NAIURE 



433 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER, 9, \l 



ENGLISH AND AMERICAN BEE-KEEPING 

 The Bee-Keeper^ s Manual; or, the Honey Bee, its Manage- 

 ment and Presei-vation. With a Description of the 

 most Approved Hives and other Appliances of the 

 Apiary. By the late Henry Taylor. Seventh Edition, 

 modernised and very greatly enlarged by Alfred Watts. 

 (London : Groombridge and Sons, 18S0.) 

 British Bee-Farming, its Profits and Pleasures. By 

 James F. Robinson. (London : Chapman and Hall, 

 18S0.) 

 Manual of the Apiary. By A. J. Cook, Professor of 

 Entomology in the Michigan State Agricultural College. 

 Fifth Edition, revised, enlarged, mostly re-written, and 

 beautifully illustrated. (Chicago, lUinois : Thomas G. 

 Newman and Son, 1880.) 



MR. WATTS' edition of Taylor's "Bee-Keeper's 

 Manual" has been so copiously revised and added 

 to that it is really a new work, embodying all the most 

 recent discoveries and improvements in apiarian practice. 

 For the amateur bee-keeper — as distinguished from the 

 scientific student of bees on the one hand, and the mere 

 honey manufacturer on the other — this volume is a most 

 admirable guide. It is simple in arrangement, very clear 

 in its descriptions, and copiously illustrated by really good 

 v/oodcuts of every portion of the extensive apparatus used 

 by the modern amateur. Commencing with a short 

 account of the different kinds of honey-bee, and the main 

 facts of its life-history, we are soon introduced to the 

 mode of keeping bees, beginning with the old-fashioned 

 straw hive, and successively pointing out the various 

 improvements that have been effected. We then come 

 to the different kinds of box, frame, and obsei-vatory 

 hives, and the various systems of bee-management, all of 

 which are explained and illustrated in the clearest and 

 most intelligible manner. The latter half of the volume 

 is devoted to a detailed account of the summer, autumn, 

 winter, and spring management of bees ; and this part is 

 so full and so carefully written that it will prove of the 

 greatest service to all young bee-keepers. 



Mr. Watts does not seem quite so confident as most 

 apiarians of the superior qualities of the Ligurian over the 

 common bee. He quotes, as " worthy of the most careful 

 consideration from those interested in the subject," a 

 statement that the former rob the latter of their honey, 

 and that they are also far more liable to disease. The 

 writer — a Scotchman who has closely studied the habits 

 of bees — says : — 



" All Ligurian fanciers claim for them that they work 

 in wet or dry earlier and later than do the blacks. Now 

 any one can see that as soon as there is honey in the 

 flower, so soon will the black bee go for it, and so long as 

 there is honey so long will the black remain gathering it. 

 Since the Ligurian can no more make honey than the 

 black, and since it finds honey after the blacks have failed, 

 it must obtain it from some other source than the flowers. 

 Ligurian bee-keepers tell me— and I see no reason to 

 doubt the statement — that the Ligurian thrives amazingly 

 for a time where plenty of black bees are kept, and that 

 nearly in the same proportion to the number of black 

 hives within reach, so will be the honey-producing powers 

 Vol. XXII.— No. 567 



of the Ligurian. I have often seen them coming out of 

 the black hives, and certainly they were not helping the 

 blacks, because in nearly exact proportion as they in- 

 creased in weight the blacks decreased ; and this transfer 

 of the honey is not always accompanied with fighting, the 

 Ligurians having what all successful pilferers generally 

 have — viz. the knack of introducing themselves unchal- 

 lenged anywhere if what is wanted is to be had." . 



" British Bee-Farming " is a most e.xcellent and prac- 

 tical work, written in the simplest style, and giving 

 excellent directions to those who wish to keep bees for 

 profit. We have seldom seen a book from which a 

 beginner can obtain such exact information on all the 

 necessary details of bee-management. Mr. Robinson 

 strongly recommends a simple form of bar-hive, which he 

 calls "the bee-farmer's hive," and which is figru'ed so 

 clearly that any village carpenter can make it ; and by 

 the use of this, and his equally simple and efficient "bee- 

 farmer's honey extractor," he shows how a constant supply 

 of pure honey can be obtained, week by wee'tc, without 

 interfering with the bees' work or destroying any of the 

 comb, the replacement of which in a small hive necessi- 

 tates the consumption by the bees of twenty pounds of 

 honey. A good deal of miscellaneous information on 

 bees and bee-keeping is given in the second part of the 

 work, but its chief value is that it well justifies its title, 

 by showing in the briefest and clearest manner how bees 

 may become a source of considerable profit as well as a 

 continual pleasure. 



Prof. Cook's volume differs considerably from the pre- 

 ceding, and indeed from any other English work on the 

 subject, in its combination of science with utilitarianism, 

 while the amateur pure and simple is hardly recognised 

 at all. More than one-third of the book is devoted to an 

 account of the natural history of the bee, its place in the 

 animal kingdom, its anatomy, physiology, habits, and 

 economy. Then follow the chapters on bee-keeping 

 proper ; and the author here addresses himself almost 

 exclusively to those who make bee-keeping a business, 

 and we are led to understand how much this branch of 

 industry is advancing in America, where honey is now 

 being manufactured on almost as large a scale as corn. 

 An article in the Times last year informed us that a single 

 bee-farm has 12,000 swarms, and keeps two steam-saws 

 and nine men at work for five weeks in cutting up the 

 timber for the 72,000 boxes in which the honey is packed 

 for exportation. Prof. Cook accordingly has a chapter on 

 " Marketing Honey," and instnicts his readers in the art 

 of " invigorating the market," "tempting the consumer," 

 and other mercantile details ; and throughout the book we 

 find constant indications that bee-keeping is looked upon 

 as a business rather than a hobby, and that in all its details 

 economy of labour and materials must be studied, and all 

 processes judged by the test of the maximum of produc- 

 tion at a minimum of cost. A few extracts will give an 

 idea of the style of the book. 



After stating that a queen bee will often lay two or 

 three thousand eggs a day, he remarks that this is nothing 

 to the queen white ant, which lays 80,000 eggs a day, 

 adding : — 



" This poor helpless thing, whose abdomen is the size 

 of a man's thumb, and composed almost wholly of eggs, 

 while the rest of her body is not larger than the same in 

 our common ants, has no other amusement ; she cannot 



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