BEE. 



415 



Bee. 



Swarming 

 is not pre- 

 viously de 

 sigired. 



Practical 



treatment 

 9t Oct*. 



queens, to the resistance she experiences." These 

 observations grea' 'y increase the difficulty of attempt- 

 ing to account for swarming : we acknowledge that 

 here we can find no satisfactory explanation. The 

 old queen, it has been supposed, becomes agitated by 

 the presence of so many royal cells, and at the pros- 

 pect of the combats in which she has to engage, and 

 she also communicates her agitation to the workers. 

 The agitation of the females excites motion in the 

 workers, which increases their animal heat, and raises 

 the temperature of the hive to such an insupportable 

 degree, that they hasten to leave it. In a populous 

 hive, where the thermometer stood from 92 to 97 in 

 a fine summer day, it rose above 104 during the 

 tumult which preceded swarming. 



The extraordinary instinct and precautions so con- 

 spicuous in bees, are apparently affected during the 

 period of swarming. We cannot admit, with those 

 observers, who seem more actuated by the love of the 

 marvellous than an exposure of truth, that they are 

 endowed with that prescience which induces them, 

 before their departure, to prepare a place for their 

 reception. On issuing from the hive, bees, so nearly 

 as we can determine, have no object in view ; and 

 they often resort to situations the most unlikely, and 

 evidently unsuitable for their convenience or preser- 

 vation. After rising in the air, it is commonly some 

 tree that arrests their progress, and the queen fre- 

 quently alights at the unsheltered extremity of a 

 branch, where the bees that may have formed into va- 

 rious clusters in the vicinity, come to surround her. 

 But we have known them repeatedly swarm on the 

 grass, near the hive they had forsaken, notwithstand- 

 ing trees were at no great distance. 



Bees swarm only during the best weather, and in 

 the finest part of the day. Sometimes all the pre- 

 cursors of swarming, disorder and agitation, have 

 been seen : but a cloud passed before the sun, and 

 tranquillity was restored. 



If a hive swarms oftener than once, the new swarms 

 consist of those bees that have been abroad when the 

 first event took place, added to young ones come 

 from the eggs, laid by the queen before her depar- 

 ture. Each is led out by a young queen, as there 

 are usually several royal cells in a hive : but the bees 

 can prevent the whole queens nearly of an equal age 

 from leaving their cells, though come to maturity : 

 and when they do liberate them, it is according to their 

 age, which they have some secret means of ascertain- 

 ing ; for the oldest are invariably liberated first. 



The young swarm, whether removed from the 

 place where it settles or not, begins to work ; cells 

 are constructed of wax from the honey the bees have 

 carried along with them ; and nature has so arranged 

 it, that the first eggs laid by the queea produce the 

 operative part of the community. 



Practical Treatment of Bees. We have thus 

 traced the natural history of the honey bee from its 

 origin until attaining perfection, and shown how the 

 various species form one great colony, where labours 

 are earned on for the common good. We have ex 

 plained also, that, at a certain season, bees desert 

 their habitation in quest of anottici, uhich, in a do- 

 mesticated itate, the cultivator is careful to provide ; 



Be. 



and we shall now proceed to tlie practical treatment 

 of bees, and point out how their labours are to be 

 converted to utility, profit, and pleasure. 



All the circumstances above related having taken Different 

 place, the new swarm is lodged in a hive, there to kinds of 

 commence the collection of honey, the fabrication of hives, 

 wax, and the perpetuation of the species. Much has 

 been said of the fittest size and figure of a hive, and 

 of the substance of which it should consist : wood, 

 straw, and oziers, have all been recommended ; and 

 round, square, oblong, and hexagonal hives have had 

 their particular partisans. These things, we appre- 

 hend, do not merit the importance bestowed upon 

 them ; and our reason for saying so is, from having 

 seen the most ample products of honey, under condi- 

 tions almost diametrically opposite. At one time wc 

 have seen large straw hives, of the ordinary fashion 

 in this country, full to the brim of rich honey comb; 

 at other times we have seen them almost empty, with- 

 out any sensible cause, and where circumstances seem- 

 ed to favour the reverse. We are thence induced to 

 conclude, that less depends on the shape and capaci- 

 ty of the hive, than on the kind and quantity of the 

 swarm introduced into it, and on the season in which 

 their collections are made. Examples have come un- 

 der our notice, where a swarm, lodging in the roof of 

 a house, has produced a great quantity of honey in 

 combs only four or five inches broad : another swarm 

 also in the roof of a house we have known to fill combs 

 above eighteen inches in breadth. Exposure to the 

 north or south has not affected the bees : their provi- 

 sion has been equally abundant. And here we may 

 remark, that in all instances that have fallen within 

 the sphereof our observation, the products of swarms, 

 lodged in the roofs of houses, have invariably been 

 abundant. We do not pretend to account for this. 

 Perhaps it may partly result from their labours be- 

 ing performed without any disturbance or interrup- 

 tion ; partly from the greater heat preserved in a roof 

 during summer. Heat is the soul of insects : their 

 action and exertion are directly in proportion to the 

 temperature of the atmosphere ; and cold is the bane 

 of their existence. It is not unlikely, also, that 

 the same cause promoting the hatching of the brood, 

 contributes to render the colony more numerous : 

 and if their swarming is at all dependant on want of 

 room, large portions of them have not an equal in- 

 ducement to seek another dwelling. Pallas tells us, 

 that the Russian peasants, in remote parts of the em- 

 pire, hollow out a part of the trunks of trees, 25 or 

 30 feet from the surface of the earth, for the purpose 

 of hives; and cover the opening with planks, ha- 

 ving small apertures for the bees. At Cazan, Mr 

 Bell saw hives of a similar form, which the inhabi- 

 tants bound to the trees at the side of a wood, in or- 

 der to secure them from the bears. 



As abundant collections of honey are often made 

 in the common straw hives, we cannot affirm that 

 they are unsuitable for the purpose ; but they are at- 

 tended with the disadvantage of preventing the owner 

 from an early appropriation of the labours of the bees.. 

 One convenience, indeed, lies in the facility of con- 

 struction, which always merits due appreciation in 

 every branch of rural economy ; and, also, that the 

 o st is inconsiderable. Though neither the size nor 



