Part 5
"Have ready then a piece of smooth board of such a length that, when one end of it is placed in the tub of cold water, the other end may be conveniently rested against, and securely stayed by, your breast. Upon this inclined plane lay your dripping, reeking strainer, and keeping it from slipping into the cold water by bringing its upper part over the top of the board, so as to be held firmly between it and your breast. If the strainer be made with a broad hem round its top, a piece of strong tape or cord passed through such hem will draw it close, and should be long enough to form a stirrup for the foot, by which an additional power will be gained of keeping the scalding-hot strainer in its proper place on the board; then, by compressing the bag, or rather its contents, with any convenient roller, the wax will ooze through and run down the board into the cold water, on the surface of which it will set in thin flakes. When this part of the operation is finished, collect the wax, put it into a clean saucepan, in which is a little water, to keep the wax from being burned to the bottom; melt it _carefully_; for should it be neglected, and suffered to boil over, serious mischief might ensue, liquid wax being of a very inflammable nature; therefore, melt it _carefully_ over a _slow fire_, and skim off the dross as it rises to the top; then pour it into such moulds or shapes as your fancy may direct, having first well rinsed them, in order that you may be able to get the wax, when cold and solid, out of them, without breaking either the moulds or the wax; place them, covered over with cloths or with pieces of board, where the wax will cool slowly; because the more _slowly it cools_, the _more solid if will be_, and free from flaws and cracks."
To those who have a taste for very ancient drinks, Richardson's instructions will prove valuable:--
"Mead.--Some persons may feel desirous of making for themselves this once-famous drink, and I shall accordingly furnish them with simple directions for so doing. Common mead is formed by mixing two parts of water with one of honey, boiling them together, and taking off the scum.
"_Fermented_ mead is formed of _three_ parts of water to one of honey, boiled as before, skimmed, and casked. The cask is to be left unbunged and exposed to the sun, or in a warm room, until it ceases to _work_. It is then bunged, and in about three months it is fit for use. The addition of a _ferment_ is of course necessary, taking care that it be _sound_, _sweet_, and _good_.
"Hops are an improvement to mead, taking from its extreme sweetness; and so is the addition of chopped raisins boiled with it, at the rate of six pounds of honey to each half-pound of raisins; also some lemon peel, a few glasses of brandy, &c.
"Metheglin is only another name for mead, altered by the addition of various ingredients, according to the taste of its preparers. These liquors may be _racked_, _fined_, &c., like other wines, and will, if properly managed, keep for years."
I have never tasted these celebrated wines. I have no doubt they are pleasant and wholesome. But I prefer the honey in the honey-comb at breakfast, and mean to recommend it to others also.
VII.--THE INMATES OF THE HIVE.
In every hive there are three distinct inmates, very easily recognised--the Queen-Bee, the Working-Bee, and the Drone; each essential to the other, and all to the very existence and prosperity of the hive.
THE QUEEN.
The Queen is very elegant. Her symmetry of person, and relative proportions, and greater length of figure, distinguish her from the rest of the community. Her death is followed by a cessation of all labour till a princess ascends the throne. She is the creature of treatment. The egg from which she emerges seems in all respects identical with those from which her subjects issue. On the sides of the tier of comb from which drones and working-bees are developed, large vertical combs, from two to five, are constructed. Woodcuts representing these are found in every bee-book. Taylor gives the following accurate picture:--
The upper portion of the comb contains honey, with the exception of the dark cells, which contain pollen. The lower are drone cells; and the large cells, three in number on each side, are royal palaces. Her majesty is fed with royal jelly till she is ready to show herself; and everything that love and reverence and hope can supply, the bees delight to offer. But it is a curious entomological fact, first discovered by Schirach, an eminent apiarian of the last century, that the bees can supply the loss of their queen by an artificial process--a process confirmatory of the position that every working-bee egg has in it the component elements of royalty, and that development according to a definite treatment is all that is requisite to constitute a queen. On being deprived of their queen by death, the bees select a common grub, not above three days old, break down the wax partitions between it and at least three contiguous cells, forming a vertical pear-shaped chamber. They feed her with the daintiest food, called royal jelly. In five days the grub becomes a nymph, and in fifteen she emerges a royal princess, ascends the vacant throne, and receives the homage, loyalty, and love of fifteen or twenty thousand subjects. Kirby exclaims:--
"What! you will ask, can a larger and warmer house, a different and more pungent food, and a vertical instead of an horizontal posture, give a bee a different-shaped tongue and mandibles; render the surface of its under-legs flat instead of concave; deprive them of the fringe of hairs that forms the basket for carrying the masses of pollen,--of the auricle and pecten which enable the workers to use these legs or feet as pincers,--of the brush that lines the insides of the feet? Can they lengthen its abdomen; alter its colour and clothing; give a curvature to its sting; deprive it of its wax-pockets, and of the vessels for secreting that substance; and render its ovaries more conspicuous and capable of yielding worker and drone eggs?"
In spring, she moves among the combs laying her eggs. Ladies-in-waiting accompany her, who always turn their faces toward her majesty, clear the royal route, and clean out the cells in which she deposits her eggs.
Of this Lardner gives the following representation:--
The Reverend Charles Cotton, while he lived the prince of bee-masters, thus represents the queen and her attendant ladies:--
The queen is the central bee; the surrounding bees are her ladies-in-waiting, and the white specks the eggs she has deposited.
The queen-bee is a model keeper at home, rarely leaving the hive. Most apiarians are interested at present in the habits and acclimatisation of the Ligurian bee--the _Apis Ligustica_, or Italian bee. It is found easy to substitute an Italian for a British queen, in a British hive which has been deprived of its native sovereign. The bees refuse to constitute themselves into a republic, and therefore they will accept even a foreign queen, who, no doubt, takes the oaths and obligations of the realm over which she is to reign. There is a red tinge in the rings that surround the abdomen of this foreigner; and, contrary to what we should expect in an Italian temperament, the Ligurian bee is more gentle and conciliatory than our native queen. I speak from report, not from personal knowledge. But I hope one day to be present at a _levée_, and become better acquainted with the royal foreigner.
Lardner gives the following account of two queens, from Huber. Huber placed a piece of comb having three royal cells in a hive in which the queen was laying eggs. The moment she saw them she attacked them, laid them open, and commanded her attendants to destroy them. These instantly tore out the royal nymphs, and devoured the food destined for their use. He then introduced a stranger queen, pregnant with eggs, marking her so as to be able to identify her.
"Immediately on her appearance the workers collected in a crowd around her, and formed as usual a circle of which she was the centre, the heads of all the remaining crowd being directed towards her. This very soon became so dense that she became an absolute prisoner within it.
"While this was going on, a similar ring was formed by another group of workers round the queen-regnant, so that she was likewise for the moment a prisoner.
"The two queens being thus in view of each other, if either evinced a disposition to approach and attack the other, the two rings were immediately opened, so as to give a free passage to the combatants; but the moment they showed a disposition to fly from each other, the rings were again closed, so as to retain them on the spot they occupied.
"At length the queen-regnant resolved on the conflict, and the surrounding crowd, seeming to be conscious of her decision, immediately cleared a passage for her to the place where the stranger stood perched on the comb. She threw herself with fury on the latter, seized her by the root of the wing, and fixed her against the comb so as to deprive her of all power of movement or resistance, and then bending her abdomen, inflicted a mortal stab with her sting, and put an end to the intruder.
"A fruitful queen full of eggs was next placed upon one of the combs of a hive over which a virgin queen already reigned. She immediately began to drop her eggs, but not in the cells; nor did the workers, by a circle of whom she was closely surrounded, take charge of them; but, since no trace of them could be discovered, it is probable that they were devoured.
"The group, by which this intruding queen was surrounded, having opened a way for her, she moved towards the edge of the comb, where she found herself close to the place occupied by the legitimate virgin queen. The moment they perceived each other, they rushed together with ungovernable fury. The virgin, mounting on the back of the intruder, stabbed her several times in the abdomen, but failed to penetrate the scaly covering of the segments. The combatants then, exhausted for the moment, disengaged themselves and retired. After an interval of some minutes they returned to the charge, and this time the intruder succeeded in mounting on the back of the virgin and giving her several stabs with her sting, which, however, failed to penetrate the flesh. The virgin queen, succeeding in disengaging herself, again retired. Another round succeeded, with the like results, the virgin still coming undermost, and, after disengaging herself, again retiring. The combat appeared for some time doubtful, the rival queens being so nearly equal in strength and power; when at last, by a lucky chance, the virgin sovereign inflicted a mortal wound upon the intruder, who fell dead on the spot.
"In this case, the sting of the virgin was buried so deep in the flesh of her opponent, that she found it impossible to withdraw it, and any attempt to do so by direct force would have been fatal to her. After many fruitless efforts, she at length adopted the following ingenious expedient with complete success. Instead of exerting her force on the sting by a direct pull, she turned herself round, giving herself a rotatory motion on the extremity of her abdomen where the sting had its insertion, as a pivot. In this way she gradually unscrewed the sting."
Another very interesting incident is related by Huber. It is described by Lardner:--
"The first work which the population undertakes, after being assured of the loss of its queen, is directed to obtain a successor to her. If there be not royal cells prepared, they set about their construction. While this work was in progress, and in twenty-four hours after their queen had been taken from them, Huber introduced into the hive a fruitful queen in the prime of life, being eleven months old. Not less than twelve royal cells had been already commenced and were in a forward state. The moment the strange queen was placed on one of the combs, one of the most curious scenes commenced which was probably ever witnessed in the animal world, and which has been described by Huber.
"The bees who happened to be near the stranger approached her, touched her with their antennæ, passed their probosces over all parts of her body, and presented her with honey. Then they retired, giving place to others, who approached in their turn and went through the same ceremony. All the bees who proceeded thus clapped their wings in retiring, and ranged themselves in a circle round her, each, as it completed the ceremony, taking a position behind those who had previously offered their respects. A general agitation was soon spread on those sides of the combs corresponding with that of the scene here described. From all quarters the bees crowded to the spot, and each group of fresh arrivals broke their way through the circle, approached the new aspirant to the throne, touched her with their antennæ and probosces, offered her honey, and, in fine, took their rank outside the circle previously formed. The bees forming this sort of court circle clapped their wings from time to time, and fluttered apparently with self-gratification, but without the least sign of disorder or tumult.
"At the end of fifteen or twenty minutes from the commencement of these proceedings the queen, who had hitherto remained stationary, began to move. Far from opposing her progress or hemming her in, as in the cases formerly described, the bees opened the circle on the side to which she directed her steps, followed her, and, ranging themselves on either side of her path, lined the road in the same manner as is done by military bodies in state processions. She soon began to lay drone eggs, for which she sought and found the proper cells in the combs which had been already constructed.
"While these things were passing on the side of the comb where the new queen had been placed, all remained perfectly tranquil on the opposite side. It seemed as though the bees on that side were profoundly ignorant of the arrival of a new queen on the opposite side. They continued to work assiduously at the royal cells, the construction of which had been commenced on that side of the comb, just as if they were ignorant that they had no longer need of them; they tended the grubs in those cells where the eggs had been already hatched, supplying them as usual, from time to time, with royal jelly. But at length the new queen in her progress arriving at that side of the comb, she was received by those bees with the same homage and devotion of which she had been already the object at the other side. They approached her, coaxed her with their antennæ and probosces, offered her honey, formed a court circle round her when she was stationary, and a hedge at either side of her path when she moved, and proved how entirely they acknowledged her sovereignty by discontinuing their labour at the royal cells, which they had commenced before her arrival, and from which they now removed the eggs and grubs, and ate the provisions which they had collected in them.
"From this moment the queen reigned supreme over the hive, and was treated in all respects as if she had ascended the throne in right of inheritance."
THE WORKER-BEE.
The Worker-Bee is an imperfectly developed queen or female. The worker-bees vary in number in a prosperous hive from ten to twenty thousand. They are divided into orders or sections. Some produce wax; others build combs; others feed the young; others ventilate the hive; others, as sentinels, guard the entrance; while the great body traverses gardens and commons, gathering honey for themselves and the bee-master. There are various estimates of the age of the worker-bee. Dr. Bevan thinks the limit of their life is six or eight months. Probably this is the average, from taking into account the accidents of a laborious life, the battles they must wage with enemies, and the wear and tear of ceaseless toil. About the end of August they appear exhausted; their wings become ragged, and the stroke of the sting feebler.
THE DRONE.
The Drone is a male bee, fat, round, and lazy, like an old abbot in mediæval times, who preferred the cellar to his cell. Huber remarks:--
"Naturalists have been extremely embarrassed to account for the number of males in most hives, and which seem only a burden on the community, since they appear to fulfil no function. But we now begin to discern the object of nature in multiplying them to such an extent. As fecundation cannot be accomplished within the hive, and as the queen is obliged to traverse the expanse of the atmosphere, it is requisite that the males should be numerous, that she may have the chance of meeting some one of them. Were only two or three in each hive, there would be little probability of their departure at the same instant with the queen, or that they would meet in their excursions; and most of the females might thus remain sterile."
The queen selects a drone for her husband, who dies invariably at the end of the honeymoon or wedding-trip in the air. But the widowed queen does not marry a second husband. Her whole mind from that day to her death, though surrounded by two thousand suitors, is devoted to the interests and order and government of her realm. During May, and not later than June, the massacre of the drones takes place. They have become at this date encumbrances only. Their mission is ended, and their extermination becomes the duty of the industrious bees. I stated, in my letters to _The Times_, that I believed the drones had a value additional to that usually assigned to them--viz., that they sustained the temperature of the hive during the chief breeding season. Mr. Cotton--no mean authority--states what substantially confirms all I said:--
"I have watched the drones for many years very attentively, and I will freely give you the result. I will tell you, in the first instance, the facts I have seen, and what I have drawn from them. The drones are hatched just before the new swarms rise; very few go off with them. I for a long time thought that none did; but I am free to confess that I was wrong. They do not fly out early in the day, but about two o'clock they go out to take the air, and make a fine buzzing, which joins very prettily with the milder hum of the bees. Many people kill the drones directly they see them; but they are quite wrong, as the bees know best when they have done their duty, and so we may leave to them the unpleasant task of killing them, though they do not do it in the most merciful way.
"Why do the drones stay in the hive all the morning? Most of the bees are then out gathering honey, so the drones have to stay at home to keep up the heat of the hive by their great fat bodies, just as a gadding wife leaves her husband to look after the children, while she is out taking her pleasure."
It does seem a too great excess of provision to furnish two thousand drones out of whom the queen may select her consort. It looks like unusual waste. It leads to a massacre on a larger scale than is necessary.
The average number of excursions made by each bee is probably ten or twelve, over an area of half a mile; but fewer, of course, in proportion to the greater distance of suitable pasture. Kirby calculates that during a good season a hundred pounds of ponderable material is carried by these tiny workers into their hive. He justly observes:--
"What a wonderful idea does this give of the industry and activity of those useful little creatures! and what a lesson do they read to the members of societies that have both reason and religion to guide their exertions for the common good! Adorable is that Great Being who has gifted them with instincts which render them as instructive to us, if we will condescend to listen to them, as they are profitable."
VIII.--BEE ENEMIES.
The toad is a lazy, ugly-looking enemy of the bee. His capabilities, however, are not equal to his will and wants. He squats under the bee landing-board, and seizes every too heavily laden or wing-weary labourer that accidentally drops. This is really very cruel. The bee that has finished the longest journey, and gone through the hardest work, and borne the heat and brunt of the hot, long summer day, takes a rest on a leaf just before entering the hive, or comes short of the door of his home by an inch, and is seized by the unclean monster and devoured. The only way of getting rid of this unfeeling destroyer, who sits "seeking whom he may devour," is to pay a visit to your hives soon after sunrise and an hour before sunset; and on finding him on his wicked watch, seize him by the hind leg and throw him to as great a distance across your hedge as you well can. But if the "bee-master" be a lady--if I may use the phrase--let her empty on him a snuff-box full of strong snuff, and he will reflect a few days before he returns to his old quarters. I give this prescription to ladies, because they do not like to seize the cold-blooded creature and fling him to a respectable distance. How favoured our Irish bee-masters must be in this matter!--they have no toads. I also wish they had no riots. But troubles must come in some shape. Still, I would rather have toads than Belfast navvies and ship-carpenters, and any day I would prefer being _The Times_ Bee-master to be Mayor of Belfast.
We are also exempt in this island of ours from the bear, unless one should break loose from the strolling menageries that occasionally infest Tunbridge Wells Common. "The bear," remarks a Yankee, "is the knowingest varmint for finding out a bee-tree in the world. They'll gnaw for days together at the trunk, till they make a hole big enough to get in their paws, and then they'll haul out the honey, bees and all."
The moth is a dangerous enemy. During the day there is no risk of his attacks. But during the night he is, like other thieves and burglars, alive and active. "He loves the darkness rather than the light, because his deeds are evil." As no bee-master can do without sleep, I cannot expect of the most enthusiastic and devoted that he will watch his hives the whole night. The only preventive measure of a mechanical sort I can recommend is that of lessening the entrance door. For this purpose he must apply a zinc slide, such as Mr. Neighbour, in Holborn, will supply, which will keep out the moth and yet let out the bees. Besides, the narrower the door, the more closed up the rank of the bee-sentinels becomes, and the more able they are to repel the death's-head moth, or any similar intruder. But the most vigorous prophylactic measure you can take is to keep your bees in full strength; and as the time selected by these depredators is the early autumn, you cannot do better than give your bees a cup of good strong ale, boiled up with sugar, which will cheer up your whole family, and enable them to put forth their whole strength in grappling with their enemies. Don't mind teetotal objections. These are all very good for drunkards; but for sober, industrious bees, determined to defend their property, a cup of good ale is as kind as it is useful. The _Acherontia Atropos_, or death's-head hawk-moth, not only robs the hive of its honey, but frightens and all but paralyses the bees. Huber gives an account of the exertions of his bees to guard against this formidable foe. It is here quoted from Lardner:--