68 



Letter from a Bee-Keeper. 



Vol. VI. 



The best place to put bees in is a dry and dark room 

 or outhouse. (Damp cold gives tlieiii the rot.) Put 

 your bi-es there the last week of November, and let 

 tlicni sleep ipiietly till the flowers begin to conic out at 

 the end of Fi'brufiry. I'ut their bottom board slantinf;, 

 that all till' wet may run out at the door; or, still bet- 

 ter Uiiufi them up in a coarse cloth : this will let in the 

 air'and catch the water. Wri^-li them befure you put 

 them away and when you bring them out, and you 

 will find them much stronger, as well as heavier, than 

 any you leave on their summer stands. If you have 

 no siich room or outhouse, at least keep the sun away 

 from them, or put them on the north side of your house, 

 if the place is dry. In Switzerland a whole village 

 clubs together, and hires a cold dry room, which they 

 darken, and put all their bees in. If more cottagers 

 kept lues, much of the honey which is now wasted 

 would lif gathered. I have taken the trouble to see 

 licnv iiiMih I.e.-produce is brought into England every 

 year from foreign parts. It is X32,000 in wax alone, 

 besides honey. Every cent of this might go amongst 

 those to whom it is of the greatest consequence, name- 

 ly, the cottagers. The flowers, too, are all the better 

 for till' honcv being taken. I heard a fanner say, that 

 his or( h.ird bore double the crop it had <lone before he 

 took to bees. And what is the reason honey is found 

 in flowers? Its only use, rather its chief use, is not 

 for men to eat, but to draw bees and honey-eating flies 

 to the flowers. They carry the farina, or dust, on their 

 legs from flower to flower, which makes them bear 

 fruit. 1/ there were no bees orjlies, there tcovtd be no 

 apples. 



I must repeat, NEVER KILL A REE. The poor 

 insect has einmgh enemies to conteml w ith : starvation 

 and damp in the winter; moths, hornets, and robbers 

 of their own kind in the autumn ; dry summers, which 

 often press them very liard ; cold and backward springs. 

 It has been well said, that man, who ought to be their 

 best friend, is often their worst enemy. They have no 

 defence against the brimstone match, though, with 

 some help from man, they can conquer all their other 

 enemies. Be kind to them, and, like reasonable crea- 

 tures, they will fully repay you. Do not listen to those 

 who tell you that after two or three years the bees 

 w ill do no more good ; that they get old and la/.y ; and 

 that therefore they had better be taken up. They do 

 no such thing- 



Wliiti moths have laid their eggs in the hive, turn 

 It U]), and cut freely out the whole of such combs as 

 have iIk' grubs of th(! moth in tlii'in ; for it is easier for 

 ilie bees, if you do it in the spring, to make a new 

 comb than to mend an old one; and you may perhaps 

 leave some grubs, or eggs, unless you do so. But pre- 

 vention is b(!tler than cure. Prevent wasps, moths, or 

 robber bees from coming in, by making the door smaller, 

 \\ hen they are about. The bees will be better able to 

 IiL'Mt for tliemselves. They teach you wliat they want 

 by building up little pillars of wax in theiloorway. If 

 riildiers have taken a hive, u.se your fungus directly; 

 take what honey is left for yourself, and join the 

 smoked bees to some hive which wants strengthening. 

 Keep them shut up for two days after, till they all gel 

 friends. A'one but thepoorer ones rob ; none but the weak 

 are robbed. So you can prevent robbery, thouch not 

 cure it: unite all your weak hives, and unite and feed 

 your poor ones. But you say that feeding costs some- 

 thing ; so it docs. But every pound of food given at the 

 right time, as in a cold, late spring, will bo repaid by 

 the bees when the weather clianges. Another time 

 when t'liiiiiL' is i|iiite needful, is when the weather 

 comes b.'id \\ itbin two days after a swarm is put into a 

 hive. 'J'he bees, as I said before, swarm with their ho- 

 iieybags full. You may have noticed that very few 

 bees go out the day after the swarm. They are then 

 busily engaged in building their combs, of the honey 

 whirh they carried with them. Vou will smile at the 

 notion of buililing combs with honey, but it is true ne- 

 vertheless. What they carry in on their legs is bee- 

 bread, not iraT. The honey goes from their honey-bag 

 into their stomach, and then drops out in little white 

 plates of wav from under the scales of their abdomen, 

 or tail. I have watched it myself, for half an hour, 

 coming out of a bee who was hanging in a cluster, with 

 his belly towards me, close to the glass. I always feed 

 my bees for two or three days after they have swarmed, 

 h<; the weather fair or foul. It saves time, and helps 

 them to pet their combs sooner made. Nothing you 

 g;ve your hoes is thrown away ; all is repaid with in- 



terest. JVot a single ounce of honey has ever been wasted 

 by bees since the world was made. You do not waste 

 your honey by fei'ding, but only, as it were, pour it out 

 of one pot into another, where you may find it when- 

 ever you want it, and not only so, but you find a peck, 

 where you put atpiart. Another time when feeding is 

 needed is in the dry, hot months of summer, when the 

 (lowers have no honey, but fade as soon as they blow ; 

 feeding will then always cheer your hive, saving the 

 lives of many young bees when their dry nurses can- 

 not otherwise feei\, and even save a whole hive. Some- 

 times I myself have seen, in a dry summer, thousands 

 of bee-grubs lying before the hive, which the old bees, 

 unable to keep, have thrown out. This seems cruel, 

 but it is, in truth, kindness; when thus thrown out, 

 they quickly die, w hilst, if kept in the hive, they would 

 linger on a long time, half starving. Autumn'feeding 

 should not be done later than September. Weigh the 

 hives you w isli to keep ; if they are 2 lbs. or 3 lbs. short 

 of 201bs., give it them all that time; they will lay it all 

 up in their cells; and though feeding in the winter is 

 betterthan no feeding at all, and has often saved hives, 

 still it murders many bees who come down into the 

 cold. It is as if you had always to go down and dig 

 your potatoes in the frost and cold of December, instead 

 of laying thein up safe and handy. — As for food, never 

 press your combs; let the honey drain from them, and 

 so you may get clear honey, which is worth a great 

 deal more, even from common black combs. When all 

 has run that wilL put the combs by, till the time when 

 your bees want food in the summer ; then put them be- 

 fore your hives ; they will clear them in a very short 

 time, and not only thank you, but repay you too. 

 Again I say, nothing is wasted. If you feed with beer 

 and sugar, which is next best, do not put more than 

 lib. of sugar to a quart of beer; nor boil it moie than 

 live minutes; 'his melts the sugar; longer boiling 

 would make it thick and tinwholesome. 



Many people, who would otherwise keep bees, are 

 afraid of their stings. There are some people, it is 

 true, to whom a sting is really dangerous. Many re- 

 UKHiies have been given for a sting ; above all, pull the 

 sting completely out. as it is barbed, like a fish-hook, 

 and will work into the flesh. Then squeeze the poison 

 out with the pipe of a small key, as you would a thorn, 

 and put a little honey on the place, just to keep the air 

 away : if this is done at first, the swelling will gene- 

 rally be a mere nothing. But, as I have said before, 

 lirevention is better than cure. Listen to the words of 

 an old writer, who lived two hundred years ago :— " If 

 thou wilt have the favour of thy bees, that they sting 

 thee not, thou must avoid some things which ofiend 

 them; thou must not be uncleanly; for impurity and slut- 

 tishness (themselves being most chaste and neat) they 

 utterly abhor : thou must not come among them smell- 

 ing of sweat, or having a stinking breath, caused 

 either through eating of leeks, onions, garlick, and the 

 like : thou must not be given to surfeiting or drunken- 

 ness; thou must not come pulling and blowing unto 

 them, neither hastily stir among them, nor resolutely 

 defend thyself when they seem to threaten thee : but 

 softly moving thy hand before thy face, gently put them 

 by : and lastly, thou must be no stranger unto them. In 

 a word, thou must be chaste, cleanly, sweet, sober, quiet 

 and familiar ISO will they love thee, and know thee from 

 all other." Above all, never blow on them; they will 

 try to sting directly, if you do. If they come all about 

 you making the noise wdiich you will soon learn to 

 know as a sisii of anger, go quietly away, and put your 

 bead into a thick shrub, if any is near. This w ill brush 

 them off. 



I have now done. Learn, from the bee, to work hard, 

 and waste nothing. Remember, nothing worth doing 

 can be done without a little trouble; and, above all, 

 help each other all you can. — Yankee Farmer. 



We arc obliged to our friends for several fine sam- 

 ples of grain, and other produce, which have been, from 

 time to time, deposited at the Office of the Cabinet; 

 especially for some very large stalks of Corn. Our 

 wish is, to form a sort of Cabinet of this chief of all 

 grains, and should be glad to obtain a f(!W of the finest 

 ears of the distinct varieties, presuming, that in this 

 remarkable season of fertility, there will be found sam- 

 ples of unprecedented growth.— Ed. 



