouraged by what has happened ; but like a sensible man under similar circumstances, make the best of it, and always seem to me to be singing all day long, that song which I wish were better known, or, rather more generally acted upon by us men creatures — " Try, try, try again." More than once, I have allowed them to make the trial. I have fed them (or a day or two with the refuse combs, which they thankfully accepted, in lieu of the thirty pounds or so which I took from them ; the feeding was necessary to enable them to get their new combs built with as little delay as possible. The season proved favourable for honey gathering, though this experiment was made in the beginning of winter , in fact, the trial succeeded, and this family of persevering Bees are now one of my best stocks. But the object of the Bee master who has

a fully stocked apiary should be, not only lo take a large quantity of honey by this process, but a'so to reduce his stock to the number which he wishes to swarm the following spring. So at sunset he should unite the Bees of this deprived hive to its next neighbour in the mode last described. Tiie double hive should be moved midway between the places lately occupied by the two. If three hives are united do not displace the middle one, but take away altogether those which you have emptied. The Bees then will have no difficulty in finding their new home, especially if for a day or two after, you prop up the front of this hive with some little wooden wedges, so as to make che door way much handier. But the greatest confusion and loss will be occasioned by the attempt to join the Bees from different parts of the apiary — " For bees that have not swarmed voluntarily return to the place they have been accustomed to, even after being shut up for months. The same thing happens if you unite swarms distant from each other. The next day, or the day after, you would have the mortification to see the Bees return by hundreds to their old residence, flutter about for a length of time, and lose their lives, either by falling down from fatigue, or throwing themselves into the neighbouring hives, where they are put to death. Not having leit their new dwelling with the same precaution that a swarm uses to reconnoitre the oue it has chosen, ot that has been given to it, and, supposing themselves at home, in spite of the disorder of the night before, they rush out on a rapid flight, and, returning from their excursion, go back to the place of their ancient domicile ; and thus the purpose of fortifying your hives, and of preserving them by uniting them, is defeated. 1 have frequently tri.d to unite distant hives, and always met with this result." The above extract is from the " Bee Preserver," by Jonas de Gelien, Edinburgh, 1829 j page 56 ; an author to whom I cau never suf- j ficiently acknowledge my obligations. I have ! learnt more from him than from any other writer — though not so much as from my masters, the Bees. He studied their habits 64 years and communicated the result of his observations, in extreme old age, as a duty he owed to the world before leaving it. I have tested most of his observations and repeated his experiments, and I never found one of them to fail. From him I learnt the method given above, of uniting stocks. Before I read his work, I used to do it by stupifying the Bees of one hive with the smoke of the puffball. (Boletus maximus.) But I find the smoke of linen rags sufficiently powerful to enable you to get the necessary command over your Bees, and I now never use anything else. In countries where the winter is cold and the Bees are torpid during several months, this method saves the lives of those Bees who have not made enough honey to last the winter. You get for yourself what you may find in the hive, as well as the wax, and the doubled or married hive, as the French call it, wonderful to tell, will consume no more honey than the single stock. Each Bee takes half rations, as it were ; their vital heat is, I believe, sustained by their being packed together close in the hive, and they therefore do not need so much food as an internal stimulant. I have repeated this experiment over and over again, and have always found it so. In this country the union of stocks will give a Bee master his main supply of honey, and besides, when his apiary is ful.y stocked, will enable him to re duce his stocks within limit, without having recourse to the murderous sulphur match. He will get as much honey by this method as he could by the old. His remaining stocks will be stroi ger, and woik i-etter during the winter : above ail he will not have the murder of thousands of Bees at his door. In certa u districts of England I got this plan pietty generally adopted. I myselt instructed a cottager, Joseph Barnet, of Curauor, in the method of joining stocks — and sent him round in the harvest season to the neighbouring Bee keepers. Where they would not adopt it themselves, his plan was this : he said, " I will give you a shilling to let me take your honey for you, if you will let me take the Bees away with me." " Take them, and welcome," was the usual answer, " and much good may a parcel of Bees, if you don't kill them, do you, without the comb." I had a small deal box made to- carry them in, and when he got home, he united them to my own stocks. Some people thought that it is impossible to introduce a new system, like that which I recommend, generally among the cottagers, who are so wedded to the ways in which their fathers have walked before them. With this feeling I am the last to quarrel ; but I was resolved to try what I could do ; for I was sure that if I gained my end, I should benefit them by the change. Now success, far beyond what auy teacher of new ways has a right to expect, has beeu gianted to me. As a proof of this, I will give a conversation which took place the other day between Joseph Barnett and myself : —

" Well, Barnett, what do the people about Cumnor now think about our plan ?" " Oh, Sir, they take to it wonderful." " W by, how is that ? they would have nothing to do with it at first." " Yes, Sir ; but they saw this year that my double hives — what you call the married hives — were the first to swarm, whilst many of them got no swarms at all. So this year they have all smoked their Bees instead of burning them." " Well, how many hives have you married this year ?" '" Not so many as last, Sir." " Why how is that, I thought you said they were all taking to it ?" " Why, you see, Sir, my eldest son is so deadly fond or smoking Bees, that I have given the job up mainly to him ; and he has got many a shilling this year by taking up the stocks ol the people round about me." " Well, 1 am glad to see, Barnett, that he is walking in his father's steps, and makes au honest penny by saving the Bees' lives ; — but do not call it deadly fond, though I know what you mean — you should say, lively fond ; for both he and you prevent much Bee murder." Now, if the inveterate prejudices of an English labourer would give way before the plain advantages of tins method of taking honey, I trusc that every New Zealand Bee keeper, into whose hands this manual may chance to fall, and whose mind, as far as Bee management is concerned, is like a piece of blank paper, will give this method a fair trial, instead of bringing in here one of the most barbarous usages of the old country. A few more words, and I have done about the union of stocks. If two Beekeepers, living a mile or so apart, will agree as to the time for taking up their surplus stock, they will find it mutually beneficial to exchange the Bees from which they have taken honey, each Bee master uniting to his own stocks the Bees which have come from a distance. It will do very well, as I have said above, to unite adjoining hives by placing a double stock between where -they stood ; but it is better still to bring them from a distance if possible, for the Bees will more readily get accustomed to their fresh home.