Keeping bees good-natured, offers a pretty fair subject for ridicule: it seems rather too absurd to teach _a bee_ anything! Nevertheless, it is worth while to think of it a little....
If we suppose that the eggs are all alike, and the subsequent treatment makes either workers, drones, or queens, and look to analogy for support, we shall find much against, as wel...
"The size of the changeable hive most used in this section, has an outside shell, made of inch boards, about two feet high and sixteen and a half inches square, with a door hung in...
Mr. T. B. Miner, in his work, has allowed the preparation of queen cells previous to swarming, but he has put off the time of the swarm issuing eight or nine days too long. That is...
It is weak families, that show no resistance, where we find the most danger. In seasons of scarcity, all _good_ stocks maintain or keep sentinels about the entrance, whose duty it...
Here is where the patent vender has taken the advantage of our ignorance, by pretending that no other hive but _his ever obtained such quantities, or so pure in quality_.
This frost is frequently the cause of medium or small families starving in cold weather, even when there is plenty of honey in the hive. Suppose all the honey in the immediate vici...
As this tumult cannot be seen but a few days at most, it is well--yes, it is necessary--to make it a duty to glance at the hives at this period after swarming, _every morning_; a g...
But when there is nothing precarious about the honey, the sealing of these cells is the time to expect the first swarm, which will generally issue the first fair day after one or m...
It is probable that no rule governs the issue of workers. Old and young come out promiscuously. That old bees come out may be known sometimes, by so many leaving, that not a quarte...
It is pretty well demonstrated that the moth, its eggs, larvae and chrysalis cannot pass the winter without warmth of some kind to prevent their freezing to death. The following fa...
The time before it is ready to leave the hive for honey, I might guess would be two or three days. Others have said "it would leave _the day it left the cell_;" but I guess they gu...
As I before remarked in the commencement of this chapter, bees will plunder and fight at any time through the summer, when honey cannot be collected; but _spring_ is the only time...
Swarms issuing as late as the 15th July, when they commence on buckwheat, sometimes contain not over five pounds of stores, and yet make good stocks for winter, whereas, without th...
By taking advantage of this immediately, or before the scent has again changed, and each hive has something peculiar to _itself_, you can change the stands of very weak and very st...
Further, these non-swarmers are not always to be depended upon as such. They will sometimes throw off swarms when there is abundant room in the hive as well as in the boxes.
All suspended hives _must be objectionable_ to any one who wishes to know the _true_ condition of his bees at all times. Only think of the trouble of unhooking the bottom-board, an...
If hives are not desired of the cheapest possible construction, the outside may be planed and painted; but it is doubtful whether strict economy would demand it. Yet a painted hive...
The greatest difficulty with dividing hives, appeared to be here. It must be constructed with a partition or division to keep the combs in each apartment separate; otherwise, we ma...
I must disagree with any one who says we always have warning before being stung. I have been stung _a few times_ myself. Two-thirds of them were received without the least notice--...
I think it will be an easy matter to show that every departure from simplicity to gain _one_ point, is attended in another by a correspondent evil, that often exceeds the advantage...
There has an idea been advanced, that candied honey is injurious to bees, even said to be fatal. I never could discover any thing further, than it was a perfect waste, while in thi...
Should they escape starving, there is another difficulty often attending them in continued cold weather. I said that small families exhaled but little. Let us see if we can explain...
The hive is inverted, and the cloth put over, neatly folded, and fastened with a tack at the corners, and another in the middle. The tack is crowed in about two-thirds of its lengt...
On this subject I have but little to say, as I have failed to discover anything uncommonly remarkable, separate and distinct in one swarm, that another would not exhibit. I have fo...
The inquiry is often made, Do all swarms have a place looked out before leaving the parent stock? The answer to this must ever be guess-work. I could offer some circumstances indic...
For instance, I had all the bees of a good swarm leave the hive in March; after flying a time, they united with another good stock, making double the usual number of bees at this s...
When boxes are taken off at the end of the honey season, a different method of getting rid of the bees must be adopted, or we lose our honey. Unless the combs are all finished, we...
I have had three swarms that were exceptions to general rules, giving me some trouble by swarming out after being hived; the third and fourth time they left, I threw water among th...
Spiders are a source of considerable annoyance to the apiarian, as well as to the bees; not so much on account of the number of bees consumed, as their habit of spinning a web abou...