ECONOMICAL BEE HOUSE. 
109 
ECONOMICAL BEE HOUSE, 
he most delusive errors of the 
I have had to combat with, is the prevailing opi 
nion among bee keepers of this country, and 1 might 
add, of the whole world, that bees should be kept 
as warm as possible in winter, especially, and at 
all other times when the thermometer does not rise 
above 80° or 90°F. In order to produce the de¬ 
sired heat, bee houses are constructed, as warm as pos¬ 
sible, fronting the south, of course : and, during the 
heat of summer, the hives stand exposed, perhaps, to 
the full rays of the sun, with not a breath of air 
circulating around them, and where a steak could 
almost be broiled, if necessary. If not fully ex¬ 
posed to the rays of the sun, the heat merely from 
reflection, is so intense that the labors of this insect 
are often entirely suspended, and they are seen 
clustering upon the outsides of their hives, utterly 
unable to exist within. 
There seems to be a pall of moral darkness hov¬ 
ering over the management of bees, from one end 
of the globe to the other. While the march of in¬ 
tellect is making the most rapid strides to perfec¬ 
tion in the arts ; while every branch of science 
arid industry is moving onward, the management of 
the little bee is clouded with tradition and super¬ 
stition, and now lies, almost precisely where it did 
in _the days of Aristotle and Pliny. 
Fig. 27. Bee House. 
It is true, many persons have attempted a revo¬ 
lution in the labors of the bee, seeking by art and 
invention to draw from her, great and unprecedent¬ 
ed gatherings of the mellifluous juices; but they 
have greatly mistaken the nature of the insect, with 
which they have to deal. She requires not the aid 
of man, to teach her the art of producing honey. 
Perfect in her labors, she stands forth a pattern for 
man to follow—not by him to be turned aside from 
the course that God has laid before her. She re¬ 
quires no stimulus, or incentive to action from us . 
but only asks a tenement of the proper dimensions, 
and her just inheritance of the air of heaven, that 
is cruelly withheld from her, through ignorance, 
and she will perform all that nature demands of 
her. 
By the thousand-and-one complicated inventions 
of the day, that have nothing but their novelty to 
recommend them, the bee is retarded, athwarted, and 
well nigh broken down in her vigorous, primeval 
spirit, that actuates her in the forest, where she has 
nature alone to deal with. The only manner in 
which we can aid her in her labors, is to permit her 
to carry out her own natural habits and customs, 
to the greatest possible extent. She wants no 
screens , bars, tubes , ventilators , nor other humbug - 
gery about her; but simply the free use of her 
own powers—her own instinct and reason, to pro¬ 
tect her from the dangers of every foe. 
The preceding cut shows a bee house twelve feet 
long, five feet wide, and six feet high to the plates 
that receive the roof. It is simply clapboarded up 
against ordinary joists. It may be ceiled or plas¬ 
tered on the inside, if desirable. There is an open¬ 
ing in the rear, one foot wide, as may be perceived 
in the illustration. This is the principle that I 
have introduced, and which is entirely new. It is 
a principle that can never be subverted, and it is also 
a principle, that needs only to be explained, to carry 
conviction to every man’s mind of its necessity. 
It will also be perceived by the engraving, that 
a couple of boards are placed in front, under the 
eves of the roof. The lower one is hung to the 
upper one by butt hinges, and is susceptible of be¬ 
ing raised, and let down, at pleasure. This is 
another improvement that I submit. The object of 
this movable board, is to allow the rays of the sun 
to enter freely, in the months of March, April, and 
May; when the larvae are in progress of de¬ 
velopment, and at the only season when 
bees require the benefit of the sun; that is, 
to shine fully upon the hives. In the sum¬ 
mer, fall, and winter, it is to be let down, and 
thus shade the hives as much as possible. 
The opening in the rear of the building^ is 
one foot wide; to close which, a shutter'is 
made of a single board, well cleated to pre¬ 
vent warping, as well as that in front also. 
It is hung on hinges, and is to be kept open 
at all seasons except in the months of March, 
♦ April, and May as above, or when it should 
be temporarily closed, during the prevalence 
of very high winds, when the bees meet with 
difficulty in alighting at the hives, on their re¬ 
turn from the fields. 
The hives may rest on a shelf floor board, so ar¬ 
ranged as to be moved back and forward at pleas¬ 
ure. The benefit of this is, to place the hives irt 
the spring, where the rays of the sun will fully 
reach them, and when warm weather approaches, tf> 
move them back where they will be in the shade. 
In the winter season, they should be moved back, 
and the rear shutter kept raised. By this course, 
the bees will not feel inclined to go abroad much, 
and especially when the ground is covered with 
snow ; not one bee in ten will leave the hives, thru 
would come forth, if this opening did not exist. I 
need not here inform the reader, how many thou¬ 
sand families of bees are destroyed in this country 
annually, by so placing them, that false and decep¬ 
tive appearances of the temperature of the atmos¬ 
phere allure them to their destruction. 
Hives may be suspended, or they may rest on 
stools in a house of this character. I simply give 
the principle of its construction, and the apiarian 
may build of such size as he may choose, and 
