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

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 171, 19 January 1848, Page 2

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

VL THE UNION OP STOCKS Is a branch of the craft which does not so muc h belong to the young bse-ma^ter us to those who are in possess on of fully-stocked apiaries. Th; former is of course anxious to multiply hs stocks as much as dob-* sibla ; thp object of the latter is rather to increase the produce of his hives than their number. The former may easily obtain his object, for from one hive this year he may have ten to twenty next, if he hives each, swarm separately — I have kn >wn as many as iive-and-ttventy in a year. The latter if he is to attain his end, must use a directly contrary course, which I am now s;oing to speak about : we will suppose that he is living in a district winch will not feed above one hundred hives, and that he begius the swarming-season with his tweiuy-five old stocks. The average increase of ten to one would give him far too many (remember the physic in one's o.vn bottles), even after he has dispensed to his friends, acquaintances, and others, all that they require. What is he to do ? Is he to kill the young swarms — as 1 have heard some New Zealand bee-mas-ters seriously propose ? or is there any means of preventing such an excessive swarming? The first remedy would be barbarous in the extreme — the second remedy is impracticable t at least to any great extent. It is not true that a great increase of temperature, and .1 want of room, are the sole causes of swarmia*; and that if the one be kept low, and the other freely given, the swarming breed may be entirely prevented — foe last year a fine swarm rose from a French hive which was thoroughly screened from the sun, and had all its shutters down at the moment when the swarm rose, in fact the bees were as it were, hanging with their combs under a four-leggged table, for the French hive is nothing more when all the shutters are down — the ternpsraturp of the hive could not Inve been much above the surrounding air. This hive too, at the time it cast the swarm had plenty of room, so that I woul 1 assume that swarming cannot be entirely prevented, though it may bs checked ; nay I would go further and gay that I would not wish to prevent it, but wonld turn it rather to the best account-, and how should this be done but by the union of stocks ? More honey may be got from one very strong hive, say with 40,090 bees in it, perhaps, than from the same number of bees, if divided into two or more stocks The reason of it is this — the Queen-bee layi from 10 to 30,000 eggs in the year. la a stock containing 5000 bees, almost all of them in middling years will be busy in rearmg 1 the grubs, for they are such good nurses that they think it their first duty to feed the young, gathering honey is their second. In dv season when a number of these fobter children come to maturity, a swaim goes off, you have two Queens, each with 5 JOO, in separate hivei, all engaged in rearing the eggs which the two Queens lay through the summer. They have no time to lay up surplus honey, and in a very dry summer will even chance to die, if they are not well fed. Had they all been kept together, 500 bees who are engaged as nurses to the grubs of one Queen, in the weak hive, would do the same in the strong one, while 5000 more would be continually engaged in storing honey, so my practice is as follows— I keep all my hivea as strong as possible, by preventing their swarming as much as I can, and by choosing to have my fresh stocks of the year few in number and powerful in bees, so I unite all the swarms which rise on the same day ; often it will happen that whilst the first swarm is in the air, the second will rise, and they will join together wiihout any efforton your part, lighting on the same bough. Old bee-masters give long directions as to the mode of teparating them again into two swarms — I shall do no such thing, but be glad of their voluntary union—the two Queens will most probably settle (he matter between themselves, in that case the weakest, who goes to the wiH, will jbe seen lying dead before the mouth of the live the following mummg. Sometimes however a swarm will, the nest driy arise from this new hive, which I think is occasioned by one of the Queens rushing out of the hive from fear of her more powerful rival, and being followed b y her own party. To prevent this, I always capture one of the Queens of the self united swarmi, if I can see her, thou.'h it is of no great consequence, as it is not often that a self-united htock again separates, if you give them a hive sufficiently roomy. Whe i two hwarms 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 alighted, remembering to screen them well from the •lireet rays of the sun, for as I told you in my letter ou swarming, the action of the direct rays of the suu is the usual cause which makes swarms run away after they are sa'ely hived. Alter 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 alt the be^s out in a mass, they will not take wing-, but will remain lying on the cloth, whilst you steadily and carefully place the other hive 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 ;he edges of the box which, you put over them. Then lap up the corneis of the cloth, and your part of the work is done— /ou will hear a loud humming noise, and the bees whom you have dislodged will ascend into the new hive, and peacefully amalgamate with the other swarm — just at dusk, carefully unlap the cloth, and if any considerable cluster of bees is gathered outside of the box, as is sometimes the case, brush Them gently down with a feather, or with your finger it 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 tha double stock sufficient room, and they will set to woik vigorously. Two contiguous hives in my apiary united themselves this year, one swarm deserting fonr or five combs which they had bejjnn to build, it may be they had no Queen, tor I found no gtubs in tj^ie cells which they had left. This double hive has lince received a fresh accession of strength, a large portion of another swarm having joined them, going " promiscuouslike" 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 belt 1 have in my apiary, filling lour boxei, and working away vigorously too in a glass case which I put on the top of the original hive the day it swarmed. Fifty strong hives are v:Gfth tuort, and ,vili give more honey to their owner, than two hundred and fifty WeJk ones. Stocks may be united in the same way, though they do not swarm exactly on the same day — in this case you will of couise knock the freih swarm on to the cloth and place it over the hive in which the combi are already be?un— it is as well previously to turn up the luttei hive (in the nhne of the combs remember)*

and give the bees a good sprinkling with tyrup ; the new comers will be at once attracted by the smell of the syrup, and 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 of kindneis, 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 eitent, prevent your apiary from growing to an outran geous size. Such hives as exhaust themselves by swarming, should have their old black combs cut, and they will then be ready to have a new swarm put into them. Don't let an exhausted stock stand comparatively d ling nothing in your bee-houSi, 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 reinforcing them with a freih Colony; The number of your hives may be brought slill within limits in the autumn, in the following way. If you have ninpty hives which you wish to reduce to thirty, you must join to every hive which you wish to leave, its left and right hand neighboi — I think May is about the best season for doing this, but the proper time will vary in I different districts— it should be after the gathering seaSon is over, and when the hives a c the heaviest, cut out the combs entirely fiom the side hives, by the aid of your three instruments, the smoke- bellows, the bee knife, and the bnnch of feathers, and return the bees as directed above, into their now impoverished hive, place it where it itood before, till ihe evening, when they will have formed a large cluster inside the hive, just as if they were a new swarm. A stranger coming to tee your apiary and not knowing what you had done, would think this your veiy strongest stock, for the entrance will be crowded by bees rushing in and out, carrying away broken bits of comb, and doing their best to set their pillaged house In order, they are nothing discouraged fit what has happened, but like a sensible man under similar circumitanres, makes the best of it, and always seem to me to be singing all day long, that song which I wish weie better known, or rather more generally acted upon by us men-creatures —- " Try, try, try again I" More than once I have avowed them to make the trial— l have fed them for a day or two with the refuse comb, which they thankfully accepted, in lieu of the thirty pounds, or so, wh eh I took from them : the feeding was necessary to enable them to get their new combs built with as li;tle delay at possible. The season proved favorable for honeygathering, though this experiment was made iv the beginning of winter — in fact the trial succeeded, and this family of persevering bees are now one of my bis stocks. But the object of the bee maifrr who has a fully stocked apiary, Bhould be, not only to take a large quantity of honey by thin process, but also to reduce his stock to the number which he wishes to swarm the following ipring — so at sunset h 1 should unite the bees of this deprived hive to its next neighbor, in the mode last described. The double hive should be moved mid way 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 will then 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 same little wooden wedges, ■o as to make the doorway much broader— but the greatest confusion and loss will be occasioned by the attempt to join bees from different parts of the apiary. *' For bees that have not swarmed voluntarily, return to ihe place they have been accustomed to, even after having been shut up for months ; the same thing happens if you unite iwarms distant from each other, next day or the day after, you would have the mortification to see the bees by hundreds return to their old resid«nce, flutter about for a lengfli of time, and lose their lives either by falling down from fatigue, or throwing themselves into the neighboring hives, where they are put to death. Not having left their dwtlling with the same precaution that a swarm u;c» to reconnoitre the one it has chosen or that has been given to it, and supposing themselves at horne f in spite of the disorder of the night before, they rut>h out on a rapid flight, and returning from their excursion, go back to the place of tUeir ancient domicile, and thus the purpose of fortifying your hives and of preserving them by uniting them, is defeated. I have frequently tried to unite distant hives, and have always met with this result." The above extract is from " the Bee Preserver," by Jonas DeGelien, Edinburgh, 1829, page 56: an author to whom I can never sufficiently acknowledge my obligation!. 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 sixty-four years, and communicated the result of his observation! in extreme old age, as a duty which he owed to the world before leaving it — I have tested most of his observations, and repeated his experiments, and never found one of them to fail. From him I learnt the method given above of uniting «tocks. Before I read his work I used to do it by stupifying the bees of one hve with the smoke of the puff ball— (Boletus maximus). But 1 find the smoke of linen rags lufflciently 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 thcue 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, wondeiful to tell, will consume no more honey than a single stock: Each bee takes half rations as it were. Their vital heat is I believe maintained by their being packed together oloie 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 always give a bee master his main supply of honey, and besides, when his apiary is fully stocked, will enable him to reduce his stock 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 stronger and work better during the winter — above all, he will not have the murder of thousands of bees at his door. In certain districts in England, I got this plan pretty generally adopted. I myself instructed a cottager, Joseph Barnet of Cumnor , in the method of joining stocks, and sent him round in the harvest season to the neighboring bee keepers. When they would not adopt it themselves, his plan was this — he laid " 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 beeß, 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 think it impossible to introduce anew system like that which i recommend, generally, among the cottagers who are so much wedded to the ways in which their fathers have walked before them. With this feeling I am the last to quarrel, but 1 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 bejond what any teacher of new

ways has a right to expect, has been granted 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 V ' Oh, sir, they take to it wonderful !' ' Why 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 married hives— were the first to swarm, whilst many oftheir's did not swarm at all; so this year they have ■ill smoked their bees instead of burning them.' ' Well how inatiy hives have you married this year ?' ' Not so many as last, sir.' 'Why, how is that ? 1 thought you said they were all taking to it !' ' Why, you see, sir, my eldest son is so deadly fond of smoking bees, that I have given the job up to him, and he has got many a shilling this year by taking up the stocks of the pe () pl e round about me.' ' Well, lam glad to sec, B'irnelt, that he is walking m his father's steps, and makes an honest penny by saving the bees' lives; but do not call it deadly lond, though I know what you mean, you should say lively fond, for both he and you pi event much bee murder.'' Now, if the inveterate prejudices of an English laborer gaje way before the plain advantages of this method of taking honey. I trust 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 lair trial, instead of bringing iv 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 bee keepers, being a mile or so apart, will agree as to the time lor taking up their surplus stock, they will find it mutually beneficial to exchange the bees from which they have taken the honey, each bee master inviting to his. own stocks the bees which have come from a distance. It will do very well, as I have said above, to invite 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 mo.c readily get accustomed to their fresh home. (To be continued.)