No. 10. 



The Honey Bee. 



299 



would do some great act ; but it is only for 

 his pleasure, and to get him a stomach, and 

 then returns he presently to his cheer." 



It has been often discussed whether a 

 country can be overstocked with bees ; we 

 believe this is quite as certain as that it 

 may be over-peopled and over-manufactured. 

 But that this is not yet the case with regard 

 to Britain, as far at least as bees are con- 

 cerned, we feel equally sure. Of course it 

 is impossible to ascertain what number of 

 acres is sufficient for the support of a single 

 hive, so much depending on the season and 

 the nature of the herbage; but, neverthe- 

 less, in Bavaria only a certain number of 

 hives is allowed to be kept, and these must 

 be brought to an establishment under the 

 charge of a skilful apiarian, each station 

 being four miles apart, and containing 150 

 hives. This is centralization and red-tapery 

 with a vengeance! A story is told, that in 

 a village in Germany, where the number of 

 hives kept was regulated by law, a bad sea- 

 son had nevertheless proved that the place 

 was overstocked from the great weakness of 

 all the stalls in the neighbourhood. There 

 was but one exception. This was the hive 

 of an old man, who was generally set down 

 as being no wiser than his neighbours, and 

 this perhaps all the more, because he was 

 very observant of the habits of his little 

 friends, as well as careful in harvesting as 

 much honey as he could. But how came 

 his hive to prosper when all the rest were 

 falling off! His cottage was no nearer the 

 pasture. He certainly must have bewitched 

 his neighbours' hives, or made "no canny" 

 bargain for his own. Many were the whis- 

 perings and great the suspicions that no 

 good would come of the gaffer's honey thus 

 mysteriously obtained. The old man bore 

 all these surmises patiently ; the honey har- 

 vest came round, and when he had stored 

 away just double what any of the rest had 

 saved, he called his friends and neighbours 

 together, took them into his garden and 

 said — " If you had been more charitable in 

 your opinions, I would have told you my 

 secret before — 



This is the only witchcraft I have used :" 

 and he pointed to the inclination of his 

 hives — one degree more to the east than 

 was generally adopted. The conjuration 

 was soon cleared up; the sun came upon 

 his hives an hour or two sooner by this 

 movement, and his bees were up and stir- 

 ring, and had secured a large share of the 

 morning's honey, before his neighbours' bees 

 had roused themselves for the day. Mr. Cot- 

 ton, who gives the outline of the story which 

 we have ventured to fill up, quotes the pro- 

 verb that "early birds pick up most worms," 



and draws the practical moral, in which we 

 heartily concur, that your bed-room window 

 should always, if possible, face the east. 



In an arable country, with little waste 

 land and good farming, very few stocks can 

 be supported; and this has led some enthu- 

 siastic bee-masters to regret the advance- 

 ment of agriculture, and the consequent de- 

 crease of wild flowers — or weeds, according 

 to the eye that views them — and the enclo- 

 sure of wastes and commons. Even a very 

 short distance will make a great difference 

 in the amount of honey collected. We know 

 of an instance, where a bee-keeper at Car- 

 shalton, in Surrey, suspecting, from the 

 fighting of his bees and other signs, that 

 there was not pasturage enough in the im- 

 mediate neighbourhood, conveyed away one 

 of his lightest and most worthless hives, and 

 hid it in the Woodmansterne furzes, a dis- 

 tance of about a mile and a half. Fortu- 

 nately it lay there undiscovered, and on re- 

 moving it home, he found that it had become 

 one of his heaviest hives. We mention this 

 as a case coming under our own knowledge, 

 because a late writer, who has shown rather 

 a waspish disposition in his attacks on Mr. 

 Cotton's system, seems to question not only 

 the advantage, but the practicability of the 

 transportation of hives altogether. But the 

 fact is, that in the north of England and in 

 Scotland, where there are large tracts of 

 heather-land apart from any habitation, no- 

 thing is more common than for the bee- 

 masters of the towns and villages, to submit 

 their hives during the honey season, to the 

 care of the shepherd of the district. "About 

 six miles from Edinburgh," says Dr. Bevan, 

 "at the foot of one of the Pentland hills, 

 stands Logan House, supposed to be the 

 residence of the Sir William Worthy, cele- 

 brated by Allan Ramsay, in his " Gentle 

 Shepherd." The house is at present occu- 

 pied by a shepherd, who about the begin- 

 ning of August, receives about a hundred 

 bee-hives from his neighbours resident be- 

 yond the hills, that the bees may gather 

 honey from the luxuriant blossoms of the 

 mountain heather." Mr. Cotton saw a man 

 in Germany who had 200 stocks, which lie 

 managed to keep all rich, by changing their 

 places as soon as the honey season varied. 

 " Sometimes he sends them to the moors, 

 sometimes to the meadows, sometimes to the 

 forest, and sometimes to the hills." He also 

 speaks of its being no uncommon sight in 

 Switzerland, to see a man journeying with 

 a bee-hive at his back. 



There are cases in which a little common 

 sense is of more value than a great deal of 

 calculation. 



