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

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 268, 23 February 1848, Page 2

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

In this country the Bees are generally, I am thankful to say, able to feed themselves all the year round, and lay up a surplus store for their master likewise ; so that I shall not say much on this head. There is hardly any season, at least in the northern parts of the island, in which the Bees do not-work nearly all the year, as there is a perpetual succession oi flowers in the woods : so whenever a Bee master has a hive which is dwindling away, be had better unite it to its next neighbour, rather than attempt to restore its vigour by feeding. Indeed in nine cases out Of ten he will find that the loss of the Queen, and .not a hick of honey, is the cause of its failure'; and after uniting the Bees, as explained in a former letter, he will have several pounds of honey, and at least a pound of wax. Unite, rather than feed, when you have your apiary iully stocked. But as there are three or four c<rcumstances under which feeding may be required even in this country, I n ust not altogether pass the subject by ; and they are tlie&e : Ist. — v\ hen you have only one stock hive in your apiary, and some accident has happened to it ; the combs, perhaps, have all been bioken dow.i by clumsiness in moving it to its new station, or what nor. In this case nothing is easier than to feed it by placing be.ore the hive on a fine day, the honey combs which have fallen. The Bees will soon empty them. If you think they want some more food, boil some sugar with water or mtld beer into a syrup, about the consistency of thin treacle ; do not use the very coarse sugar, for this the Bees do not like, nor boil the syrup longer than is necessary to dissolve the sugar : stir it also that it may not burn. Then pour some of this syrup out of a bottle or tin made like an oil fe der into the cells of the comb which has been emptied, and place it before the hive as before. Remember that there is no better food lor Bees than honey, when it can be got, (it is n.other's milk to them) nor any better feeder than a piece of empty honey comb, it prevents the Bees daubing themselves. But this out-of-doors feeding does uot do when you have more hives than one ; for all the Bees will help themselves, and the strongest hive will get the most. So you must adopt another plan. Put the comb, with honey or syrup in an empty Bee box, and then plare the hive which you wish to strengthen on the top of it ; they will take it all up during the night. I have known a hive to take up as much as 3^ pounds in one night. It was a hive which I doubled one autumn in England, which had very little honey, and I wanted to feed it up to the weight which would enable it to pass the winter in safety. If you have a straw hive with a hole in the top, for working caps or fo las»es, it is a very good plau to give the Bees their additional supply, by placing it in combs on the top of the hive, and then turning another hive over them like a cover. 2ndly. A second time when feeding is necessary, is if a succession of very bad weather sets iv after a new swarm has been hived. I have told you that each, Bee swarms with her honey-bag full. They convert this into wax during the first and second days. You may observe that very few Bees stir out the first day ; after that they want a fresh supply ; and if by stress of weather they are prevented from going abroad to seek it, a few pounds of honey or syrup will be well bestowed, and amply repaid. It is not like an alms given to an idle beggar, but a seasonable loan to an industrious tradesman. 1 have seen' the following very neat method of giving food to a hive. A large gimlet hole is driven from the back of the bottom board, in the thickness of the plank. The outside of this hole is plugged up, and a sort of pond cut in the middle- of the bottom board within the hive, so deep that the bottom of it comes below the level of the gimlet hole. Outside the hive a round hole tightly fitting the neck of a common bottle is cut down into this same under ground (of rather underwood) passage. If the bottle is filled with syrup and turned topsy-turvy into the hole, the fluid will ruu along the channel and fill the pond, which should not be above half an inch broad, and three or four inches long. When the Bees suck up the syiup down to the level of tl»e pipe, a bubble of air will pass up into the bottle and a drop of syrup will come down, after the manner of a common bird glass. Feeders of zinc to put at the door of the hive or on the top, may be made on the same principle. 3rdly. Sometimes your hives will ueed a little feeding when a severe drought comes on, such as we had in the summer of-46-47* Not only are tha Bees in good situations unable to lay up any surplus honey in these seasons,

but they cannot even get enough to feed their grubs, and so cast them out to perish in front of the hives. This seems cruel, but it is a real kindness. It is better that they should die at once by exposure, than drag on a miserable half-starved existence for some days in their cells. At such times, a few pounds of food will enable your Bees to rear their young, and they will repay you when the first shower comes. Ido not think we shall often have droughts in this country, and even .when we do the Bees will get plenty if they are near extensive forests. It is only in the open country where they are mainly dependent on the produce of clover paddock", &c, that they need such attention in the time of drought. 4th. An observatory hive, if you have one, will need constant attention. As the Bees can only make a single comb in it, they are of course unable to lay up a large supply against "a rainy day," so do not let the cells in whirh they store honey ever get quite empty ; if they have a large quantity of brood to 4eed, a day^ or two of very bad weather will make a heavy drain upon their scanty stock. You may either introduce a trough filled with syrup in at the door, which is left for the purpose at the back of the hive, or place a piece of comb on the top of the hive, — take out one of the plugs which are there for the purpose, and cover it with a glass or box, and the Bees will soon avail themselves of the seasonable supply. I must repeat that there is no food so good as honey for a weak stock; so do not press your honey combs, but after all has drai ed out that will, keep them in a secure place, and give them either as a treat all round to your whole apiary, n which case you have only to put it in a dish in front of your hive on a fine ci.iy, or as a private feed to your weak hives., and then you must give it in such a manner that other Bees may not be attracted by the smell ; for if plunderers are led into the hive which you are feeding by the scent of the honey they will not only carry off all tha: you intended for other mouths than theirs, but not content with this will empty every cell in the hive into which they have been attracted, and very often kill all the Bees into the bargain, who can make but a feeble resistance against the pillaging hordes of their stronger neighbours. -, There is one other sort of food which Bees require, and which they cannot do without, viz., water, which you will do well to supply them -with, if they do not find it near their hives. It is bad to have your hives quite close to a large river or pool of water, for thousands of Bees will be beaten down into the water by high winds, when they are returning heavily laden to their hives ; but a small rivulet is a good thing to have near, in the summer season yon will see a great number of Bees standing on any little t. tones or bits of grass which may be by its edge, drinking to their heart's content. In defect of a stream they will find out any pump or water-butt which is handy to their hive*, and satisfy themselves there, or even at places where the water they get is stagnant, or even impure. But as water carrying is heavy work for Bees as well <is fur men, it is well if their natural supply is far off, to s»et p-uis ot water near their hives, filled to the level o* the water with stones or moss, lest the Bees should fall in when they alight to drink ; a very convenient means of supplying them is to have <a small wooden trough, with a piece of wood floating on the top of the water, not getting light, but so that it will always sink to the water level ; the Bees will p.rch on this board, and drink their fill from between it and the sides of the trough. I was led to think that Bees are fond of salt water, and I placed near my apiary one trough of fresh, and one of salt water ; for one Bee that went to the fresh water, there were twenty at the salt lick. But they seem to be very capricious in their tastes ; they will for some weeks be constantly at the salt trough, and then all of a sudden they seem to have no more need ior salt provisions in the domestic arrangements of their hive, and it will be entirely deserted. The timeof these "fancies" should be noted in the Bee Register, and we may then hope to learn why their " tastes differ, v and appetites vary," in this manner. I suppose it has something to do with the food which the young grubs require, as their nurses take up the greatest quantity of salt and water in the breeding season. There is a notion among the Bee keepers in the Isle of Wight, that every Bee goes down to the sea to drink every day. Tl.is is, of course, an exaggeration ; but I have often seen a number of Bees licking the mud in a salt water creek where the tide is out — so much for Bee feeding.

HONEY AND WAX. PREPARING HONET AND WAX VOR USE AND SALE. At you take the honey-combs out of the Live, separate those which are quite lull from such as are only partly so ; those which are pare virgin combs from such as are dark in 'our, or have some of the cells filled with

Bee-bread. This separation may easily be made by having several dishes or railk-p?ns by you, in which to lay the different sorts of comb as 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 are the hardest, will crush and otherwise 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 best), [n them the wax is very thin and fragile, hardly able to bear the weight of the honey which they contain, and sinking immediately under any external pressure. Often you will find two sorts of honey-comb, the pure and the impure, in the same cake. Separate them at once with a slurp knife. Every subsequent handling of the combs is attended with considerable loss of honey, to say nothing of its being at best but a sticky job ; so that it is well to get it done at once, and make one handling do for all. If you take a top box or a glass entirely full of pure honey, you need not be in any hurry to cut it out ; it, will 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 off their prize* in double-quick time. If you doubt this, leave twenty pounds of honey-comb before your apiary, in the middle of a warm day ; come again in an hour or two, and if you expect to find much, you will be gloriously disappointed. Alter a large take of honey, when all the dishes, as they are filled, have been carried into the house, then there will be a noble sight to see. When describing that event, so important in a farm-house, viz., killing ihe great bacon pi£, Cobbett says, in his graphic style, " NOW THE HOUSE IS FULL OF MEAT ;" and he forthwith proceeds to wisen with the good housewife as to the disposal to the best advantage of every part of the hog, from the pettitoes up to the noble flitch. So now I must teach you how to dispose of " your house full of honey." The pure virgin combs fetch the highest price, and are more wholesome to eat. if you are in the neighbourhood of an English town, you will find a ready sale tor as much as yov choose to take in, for some time to come ; but to secure ibis sale, they must be perfectly clean and unbroken, fit to set on an emperor's table. Who likes to see a pat of butter with the print of the cow obliterated by that of a great thumb. And believe me this owner's mark is still less 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 it out in this 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 uncorkiDgall the bottles in which the Bees have stored their honpy. Then set the sliced combs in a sieve or colander to drain, with a vessel below to catch the honey as it runs. If you have large earthenware pots to store your honey in, it is bes>t to let it drain from the sieve or calender into this at o .cc, you will thus avoid having to pour it from vessel to vessel, which, as I have said before is always bad, as honey must be lost by every such transier. When all the honey has run from the virgin combs, and almost every drop will drain from them if you cut them sufficiently; place the comb in the middle of the apiary on some fine day, and the bees will take care that none of it is lost. — (To be continued .)