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| University of Michigan bookplate |
By the way, the bookplates and signatures on many of the books I look through are quite interesting sometimes. I especially like finding Liberty Hyde Bailey's scrawl on the fly leaf of books he owned.
The Treatment and Management of Bees
—Many gardeners, who have no experience, are required by their employers to undertake the management of Bees, and to them the following method, which has been successfully adopted here for 28 years, will be acceptable:
Notwithstanding the prejudice in favour of straw hives, I, as well as a friend of mine, upon whose extensive and successful practice I ground these remarks, have found that wooden boxes answer quite as well. The boxes we use are made of well-seasoned deals about three quarters of an inch thick, measuring outside about a cubic foot, and within, 10 in. square; they are painted black, and their tops have four or five holes, which are stopped with wine-corks.
When the bees require more room to work in, these corks are taken out, and another box half the depth, and the same length and breadth, is placed over the holes, and if necessary, a second or a third box on the top of this. A small square of glass is put in the back of each box, and a piece of wood made to fit over it, by which means the proceedings of the bees may be watched, and an experienced apiarian can ascertain by certain sounds from the Queen Bee, and her Royal descendant or descendants, when he may expect a swarm. This assertion may appear incredible to some, but I appeal to the practical apiarians if it is not so.
If a swarm appears before the two upper stories of the hive are filled, as sometimes happens, I would return it to the hive again, which is done by first allowing it to settle ; and if it be on a branch of a tree that can be taken off, carry it to the mouth of the hive, and shake the bees off on the board in front of it ; or if there is no board, erect a temporary one for the purpose, and with a small twig gently move, or rather drive, them to the mouth of the parent hive. The benumbed condition of young swarming bees renders such an operation less dangerous than is generally supposed, and the sting of a young bee is not so painful as of an old one ; and if a piece of dirt be immediately applied to the place, and held there for a minute or two, pain or swelling of the part rarely follows.
After hiving a new swarm, if it be intended to remain in the box, it should be placed as near the spot where it alights as possible; and when the bees are all settled in the evening, it may then be removed to its final stand; or if a more suitable place in the neighbourhood can be had, it had better be taken there at once, and not when the hive is half filled with comb, at which time there is a chance of breaking the comb. There is, however, no danger in removing a hive filled with comb; and if an opportunity offers of placing it among Heath coming into bloom, Furze, or Broom, or in a field of Peas, Beans, or in any other place where there is a mass of flowers, the bees will be much benefited.
Honey made entirely from the bloom of the Heath is generally liked, and if fine weather occurs when it is in flower, the bees will make more honey in three weeks upon it than in as many months in a garden. The mode we adopt of obtaining the honey is, after having ascertained that the main box and its two upper compartments are filled with what is called ripe honey, which is known by the ends of the cells being sealed, to take off one of the upper boxes in the middle of a fine day, and the bees that are in it are beaten out with a small twig. They fly back to the hive, or rather box, and another empty box is placed between the main one and the remaining small one that is full, so that the bees, which are only allowed to enter by a small aperture at the bottom of the main box, will have to pass through the empty one to their compartment above it. This encourages them to begin working in it, and as soon as they have half filled it with comb the top one may be taken away and another empty one again placed in the centre.
A greater number than two may be worked at once; but I have always found a box of the above-mentioned size, with two smaller ones, amply sufficient, and have known 180 lbs. of honey to be taken from the three when the bees have been destroyed; but I prefer the above-mentioned method, and a person protecting his face and hands may accomplish it without peril. -S. N. V.
[A correspondent, J. D., has favoured us with the following description and drawings of his hives, one of which, fig. 1, resembling that of S. N. V., except in the boxes being all of one size, renders it a suitable accompaniment to the foregoing paper.]
Fig. 1.-a represents the box; b, the frame-work which fits on the top of the hive before the sliding lid is put on ; c, the whole three boxes in use.
Fig. 2, represents the straw hives, which may be used in the same way the wooden boxes are.
Fig. 3, straw hives to be used with bell-glasses.
Fig. 4, is Bagster's hive, which is thirteen inches square with inside; but this I have improved by having the sides, b, c, divided into four compartments instead of eight; the centre, for the swarm, in my hive, being too large, it occupies too much of my bees’ time to make comb; but this can be arranged to any scale.
In the sides b,c, I propose having this deal boxes made to fit the apartments communicating at f, f (fig. 5) with the colony and also to afford a way out and in. The advantages of these boxes sliding in and out of the divisions would be that the bees and comb might be taken all away at once, instead of having to cut or break the comb in pieces at the hive.
Fig. 5 shows the interior; the upper part my be used for glasses, but I am sure the larger the hive, the less the honey; that it is by leaving so many openings, instead of making plenty of honey the bees loiter about and are idle: if then the sides, b, c (fig. 4), be divided in the middle, there would be four places to give room when required, but by no means leaving more than two in operation at once, and these must not be used till the centre, a, is quite full. A strong swarm would fill two or three in a season; and as the centre part, which contains the main store, would never be touched, the hive would last many years a profitable one.
The dimensions of my boxes are twelve inches square outside measure, and they are made of three-quarters inch deal. They must be very strong, as the sun acting on the outside and the bees within cause a great heat, which renders them liable to warp.
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