Part 8
His exaggerated talk about bees being regicides would electrify Red Republicans, but it is not true. That the queen, who has precedence of birth, destroys the princess next to her that might be her rival, I admitted and deplored in my letters as sad. But that bees are regicides is not fact. They never kill their queen; they love and are loyal to her, and obey her commands. I said they hate republicanism, and so they do, and so do I. No doubt your correspondent's discoveries will charm his transatlantic brethren. But if ever a people were in want of a queen, they are. Your correspondent may like Abraham Lincoln; I infinitely prefer Queen Victoria. He says cottagers cannot make Ayrshire hives. They do cleverer things. At all events, they can try. The Ayrshire hive is octagonal, I admit; but all I said was, that my success as a bee-master led me to suspect they prefer a box similar to their combs, and therefore I intend this winter to have several hexagonal bee-hives. A suspicion of preference was all I ventured to state.
Your correspondent says: "Common sugar (lump-sugar is best) does not require to be exposed to a heat of 300° to be available to bees." No wonder his weak stocks plunder his strong ones, for bees cannot eat and do not eat lump-sugar or brown sugar. Their lambent organisation renders it impossible. I spoke of feeding with pure sugar, and stated that it is available alone in the shape of barley-sugar only. That it can be presented boiled up in beer or water, I taught when I alluded to its being dissolved in ale. But whether in water or ale, it smears their wings, clogs their feet, and is vastly inferior in all respects to barley-sugar.
Your correspondent objects to rubbing the wound of a bee's sting with tobacco-juice. I speak from experience. I have tried every prescription, and most assuredly I will not try his. He says:--
"If anyone has a swarm consisting of only 5,000 or 6,000 bees, let him not take the trouble of hiving it. A good swarm will weigh 4 lbs., and I have known one weigh 8 lbs. Now, 5,000 bees are computed to go to a pound, and this is not too many, for a friend of mine counted and weighed 5,020 freshly-killed bees this spring, and they only weighed 12-1/2 ounces. Let any one, therefore, do a simple sum in mental arithmetic, and say if 15,000 to 30,000 are not within the mark, even allowing for the weight of honey earned off by the swarm."
I mentioned 5,000 or 6,000 bees as a swarm. It is the lowest, I freely allow. But I will add to your correspondent's knowledge. I had a caste thrown off last year, at the end of June. I despaired of its weathering the winter, but I resolved to feed it richly with barley-sugar till March. The maximum number of bees was 5,000. It had filled the lower box with at least 40 lbs. of honey by the middle of June this year. The bees had increased immensely. I opened the communication with a large super. This super has in it now not less than 26 lbs. of the whitest cells and honey I ever saw. I have shown it to many whose mouths watered for a slice of it. I never join stocks. We feed cattle on oil-cake: why not feed weakly stocks with barley-sugar? What your correspondent proposes as his explanation of 2,000 drones in a hive where there is only one queen, with, perhaps, a couple of princesses, is, like his whole philosophy, very absurd, and unworthy of a serious answer.
Your correspondent says:--
"Bees are never nursed by other bees. They are strict utilitarians, and totally devoid of sympathy. 'Those who cannot work shall not eat,' is a law applied with stern impartiality alike to the disabled worker and the useless drone. He, therefore, who would teach or learn a lesson in charity must look elsewhere."
My reply to this is, I have seen the disabled bee tended with exquisite and unwearied attention, rolled in the sunshine on the bee-board, and carried or helped into their homes. His testimony is negative, mine is positive.
He concludes his letter by informing us--
"As it is, I am very desirous of making it known to our continental and American friends that these letters [in _The Times_] do not convey an adequate idea of the amount of knowledge of the subject possessed by British bee-masters."
His letter, he reiterates, was written for the American market. I only hope they will not suppose that his crotchets are the measure of the amount of knowledge possessed or of the affection felt by English bee-masters.
If in his next he will mix a little honey with his ink, and eat a little at breakfast, he will do greater justice to himself.
I am, &c.,
A Bee-master.
Tunbridge Wells.
* * * * *
Bees, Bee-hives, and Bee-masters.
_To the Editor of "The Times."_
Sir,--I have been so annoyed at your correspondent's attack on the good name of my bees, that I cannot resist the temptation of saying a word or two of additional defence.
That the queen is not a mere egg-laying machine obedient to mere mechanical impulses, nor her subjects mere mechanical creations obeying similar impulses with no instructive appreciation, will be evident from the following facts:--
Reaumur, the eminent naturalist, observes that after the queen-regnant has become a mother--
"The bees are constantly on the watch to make themselves useful to her and to render her every kind office. They are for ever offering her honey. They lick her with the proboscis, and wherever she goes they form a court to attend her. Even the body of a dead queen is the object of tender affection to the bees. I took a queen out of the water seemingly dead. She was also mutilated, having lost a leg. Bringing her home, I placed her amid a number of working-bees recovered from drowning also by means of warmth. No sooner did the revived workers perceive the queen in her miserable plight, than they appeared to compassionate her, and continued to lick her with their tongues until she showed signs of returning vitality, when they set up a general hum as of joy at the event."
Huber writes:--
"I have seen the workers lavish the most tender care on such a queen, and, after her decease, surround her inanimate body with the same respect and homage as they had paid to her while living, and in the presence of these beloved remains refuse all attention to young and fertile queens who were offered to them."
These are two facts noticed and recorded by the two most eminent and careful apiarian naturalists. They are, in the judgment of everyone able to appreciate weight of evidence, conclusive disproofs of the material and mechanical theory, and no less decisive confirmations of all I ventured to state in your columns.
The senses of the bee are no less clear protests against the mechanical theory so acceptable to "our transatlantic brethren."
The bee leaves her house, traverses fields a mile or two distant, and returns to her home--one amid twenty contiguous ones--with unerring certainty.
The sense of touch through its antennæ is so exquisite, that in total darkness it carries on its architecture as perfectly as by day.
Its smell is possessed of unrivalled sensibility. Odours from afar are directly scented. Huber thinks it is the scent, not the colour of flowers, that attracts them.
Their power of memory is illustrated by Huber. He placed a supply of honey on the sill of an open window in autumn. The bees feasted on it for weeks. He removed the honey and closed the window during winter. Next spring the bees came to the same window, looking for supplies. Here was memory of place and circumstances lasting during half a bee's lifetime.
Huber mentions a species of moth that attacks and plunders bee-hives; it is called the death's-head moth. Finding out its daring depredations, he lessened the apertures of some of his hives, leaving sufficient room for the exit and entrance of the bees, but not for the entrance of the moth. This succeeded perfectly. But several hives he left undefended. In each of these undefended hives the bees raised a Avail of wax and propolis right behind their doors of entrance, making embrasures for exit and entrances through the solid wall. As soon as spring arrived and all danger was at an end, these Royal Engineers threw down their fortifications.
I need not refer to the perfect and well-known geometrical construction of the cells of a hive as evidences of design and high instinct; they combine the maximum of strength with the least expenditure of substance and the largest capacity in a given space. The equilateral triangle, the square, and the hexagon, were the only three forms of tubular cells that would leave no interstices: in the first there would be lost space in each angle; a similar disadvantage would be found in the second. The bees, by an instinct surely Divine, or in the exercise of engineering powers demonstrative of mind, have adopted the last.
Having thus disposed of your correspondent, will you allow me to select one or two of the most important practical inquiries which I have received in upwards of twenty additional letters addressed to "_The Times_ Bee-master?" Your universal circulation is the cause of my extraordinary visitation of correspondence, and this unexpectedly-wide practical interest in bees will justify you to your readers. One asks, "How am I to begin an apiary?" Let me tell him. Buy a stock this month or next for 20_s._, taking care that it is not old, and weighs (inclusive of straw hive) not less than 30 lbs. Erect a shed with sloping roof projecting sufficiently to carry the rain beyond the alighting-board of the bees. The length may be 12 feet, the height about 6 feet, and width 2-1/2 feet. Divide it into six equal sections or chambers. Make an exit in each, three inches long by two inches high. Place each hive in the centre of one of them, with its opening directly opposite the opening in the chamber. Fix below each opening in the shed a bees' landing-board sloping at an angle of 25°. If you can afford it, buy six stock-hives. Next May cut out the top of each, as I directed in a previous letter. Place on it a board with circular hole, and a bell-glass rather narrower at the lower part than at the centre; cover each with its plaid nightcap, and you will have plenty of delicious honey in 1865.
If, however, you do not mind loss of time, build your shed this autumn, make it smooth inside to discourage spiders, and next April send round the country to cottagers keeping bees, and engage six good swarms, which ought not to cost more than 10_s._ each. In carrying them home, pin over the entrance-hole a piece of gauze, tie a towel or napkin underneath, fastening the four corners at the top, and do not jolt the young family unnecessarily. If the swarms can be had in May, and if it prove a fine summer, you may place a glass on each about the end of June. Do not forget the old adage--
"A swarm in May Is worth a load of hay; A swarm in June Is worth a silver spoon; A swarm in July Is worth a fly."
If your swarm is an early June one, you may save it by pushing three or four sticks of barley-sugar into the hive by the exit aperture once a fortnight till next March. Any little expense in feeding introduces you to your bees and helps them wonderfully, and is never a loss.
If you want to tempt the bees to feed in your own garden, sow mignonette, salvia, and sanfoin; plant plenty of raspberry, gooseberry, and currant bushes. They like lime poplars, apple-blossoms, thyme, and, above all, borage. Bees never touch double flowers. Should the early summer prove very dry, place near your bee-shed two or three soup-plates half-full of water, taking care to put in as many pebbles as each will hold. The bees require stepping-stones for their tiny feet, and otherwise they are necessary to save them from drowning.
I am giving directions to those who desire to work economically. But if you can lay out a little as an investment, and you desire to combine interest and pleasure with profit, you cannot do better than call on Neighbour, either in Regent-street or Holborn, where I have seen many varieties of hives of different prices and all of good workmanship. In answer to numerous inquiries about the Ayrshire hives, I am sorry to be obliged to answer that I have to send to Scotland for them. They may be had of Air. Bruce Taylor, Post-office, Mauchlin, Ayrshire; or of Messrs. Craig, Stewarton, Ayrshire. The three boxes in the lower or stock hive, with two supers exactly corresponding, cost me 20_s._ But they last for ever. Their chief value is their productiveness. Neighbours' and Pettitt's are far more interesting for experimental uses. The collateral system is the most elegant, but least productive; its bee-boxes are also expensive. Your correspondent's hive (which I ought previously to have referred to) is no improvement, and its architect has so bad an opinion of the moral character of bees, that were they to know it was his, they would desert it. There are people to whom bees never take, and there are hives they invariably sicken in. I do not like the nadir system recommended in _The Times_ by "A Rector." Bees naturally ascend or traverse the same plane, but mostly preferring ascent. "Excelsior" is their favourite aspiration. In answer to another inquiry, do I approve using stupifying fumes, as of puff-ball, &c., in order to expel the bees from supers full of honey?--I say, certainly not. It may not injure the bees if judiciously administered. Some highly recommend it. But it is not necessary. The bees will leave the super on its being detached from the hive and carried to a little distance, and will return in an hour or two to their home and their queen. The only case in which I have recourse to fumigation is when any portion of the comb, through accidental admission of wet, has become mouldy. A few whiffs of puff-ball may be injected, by means of an instrument sold for this purpose, during five minutes. As soon as the humming noise ceases, lift the hive and cut out the mouldy portion of the comb, replace it, and in twenty minutes the bees will again be at work. This is the only case in which I like to employ either this or tobacco-smoke, which answers as well if not too long continued.
Your apiary or bee-shed should be placed as near your dwelling as possible, sheltered from the north and northeast winds, and at the greatest possible distance from poultry. Frequently, but quietly and unobtrusively, visit your bees, watch them at work in your bee-glasses, or by windows in your bee-boxes. Let your children play beside them. They are fond of children, and unless violently irritated they will not injure them. I can state this from very ample experience. At the same time, it is proper to state, that some few persons are so offensive to bees that they must not approach them. Plenty of soap and water and fastidious cleanliness are essential to a bee-master's continued popularity with his apiarian family.
I am, &c.,
A Bee-master.
Tunbridge Wells.
* * * * *
About Wasps.
_To the Editor of "The Times."_
Sir,--There is no sweet without a bitter. Every bee-master feels the plague of wasps this autumn of 1864; for fifteen years, the range of my experience as a bee-master, I have not seen so fierce and multitudinous bands of wasps descending on my bees on predatory incursions. I do not mean to insinuate that the wasp has no mission, I believe he has his use. He is the scavenger of our gardens, and clears off decay, putrescence, and filth of every sort. For this I give him credit, but I cannot extend to him either the affection or respect I feel for my bees. Wasps often remind me of a class of critics not found in Printing-house-square, but by no means rare in other quarters. Like wasps, they ignore or pass by ripe, fragrant, and beautiful fruit, and select and gloat over incidental decay. The wasp-critic does not touch a beautiful thought in Tennyson or Longfellow; he can neither appreciate nor digest it. But if he can only discover a word misspelt or a word misprinted, or the word "octagon" accidentally used for "hexagon," he buzzes about it for hours, and feeds on it with waspish delight. Should the editor of a respectable paper or periodical refuse his contribution, he flies to a congenial refuge, and there pours out what wasps have nearly a monopoly of--the venom identified with and peculiar to that insect.
There is also the wasp ecclesiastical. He contributes no sweet honey to the Church, and takes little interest in its good. But in Synods, Presbyteries, Convocations, he flies about, driving his sting sometimes into a bishop and sometimes into a presbyter. A sin in another he scents from afar. A virtue in a brother he cannot appreciate. He lives on decay. He sings while he feeds on it. It is his nutriment and his joy.
There is also the political wasp. He has no fixed principles, but, instead, he has a furious temper. He makes great noise, and attacks everybody right and left that comes within scent, eyesight, or earshot. His delight is proportionate to the degree in which he can sting. He cares nothing about party, or side, or leader. He spurns all organisation. He revels in wrath and fierce words and keen invective, unsweetened by a grain of genial feeling, or an expression softened by the humanities and amenities of debate, and unillumined by wit or humour.
There is the wasp social. He is impersonated in the burglar. Were you to see the wasps this autumn rushing into my hives, sometimes by a sudden dash, at other times by stealth, you would instantly acknowledge in them the type of the thief and the burglar. But my bees are better prepared for the wasp's reception than London house-holders for thieves. He runs the gauntlet every time he enters. Through my glass observatory windows I watch the conflict. One bee, half his size, seizes him by the throat, another gives him a taste of his sting, and two or three watchers seize him by the legs and drag him out. I have hit on an admirable plan of keeping him off, well worth disclosing to every bee-master. I place at the entrance of the hive a stick of barley-sugar a couple of inches long. This brings to the entrance a dozen of bees, who thankfully feed on it. There is thus secured an additional guard at the gates. The moment the wasp alights, the whole _posse_ fly at him and drive him away. Another plan is to fill half-full a wine-bottle with beer and sugar. Incidentally a bee may look in, but the wasps, whose scent is perfect, rush in and are drowned. It is a sacred duty devolving on every bee-master to exterminate these Arabs, Bedouins, and corsairs. They lay up no stores for themselves--they do nothing for the support or enjoyment of man. They use their stings, not like bees, in self-defence, but in sheer wickedness. They are professional thieves. Like the bees of a correspondent of yours, they have no respect for _tuum_, and having no _meum_, they care nothing. Living at the expense of others, without consulting the convenience or goodwill of anybody, they richly deserve what their extermination will pay for--sulphur, gunpowder, and boiling water. Let every bee-master give sixpence to every boy who destroys a wasps'-nest.
The wasp builds its nest generally underground. Their cells are hexagonal. The house is built of paper, fabricated by this insect long before its manufacture was discovered by man. With their powerful jaws they tear off decayed wood, which they moisten with a sort of gum or glue secreted from themselves. They form this into a kind of pulp and spread it out into thin sheets, with which they roof in and surround their cells. So far they are good paper manufacturers; but I have not heard of their paper being used in the service of man. They seem also to understand the laws of heat. Everybody knows that double windows are warmer than single ones, the atmospheric air being a good non-conductor. The wasps surround themselves with several walls of paper, leaving spaces between, and thus not only keep out the cold, but render the entrance of damp all but impossible. The combs of the wasp are built in horizontal tiers, supported by pillars. In this respect they are builders as well as papermakers. They are also admirable sappers and miners. They tunnel a covered way from their nest to the open air, and very often, instead of using a deserted mole or mouse hole, they excavate a round chamber of really fine proportions. It is truly matter of regret that so much capable talent should be prostituted to so much dishonesty. Unhappily, thieves and pick-pockets are generally very clever. Yet reformatories do operate real transformations of thieves; but no plan that philanthropy has yet devised has turned a wasp into a kind, honest, and respectable member of society. He is incapable of transmutation. He is worthy of the special study of Darwin. The death penalty, I unhesitatingly affirm, is due to every wasp that enters a bee-garden. The razing of his house, the desolation of its furniture, and the dislodgment and destruction of the whole clan, have become a sacred duty. Even the Quaker, who objects to the sentence of death on murderers, would consent to the doom of the wasp. I cannot believe there were wasps in Paradise of old. Though no prophet, nor prophet's son, I confidently predict there will be no wasps in Paradise that is to be, nor will there be waspish tempers, or passions, or propensities. Of all ugly things on earth, next to the serpent, a hornet is the ugliest, the most thievish, and the most dishonest You can neither tame nor turn the wicked imp. He is a thief from his birth--a bee-cide by habit; feeding on corruption, and full of wickedness. If, instead of killing sparrows and blackbirds and thrushes, because they take a few currants, while they destroy slugs and vermin, and many of them regale springtide with song, the farmers would set about destroying wasps, they would find as much amusement, and do vastly more good. I have a lurking suspicion that some of those apiarians who speak against bees, and call them thieves and regicides, must have wasps, not bees, in their hives. Let me beg of these irritable gentlemen, who never cease buzzing, to examine their hives. Let me remind them that wasps are bigger and longer than bees; are surrounded with concentric yellow circles, emit a subterranean sort of hum, neither treble, tenor, nor bass, and, after a little study on their part, may be easily distinguished from bees. Above all, let me intreat them to give up feeding on wasps' food, and, if they have no honey of their own, let me offer them half a bar, in order to elevate their taste or improve their temper.