CHAPTER XIX.
BENEFITS RESULTING FROM THE UNION OF WEAK HIVES.
The advantages of uniting weak hives are very considerable. I need only mention three. 1. The bees are saved; 2. They are saved without trouble or expence; 3. All the hives are strong.
The first of these advantages is the preservation of the bees. In every country, swarms are destroyed that have not been able to gather a sufficient store of provision. Those found to be too light are unmercifully condemned to be suffocated; and what little honey they have collected, is considered as pure gain, because the bees would have perished from want, after having consumed the scanty fruits of their own industry; and, by putting them to death a little sooner, something at least may be made of them. Thus people reason, and thus the murderous practice is so generally adopted. The same plan is followed in regard to old hives that are exhausted by giving out too many swarms; and in short, to all those that have not abundance of provision laid up; and the very heavy ones, on the other hand, have their bees slain to get possession of the honey. What a frightful proscription is this! What blanks occur in the apiaries, especially in bad years, such as 1812 and 1813! And how injurious to our own interest is this indiscriminate destruction of weak and healthy, of rich and poor! There is no mercy shewn but to them that have just enough to keep them alive; and not even one of them would be spared, were they not indispensably necessary to repeople the apiaries by new swarms. According to my method, all these evils are prevented. All the hives may be robbed of their treasures; but the lives of the bees are spared.
A second and very considerable advantage is the saving of honey. I have already said, that there must be at least three pots or fifteen pounds of honey to maintain one hive, whether it be strong or weak. If three swarms, then, have only that quantity among them, each has but a third of the provision that it requires; and, to keep them alive, you must sacrifice six pots of honey, that is, two-thirds of the whole provision, or two pots for each. It is to avoid this great expence, which would equal if not exceed the value of the swarms, that most people have recourse to the prompt measure of suffocation. But, by uniting the swarms, all the working bees may be saved, without any expence, and without any waste of honey but the small quantity employed to sprinkle the combs of the hive, into which you make them enter. The honey-combs found in those which you empty, are sufficient to feed the three united swarms, by giving it to them after the manner I have directed at page 33. The wax is all your own. It costs only a little care and a little trouble, which will be amply repaid by the benefit insured. And will it be accounted a slight pleasure to witness the prosperity of the bees we have saved?
A third advantage, which appears to me one of great value, is, that all the hives which we possess are strong hives (meaning by the term strong, such hives as are well stocked with bees). Weak hives decline and yield nothing; have frequent need of assistance; are exposed to pillage; give out no swarms; and produce scarcely heat sufficient to hatch a little brood in a corner of their dwelling, which never comes to good. How often have I seen the brood come to an untimely end. In vain the bees will crowd together, to procure the necessary degree of heat, when there is much empty space in the hive. A number of weak hives may do well enough to make a shew in the apiary, but will be no profit to the proprietor. It costs a good deal to feed them, if one would keep them alive; and there is very little to be gained by putting them to death. Not so with the united hives; they were all vigorous; in condition to defy the rigour of the seasons; to repel their enemies; and to gather a great quantity of honey. The population augments rapidly, and they give out early swarms; or if some of them do not produce swarms, they furnish so much the more wax and honey, and will collect more in one day than weak hives will do in a whole week; in short, there is no comparison between them.