Humanity to Honey-Bees / or, Practical Directions for the Management of Honey-Bees Upon an Improved and Humane Plan, by Which the Lives of Bees May Be Preserved, and Abundance of Honey of a Superior Quality May Be Obtained

Summary of memorandums of the several deprivations or takings of honey from one set of boxes this season:

Did I deem it necessary, I could, from the letters of a variety of highly respectable correspondents, show that the mode of managing Bees in the way, and upon the principles, now explained, has been adopted, and has succeeded even beyond the most sanguine expectations of many of my worthy friends and patrons; but I will content myself at present with giving the two following letters, which I have just received from a gentleman in this neighbourhood, whose very name, to all who have any knowledge of or acquaintance with him, will be a sufficient guarantee that his statements are facts. Besides, his letters are a condensed, and I must say—clever epitome of my practical directions for the management of Bees in my boxes, and may be useful on that account; and moreover, I have, as will be seen presently, his unsolicited authority to make them public, and therefore run no risk of being called to order for so doing.

"Gedney-Hill, 13th July, 1832.

"Dear Sir,
"You will, I am persuaded, excuse me for troubling you with the information that I yesterday took off a fine glass of honey from one of my Bee-colonies. I went to work secundum artem, that is, in one word, scientifically, or in four words, according to your directions; and I have the satisfaction, nay more,—I have the pleasure to add that I succeeded—I had almost said completely, but I must qualify that expression by saying, that I succeeded all but completely; for one luckless Bee had the misfortune to be caught between the edges of the dividing-tin and the glass, and to be crushed to death in consequence. Excepting that accident, I believe that not one Bee was injured, nor lost. They left the glass, as soon as I gave them the opportunity of leaving it, in the most peaceable manner; in a subdued and plaintive tone they hummed round me,—settled upon me,—crept over me in all directions,—but not one of them stung me; in short, they returned to their home without manifesting the slightest symptoms of resentment, and in less than half an hour from the commencement of the operation, there was not a single Bee left in the glass. In my eye it is a very handsome glass of honey; it weighs exactly 13 lbs, and it has not one brood-cell in it. I intend to close it up,—to label it,—and to keep it, at least until I get another as handsome. It is a rich curiosity to exhibit to one's friends, especially to those who have never seen such a thing.

"On the other side, I send you a fortnight's register of the heights and variations of a thermometer, placed in the colony from which I have taken the glass, and also, of one placed in the shade, and apart from all Bees; from which register you will know, in a moment, whether I have managed my Bees properly. I am willing to flatter myself that I have, and that you will say I have been very attentive indeed.

"In addition to this I could, time and space permitting, tell you from what point the wind blew on each of these days, when it came full in front of my boxes, and when it came upon them in any other direction, when it was high, and when it was otherwise, on what days the Bees were able to get abroad, and also when they were kept at home by rain, or by any other cause. From these observations of the wind and weather, and particularly from the manner in which the wind is directed towards, or into the ventilators in the boxes, in conjunction with the movements of the Bees, I think I can account pretty satisfactorily for what may appear, at first sight, to be a little contradictory, viz. for the rising of the thermometer in the boxes sometimes when it was falling in the shade; and vice versa, for its sometimes rising in the shade when it was falling in the boxes. But instead of writing you a dissertation on these subjects, or on any of them, I choose rather to put you into possession of the whole of my Bee-practice, by submitting to your notice a copy, or as nearly as I can make it a copy, of a letter I took the liberty of addressing to the Editor of 'The Voice of Humanity,' in October last, after the appearance in No. V. of that publication, of a representation and imperfect explanation of your boxes. I was encouraged to write that letter by the following announcement in an article in that No.—'A due regard of rational humanity towards the Bee, though but an insect, we shall feel a pleasure in promoting in the future as well as the present pages of our publication. This subject has, moreover, a very strong claim, inasmuch as it also exemplifies the grand principle upon which The Voice of Humanity is founded—the true prevention of cruelty to animals, by substituting a practical, an improved system, in the place of one which is defective; this, in reference to the present subject, &c., is true prevention of cruelty, not only to units, but to thousands and tens of thousands of animals.' Notwithstanding this very rational announcement, and the prompt acknowledgment of the receipt of my letter, it did not appear in either of the next two numbers, nor am I aware that it is in the last, but I have not yet seen the last No. of that publication, therefore must not be positive. But this is not all: in No. 6, the conductors of that work express i sincere pleasure' in inserting an article which, they say, c forms an admirable addition to that on Mr. Nutt's Bee-hive;' and that 'the plan which it developes, in addition to its humanity, has the recommendation of being more simple and practicable than even the excellent improvements of Mr. Nutt.' Now what do you suppose this admirable addition to your Bee-hive,—-this plan recommended on account of its humanity, as well as on other accounts—is? It is no other than that most cruel and destructive one of depriving Bees of their honey and of every thing else, by 'driving them out of a full hive into an empty one, so early in the season as to afford the Bees sufficient time to provide themselves with another stock of winter food before the bad weather begins.' Very considerate this, certainly! but who can tell how soon the bad weather may begin? Of all the methods ever resorted to of getting their honey from Bees, this, in my humble opinion, is the most cruel and inhuman: suffocating the Bees and destroying them at once is far preferable to this (I had hoped) exploded mode of robbing them. If practised, it will, however, soon cure itself: but is it not a strange practice for 'The Voice of Humanity' to revive? Either the utterers of that sweet Voice are unacquainted with the humane management of Bees upon your plan, or they are unaware of the mischievous and destructive consequences attendant on the driving mode of deprivation, or they have little claim to the title they bear on the score of their humanity to Bees. I believe the former to be the case with them: and therefore, in addition to the reason already given for troubling you herewith, and in order to set them right on this vital subject, I give you full power to do what you please with these letters. If they will be of any use to you in your projected publication, give them a place in it, and welcome: only do not garble them, give them entire, if you give them at all. I am decidedly opposed to the driving scheme; and I as decidedly approve of yours, which is, if properly attended to, at once simple, practicable, profitable, admirable, and truly humane.

Accept me, Dear Sir,
Yours very truly,
Thomas Clark."

"Mr. Editor,

"Since the publication of the last No. of 'The Voice of Humanity,' in which you treated your readers with some interesting particulars explanatory of the construction and different parts of Mr. Nutt's Bee-boxes, and also of the mode of managing the Bees in them, so far at least as regards the taking away a box when stored with the delicious sweet (i. e. with honey), it has been suggested to me, that a plain, simple history of a colony of Bees in my possession, and managed according to Mr. Nutt's excellent plan, may not be altogether unacceptable to the general readers and friends of 'The Voice of Humanity' and may be even a treat to amateur apiarians, who may be unacquainted with the merits of Mr. Nutt's plan; or who, if partially acquainted therewith, may have their doubts as to its practicability, or, at least, as to its advantages, i. e. superiority over other plans. As far, then, as 6 The Voice of Humanity' can make them (the merits of Mr. Nutt's plan) known, I trust it will be as music to that Voice to publish the following facts.

"Having had a complete set of Mr. Nutt's boxes presented to me, I, though comparatively a novice in apiarian science, and not at that time particularly attached to it, could not, in compliment to the donor, do less than endeavour to work them, that was—get them stocked. That was done with a swarm on the 18th of May 1830; and the middle-box, or pavilion of nature, as Mr. Nutt calls it, into which the said swarm was taken just in the same way it would have been if put into a common straw-hive, was conveyed a distance of nearly four miles and placed in my garden in the evening of the same day. The next day being fine, I observed that the Bees were very busy constructing comb, and had, within twenty-four hours of their being domiciled in their new abode, actually made a progress in that most curious work that astonished me: they were passing and re-passing, and literally all alive; many were visibly loaded with materials for their ingenious work. My curiosity was excited, and so much was I pleased with my multitudinous labourers that I visited them daily, and many times in the course of each day, when the weather was favourable for their getting abroad. Their combs were rapidly advanced; but to my great mortification they very soon obstructed my view of their interior works, by bringing a fine comb quite over the only little window at the back of the pavilion, at the distance of about half an inch from the glass. I was not, however, without the means of ascertaining that they were filling the pavilion with their treasures, and consequently that they would soon be in want of more room. I, therefore, at the end of a fortnight admitted them into the large bell-glass by withdrawing the slide, which, when closed, cuts oft' the communication between the pavilion and the said glass. They (the Bees) immediately reconnoitred it, as it were, and examined it round and round, and presently took possession of it in great numbers; and in the course of the second day afterwards I could perceive that they began to continue their work upwards from and upon the combs in the box. Here I was again inexpressibly gratified by daily observing the progress of their beautiful work, and by the busy thousands in perpetual motion. When they had about half-filled the glass, and before I was aware that there was any occasion for their admission into either of the collateral-boxes, they suddenly threw off a swarm. That event I attribute partly to my own inexperience in apiarian matters, and partly—principally to the want of a thermometer by which to ascertain and regulate the temperature of the crowded pavilion, so as to keep the Bees at the working, and below the swarming point of heat. Mr. Nutt assures me that a barn would not contain a colony of Bees if its temperature were raised above a certain degree. What that precise degree of heat is I leave to Mr. Nutt to determine and explain: at present it is enough to state that I am convinced it is possible, nay, quite easy, to keep Bees at work, and to prevent their swarming, by giving them plenty of room, and by proper ventilation. After my Bees had thrown off the swarm, as above mentioned, the work in the glass progressed but slowly, indeed it was for some time almost deserted, owing, I presume, to the room made in the pavilion by the absence of the thousands that had left it: for, whenever the weather was such that they could get abroad, they were always busy. The season, however, it is well-known, was so wet as to be very unfavourable for Bees:—the summer of 1830 was not by any means what is called a Bee-year; and early in the autumn I could see that, instead of adding to their store, they were under the necessity of living upon it. They were, however, abundantly provided for the winter, and lived through it almost to a Bee. In the spring of this year (1831) they appeared to be strong and in excellent condition. As early as the middle of May they had replenished the emptied combs in the glass, and, it may be presumed, in the pavilion too. In the first week of June, the glass was completely filled in the most beautiful manner. I therefore opened the communication to one of the end or collateral-boxes, and two or three days afterwards, viz. on the 10th of June, I took off the glass and replaced it with another. So rapidly did those industrious little insects proceed with their work, that in about six weeks they completely filled the end-box. I then opened the way to the empty box at the other end of the pavilion: and a few days afterwards had the full box taken off by Mr. Nutt himself (who happened to call upon me, and who handsomely volunteered his services on the occasion), without any stifling of any sort—without the destruction, or the loss, of—scarcely a Bee,—as nearly in the manner described in your last No. as circumstances would permit; for the Queen-Bee being in the box taken off made it necessary for Mr. Nutt to vary the operation a little;—not a person was stung, though ladies, very timid ladies, and children too, were among the admiring lookers on; only, in returning the Queen-Bee, found in the box, to the pavilion, I myself was stung, owing to my over-anxiety to see how she would be received by the Bees in the pavilion. Her majesty's presence in that box (the box taken off) at that time might probably have puzzled me; but to Mr. Nutt it presented no difficulty; and to witness his operation was to me a most instructive lesson, and would have delighted any friend of humanity. It was performed in the middle of a fine day. That box contained, as nearly as we could estimate, about 35 lbs. of honey, incomparably purer and finer than any I ever saw, except from Mr. Nutt's boxes. The glass beforementioned contained 12 lbs.—so that I have this year taken forty-seven pounds of the very finest honey from one stock of Bees;—I have all my Bees alive—and they are at this time abundantly provided for the ensuing winter; nay, without impoverishing them, I believe, I might take 6 or 8 lbs. more; but I have already had enough; and, if my Bees have more than enough for their winter's consumption, they will not waste it;—it will be found next year.

"The preservation of the Bees unhurt, uninjured, very many of them undisturbed at all,—the quantity of honey that may be had,—and the very superior quality of that honey, are advantages of Mr. Nutt's mode of Bee-management, over the barbarous, stifling system, that cannot fail to recommend it to the adoption of every friend of humanity,—to every lover of the delicious sweet,—and to every apiarian who has nothing beyond self-interest in view.

"One word more, and I have done. There are, I observe with pleasure, persons of considerable influence among your subscribers, and probably there may be persons of still greater influence among your readers. To such I would most respectfully suggest the propriety of doing something to reward Mr. Nutt for the services he has already rendered the Honey-Bee and the cause of humanity. I—an obscure, country clergyman, know not how to set about procuring it; but a premium was never more richly deserved.

"Though longer than I intended, when I sat down to write, I hope you will find no difficulty in giving the foregoing communication a place in your pages; and, in this hope, I beg to subscribe myself,

Your humble servant,
Thomas Clark.

"Gedney-Hill, near Wisbech,
October 20th, 1831.".

CHAPTER V.

ON DRIVING BEES.

As my reverend correspondent has introduced the subject of driving Bees from their full hive into an empty one, in order that they may be deprived of their honey and wax, and has animadverted upon that practice with some severity, I will take the opportunity of here stating my objections to it.

Mr. Huish, in his treatise on Bees, has twice described the manner in which "driving a hive" may be performed; but nowhere, that I can find, has he once recommended it. In a note (in page 24) he says—-that "by driving a hive may be understood the act of obliging the Bees to leave their own domicil, and take refuge in another. This is performed by placing the full hive under an empty one, (or he might have said, by placing an empty hive upon the full one inverted) and by gently tapping the lower hive the Bees will ascend into the upper, and the lower one then remains vacant for experiments, or the purpose of deprivation." He afterwards (in page 252) gives a more detailed account of the manner of performing this operation; and having done so, he presently observes that "by the driving of the Bees a number is unavoidably killed." I do not find that Mr. Huish himself practises it further than for the purpose of making experiments; and that, having made those experiments, he returns the driven Bees to their hives and to their treasures in them. In short, he describes it to his readers because they may wish to be acquainted with it, and not because he approves of it. I mention this because I consider Mr. Huish to be respectable authority on such a subject.

Now, were there nothing in a hive but Bees and honey, driving them into an empty hive (were it as easy in practice as it seems to be upon paper, though I presume it is not) in order to rob them of their all, would be a most arbitrary and unjust method of treating them: but, besides Bees and honey, there are other substances in a prosperous hive which ought not to be disturbed. There are the future inhabitants of the colony in every stage of existence, from the egg to the perfect Bee, and these in a driven hive are all totally destroyed—eggs, larvæ, nymphs, in one word, the brood, in whatever state, is all destroyed, when the Bees are driven from it and not suffered to return. And is it not an unnatural operation that thus destroys many thousands of lives in embryo, over and above the "number unavoidably killed" thereby? as painful must it be for the Queen—the mother of the colony, and to all the other Bees, to be forcibly expelled from a hive and home of plenty and prosperity, as it is for an industrious man and his thriving family to be rudely ejected from a comfortable house and home, without the least notice of, or preparation for, so calamitous an event, and forced by lawless marauders to take shelter in an empty house, and left there destitute, to subsist as best they can, or to starve, as probably they may, their spirits being cast down by the violent deprivations and desperate robbery they have experienced, and it may be, the winds, and the weather, and the elements of heaven, are warring, as it were, against them at the same time. And, comparatively speaking, is it not so with driven Bees? They are turned topsy-turvy, and in that strange, unnatural position their fears are operated upon, or excited, by unusual, and to them, no doubt, terrible sounds made by even "gently tapping" their inverted-hive—their house turned upside down. Though no advocate for suffocating Bees, but the contrary—a decided opponent to it, I agree in opinion with my correspondent that suffocation at once is preferable to the very reprehensible practice of "driving a hive," inasmuch as an instantaneous death is preferable to a lingering and unnatural one by starvation, which, whatever may befal the driven Bees, is the hard, untimely fate of the brood and young larvæ of a hive when the Queen and commoners are driven from them into a new and empty domicil. They leave, because they are forced to leave behind them, and to perish, thousands of the young brood in a state of helplessness. Their mother and their nurses are driven into banishment and pauperism, while her offspring are doomed to perish for the want of their aid and support. If driving be practised early in the season, that is in June or July, all the brood then in the driven hive must inevitably perish; if later, it is hardly to be expected that the surviving Bees will or can prosper. Can the Bee-master for a moment think that when Bees are so driven from their old hive, they will work in their new one, as if they had swarmed voluntarily and then been put into it: it is some considerable time before Bees thus treated will work vigorously; and during that time of lingering and irresolution the honey-season fast declines,—the Bees' difficulties multiply,—and they become paupers at a time they should be rich. Nine times out of ten the hive so treated perishes by famine, and like the young brood, dies the worst of deaths,—the whole hive becomes a melancholy wreck, and is absolutely sacrificed to the mistaken notions of the speculating, or experiment-making proprietor. It is a practice of which I disapprove altogether: and I am surprised that any one could so far misunderstand the principles and nature of my practice as to recommend the driving of Bees out of a full hive into an empty one as an admirable addition to my Bee-hive—that is—to my Bee-boxes. I have the satisfaction, however, to state that in the management of Bees in my boxes no driving is necessary, nor even possible: by them driving and suffocation are both superseded, and rendered as useless to operators as they have long been destructive to Bees,—and, I cannot but say—disgraceful to apiarians. What I have already said (in page 48) I will here repeat with as much emphasis as I am able, because that passage comprehends the very essence of my directions relative to the management of Bees in the middle-box,—and because those directions are utterly incompatible with driving. "I say, then, disturb not this hive—this pavilion of nature: weaken not its population; rut support its influence, and extend to it those accommodations which no practice, except my own, has yet put into operation, or made any adequate provision for.

"This humane practice partakes not of the driving, nor of the fumigating, nor of the robbing system. It is a liberal principle of Bee-cultivation, founded on humanity. And it is by such practice that we must succeed, if we hope to be benefited in the culture of Honey-Bees."

CHAPTER VI.

INVERTED-HIVE.

Many useful discoveries have been made by accident;—and to some of the greatest and grandest of those discoveries even philosophers and men of science have been led by accidents apparently the most trifling and insignificant.

To the playful tricks of some little children that astonishing and most scientific instrument—the telescope, it is said, owes its origin; and it is said also that that great and good man—Sir Isaac Newton was led to investigate the laws of gravitation by accidentally observing an apple topple to the ground from the twig that had borne it. One of the sweetest of our poets, however, informs us—that

If, therefore, a beautifully delicate honey-comb suspended from the stool of a hive first led me to discover the utility of ventilation in a colony of Bees, though there may be nothing very surprising, there is, I trust,—nay, I am convinced, and therefore I assert—there is something very useful in it: and if an accident of another description induced me to endeavour to turn it to advantage, there is nothing to be greatly wondered at. So, however, it happened; and here follows the account of it.

On rising early one morning in July 1827, and walking into my apiary, as my custom then was, and still is, I discovered that some malicious wretch had been there before me, and had overturned a fine colony of Bees. The reader may judge how much my indignation was aroused by that dastardly act of outrage against my unoffending Bees. My feelings of vexation soon, however, subsided into those of pity for my poor Bees; and fortunately for them, no less than for me, their overturned domicil, which consisted of a hive eked or enlarged by a square box upon which I had placed it some weeks previously, was so shaded from or towards the east by a thick fence, that the rays of the sun had not reached it;—this compound-hive, and the countless thousands that were clustering around it, were prostrate in the shade. I viewed my distressed Bees for a considerable time, and studied and planned what I might best do to relieve them, and, if possibly I could, rescue them from the deplorable situation into which they had been thrown. At length I determined to reverse the whole, which I effected by first carefully drawing the box as closely as I was able to the edge of the hive, and then placing the hive upon its crown, so that, in fact, the whole domicil was inverted. I shaded, protected, shored-up, and supported the Bees, their exposed works, and their hive, in the best way I could, and afterwards reluctantly left them for the day, being under the necessity of going from home a distance of almost twenty miles, viz. to Wisbech. On my return in the evening I could discern evident proofs of the willingness of the Bees to repair the sore injury they had sustained; and on the third day afterwards I was highly pleased to witness the progress their united efforts had made to rescue their dilapidated habitation from the ruin that had threatened it and them too, and which, I confess, I had anticipated. I was particularly attentive to their movements. I assisted them by every means I could devise. They gradually surmounted all the difficulties to which they had been exposed. In short, they prospered; and from that malicious trick of some miscreant or other I first caught the idea of an inverted-hive, which I have since studied and greatly improved.

Every Bee-master will have had opportunities of observing—that this curious, I may say—intelligent, little insect—the Bee, is ever alive to the most ready methods of extricating itself from difficulties, and of bettering the condition of the state, whenever accident or misfortune has placed it in jeopardy: and, I will add—that the timely assistance of the Bee-master will frequently save a stock from that ruin, or at least from that trouble and inconvenience, which apparently trivial circumstances, such for instance as uncleanliness, excessive heat in summer, intense severity of winter, too contracted an entrance at one season, a too extended and open one at another, or wet lodged on and retained by the floor-board, may, and very often do occasion.

The subjoined cut is a representation of an INVERTED-HIVE fixed in its frame, trellised, roofed, completely fitted up, and just as it appears when placed in an apiary and stocked with Bees.