1879 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



213 



ARRANGEMENT OF BEE-HIVES 

 LARGE APIARIES. 



IN 



WW\ WO systems of arrangement, or rather misar- 

 rangeinent, seem to prevail almost universally 

 in the apiaries of the country. Both tend di- 

 rectly to the same results, the bewilderment of the 

 bees when tired or excited, or when making their 

 lirst flight. A bee when excited and confused, like 

 a man in similar condition, refuses all instruction. 

 All the rest of the universe has gone awry, and he 

 alone persists in having things as they ought to be. 

 Go into that particular hive which he has pitched 

 upon, he must and will. Part of these wanderers 

 are probably killed by the sentinels, causing so 

 much direct loss to the apiary. A great many of 

 them, however, become domiciled in the hives which 

 they have got into, and form a considerable body of 

 badly naturalized aliens in the commonwealth. It is 

 not every bee-keeper that has any idea to how great 

 an extent bees attach themselves to other hives than 

 those of their birth. Last spring, the writer saw a 

 number of hives of bees, mostly blacks, wheeled into 

 ranks and then moved, little by little, to a new loca- 

 tion a few rods distant. Upon reaching their posi- 

 tions the rear ranks had nearly all the flying bees, 

 and the front little else than young bees and brood. 

 Late in the fall of 1877, two Italian queens were in- 

 troduced into a considerable apiary of blacks. By 

 the next June, every hive in the lot seemed to con- 

 tain more or less Italian bees. No great harm ap- 

 pears to result from such mixing while honey con- 

 tinues plenty, and easy good-nature reigns supreme ; 

 but by and by, hard times come ; there is nothing to 

 do, and all hands are a little bit discontented and 

 cross. Under such circumstances as these, the for- 

 eigners of the hive are liable to become first class 

 malcontents, balling the queen, and raising commu- 

 nist mischief generally. It may be doubted whether 

 an alien bee, down to the bottom of his heart, is ever 

 quite loyal to the queen, or that he is ever fully 

 satisfied w y ith the scent of her children. This matter 

 of different progeny, and different scents in the same 

 hive, can hardly else than increase the difficulty of 

 detecting and expelling spies and robbers. While 

 carelessnesses the rule, robbers can take advantage 

 of the mixed character of the swarm to get in un- 

 challenged. When "eternal vigilance" sets in, it 

 would be strange if the attempt were not made to 

 expel the robbers and the foreigners both together. 

 Do not the Italians sometimes expel the last of the 

 blacks from the hive into which an Italian queen is 

 introddced? The writer has seen something that 

 looks very much like it. 



Probably the result mentioned above cannot be 

 entirely prevented, where large numbers of swarms 

 are kept near each other, but assuredly something 

 can be done by a judicious sj r stem of arranging the 

 hives. Place each hive so that a simple glance of 

 the eye suffices to locate it, without any counting or 

 surveying, and it really don't seem as though the 

 little addle-pates ought to get lost. Of the two sys- 

 tems of arrangement just referred to, one is the 

 rank and file system (of which the hexagonal plan is 

 only a tasteful variation), the other is the single file 

 system, under which the hives, usually too close to- 

 gether, are placed in long lines or curves. Both 

 styles are bad, the former probably the worse of the 

 two. Standing in the midst of an apiary of a hun- 

 dred hives arranged in rank and file, lay a pin on 

 one of them and walk away a dozen rods. Now re- 



turn and put your finger on the pin. You can't do 

 it. You must needs count, and see what row it is, 

 and what number in the row, and repeat the count- 

 ing process when you return. The key of the diffi- 

 culty lies in this simple fact; none of the brute cre- 

 ation can count. You can teach an intelligent dog 

 to bring you a nail, or to bring you a mouthful of 

 nails, but you cannot teach him to bring you just 

 three or even just two. Counting, even so many as 

 two, is a purely human faculty. Do not ask your 

 bees to do without counting what you yourself can- 

 not do without counting. In a line of three objects 

 a brute would distinguish the right, the left, and 

 the middle ; in a line of four the right and left, and 

 the one adjacent to the right, and the one adjacent 

 to the left would be located; if the line contained as 

 many as five, the middle one could probably be dis- 

 tinguished in addition to the four as just stated; 

 but beyond this confusion would be sure to begin. 

 This same trouble comes up in sitting large numbers 

 of hens, as one may see by referring to Stoddard's 

 "Egg Farm." 



The plan here proposed is to divide the apiary into 

 a considerable number of groups, with each group 

 so arranged that a mistake in the identity of any 

 hive could not readily be made. The following dia- 

 gram illustrates. 



NORTH. 

 OOO OOO OOO OOO 



oxx xxo oxx xxo 



OOO OOO OOO OOO 

 OOO OOO OOO OOO 



OXX xxo oxx xxo 



OOO OOO OOO OOO 

 OOO OOO OOO OOO 



oxx xxo oxx xxo 



OOO OOO OOO OOO 

 SOUTH. 



The positions marked x are to be left vacant ex- 

 cept when the apiary is crowded. Without them 

 there are places for 84 hives, and with them for 108. 

 The space occupied is only 70x60 feet. The hives 

 are to stand four feet from center to center, east 

 and west, and five feet from centre to centre, north 

 and south. The broad alleys are each ten feet clear. 

 This wide space is mainly to make the division very 

 distinct to the eye; but will be incidentally useful 

 in allowing a barrow or hand cart plenty of room to 

 pass with the extractor, or honey barrel, or hive of 

 bees. A few feet of the dimensions named remain 

 for border around the outside. A modification of 

 this plan, using the same number of groups, but 

 putting four hives in a row east and west, accommo- 

 dates 144 hives, and uses just about an eighth of an 

 acre of ground. A bee coming home to an apiary 

 arranged as in the diagram will naturally first locate 

 the group in which he belongs. Excepting two, the 

 groups are all on the outside, and are either corner 

 groups, middle groups, or groups adjacent to a cor- 

 ner, and thus easy of identification. Each of the 

 two groups not on the outside is conspicuous by 

 standing in the centre of a hollow square formed by 

 eight groups. One's hollow square Includes the east 

 range, and the other's the west range. While the 

 apiary only contains 70 hives, both the middle 

 groups can be left entirely vacant. The group be- 

 ing once sighted, our hypothetical bee, whether he 

 live in north row, south row or middle row, east, 

 west, or middle hive, need not go Insane studying 



