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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79076 ***
+  TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
+
+  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
+
+  Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO KEEP BEES
+
+[Illustration:
+
+                                         _Photograph by Ralph W. Curtis_
+
+PLATE I. BASSWOOD BLOSSOM]
+
+
+
+
+                            How to Keep Bees
+
+                         A Handbook for the Use
+                              of Beginners
+
+                                   By
+                      Anna Botsford Comstock, B. S.
+
+                          _With Illustrations_
+
+                        [Illustration: Colophon]
+                        GARDEN CITY      NEW YORK
+                        DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
+                                  MCMXI
+
+
+
+
+                           Copyright, 1905, by
+                        Doubleday, Page & Company
+                          Published April, 1905
+
+
+                    _All rights reserved, including that of
+                    translation—also right of translation
+                    into the Scandinavian languages_
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This book has been prepared especially to meet the needs of the
+beginner in bee-keeping. It is not intended to be a complete treatise
+for the professional apiarist, but rather a handbook for those who
+would keep bees for happiness and honey, and incidentally for money.
+It is hoped, too, that it will serve as an introduction to the more
+extended manuals already in the field.
+
+When we began bee-keeping we found the wide range of information and
+varying methods given in the manuals confusing; but a little experience
+taught us that bee-keeping is a simple and delightful business which
+can be carried on in a modest way without a great amount of special
+training. After a beginning has been made, skill in managing the bees
+is gained naturally and inevitably, and interest is then stimulated by
+the wider outlook which bewilders the novice.
+
+For the sake of simplicity this volume is restricted to knowledge
+gained in practical experience in a small apiary; and the writer has
+sought to exclude from it those discussions which, however enlightening
+to the experienced, are after all but devious digressions from the
+simple and straight path which the feet of the inexperienced must tread
+to success in the apiary.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
+
+  I. Why Keep Bees                                                     3
+
+  II. How to Begin Bee-Keeping                                         8
+
+  III. The Location and the Arrangement of the Apiary                 20
+
+  IV. The Inhabitants of the Hive                                     27
+
+  V. The Industries of the Hive                                       50
+
+  VI. The Swarming of Bees                                            64
+
+  VII. How to Keep from Keeping Too Many Bees                         73
+
+  VIII. The Hive and How to Handle It                                 83
+
+  IX. Details Concerning Honey                                       106
+
+  X. Extracted Honey                                                 117
+
+  XI. Points About Beeswax                                           126
+
+  XII. Feeding Bees                                                  136
+
+  XIII. How to Winter Bees                                           145
+
+  XIV. Rearing and Introducing Queens                                156
+
+  XV. Robbing in the Apiary                                          164
+
+  XVI. The Enemies and Diseases of Bees                              172
+
+  XVII. The Anatomy of the Honey-Bee                                 181
+
+  XVIII. Interrelation of Bees and Plants                            194
+
+  XIX. Bee-Keepers and Bee-Keeping                                   206
+
+  XX. Bee-Hunting                                                    211
+
+  Bibliography                                                       215
+
+  Index                                                              219
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  PLATE I.—Basswood blossom                               _Frontispiece_
+
+  Observation hives                                               Page 2
+
+                                                             FACING PAGE
+
+  PLATE II.—(_a_) Two flat section-boxes (_b_) Corneil smoker         14
+
+  PLATE III.—(_a_) Dixie bee-brush, spur wire-embedder and Van
+  Deusen wax-tube fastener. (_b_) A super with fences. (_c_) The
+  Porterbee-escape in a honey-board                                   15
+
+  PLATE IV. Hives well shaded by a tree                               26
+
+  PLATE V. (_a_) Queen; drone; worker. (_b_) Queen cell. (_c_)
+  Miller’s queen introducing cage                                     27
+
+  PLATE VI. Head of drone; head of queen; head of worker; ventral
+  surface of worker showing plates of wax                             30
+
+  PLATE VII. Legs and antennæ of the honey-bee                        31
+
+  PLATE VIII. Drone cells in a comb of honey                          50
+
+  PLATE IX. Side of hive removed showing the bees at work             51
+
+  PLATE X. Bees hanging in a curtain secreting wax                    62
+
+  PLATE XI. Hiving bees; cutting down a swarm                         63
+
+  PLATE XII. (_a_) Two self-spacing frames. (_b_) An empty super.
+  (_c_) The Doolittle division board feeder                           90
+
+  PLATE XIII. Examining the brood-frames                              91
+
+  PLATE XIV. (_a_) Alley’s queen and drone trap. (_b_) A well
+  filled section. (_c_) One empty section-holder, and one filled
+  with section-boxes                                                 106
+
+  PLATE XV. One and a half story hive for comb-honey                 107
+
+  PLATE XVI. Drone and Queen trap; queen mailing and introducing
+  cage; queen-protector and queen-cage used in queen-rearing, and
+  bee-escape                                                         110
+
+  PLATE XVII. “In apple-blossom time”                                111
+
+  PLATE XVIII. (_a_) Taking off upper story of hive containing combs
+  for extracting. (_b_) Extracting-room showing apparatus for
+  extracting honey                                                   122
+
+  PLATE XIX. (_a_) Uncapping comb before extracting the honey.
+  (_b_) Placing uncapped comb in one of the pockets of the
+  extractor                                                          123
+
+  PLATE XX. (_a_) Drawing honey from extractor.
+  (_b_) Pouring extracted honey into keg for shipping in bulk        126
+
+  PLATE XXI. (_a_) Extracted honey in pails, candied.
+  (_b_) Extracted honey in glass jars ready for market               127
+
+  PLATE XXII. Winter quarters in chaff hives                         154
+
+  PLATE XXIII. Plum blossoms                                         155
+
+  PLATE XXIV. Sumac in blossom. Blossom of mountain maple            184
+
+  PLATE XXV. Fig. 1. Vertical longitudinal section of the body
+  of a larva of an insect. Fig. 2. Section of the body-wall of
+  insect. Fig. 3. Head of a bee and its appendages. Fig. 4.
+  Glands of a honey-bee. Fig. 5. The wax plates                      185
+
+  PLATE XXVI. (_a_) The reproductive organs of the honey-bee.
+  (_b_) Fig. 1. The internal anatomy of the honey-bee. Fig. 2.
+  The respiratory system of the honey-bee                            192
+
+  PLATE XXVII. An old-fashioned apiary                               193
+
+  PLATE XXVIII. (_a_) Thorn-apple blossoms.
+  (_b_) Wild crab-apple blossoms                                     198
+
+  PLATE XXIX. Buckwheat in blossom                                   199
+
+  PLATE XXX. Box-elder, staminate and pistillate flowers             210
+
+  PLATE XXXI. Blossoms of black locust                               211
+
+
+
+
+HOW TO KEEP BEES
+
+[Illustration: An ordinary beehive made into an observation-hive by
+inserting glass panes in sides and putting a glass sheet under the
+wooden cover. (From V. L. Kellogg.)]
+
+[Illustration: An observation-hive holding only two frames, with the
+two sides wholly of glass, so that any single bee can be continuously
+watched. (From V. L. Kellogg.)]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+WHY KEEP BEES
+
+
+The reasons for keeping bees are many and various; for it is an
+industry as many-sided as the cells of a honey-comb, one of its chief
+charms being that it appeals equally to “many men of many minds.” To
+know all the reasons why one should keep bees one must be conversant
+with the history of man; he must be familiar with the Vedas of India
+and master of the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt; he must study the
+life of the common people in the Hebrew Scriptures and the classic
+literatures of Greece and Italy, and must be able to translate into
+terms of common human experiences the myths and legends of diverse
+peoples. For bees have been a part of the conscious life of man from
+the beginning. Not only have they sweetened his daily bread with
+beneficent honey, but they have had their place in his religious rites,
+and also in his family observances, as millions of happy lovers may
+attest who have experienced the “honeymoon.” However, lacking the
+erudition necessary to enumerate all, the author of this book is quite
+content to mention a few of the more cogent reasons why anyone should,
+in this day and generation, undertake the keeping of bees.
+
+One may keep bees for the sake of the honey, which is a most legitimate
+and fit reason. Honey is a wholesome and delicious addition to the
+family table. Though it is a luxury, yet it may be afforded by one
+living in moderate circumstances, if he be willing to give a modicum
+of time and care to the happy little creatures that gladly make it for
+him, free of all expense. But for the one possessed of great wealth,
+and able to corner the honey-market any day, there is sure delight, as
+well as education, in raising his own honey. Any person of experience
+well knows that the honey made by one’s own bees has quality and
+flavour superior to that made by other people’s bees. In fact, the only
+way to become a connoisseur of honey is to keep bees, for thus only may
+one learn to discriminate between honey made from basswood and that
+gathered from clover; or to distinguish, at first taste, the product of
+orchard in bloom from that drawn from vagrant blossoms, which, changing
+day by day, mark the season’s processional. He who has once kept bees
+and become an artist in honey-flavours, would never again, willingly,
+become a part of the world at large, which, in its dense ignorance,
+dubs all white honey “basswood” or “clover” indiscriminately, and
+believes all dark honey is gathered from buckwheat.
+
+Some, perhaps, might keep bees for the sake of making money. For him
+who would get rich keeping bees, this book manifestly is not written;
+its title explains that it is meant to show how to keep bees, and not
+how to make bees keep him. The person who would, from the first, make
+bee-keeping his chief work should receive his training in a large
+apiary. As a vocation it demands the entire time and energy of a shrewd
+and able person to insure success; of such, America already has a great
+number, with yearly incomes varying from $1,000 to $10,000. However,
+the desire to make the bees keep themselves and add more or less to
+the family income is a practical and sensible reason for keeping bees.
+Fifteen or twenty colonies may be managed with comparatively little
+time and attention and the work may be done largely by women or the
+younger members of the household. If proper care be given to such an
+apiary, it will prove of material benefit to the family purse; for,
+if the season be favourable, the product of one colony should net the
+owner from four to ten dollars. We know of boys who have thus earned
+their college expenses; and many women have bought immunity from the
+drudgery of the kitchen with money paid them for their crops of honey.
+It should be borne in mind that honey-money is not obtained without
+thought, energy, and some hard work. The bees would have been less
+beneficent to mankind had they bestowed honey without demanding a
+return in care and labour.
+
+Many have kept bees as a recreation, and there is none better. It gives
+delightful and absorbing occupation in the open air and is not merely a
+rest from mental and sedentary labours, but is a stimulus to health and
+strength as well. In the various bee journals are recorded testimonials
+from thousands who, when tired, ill, and nervously worn out, began
+bee-keeping, and through it regained vigour and found a new interest
+in life. Notwithstanding the fact that bees have honest stings, they
+can work the miracle of changing a dyspeptic pessimist into a cheerful
+optimist with a rapidity and completeness that merits our highest
+admiration.
+
+A love for natural science is a very good reason for keeping bees.
+Nowhere are there more fascinating problems for the investigator than
+those still unsolved in the hive. Of all the lower animals, bees are,
+perhaps, the most highly developed in certain ways; and it is more
+probable that the mysteries of the eternal heavens and the distant
+stars be made plain than that we ever learn the truths that underlie
+the development of the “Spirit of the Hive.”
+
+Another reason for keeping bees is the insight to be gained therefrom
+into the conditions of perfect communism. The bees and their relatives
+are the most intelligent and consistent socialists that have yet been
+developed in this world; and, through studying their ways, one may
+discern with startling clearness how the perfect socialism grinds off
+all the projecting corners of the individual until it fits perfectly in
+its communal niche. In the hive individual traits, as exemplified in
+kindness, selfishness, love and hate, are moved up a notch in the scale
+and characterise the whole community, even though they are eliminated
+from its members. If one is a social philosopher, he may become very
+wise, indeed, by studying the results of the laws of socialism which
+have been executed inexorably through countless centuries in the bee
+commune.
+
+Last, but by no means least, one may keep bees because they belong to
+home life and should have place in every well-kept garden or orchard.
+There is no more beautiful domestic picture to be found in the world
+than a fine garden with a row of hollyhocks hiding the boundary fence
+and affording a fitting background for a neat row of white hives. It
+is not alone the æsthetic beauty the bees bring to the garden which
+touches the deeper currents of feeling and is productive of profound
+satisfaction; it is something more fundamental; for since the thyme
+of Hymettus yielded nectar, the happy hum of the bee has yielded
+comfort to the human senses. The garden without bees seems ever to lack
+something; mayhap, the silent longing of the flowers for their friendly
+visitors, intangible but real, so permeates the place that we are dimly
+conscious of it. Be that as it may, the perfect garden can only be
+attained through the presence of happy and populous bee-hives.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HOW TO BEGIN BEE-KEEPING
+
+
+THE VARIOUS WAYS OF BEGINNING
+
+There are so many ways of beginning this interesting work that no
+classic way obtains. Many people have received the stimulus from a
+swarm of bees, escaped from some apiary, which has alighted on a tree
+or bush on the premises, and which seemed too much like a gift of
+the gods to be ignored. In fact, no one with blood in him would do
+otherwise under such circumstances than to hunt up a soap-box or a
+nailkeg and, with an intrepidity amounting almost to heroism, place it
+under the cluster and shake the bees into it. Then, if the swarm feels
+content, the fact is accomplished; and the involuntary owner finds a
+new interest in life, and enthusiastically becomes a bee-keeper. This
+is an excellent and inexpensive way to begin, and for all who are thus
+favoured it is by far the best way. But one may wait many years before
+this happens, and after all there are other and more direct methods.
+The best way is to begin by wishing sincerely to keep bees, and then to
+adopt one of the following plans:
+
+The cheapest way is to visit the nearest neighbour who keeps bees, and
+buy of him a swarm, which will cost, perhaps, two or three dollars.
+If the neighbour be a good apiarist, this may be an excellent method,
+for he will give practical advice and be a most helpful friend in time
+of future difficulties and doubts; he will also explain appliances
+and make the labours and perplexities of the beginner much smoother.
+Besides these advantages, it is a help to neighbourliness, for keeping
+bees is almost as close a bond between two neighbours as an interest
+in golf or automobiles, and has a much broader and more philosophical
+basis.
+
+Of course, the bees may be bought at any time of the year convenient,
+but the early spring is the best season for beginning, for then one has
+the advantage of increase by swarms. If one is ingenious and inventive,
+one may easily construct other hives like the one bought; but there are
+other things needed which may be obtained cheaper and better from firms
+that sell apiarists’ supplies. However, we are acquainted with several
+apiarists who furnish all of their own supplies except the sections
+for comb-honey, the wax foundations, the smoker, the cartons and the
+honey-extractor.
+
+The usual way of beginning is to send to some of the dealers in
+bee-keepers’ supplies for a catalogue and to invest in a library of bee
+books. There is something most fascinating about these books written by
+bee-keepers, for no one makes a success of bee-keeping unless he loves
+the bees; and if he loves bees he writes of them so persuadingly, and
+his lines are so full of insidious allusions to the enchantments of
+the occupation, that whoever reads one of these volumes finds life arid
+without bees.
+
+Then the catalogue of bee-keepers’ supplies has its own attractions.
+Never were such breathlessly interesting pamphlets written; and I would
+add that, on the whole, they are the most honest and reliable of all
+advertising catalogues. They almost invariably give good and sensible
+advice to beginners, suggesting proper outfits at moderate prices. To
+the would-be bee-keeper these catalogues are so delightful that, if
+the purse is long enough, he feels inclined to order a specimen of
+everything listed. However, this is not the best way to do. A moderate
+number of things can be ordered at first, and other things may be
+ordered later as the growing sense of their need develops.
+
+If one is minded to go into bee-keeping as a regular business, the
+best way to begin is to spend a year with a successful bee-keeper,
+working for him and with him and paying for the tuition, whatever may
+be charged. Thus one may gain his knowledge of the business and get his
+practical training under the guidance of experience. The very worst way
+to begin, and one that is sure to result in disaster, is to buy a large
+number of colonies at first. This is a too expensive way of learning
+the extent of one’s own ignorance and limitations as a bee-keeper.
+
+As we have begun keeping bees three times in the course of our lives,
+we feel more or less competent to give advice about this special
+phase of bee-keeping. We first began when we were children and
+two swarms were bestowed upon us by an uncle who moved away from
+the neighbourhood. This was long before the idea of supers and box
+comb-honey had been thought of. We were among the first to adopt the
+old glass-sided super when it was introduced. The second and third
+times we purchased our outfit of a dealer in apiarists’ supplies, and
+both of these beginnings were good and successful; so perhaps the
+best way to tell others how to begin is to describe how we began. The
+following is the order which we sent to a dealer.
+
+
+A BEGINNER’S ORDER
+
+One colony of bees, in an eight-frame, dovetailed, chaff hive with a
+deep telescope cover, and with a tested Italian queen.
+
+Two complete supers ready for use, with 4¼ × 4¼ × 1½ plain sections.
+
+One super cover.
+
+Three extra 1½-story chaff hives uniform with the above, and with super
+covers.
+
+One standard Corneil smoker.
+
+One bee-veil.
+
+One pair bee-gloves.
+
+Two hundred and fifty sections, plain, no bee-way, 4¼ × 4¼ × 1½.
+
+One pound medium brood foundation.
+
+Two pounds thin super foundation.
+
+One Daisy foundation-fastener.
+
+One Van Deusen wax-tube fastener.
+
+One ¼-pound spool No. 30, tinned wire.
+
+One Porter bee-escape, with board.
+
+One Manum’s swarm-catcher.
+
+One Dixie bee-brush.
+
+One Doolittle division board feeder.
+
+One Alley’s queen and drone trap.
+
+
+NOTES ON A BEGINNER’S ORDER
+
+
+THE BEES
+
+The selection of the bees is the first and most important
+consideration, since race and heredity determine to so great an extent
+the bee’s efficiency and disposition.
+
+The consensus of opinion to-day is in favour of the Italian bees; this
+is so much so that the other races, except the German, are hardly on
+the general market in America. Taking all points into consideration,
+the Italian has a higher average of satisfactory qualities than has any
+of the other races.
+
+Our earliest experiences were with the ordinary black German bees, and
+it was through them that we first learned to love bees, although their
+nervousness and their unhappy habit of considering us intruders when we
+neared their domain were always somewhat embarrassing, and made us feel
+like James Whitcomb Riley’s visiting base-ball team, that “we weren’t
+so welcome as we aimed to be.” Therefore, when we decided to buy bees,
+we unhesitatingly ordered Italians. These are much more gentle and
+friendly than the others, and it is one of our greatest pleasures to be
+on good terms with our bee-folk. Under all ordinary circumstances the
+Italian bees are not only tolerant of human interference, but are sweet
+tempered and optimistic, believing that we mean well by them; and one
+cannot work with them without learning to love them.
+
+If one begins bee-keeping in the spring, some money can be saved by
+buying a nucleus and tested queen, instead of a full colony of bees.
+A nucleus in bee-keeping parlance is a small colony with only one,
+two, or three frames. The colony should be large enough to build combs
+with sufficient rapidity to keep the queen fairly busy, so as not to
+encourage in her the habit of loafing, and so that too much time shall
+not be required to build up a full colony. Two frames with about a
+quart of bees will accomplish this well.
+
+Such a nucleus as this in a hive, with a division board on either side
+of the two adjacent frames, can be soon built up into a full colony if
+there is plenty of nectar and pollen to be had. A division board is a
+solid board of the shape of the frame, but a little larger so that it
+is close-fitting in the hive. The frame should be watched closely, and
+as soon as the comb is filled with brood, and there are enough bees to
+cover the brood well, another frame filled with brood foundation should
+be added; this should be continued until the hive is filled with frames.
+
+
+A TESTED QUEEN
+
+As the queen is the mother of the whole colony, her powers for
+transmitting a kind disposition and superior honey-making qualities are
+of the greatest importance. It is essential, therefore, to know that
+the queen, which is to serve as a foundation for the apiary, has mated
+with a drone of the desired race. A tested queen is one that has been
+kept until some of her offspring have been reared. The colour of these
+will indicate whether the queen has mated with a drone of her own race.
+
+
+THE HIVE
+
+Next to choosing the bees comes the selection of the hive, for there
+are several kinds of hives in general use, and all of them are
+apparently good. We chose the Langstroth hive because its merits are
+attested by the fact that it is more largely used than all others taken
+together. We chose the eight-frame in preference to the ten-frame
+form because we wished to produce comb-honey, and it is easier to
+induce bees to store surplus in the sections when the brood-chamber is
+small. If one wishes to produce extracted honey, the ten-frame hive
+is the better one. We ordered the more expensive chaff hives, as we
+wished to save the trouble of moving the bees into winter quarters;
+and we think this would be the case with anyone with whom bee-keeping
+is an avocation instead of a vocation. In fact many people who
+make bee-keeping their principal business prefer chaff hives, for
+they not only keep out the cold in winter, but also protect the bees
+from the heat in summer. The objections to them are that they are
+heavy to handle and are expensive, though the expense can be reduced
+considerably if one has the ability to make them. Another thing we
+like about the chaff hives is that they are fine and dignified in
+appearance, and we find that their majestic proportions, white and
+beautiful, set against the background of our larches, add much to our
+conscious pleasure every time we look upon our apiary. We ordered a
+deep telescope cover, as we wished room for two supers on the hive at
+once.
+
+The hive stand we ourselves made from lumber taken from dry-goods
+boxes. It is simply a smooth platform, six inches wider than the hive
+on three sides and extending about a foot out in front of the hive,
+thus serving as an alighting-board.
+
+
+TWO COMPLETE SUPERS
+
+We knew that we would need these very soon, for the basswood harvest
+was imminent; we ordered them ready for use, as we wished to see all
+the “new wrinkles” in supers, and exactly how the parts are arranged.
+We used the supers as models later in putting together and fitting
+other supers. This proved a wise precaution, as it saved us much time
+in reading directions and studying out independently the arrangement
+of parts. We ordered 4¼ × 4¼ × 1½ sections, as this is the size most
+generally used, and we chose the no-beeway, or “plain” style, because
+we think it presents a better appearance when filled with honey. We
+will return to this question in Chapter VIII.
+
+
+THREE EXTRA HIVES
+
+We wished to have these on hand for any swarms which might possibly
+issue.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  PLATE II.
+
+  (_a_) Two flat section-boxes; and one being bent together.
+
+  (_b_) A Corneil smoker.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  PLATE III.
+
+  (_a_) The Dixie bee-brush, spur wire-embedder, and Van Deusen
+  wax-tube fastener.
+
+  (_b_) A super with fences and two rows of section-boxes in place;
+  a separate fence.
+
+  (_c_) The Porter bee-escape in a honey-board.]
+
+
+ONE STANDARD CORNEIL SMOKER
+
+I do not know just why we chose this of the many excellent smokers, but
+perchance the name called to mind happy experiences with sundry Corneil
+smokers of quite a different feather, and we were thus favourably
+disposed toward this one. It has not disappointed us in the least,
+for it is both handy and practical. It may seem an unfriendly act to
+smoke one’s own bee-people, but a little smoke wisely applied is as
+efficacious in preserving pleasant relations with the bees, as was the
+smoke from the pipe of peace in preserving similar relations between
+our forefathers and the savages. (Plate II.)
+
+
+ONE BEE-VEIL
+
+The senior partner of our apiary rarely uses a veil, but when he does
+use one he needs it very much, and it is an article necessary to have
+at hand. To the beginner it gives a calmness of nerve and a surplus of
+courage which are highly desirable when dealing with such high-strung
+creatures as bees. Also there always occur times during the year when
+the bee-tempers are on edge for some reason or other; and at such
+times, if one be intrenched behind a bee-veil, it facilitates work and
+encourages a serene spirit.
+
+
+ONE PAIR OF BEE-GLOVES
+
+While we do not use these ordinarily, yet when we have some special
+work to do which involves changing many bees from one location to
+another, we find these gloves most convenient to keep the disturbed
+little citizens from crawling up our sleeves, thus saving both them and
+ourselves from a most embarrassing situation.
+
+
+250 SECTIONS
+
+Only a small supply of sections was ordered, as but few would be needed
+the first year in addition to those in the two complete supers. (Plate
+II.)
+
+
+ONE POUND BROOD-FOUNDATION
+
+This was for use in the frames in the extra hives.
+
+
+TWO POUNDS THIN SUPER-FOUNDATION
+
+This was for use in the sections.
+
+
+ONE DAISY FOUNDATION-FASTENER
+
+In the early days of our bee-keeping we fastened the foundation into
+the sections and frames with a common kitchen-knife which we heated
+over a lamp and then applied to the edge of the wax foundation held
+against the section, thus melting it and pressing it fast to the wood.
+Afterward we used a Parker fastener, and found it a great improvement
+over the primitive method. But this Daisy foundation-fastener as
+described in the catalogue appealed to the modern spirit in us. When
+we tried to use the machine, we were bitterly disappointed at the end
+of five minutes, but that was because the iron was not hot enough to
+properly melt the wax. After a little we learned to hold the foundation
+on the plate just long enough to melt it to a proper consistency so
+that it adhered to the section as soon as it was dropped upon it.
+Then it was that filling sections was placed on the list of sports.
+The rapidity with which we filled four dozen sections almost took our
+breath away.
+
+
+ONE VAN DEUSEN WAX-TUBE FASTENER
+
+This was ordered under the impression that it would be needed for
+fastening the foundation in the brood-frames, but when the hives came
+we found that a much better method of fastening the foundations had
+been devised. This is described in Chapter VIII. (Plate III.)
+
+
+TINNED WIRE
+
+This is used for strengthening the foundation in the brood-frames, as
+described later.
+
+
+ONE PORTER BEE-ESCAPE
+
+The Porter bee-escape is a simple and most useful device. It is set in
+a thin board just the size of the top of the hive; in the middle is a
+bit of tin which forms a round pit on the upper side. The bees descend
+into this pit, and, trying to get out, push apart two strips of tin
+set at angles to each other, fastened at the ends, which act like a
+valve, letting the bee out but not permitting her to push back. This is
+put between the super and the hive in order to free the super of bees
+before removing the honey. This escape is also used on the doors and
+windows of workshops or extracting-rooms or other places where bees get
+in and it is desirable to get them out. (Plates III., XVIII.)
+
+
+THE MANUM SWARM-CATCHER
+
+We bought this because we liked the idea of it, but as yet we have
+never had occasion to use it; however, we never look at its long handle
+without being filled with a mad desire to try it on a provoking swarm
+of bees clustered in the top of a cherry tree.
+
+
+ONE DIXIE BEE-BRUSH
+
+This is an exceedingly useful instrument for brushing bees from frames
+and from sections. (Plate III.)
+
+
+ONE DOOLITTLE FEEDER
+
+Bee-keepers of extended experience consider this the best and most
+satisfactory kind of feeder in use for small apiaries. (Plate XII.)
+
+
+QUEEN AND DRONE TRAP
+
+This is not a necessity; we bought it in order to try experiments in
+preventing swarming by its use, and also to have on hand in case an
+excess of drones should be developed in any of our colonies. (Plate
+XIV.)
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE LOCATION AND THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE APIARY
+
+
+Where to put the hives is the first question, and this must be
+determined by two or three conditions necessary for the health and
+comfort of the bees. Hives should be placed where the sunshine may
+reach them in the morning up to eight or nine o’clock, and in the
+afternoon from three to four o’clock. An old orchard such as is kept
+because of picturesque beauty rather than for its crop of apples is an
+ideal place. The clean-culture orchards of the modern horticulturists
+are undoubtedly more efficient as producers of apples and money; but
+we are always grateful that there are still remaining many fine old
+orchards, on sod ground where the trees, more or less gnarled and
+twisted, are a joy to the artistic eye. Little wonder that such a place
+is the ideal spot for the apiary; if the hives are grouped four or five
+together beneath one tree, the requirements of shade will be met.
+
+If there is no old orchard, what then? A young orchard will do, unless
+clean culture is practised; in the latter case horses and cultivator
+will not be permitted on the domain of the bee-people. If no orchard
+offers, then a trellis of vines extending east and west, eight feet
+high, may shade a few hives, and may be a thing of beauty in the garden
+as well. Grape vines, hops, Virginia creeper, or any other rapidly
+growing vines will do. To the one who loves his garden, there will be
+many ways suggested whereby the hives may be placed to compass both
+comfort for the bees and joy to the beholder. We started an apiary at
+the north of the lilac trees, and made it a part of the lawn.
+
+If no such happy position for natural shade is to be found for the
+hives, then one must have recourse to artificial shade or double-walled
+hives. A very good method of shading, much in vogue among the farmers
+of our country, consists of a few boards placed awning-fashion above
+the row of hives. This is not an attractive solution to the problem,
+although perhaps it might be made so if this method were ever resorted
+to by anyone with a sense of beauty; but usually it is limited to
+a simple cover consisting of two or three boards nailed together,
+slanting a little toward the back of the hives to shed rain, supported
+by four posts, which hold it a foot or more above the row of hives.
+
+In California instead of boards a thatched roof is made for this sort
+of protection, and is ample enough to allow an aisle for the apiarist
+between the rows of hives set back to back.
+
+Many people use a single shade board, which consists of slats fastened
+together by cleats made large enough to project a foot beyond the hive
+on either side. This is placed directly on top of the hive, and has
+to be weighted down with stones, and is therefore awkward to handle
+when working with the bees. If the climate is hot, or in any case, a
+double-walled cover to the hive is most excellent, since it affords a
+chance for free circulation of air between the two boards which form
+it. However, these double covers do not obviate the need of shade, and
+natural shade is the most desirable sort.
+
+In case the region is exposed to high winds, there should be a
+windbreak around the apiary. Mr. Root, who is one of the greatest of
+American bee-keepers, uses for this a row of hardy evergreens which
+grow together into a solid hedge. In case a windbreak, either natural
+or made, is impracticable, a board fence about eight or ten feet high,
+built on two sides of the apiary, usually the north and west sides,
+will be found to serve the purpose. This fence may be made the trellis
+for vines.
+
+In the rear of the village garden is an excellent place for bees. A
+high board fence as a boundary, and perhaps a barn at the side will act
+as a windbreak, while the fruit trees yield a grateful shade. We know
+several such modest apiaries which are most attractive in appearance.
+There are those who live in cities or towns who are filled with the
+bee-keeper’s ambitions; and even they need not despair. There are on
+record accounts of several small apiaries kept on the housetops of the
+owners, who believe that roofs are for more than mere protection. Where
+bees kept thus get their honey is a bee secret, but undoubtedly every
+flower in the region yields them tribute. If bees be kept in town, they
+must be placed on a roof or else a high fence must intervene between
+the hives and the highway, so that the plane of bee flight shall be
+set above the heads of horses and drivers; for these brave little
+honeymakers have never been taught to turn to the right, and so they
+often dispute the way with teams and usually come off victorious; and
+this might make the bee-keeper unpopular in his community.
+
+Another necessity in the apiary is that the grass in front of the
+entrance to the hives be kept mown; otherwise many a heavily laden
+bee will experience loss or injury among interfering grass blades. It
+is not practicable, even if one were heroic enough to try it, to run
+a lawn mower nearer than four or five inches from the hives, so many
+bee-keepers place salt or coal ashes on the grass within this area. Mr.
+Root goes so far as to advise the use of sheep as automatic lawn mowers
+in the apiary, as nothing else can cut grass so short as does the
+sheep. People say “as silly as a sheep,” but that is a silly saying,
+for many people may learn something of value about the management of
+bees from the sheep, which, when attacked by them, thrusts its head
+philosophically into a bush where the bees cannot reach the tender
+parts, and trusts to its wool to protect it elsewhere. As a matter of
+experience, sheep kept in apiaries are rarely stung at all.
+
+In our own apiary, where it was not practical to mow close to the
+hives, we followed two methods: When we had many bees we placed a
+rough board over the ground in the immediate front of the hive; when
+we had only a few swarms, it was one of our joys to get on our knees
+on cold days, when only a few adventurous workers were going into the
+field, and with shears cut the grass close to the ground; and this
+period spent on our knees was not penance, but joy. However, it might
+well get to be penance in a large apiary.
+
+Having found the place for the apiary, the next thought is of hive
+stands. Many bee-keepers use a hive that has a combination bottom board
+and hive stand; this has an inclined plane up which the loaded bees
+may climb if they strike the ground. This is a device which also saves
+the lives of many bees in cool weather, when they would scarcely be
+able, through numbness, to reach the entrance of the hive otherwise.
+However, there are other bee stands which hold two or three hives,
+which are very comfortable in height for the work of the bee-keeper.
+But it is always well to remember that the opening of a hive should be
+low down, as it is easier for the weary wings to let the honey-weighted
+bee down than to lift her up to the doorway. We use a simple platform,
+with blocks under the corners, so that there may be circulation of air
+beneath, and extending about a foot out in front of the hive, thus
+serving as an alighting-board.
+
+The arrangement of the hives in the apiary is a subject which will
+pay for thought. When beginning, this is easy enough, as they may be
+arranged almost any way, so long as shade and short grass are assured.
+After the apiary grows they may be arranged in several convenient ways;
+one is to have the lines of hives facing each other, thus making an
+alley for the bees; while there is a safe passageway for the man in the
+rear of the two rows.
+
+When there are only a few hives, it is best to have the entrances
+face the south. In fact, the entrance should never face northward in
+a climate as cold as that of New York State. There is one thing to
+bear in mind in arranging an apiary; make the groups under the trees
+individual, so that the bees will have no tendency to become confused
+as to the location of their own homes. If two face west, then let two
+others face east, or perhaps a group of three face to the south, etc.
+
+When it becomes necessary, for any reason, to change the location of
+a colony, a board should be set against the hive, in front of its
+entrance. The bees, meeting this obstruction as they emerge from the
+hive, will fly about the hive for some time, and thus mark the new
+location, to which they will return. If this precaution is not taken,
+many bees will fly from the hive, directly into the field, without
+noticing the change, and will then return to the old location and thus
+be lost.
+
+A honey-house near the apiary is a great convenience. If this is not
+practicable, the next best arrangement is a honey-room in house,
+cellar, or shed. Such a room is a necessity even in a small apiary.
+This room should be well ventilated and screens should cover the
+windows, and a swinging automatic screen protect the door; bee-escapes
+should be placed in door and windows.
+
+The room should contain workbench and tools; a table, chairs of varying
+height, an oil-stove, and boxes or cupboards in which all of the apiary
+supplies, implements, and machinery may be stored and kept ready for
+use.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+                                          _Photograph by Brown Brothers_
+
+PLATE IV. Hives well shaded by a tree, but the grass ought to have been
+cut long ago.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  _Fig. 1_
+  _Fig. 2_
+  _Fig. 3_
+  _Fig. 4_
+  _Fig. 5_
+
+  PLATE V. _1._ Queen Bee, enlarged. _2._ Drone. _3._ Worker. _4._
+  Queen Cells. _5._ Miller’s Cage for Introducing Queens.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE INHABITANTS OF THE HIVE
+
+
+One of the remarkable peculiarities of bees, which is also shared by
+other social insects, as ants, wasps and termites, is that there are
+three distinct kinds of individuals in the community. For, in addition
+to the males and females, which are the reproducing members of the
+colony, there is a third class which performs the labours of the
+community. The females, of which there is usually only one in a colony,
+are known as queens; the males as drones; and the labourers as workers.
+(Plate V.)
+
+
+THE QUEEN (Plates V, VI, VII)
+
+The bee-queen is the acme of a long line of communistic development.
+It is little wonder that those men of ancient times who observed her,
+and the attitude of the other bees toward her, regarded her as regal
+and called her queen. But she is a much more important element in the
+perfect commune than a mere sovereign, since she is the actual mother
+of her subjects.
+
+Too much care cannot be shown in the selection of the queen, or mother
+of the bee-colony. Her blood is their blood; her faults are their
+faults; her weaknesses are their weaknesses. Any apiarist is likely
+to have had two colonies side by side, perhaps each equalling the
+other in amount of brood and number of bees, and one may have produced
+five dollars’ worth of honey in a season, while the other did not
+produce half of that; and the queens alone caused this discrepancy. One
+produced energetic, capable offspring, while the progeny of the other
+were unenterprising. The offspring of one were perhaps sweet-tempered
+and obliging, and those of the other, cross and cranky. Thus it is
+all-important to give the colony a good mother. A queen, to be perfect,
+should be well-bred, handsome and strong, and capable of laying from
+two to three thousand eggs per day during the height of the season, and
+especially should she have offspring possessing a kindly disposition.
+
+The laying queen is a very graceful insect; her body is long and
+pointed, and extends far behind the tips of her closed wings. _Svelte_
+is a graphic word applied to her figure by the _Spectator_; just a
+glance at her reveals her splendid physical development and proves
+her a queenlier bee than those that gather around her. It is a sight
+that makes men feel how very limited is their knowledge of any other
+world than their own to see the queen bee, surrounded by her ring of
+attendants, each with head toward her, as if she were the centre of a
+many-rayed star.
+
+The development of the queen from the egg has ever been a most
+interesting and, at the same time, a most puzzling subject for
+investigation on the part of the scientists; even now after a century
+of study her growth is as miraculous as ever; and the problems in
+physiology that lie as yet unsolved in her development will keep many
+an investigator busy in the future.
+
+When a colony is queenless, and has young brood or unhatched eggs, it
+makes haste to develop new queens; not one alone, but several, since it
+cannot afford to put its “eggs all in one basket.” At the height of the
+honey season, every day that a colony is queenless means two or three
+thousand less bees than should be present to make it successful in
+securing the harvest. (Plate V.)
+
+In developing a queen the bees usually proceed as follows: They select
+the important egg, which differs in no wise from any other worker egg,
+and destroying the partitions between its cell and two adjoining cells,
+give it more room. In order to make the royal apartment of good size a
+projection is built out over this large cell. This is made of thick wax
+and ornamented on the outside with hexagonal fretwork, as if it were
+to be the basis of comb with small cells. It seems as if the hexagonal
+pattern were in the bee brain and must be expressed, whether it be of
+any use or not. As soon as the little white larva hatches from the egg,
+it is fed on the regular larval food. Royal jelly is a food developed
+in the head glands of the workers; and when it is the fate of a bee
+larva to develop into a worker, it is fed with this food for three
+days, and then it is weaned by having other food substituted; but the
+queen larva is fed with it during her entire development, and thereby
+her reproductive organs are stimulated and fully developed, which is
+not the case with the workers. Think how much farther advanced are
+the bees than we, since, by giving the proper food, they are able to
+develop and fit each class of citizens to do the work required of it in
+the social organisation!
+
+The queen larva is fed for five days on this most nourishing food, and
+then her cell is sealed. Within this cell the royal princess is for the
+first time self-dependent, and weaves about herself a silken cocoon
+and changes into a pupa. When she issues from this state she waits a
+little until she “finds herself,” and then starts to cut an opening in
+the cell. She is a good mathematician, and with her jaws, cuts a circle
+very accurately, usually leaving it hinged like the lid to a pot.
+Professor Kellogg tells us that sometimes when she cuts this door, the
+workers do not wish her to come out. They accomplish their purpose by
+carrying wax and pasting it over the opening as fast as she cuts it, at
+the same time quite devotedly feeding her through a small crevice. But
+if they wish her to come out, they rush to assist her, and perhaps for
+two or three days before she issues, make the wax thin where she is to
+cut. It usually requires sixteen days to develop a queen from the egg
+to the adult.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  PLATE VI. (Original, drawn by A. G. Hammar.) _d_, head of drone;
+  _q_, head of queen; _w_, head of worker; _x_, ventral surface of
+  worker showing plates of wax.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  PLATE VII. Legs and antenna of the honey-bee (original drawn
+  by A. G. Hammar). _A_, outer surface of hind leg showing the
+  nine segments and claws; _pb_, the pollen basket of tibia; _B_,
+  inner surface of part of hind leg; _wp_, wax-pincers; _pc_,
+  pollen-combs; _C_, inner surface of part of hind leg of queen;
+  _D_, inner surface of part of hind leg of drone; _E_, part of
+  middle leg of worker; _s_, spur; _F_, part of fore leg showing
+  the antenna cleaner _a_; _G_, part of antenna showing sense-hairs
+  and sense-pits.]
+
+When a queen issues from her cell, she is light-coloured and, as her
+body is not yet distended with eggs, it is scarcely larger than that
+of one of the workers. Sometimes she chooses to stay in her cell for
+a day or two after it is opened. When she comes out, she runs about
+over the comb, taking exercise on her own royal legs, and perhaps
+taking a little honey out of the cells on her own account; especially
+does she hunt for other queen cells, for she has no wish to share her
+duties or honours with another. If she finds such a cell, she usually
+makes a hole in its side, and in some way, she stings to death the
+hapless princess within. Some observers claim that she merely takes
+the initiative, tearing down the wall of the cell, and the bees finish
+by tearing it down as they would any broken comb, and destroy the
+inmate in the process. If, in her promenade, she discovers another
+full-grown queen, a contest ensues; it is a duel to the death and the
+weapons are stings, which are kept sacred for this special occasion.
+It is interesting that the queen reserves her weapon for her peers,
+and never attempts to sting workers, and may be handled fearlessly by
+the bee-keeper. As the plate armour of the bee is so arranged that the
+sting may enter in only at certain spots, this duel resolves itself
+into a fencing match, until one thrusts her weapon into some vulnerable
+portion of the other. One morning we found fifteen dead queens outside
+of one of our hives; a grim tribute to the prowess of the queen within,
+and quite as much a tribute to our carelessness in letting so many
+queens be developed uselessly.
+
+The belligerent attitude of the queens toward each other seems to have
+been so strong an emotion that a voice has been developed to express
+it, and is eloquent with rage and fear. This note must be heard to
+be understood; as nearly as I am able to spell it, it is “tse-ep,
+tse-e-e-ep, tse-e-ep, tsep, tsp, tsp, ts,” in a sort of diminuendo.
+She makes the noise when she discovers another queen cell; if there is
+within this cell a full-fledged queen, she pipes back, but it sounds
+quite differently and the note is more like “quock, quock.” This piping
+of queens is especially evident before an after-swarm is to issue. The
+queen will also pipe when the bees gather about her and try to ball
+her, which is often the fate of a new queen introduced into a colony
+not ready to receive her. In this case the note is one of righteous
+anger at the indignity to her royal person. She makes this piping
+with some vocal instrument, not well understood. Her wings vibrate
+tremulously while she is piping, but she can pipe quite as vociferously
+after her wings have been entirely cut off.
+
+After she has made good her title to empire, the queen thinks about
+marriage; some warm day she will run out of the hive to see how the
+world looks, and especially to determine beyond doubt upon just what
+point of the universe her own hive is situated. The first flight of
+the queen bee is very pretty to see. She makes many graceful circles
+about, and plays in the sunshine as if she were thoroughly enjoying
+herself. When she finally leaves the hive to find a prince, she makes
+several little _détours_, always coming back so that she can commit to
+memory, beyond peradventure, the home place, and then off she goes in
+the sunshine to find her lover. Unfortunately she is not discriminating
+in the matter of love, and any sort of a prince, however lowly,
+is acceptable. Thus does many a fine, highly bred queen return to
+her hive, to bestow upon her progeny the undesirable traits of some
+low-bred drone. This is one reason why it is so difficult to keep an
+apiary of pure blood; and these _mésalliances_ of queens are a source
+of much tribulation to the bee-keeper. She returns from her wedding
+journey with a part of the reproductive organs of her mate in her
+possession, often still visible, but soon after withdrawn into her
+body. With the sperm cells now under her control, she will fertilise
+the eggs of perhaps a million workers, more or less, which she may
+mother during her life of three or four years.
+
+Biologists have of late achieved the miraculous in being able to
+stimulate the unfertilised eggs of sea-urchins and starfish, so that
+they will develop. The queen bee is able to do this with her own eggs.
+When the time comes for drones to be developed, she lays unfertilised
+eggs, which, unfailingly, produce the drones. If our poor human queens
+possessed this power of producing male heirs at will, much trouble
+would have been saved to many of them and, to some of them, their
+heads. However, the perfect socialists do most things better than we.
+
+As soon as the queen returns from her honeymoon, which is usually taken
+from eight to ten days from the time she issues, she acts decidedly
+like a business person. She runs about on the comb, pokes her head into
+a cell to see if it is all ready, and then, turning about, thrusts her
+abdomen in and neatly glues an egg fast to the bottom. When the honey
+season is at its height, she works with great rapidity; sometimes she
+lays at the rate of six eggs per minute, often laying three thousand
+or twice her own weight of eggs per day. She is a wise queen, however,
+and has in mind the dangers of overpopulation. When there is much
+honey brought in, and the swarming season is at hand, she enlarges her
+empire rapidly; but when there is little honey, she keeps the amount of
+brood down to what can be cared for. Whether this question of limiting
+the population is decided by the queen, or whether she simply acts in
+response to the food given her by the workers, is a question not yet
+settled. However this may be, it is certain that Malthusian doctrines
+are rigorously and successfully practised by the perfect socialists of
+the hive.
+
+Sometimes when the honey flow is very great an intoxication of work
+seems to possess the colony. The bees, coming in from the field, will
+drop the honey anywhere, and the queen, agitated by the general spirit
+of the hive, will drop her eggs everywhere; and the poor, overworked,
+bee housekeepers have to pick up the honey and store it in the cells,
+and pick up the eggs and glue them fast to the cell-bottoms.
+
+
+THE DRONE (Plates V, VI, VII)
+
+Of all the denizens of the hive the lot of the drones is the least
+enviable. That one may surely fulfil the destiny as king father, many
+are born, only to be slain when the honey harvest runs low, and
+meanwhile they are denied all interests in the business of the colony
+except that of pensioners upon its bounty. And he, the fortunate one,
+who lives his life to its fullest measure and becomes queen consort
+must in the end lose his life for love and die, heartlessly abandoned
+by her whom he sought and won.
+
+In appearance the drone differs much from the queen and the worker;
+he is broad, and the rear end of his body is so blunt that it looks
+almost as if it had been cut off with shears. He is made for a life
+of idleness; his hind legs bear no pollen baskets, so he could not
+fetch and carry if he would; his tongue is so short that he must needs
+eat from honey stored in a cell or be fed by his sisters, since he
+could not possibly extract nectar from a deep flower; nor is there any
+occasion that he should hang suspended weary hours for the secretion
+of wax, since he has no wax glands. His special accomplishment is his
+buzz, which is of extraordinary calibre and sonorousness. So fierce and
+loud is this, the song he sings when on the wing, that the novice feels
+inclined to retreat before him. But this music is undoubtedly meant to
+attract a queen to his vicinity, and is by no means a sound of menace;
+he is a burly, good-natured fellow, who is obliged to express himself
+in this rather coarse song. The term “good natured” is applied to him,
+not because we are certain that his temper is sweet, but because he
+has no means of expressing ill temper should he experience it, since
+niggard nature has given him no sting. He is always a clumsy chap, as
+awkward as his queen is graceful; but he can scramble out of the way
+with astonishing celerity when a murderously inclined sister attacks
+him. The time when he shows his princely qualities is when he is
+flying, for his wings are large and strong and carry him easily several
+miles if he needs to travel so far to win his lady. In his physical
+makeup he is a fine example of a purely feminine product; for the drone
+is a very perfect creature, even if he is reared from an unimpregnated
+egg. His magnificent compound eyes almost completely encircle his head,
+nearly meeting at the top, and thus crowding his simple eyes down into
+his “forehead.” And such eyes as these mean something surely, for they
+are developed that he may be better able to see his heart’s desire
+from afar. He also has marvellous antennæ, the nine distal joints of
+which are completely pitted with smelling organs. The reason for this
+is that his queen has a fragrance all her own, sweeter to him than the
+attar of roses, and thus he is equipped, as Cheshire has proven, with
+thirty-seven thousand eight hundred nostrils, in order to detect the
+perfume of her royal person at a distance. (Plate VII, _G_.)
+
+The life-history of the drone after he hatches from his unfertilised
+egg is much like that of other bees, except that for him is provided
+a cell larger than that of the worker; he hatches from the egg about
+three days after it is laid, and during the week following he is
+carefully attended by the nurses who feed him on the rich chyle food at
+first; after four days they give him some undigested pollen, a food
+not granted to the larvæ of the workers. At the end of a week his cell
+is sealed over with a cap that looks more like the crown of a derby hat
+than a cap, so spherical is it. Cheshire has shown that this cap is an
+especially fine example of engineering, being girdered by six struts of
+wax, the apex of the dome being not a skylight exactly, but rather a
+ventilator for the admission of air. (Plate VIII.)
+
+It has been a question of much dispute whether the workers inspire the
+queen to drone-raising through building drone comb, or whether she
+takes the initiative in the matter. Certain it is the bees seem to love
+to build drone comb, perhaps because it is more easily constructed and
+requires less wax. It is also a fact that the queen prefers the worker
+cells, and in the spring or fall when there is little honey coming
+in, the queen will voluntarily pass drone comb, leaving it empty, and
+lay eggs in the worker cells, so she evidently knows her own mind.
+Sometimes when reduced to dire extremity the queen will lay worker eggs
+in the drone cells, but she does not do this unless the openings of
+the cells have been previously constricted by the bees. Sometimes also
+when the conditions are abnormal the queen will lay drone eggs in the
+worker cells and from these will be developed runty drones, which seem
+of little account. However, such conditions as these are very unusual.
+
+When the drone is twenty-four days from the egg he cuts a circular lid
+out of the cap of his cell, and crawls out into a hazardous world.
+After a fortnight or so of moving about the combs and eating his fill
+he goes out of the hive and tries his wings. This he does on some
+pleasant day, about noon or a little after. As soon as he is sure of
+himself, he makes his flight longer, and the length of his journeys may
+only be guessed at. When he meets the queen they unite at once in the
+air, and after this they fall to the ground and she frees herself by
+tearing off and holding within herself the generative appendages of her
+dying consort.
+
+In every hive are developed thousands of these princes royal, who are
+maintained at the expense of the colony until the dawn of that fatal
+day when the honey crop runs short; and then an unhappy experience lies
+before these useless brothers of the reigning house. Then their sisters
+chase them out of the hive apparently attempting to sting them, and,
+changed to furies, bite off their wings and harry them until they give
+up, great helpless creatures that they are, and fulfil their final
+destiny, which is to die for the sake of the colony.
+
+Even the drone eggs, larvæ, and pupæ are not exempt on this appointed
+day of execution, but are ruthlessly killed, and their remains thrust
+forth from the hive. If conditions should change and more honey be
+made, a reprieve to the unhappy drone may be granted, for the length
+of his life is measured by the food supply. Any time during the summer
+when the bee-keeper finds the workers attacking the drones he may be
+very sure it means that the honey crop is exhausted.
+
+Our pity is usually much more excited for the fate of the drone than
+for that of the busy worker, which dies from overwork at the end of
+a few weeks; and this is undoubtedly because the death of the worker
+seems voluntary, while the drones are manifestly murdered. Once we
+witnessed the slaughter of the drones in an observation hive, the
+entrance of which was too contracted to allow the bodies of the drones
+to pass. For several days the bloody-minded workers spent their
+energies in tearing their wretched victims limb from limb, and carrying
+them out in sections. Below a small crevice at the bottom of the hive
+we found a row of disjointed legs, wings and antennæ from the mutilated
+drones, while the heads and broken bodies were thrown out of the front
+of the hive.
+
+
+THE WORKERS. (Plate V, VI, VII.)
+
+It is interesting to note that in the socialistic bee-community the
+work is carried on by unsexed females. It evidently has not been a
+part of the true economy of the perfect socialism to unite motherhood
+and business life in one individual; therefore, a division of labour
+takes place. The queen mother is developed into a highly efficient
+egg-laying machine, while all her worker sisters remain undeveloped
+sexually, and thus have time and energy to devote themselves to
+bringing up the young, keeping the house, getting the food, and
+administering the affairs of the body politic. Little wonder is it
+that the brain of the worker bee is much larger than that of the queen
+or drone, for she needs must exercise her mental powers far more than
+either. She is obliged also to pass through certain industrial stages
+in her development as a worker before she attains the full height of
+citizenship.
+
+The life-history of a worker is usually as follows: The cell in which
+she is developed is the smallest of the comb, such as is ordinarily
+used for storing honey. She is not merely a fatherless creation, like
+the big drone, but hatches from an impregnated egg during the fourth
+day after it is laid by the queen mother. She is supplied with royal
+jelly, presumably the same as that which nourishes the queen larva,
+for about three days; afterward she is fed honey and digested pollen.
+This food is placed in the bottom of the cell, and the young larva
+floats in it and absorbs it through the body walls as well as through
+the mouth, which a little later she opens up pleadingly that it may be
+filled by the nurse bees. She grows like other infantile insects by
+shedding her skeleton skin as fast as she outgrows it; she does this
+with thoroughness, for she sheds the lining of the mouth, the gullet,
+the larger intestines and the tracheal tubes as well as the outside,
+this being a very thorough change of clothes, indeed; she does this
+about six times. Soon after she hatches she querls up in the cell,
+floating in her food, and at the end of four days’ feeding she is a
+very fat, contented youngster. Six days from the hatching the nurse
+bees place over the cell, a cap which is made of wax and pollen, and
+admits the air freely. Then the young bee in the solitude of her own
+cell eats all the food that has been provided, spins about herself a
+cocoon of finest silk, which she weaves from a gland which opens in her
+lip; this is a very, very delicate cocoon, which remains in the cell as
+a lining, but so delicate is it that not until years have elapsed do
+the brood cells become contracted by these many silk wrappings of bees
+which have been developed in them. When the worker sheds for the last
+time her skeleton, she sheds the lining of the stomach and alimentary
+canal and all its contents, and changes to a pupa, which is a state
+of utter quiescence and during which wonderful changes take place in
+her anatomy. These changes which occur in the pupa are almost like new
+creation, for the legs, wings, antennæ, and all of the other organs
+of the adult bee are developed from what was within the body of the
+footless, white grub.
+
+Twenty-one days from the date of the laying of the egg, twelve days
+after the cell is capped, the worker bee sheds her pupa skin, pushes
+it behind her to the bottom of the cell, cuts a lid in the cap of her
+cell and pushes her way out, very likely after some friendly nurse has
+given her a little food to “stay her stomach.” As she crawls out, she
+is a silvery-gray bee, as damp as if she had been out in a fog; no
+one hastens to greet her, or pays her the slightest attention, which
+is quite different from the case with the young ant, which is always
+fussed over and patted and petted by the nurses for some time after
+it emerges from the pupa skin. But the worker bee has to pat herself,
+and so she gives her face a rubbing, stretches and tries to straighten
+out her draggled clothing, and walks around trying to get acquainted
+as best she can with her sisters, who are too intent upon work to
+notice her. The first twenty-four hours of her life as a bee are spent
+orienting herself; but on the second day she learns to put her head
+down into the cells of unsealed honey and drink her fill. This is not a
+selfish and thoughtless act, for almost immediately she enters on her
+first duty, that of bee-nurse; and she must eat pollen and honey and
+digest them in order to make chyle for the bee brood, which she soon
+learns to care for most solicitously. It may be her lot to supply royal
+jelly to a queen cell and thus become a lady-in-waiting. In any event
+she very soon learns to be useful in many ways; she helps to build
+comb, and works very hard at capping the cells of the young bees when
+they are ready to pupate. She also helps to clean house if necessary,
+carefully removing all of the dirt and refuse at the bottom of the hive
+and dumping it out of the front door. During the extreme heat of the
+summer she must exert herself tremendously by fanning with her wings so
+that a draft may be set up in the hive for the sake of the bees as well
+as to ripen the honey in the uncapped cells. During very hot weather,
+when the bees hang out, some of these young workers may be seen fanning
+“for dear life” on the outside of the hive. Having more zeal than wit,
+they dance a little glide back and forth, and fan as if they thought
+they were really accomplishing something.
+
+The young worker usually takes her first flight when she has had her
+wings for about a week; she runs out on the threshold of the hive
+on some pleasant afternoon, and may be easily recognised, as she is
+callowness incarnate. She runs around a little, giving the impression
+of holding on with all her six feet as if scared, and then she lifts
+herself gingerly to see whether she truly can use her wings; then she
+circles around in great joy and learns to know well the place where
+her hive stands. About a week later she goes out into the wide world
+to seek her fortune and is likely to come back with a little load of
+pollen on her legs. When she comes back thus laden she buzzes around
+before alighting, and then rushes into the hive excited and delighted
+with her achievement, and as Mr. Root says so graphically, “tries her
+best to show off.” Soon after, she becomes a staid worker and plays
+her part in the economy of the hive by bringing in honey, pollen, and
+propolis, secreting wax if need be, ready to defend her colony at the
+cost of her life, and so courageous that she as readily attacks a man
+as a mouse. Later it may fall to her lot to become executioner of her
+brother drones, or to devote herself to the queen and help lead out the
+swarm; or, by some mysterious election of the hive, she may be sent
+as a scout to find a proper home for her queen and her colony after
+they have swarmed. She is at the height of her powers and usefulness
+when about a month old, and at that time she will do any of the duties
+of the hive which she deems necessary, even to helping the young bees
+in the housework. She still has all her fur and her wings are as yet
+whole; but if there is much to do she is untiring and unremitting in
+her labours and, with never a thought of self, wears herself out. Her
+old age is evident by the loss of the fuzz, which was the pride of
+her youth, and the segments of her body become bald and shiny. Then
+her hard-worked wings begin to fray at the edges until there comes a
+day when, out on her quest for food for the colony, the broken wings
+and tired muscles refuse to support her, and she falls into the grass
+and dies; even then her last thought is not for self, but for the
+precious load which she struggles to carry home. Better thus for her to
+die in the field than to faint in the hive, for then do her vigorous
+sisters seize her and thrust her forth, and she falls into the refuse
+heap in front of the home, which she has so eagerly wasted her life
+to sustain. There is no gratitude and no pensioning in the bee-world;
+death and oblivion are meted mercilessly to the most ardent workers
+when they fail, for thus, and thus only, can the colony be kept strong.
+The individual is nothing in the perfect socialism, and the colony
+is everything; the treatment is Spartan, with none of the weakness
+which makes us keep alive the hopelessly insane, the idiotic, and the
+criminal.
+
+
+THE LAYING WORKER
+
+When the colony is queenless, worker bees may develop the ability to
+lay eggs. As they have never mated, they lay unfertilised eggs, which
+develop into drones, and thus stock the hive with these royal cumberers
+of the commune. It is interesting to note the difference in prejudices
+that obtain in the hive and in human society. In the latter we regard
+it as scandalous when the female, avoiding the duties of motherhood,
+goes abroad gathering honey and pollen at her own sweet will; but
+in bee society it is not merely a scandal, but a misfortune, when
+the worker bee has ambitions to be a mother. The laying worker is a
+bee gone wrong and a menace to the colony. At the same time she is a
+nuisance to the bee-keeper and great may be his tribulation before he
+is rid of her. As might be expected, she does not do her work well; she
+usually does not lay her eggs in regular order, as does the queen, but
+scatters them here and there and everywhere, and is quite likely to
+fasten them to the sides of the cells, instead of to the bottom. She
+lays her eggs sometimes several together in worker as well as in drone
+cells.
+
+As a laying worker looks like any other worker, it is useless to try
+to find her. However, her presence may be detected by the irregular
+appearance of the brood, and especially by the high drone caps on the
+worker cells and, finally, by a superabundance of drones. To meet this
+difficulty, an ounce of prevention is worth several pounds of cure,
+and great care should be taken to prevent colonies from becoming
+queenless. In case, through carelessness, a colony is thus victimised
+it will usually refuse to accept a queen, though sometimes it may be
+induced to accept a capped queen cell. If this is not successful, the
+combs, with the bees adhering, should be removed to an empty hive
+nearby, placing a frame of brood containing a queen cell, if possible,
+and a frame or two of foundation in the old hive. The workers, coming
+back from the field, will enter their hive and the moved comb will
+soon be deserted by all except the laying worker; she, with her
+characteristic fatuity, will remain on the deserted combs, laying eggs
+until she dies of exhaustion. A surer remedy than this, but a more
+troublesome one, is to unite this colony with another, or to scatter
+the combs from the victimised hive, bees and all, among other colonies
+of the apiary; meanwhile giving the depleted hive a frame or two of
+good brood, with a queen cell, if possible, so that the bees that
+return to it will find normal conditions. What happens to the laying
+worker when she finds herself in a colony with a queen, we do not know.
+Probably, if she persists in laying eggs, she is killed; possibly she
+forsakes her evil ways, and returns to the straight and narrow path of
+respectable citizenship.
+
+We do not understand why laying workers are developed. Some have
+claimed that too much royal jelly was given them when larvæ; and some,
+that after a colony is queenless, the jelly is fed to workers and thus
+develops them so they are able to lay eggs. They appear among the
+Cyprian and Syrian bees more frequently than among the Italians.
+
+
+RACES OF DOMESTIC BEES
+
+Several races of the honey-bee have been developed in different
+countries. Some of these have been imported into the United States, and
+many experiments have been made to determine their relative values.
+
+There were no native honey bees in North America north of Mexico, and
+the black or German bees were the first to be brought to this country
+by the pioneers. The wild bees which stock the woods of our country
+to-day are chiefly black bees, the descendants of swarms which have
+escaped from apiaries. For many years the black or German race was the
+only kind in general use here. Within recent years the eastern races
+of bees, Cyprians, Holy-Lands, or Syrians, and also the Egyptians and
+Carniolans and Italians have been introduced. Of all these, only the
+Italians have come into universal favour.
+
+The Italians are the classic bees which were discussed by Aristotle,
+and sung about by Virgil, who describes their bodies as “shining like
+drops of sparkling gold.” The Italian worker has five yellow bands that
+mark the front portions of the five segments of the abdomen which lie
+next to the thorax; the two posterior bands are made by yellow hairs
+and are therefore likely to disappear as the bee gets old and bald. But
+the three front ones are made not only by yellow hairs, but also by the
+yellowish transparency of the front part of each of the three anterior
+segments, or body-rings. As the segments of the abdomen telescope, more
+or less, these three yellow rings may not always be visible. Mr. Root’s
+test is to feed the bee with honey until the abdomen is distended and
+place her on a window pane. If three distinct translucent bands can be
+seen, the insect is a pure Italian. If only two bands are evident, she
+is a hybrid.
+
+In comparison with the Italians the black bees are inferior in many
+particulars. Their only superiority is that their honey in the comb is
+a trifle whiter, and they are more easily shaken from the frames than
+are the Italians, and thus are sometimes preferred by the man who works
+for extracted honey. Their points of inferiority are their nervousness
+and irritability, their tendency to rob, their inability to cope with
+the bee-moth, and the difficulty with which the queen may be found.
+
+The Italians are far more “civilised” than are the black bees, and seem
+willing to credit the operator with good intentions; they can defend
+themselves better from pests, their queens are more prolific and, on
+the whole, they are more industrious than the blacks, and having longer
+tongues than the blacks, they can get nectar from a wider range of
+flowers.
+
+The hybrids are the result of crossing the Italians and the blacks.
+They are likely to be excellent honey-gatherers, but unfortunately they
+usually inherit the irritability of the blacks, which they express with
+the strength and energy inherited from the Italians. Therefore, they
+are not looked upon with favour. These unwelcome hybrids are likely
+to appear in any apiary, for, however pure the Italian queen, she is
+likely to mate with a black drone in almost any locality.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE INDUSTRIES OF THE HIVE
+
+
+THE SECRETION OF WAX
+
+Very little do we know of the mysterious process of wax-making. The
+interior of the bee is a chemical laboratory where no visitors are
+allowed; at best we have been obliged to stand outside and guess
+at the formulas used within. We know that honey enters largely
+into the composition of wax, and that the bees when secreting wax
+usually have pollen in their stomachs, although Huber and Cook have
+both demonstrated that bees make successful comb when deprived of
+pollen, and when fed on sugar syrup instead of honey. But to make
+this experiment of much value the bees must needs have been deprived
+of pollen all of their lives instead of a few days. It seems to be
+generally conceded that nitrogenous food is needed for the best product
+of wax-manufacture, though nitrogen does not enter into the composition
+of the wax itself.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+                                          _Photograph by Brown Brothers_
+
+PLATE VIII. DRONE CELLS IN A COMB OF HONEY
+
+Honey capped over; drone cells bulged out; upper cells partly filled
+with honey but not capped over.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+                                        _Photograph by W. Z. Hutchinson_
+
+PLATE IX. Side of hive removed, showing bees at work; comb being made
+without artificial foundation.]
+
+It is variously estimated that it requires from ten to twenty pounds
+of honey to produce one of wax; so it is apparent to even the novice
+in bee-keeping that wax is a very expensive product. One of the
+results of the process of wax-making is the elimination of oxygen
+from the honey. There is of weight eight times as much oxygen in honey
+as of hydrogen and carbon combined; while in wax there is at least
+sixteen times as much carbon and hydrogen as of oxygen. Though wax is a
+fatty substance, yet it is not the animal fat of bees, as is so often
+asserted; it is a product especially developed for a far different
+purpose than is the fat of animals. The bees are much superior to us in
+this respect, since they manufacture from their own bodies the building
+materials for their homes.
+
+The special apparatus for the secretion of wax is very interesting
+to the student skilled in microscopic investigation. The outward or
+visible portion of this apparatus consists of four pairs of little
+membranous plates on the under side of the abdomen; these are not
+visible unless the body is torn apart and dissected, because they are
+on the front portions of the second, third, fourth and fifth abdominal
+segments, and each is covered by the rear portion of the segment just
+in front of it. Immediately within each of these wax plates is a gland
+which secretes the wax in liquid form, and it passes through the
+membrane by a kind of osmosis, considerably more mysterious than is
+that most mysterious process ordinarily. As the wax passes through the
+membrane it hardens and is pushed backward behind the segment which
+covers it and protects the wax plate, and appears as a pearly scale on
+the abdomen of the bee. (Plate VI.)
+
+The wax glands, when studied by the histologists, are found to consist
+each of a specialised area of the layer of cells that form the active
+living part of the body-wall of the insect. When active these cells
+are much thicker than the corresponding cells in other parts of the
+body-wall; but if examined during the winter, they do not differ
+greatly in appearance from other cells of the hypodermis. (Plate XXV,
+Fig. 5.)
+
+When wax is needed, a certain number of self-elected citizens gorge
+with honey and hang up in chains or curtains, each bee clinging by
+her front feet to the hind feet of the one above her, like Japanese
+acrobats; and there they remain, sometimes for two days, until the
+wax scales appear pushed out from every pocket. It is not hard to
+understand that, since much honey is needed for the manufacture of wax,
+a bee after filling with the raw material would produce much more wax
+by keeping quiet than by using any of the gorged honey for energy in
+moving about and working. But the necessity of “holding hands” while
+this work goes on must ever remain to us another occult evidence of the
+close relations of the citizens in the bee commune. (Plate X.)
+
+While most of the wax is produced from these quiescent suspended
+individuals, yet any bee-keeper who is observant has discovered that
+at the height of the honey season many of the workers coming in laden
+from the fields will have wax scales protruding from some or all of the
+pockets. We once captured one of our bees, working on a white clover
+blossom, which had six of these wax scales ornamenting her abdomen,
+and which proved her a bee of resource, since she was able to work
+and make wax at the same time. However, there is a choice about the
+wax-making. It is no willy-nilly production caused by gorging with
+honey, for it is never made except when the colony needs more comb.
+
+
+THE COMB-MAKING (Plate IX.)
+
+It is often stated that after the wax is secreted and pushed through
+the wax pockets the scales are removed by the wax shears on the hind
+legs of the producers, and are passed forward to the front claws, and
+then thrust into the mouth; here the wax is warmed and perhaps chewed
+with saliva and made malleable, thus somewhat changing the chemical
+composition and fitting it to be moulded into comb. But there is a
+hiatus in our knowledge just at this point as to whether the bees which
+secrete the wax take it off and make comb, or whether other workers
+harvest wax scales from the suspended individuals and mould them into
+shape; or whether perhaps the scales fall from the suspended “curtain”
+to the bottom of the hive and there are gathered by the ever-busy young
+workers. Professor Kellogg, who studied bees in an observation hive, is
+inclined to think that all of these methods are used, while Mr. A. I.
+Root describes the process graphically thus:
+
+  If a bee is obliged to carry one of these wax scales but a short
+  distance she takes it in her mandibles, and looks as businesslike
+  with it thus as a carpenter with a board on his shoulder. If she
+  has to carry it from the bottom of the honey-box she takes it in
+  a way I cannot explain better than to say she slips it under her
+  chin; when thus equipped you would never know she was encumbered
+  with anything, unless it chanced to slip out, when she will
+  dexterously tuck it back with one of her forefeet.
+
+Honey-comb has been the delight of mathematicians from the earliest
+ages. The plan on which it is built, if perfectly carried out, would
+be the incarnate perfection of strength and space for holding fluid
+contents. This fact so delighted the earlier mathematicians that
+they set to measuring the angles of the cells and their pyramidal
+bases, with truly wonderful results. But with the later methods of
+exact measurement it has been demonstrated that the cells are rarely
+perfect in construction; and that the angles, as well as the faces of
+the rhombs on which they are built, vary. Because of this there have
+been developed doubters and pessimists who declare that honey-comb
+is the result of chance; and that cells, crowded together, must,
+from the nature of things, become six-sided; and that bees are not
+mathematically wise. With this conclusion we do not agree in the
+least, although we admit that the fortuitously six-sided cell may have
+been a step in the education of the bee-artisans. But we would ask
+the pessimists to explain why, if all is chance, the bees build so
+perfectly the central part of the comb which forms the bases of the
+cells. This central part is built first and is fashioned of rhombs,
+which are made into alternating three-sided pyramids. Who dare assert
+that reasonably perfect, alternating rhombic pyramids are fortuitous!
+The fact that the combs are rarely perfect in construction proves
+naught against the mathematical prowess of the bees; it simply proves
+that the bees are a practical race, and not bigoted, and are therefore
+unwilling to sacrifice everything for the sake of precision. The
+construction of their waxen cells is for economic purposes rather than
+for proving mathematical formulæ. Honey-comb shows how economy of
+room, building materials and mathematical theories may coincide, and
+shows also that the bees have taken advantage of the fact. Some of the
+savants have asserted that the rectangle or the equilateral triangle
+would have been quite as efficient as working plans for constructing
+cells for storing honey. But probably the bees, originally, made their
+cells to fit their brood and would not thus build a cell which would
+surround a larva with unfilled corners. The hexagonal cell was better
+fitted for their needs, so they developed it.
+
+After a piece of the central portion of comb has been constructed the
+bees begin, usually, at the centre and pull out the sides of the cells
+from the foundation. Experiments in coloured foundation shows that
+this may, if thick, be pulled almost to the margin of the cell. This
+is why bees so readily utilise machine-made foundation; they pull out
+the edges of these pressed combs and thus save themselves much labour
+in wax-making. The worker cells are a little more than one-fifth of an
+inch in diameter, and a little less than one-half an inch deep; the
+drone cells are a little more than one-fourth an inch in diameter
+and a little more than a half-inch in depth. It is interesting to
+see the comb which has in it both worker- and drone cells, and note
+how the transition is made; the two sizes are harmonised by a row or
+two of cells that are irregular. Honey is stored in both drone- and
+worker-cells, usually in the latter; although our bees seem to have a
+fondness for making drone cells for storage. When the bees begin to
+cap a cell, they commence at the outside and work toward the centre.
+There is not a prettier piece of engineering anywhere than the cap of
+a honey-cell, with six little girders extending from the angles of the
+cell and holding the flat cap at the centre. Honey is capped with wax,
+but brood is capped with a mixture of wax and pollen, which admits air.
+Though the cell-walls may be thinner than .0018 of an inch, comb is
+wonderfully strong, and may weigh one-twentieth or less than the weight
+of the honey stored within it.
+
+An interesting fact about the manufacture of comb is that no one bee
+constructs a cell and no one bosses the job. A bee will come along
+with a little wax and put it in place at the side of a cell, and then
+will run off and do something else; another bee passing sees this bit
+of unfinished work, gives it a few pinches and polishes it a little,
+and then does something else. Several bees may thus lend a mandible
+before the cell is perfected. Any bit of comb-building seems to be the
+result of a consensus of public opinion and not of individual skill
+and enterprise. There is a oneness in bee enterprises which harmonises
+capital and labour, and which precludes strikes and lockouts.
+
+
+THE PRODUCTION OF HONEY
+
+In trying to fathom the mysteries of honey-production, scientists
+have dissected the bee with greatest care; but they have usually
+been obliged to guess at the uses of such organs as they could
+not understand by analogy. To-day, after all the excellent work
+of investigators, the process and formulæ of honey-making remain
+unrevealed.
+
+The nectar, when taken from the flowers by the bees, is received in
+a special reservoir, called the honey-stomach. It is supposed that
+the secretion from the glands in the head and thorax is added to the
+nectar as it is swallowed, and induces the chemical action which,
+in the honey-stomach, changes the cane-sugar to the more digestible
+grape-sugar, and brings about the other changes that finally result
+in the production of honey. The chemical composition of honey
+varies, perhaps for two reasons: It may be more perfectly digested
+sometimes than at others; and the nectar of different flowers may vary
+chemically. However, all honey contains water, glucose, a small amount
+each of albumenoids, mineral matter, essential oils and formic acid.
+While most of the chemical changes take place in the honey-stomach of
+the bee, yet the honey is made perfect by ripening in the cells; these
+are left uncapped for a period of time and the current of air, always
+in action in the hive, evaporates the water and thus thickens the
+honey.
+
+Ignorant people believe that honey is regurgitated from the true
+stomach of the bee, which is far from true. The honey-stomach is
+simply a reservoir in which the honey is made and then stored until
+the bee can empty it into a cell. Her true stomach lies behind the
+honey-stomach and connects with it by a mouth that can be opened
+or closed at will; when she wishes to eat some honey, she opens
+the stomach mouth and takes in what she needs. The chyle which
+she manufactures in her true stomach to feed the young bees, when
+regurgitated, does not pass through the honey-stomach; instead, the
+mouth of the real stomach is pushed up through the centre of the
+honey-reservoir until it connects directly with the æsophagus. (Plate
+XXVI, Fig. 7 _p_.)
+
+When an ancient Roman was asked on his hundredth birthday how he had
+preserved his vigour, physically and mentally, he answered laconically,
+_Inerius melle, exterius olea_—“Inside with honey, outside with oil.”
+He spoke wisely, for honey is undoubtedly the most healthful of sweets,
+because it is so largely composed of the predigested grape-sugar.
+
+It is hard for us to realise that, until comparatively recently, honey
+was the only sweet in general use. Cane-sugar was not commonly eaten
+in Europe until the seventeenth century, and previous to that time
+honey held sway as the sweetening medium of all foods. The amount
+of honey produced in the United States now is estimated to be more
+than 125,000,000 pounds per year, which shows that it has retained
+its value as a food, though it must compete with cheaper cane- and
+beet-sugars. It still remains the most wholesome and digestible of all
+the forms of sugar, and should be used even more generally than it is
+at present.
+
+
+THE MAKING OF BEE-BREAD
+
+Flower wisdom is scarcely appreciated by those who deem all wisdom the
+product of consciousness; but if wisdom may be attained through the
+experiences of living and overcoming difficulties, then there must be
+such a thing as flower wisdom. Otherwise there would not have been such
+a prodigal production of pollen that a tithe could be spared for the
+bees, to induce them to become common carriers of the flower world.
+Many blossoms which do not secrete nectar pay their taxes in pollen,
+the bread-stuff of the bees, while others pay in both commodities.
+
+A bee when gathering pollen for food collects it with her tongue and
+forelegs, mixing it, perhaps, with nectar or saliva so it will hold
+together. It is cleaned off the tongue and front legs by the middle and
+hind legs, and by them packed in the pollen baskets on the tarsi of the
+hind legs, and moulded there into great golden balls. Little wonder
+that the ancient Greeks, noticing bees thus laden, and consequently
+flying low, declared that the bees of Hymettus tied pebbles on their
+legs to weigh them down. (Plate VII, _A_, _B_.)
+
+When the bee arrives at the hive she selects, usually, a worker-cell
+and, backing up to it, thrusts in her legs and scrapes off the pollen
+by a dexterous movement like that made by a cook scraping dough off
+her hands. The bee bringing the pollen considers her duty done in
+furnishing the flour, and leaves the bread-making to one of her younger
+sisters, who is devoting the day to domestic duties. Needless to say,
+bee-bread is unleavened; it is made by the very simple process of
+packing the pollen firmly into the cell, the utensil employed being the
+head of the bread-maker, which she uses cheerfully as a mallet for this
+purpose.
+
+Bee-bread is necessary as a food for young bees and admirably
+supplements honey in its composition, being rich in albumenoids and
+nitrogen. To our taste it is rather bitter and disagreeable, as those
+of us can attest who ate comb-honey from the hives of old, before
+movable frames and supers were generally used. However, under the new
+régime, it is rarely placed in the sections of the supers, but sensibly
+stored in the brood-combs, near where it is used, and thus seldom
+appears upon the table.
+
+
+THE PROPOLIS, OR BEE-GLUE
+
+Though bees are most successful manufacturing chemists, yet they are
+not above using ready-made substances if they find such to their
+liking. Thus, propolis is not produced by bees, but is gathered by them
+from various sources, and is used as a cement and a varnish. Certain
+trees and smaller plants protect their buds in winter by resinous
+coats; and it was quite like the adaptable bee to find use for this
+resin in her own domicile.
+
+The elder Huber, whose observations of a century ago have been
+verified, discovered the source of propolis; he planted poplars in pots
+and placed them near the hives, and the bees were seen in the act of
+collecting the resin from the buds. They have been observed by others,
+working on the buds of the horse-chestnut, birch, willow, alder, and
+even the balsam fir. However, the bees have no prejudices in favour
+of any kind of resin, anything will do so long as it answers the
+purpose; hence they visit shops where furniture is being finished and
+appropriate the varnish without saying “please.” And Darwin mentions
+the fact that bees collected a cement of wax and turpentine, used to
+cover trees from which the bark has been removed. If any old hives or
+fixtures with propolis on them be left around the apiary, the bees make
+all haste to save every particle of the precious stuff.
+
+One of the oldest superstitions about bees is that they will gather
+on the coffin of their dead master; and authenticated instances of
+the kind are on record. But this beautiful tradition is made empty
+of sentiment by the assertion that the bees assemble there not to
+mourn their dead master, but to gather the varnish from the coffin.
+Some iconoclasts ascribe to this the origin of “telling the bees”
+when some member of the family dies; but we believe this beautiful
+custom originated before varnished coffins were in use, and was the
+natural outgrowth of the close relations of bees and the home for many
+centuries.
+
+The bee collects the propolis by cutting it off with her mandibles and
+packing it in her pollen baskets; and when she arrives at the hive,
+she never attempts to unload it herself, evidently deeming it safer to
+let the sister, whose business it is at the moment to stop cracks and
+crevices, take it from her legs and apply it at once.
+
+There are various uses in the hive for the bee-glue: It is used as a
+filler to make smooth the rough places of the hive; it holds the combs
+in place; it calks every crack; it may serve as a sarcophagus for any
+intruder too large to be pitched out: snails and slugs have been found
+thus encased; it is applied as a varnish to the cells of the honey-comb
+if they remain unused for a time; and it is especially useful as a
+window shade. A nature-study teacher of our acquaintance established
+an observation hive in her school-room, which had an uncovered pane of
+glass set in one side so that the pupils might observe the interesting
+life of the hive. To her dismay the bees straightway hung a curtain of
+propolis over the window and so shut out intrusive eyes.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+                                        _Photograph by W. Z. Hutchinson_
+
+Plate X. Bees hanging in a curtain secreting wax; comb being built in
+the centre above.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+                                            _Photograph by Verne Morton_
+
+PLATE XI. HIVING BEES
+
+Cutting down the swarm.]
+
+One of the chief uses of propolis is to try the temper of the
+bee-keeper. If there is the least crack between hive and super, or
+cover, the two are glued together so that nothing but a knife and
+much muscular force can loosen them. Cover blankets are stuck fast;
+the frames are welded to their places by it, and it plasters into
+immobility all the modern appliances of the hive which man invented to
+be movable; and section-boxes are so stained with it that they have
+to be scraped before being sent to market. Above all, it gets on the
+hands of the operator, so that the digits of each act as one, or not
+at all, and everything touched sticks to them as if they were magnets;
+it also daubs the clothing, and if profane men were ever bee-keepers,
+it would incite them to wicked remarks. However, alcohol, applied to
+hands and clothing, solves the difficulty by dissolving the propolis;
+and a bottle of it is a most necessary adjunct to the equipment of the
+apiary. Benzine, gasoline, ether, and chloroform are as efficacious as
+alcohol, but not so pleasant to use. Boiling lye will clean clothes and
+apparatus that have become clogged with bee-glue.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE SWARMING OF BEES
+
+
+WHY BEES SWARM
+
+In case of most of the higher animals, including man, the species
+are spread over the face of the earth through the simple plan of
+“marrying off” the younger individuals, and allowing them “to set up
+for themselves.” As there is no individualism, no indulging in love
+or hatred for each other among the perfect socialists, this plan is
+manifestly not at all adapted to provide for the increase of social
+insects where the colony acts as an individual. The bee plan is as
+follows: When a colony gets large enough and strong enough it divides
+into two. As the Amœba, the simplest of animal organisms, divides the
+individual in order to multiply its numbers, so the bee-colony as an
+organism divides and multiplies. It is interesting that the method
+of increase characteristic of the lowest order of animals should
+repeat itself among beings so highly organised physically, when the
+individuals merge into a social unit. This analogy might well give the
+social philosophers an opportunity for some real thinking.
+
+Much discussion has found place in human annals as to whether the
+queen or the workers take the initiative in this hegira of the bees,
+and much evidence is advanced on both sides of the question. But it is
+a profitless discussion for us to indulge in; the more we study bees,
+the more firmly we are convinced that we know little of the forces
+which govern the bee body politic. We only know that at certain seasons
+of the year when the successful colony has plenty of brood and honey,
+the old queen and many of the old and experienced citizens, go away
+from the hive and form a new colony elsewhere, leaving the young queen
+and the younger bees in possession of the homestead, thus reversing
+the human custom. While in the air, or when clustered, the swarm looks
+sufficiently large to be composed of the whole colony, yet the swarms
+are smaller than they look, for rarely more than 20,000 bees go away
+with the old queen.
+
+
+WHEN BEES SWARM
+
+The swarms usually come off in June in a climate like that of New York
+State. Some strong colonies may swarm in May if the season is early,
+thus making us glad; for the old verse, “A swarm of bees in May is
+worth a load of hay,” is based upon practical experience.
+
+The when and the immediate why of the swarming of bees are closely
+connected. There are several conditions which conduce to swarming: the
+presence of young queens ready to issue from the cells; the crowding of
+the hive with brood, bees, and honey; the presence of too many drones;
+the extreme heat of an overcrowded hive on a hot day; this latter is
+a most cogent reason, and it is well for the bee-keeper to shade his
+hives to prevent this. The swarms are likely to issue between 9 A. M.
+and 2 P. M., although enough swarms come off at unseemly hours to make
+any rule valueless except as a prophecy. (Plate XI.)
+
+
+HOW TO HIVE A SWARM
+
+“The bees are swarming!” These are magical words, which arouse every
+member of that family whose pride is a few hives in the garden. It is a
+cry that starts the sluggish blood, and sends a quiver of excitement up
+and down the spinal column while one rushes to the scene of action. How
+gracefully that moving mass of black particles undulates in the air, as
+if it were a drifting cloud instead of a self-willed, one-minded colony
+of socialists! How the heart rises and sinks inversely to this rise and
+fall, and how hopeless it seems when the swarm lifts itself superbly
+over all surrounding obstacles, and disappears above the tree tops! No
+one who has had this experience will wonder at the ancient custom which
+obtains even now in the country districts on such occasions of beating
+tin pans, ringing bells, and shouting “whoa” at the top of the lungs.
+All of this racket had its inception in the needs of the bee-keeper
+to adequately express his feelings at this crisis. If the bees ever
+stopped and settled because of this din, it was probably from sheer
+amazement at witnessing such folly on the part of human beings; this
+explanation would hold, perhaps, if bees ever evinced any interest
+in human beings, except when they obstruct the bee-path. However,
+most of our ancient customs were founded in utility, and it is not
+likely that this traditional pandemonium would have been practised for
+centuries without some reason. Mr. Root, who thinks before he speaks,
+suggests that the swarm follows the queen and the scouts through
+listening to their song, that of the queen being easily distinguished
+from the hum of the workers when on the wing; and that it is quite
+possible, therefore, that the noise, if loud enough to drown the voice
+of the queen, would cause confusion on the part of the flying bees
+and a consequent settling. But from what we remember of our own early
+experience, we are convinced that the bees were less confused by the
+noise than were the people engaged in making it.
+
+The next most widely practised of the ancient methods is that of
+throwing dirt on the swarm to stop it; this certainly is efficacious
+if there happens to be enough loose earth at hand. However, throwing
+dirt is a reactionary performance in the physical as well as the moral
+sense; and usually the bee-keeper who throws dirt at a soaring swarm
+must needs stop soon to get the motes out of his own eyes before he is
+able to see where the swarm has alighted.
+
+In these enlightened days everyone who has a cherry tree or an apple
+tree, a currant bush or a potato patch, is sure to have a fountain pump
+of some sort; and never is this instrument a greater boon than when it
+throws a fine spray upon an absconding swarm of bees. It brings them
+to a stop very soon; it may injure the feelings of the bees, but it
+certainly does not injure them physically, as it simply impairs their
+power of flight by wetting the wings. Even after a swarm has settled, a
+little sprinkle of water will keep it clustered safely until the hive
+is made ready to receive it.
+
+It is highly desirable that the swarm should cluster on the tip of
+a branch not far from the ground; for then the process of hiving is
+comparatively simple. My personal plan has been to place a sheet, kept
+for the purpose, on the ground near the clustering swarm; place on
+this a covered hive filled with frames containing brood foundations.
+Lift the front edge of the hive about an inch by putting blocks under
+the two corners; then cut the branch above the cluster, and taking it
+in hand shake the bees off in front of the hive and placidly watch
+them hive themselves with true bee celerity. This use of the sheet is
+a habit formed in childhood, and I persist in it, though my partner
+derides the practice. He shakes the bees down on the board on which
+the hive is standing; or he takes the top off the hive, and shakes the
+bees down among the frames in the most summary fashion. But I think the
+sheet makes a softer mattress for the little citizens to fall upon, and
+certainly they find their way from it more easily into the hive. I am a
+conservative person, and like to do things as I always have done them
+before—a conservatism that is by no means dangerous in our apiary where
+the senior partner is given to new ways and many inventions.
+
+If the bees alight high in a tree, then our methods have been to get
+at them by climbing the tree, or attaining the branch by the use of
+a ladder. However, I doubt if there was ever a fruit found on any
+tree that needs quite so much care in the picking as does this; and
+it is decidedly a ticklish performance to clamber down a tree holding
+gingerly a branch laden with a swarm of bees in one hand and clutching
+at supporting branches with the other. Sometimes the bees are not
+accommodating enough to alight on the end of a branch that may be cut
+off. They may even go so far as to cluster on the large branch itself;
+then there is nothing to do but to brush them off in a box with a
+bee-brush, a performance which they object to; or to dip them off with
+a tin dipper, or to jar them into a basket, and then to dump them out
+in front of the hive. The most embarrassing situation of all is when
+the swarm clusters on a tree trunk. Squaring the circle is not a much
+more difficult feat mathematically than to brush all the bees into a
+square box from this cylindrical position. It is usually necessary to
+bring the smoker to help in elucidating this problem; for, paradoxical
+as it may seem, smoke properly applied clears up many a situation in
+the bee business.
+
+If only one were able to find the queen in the clustering swarm and
+secure her by placing her in the hive, the work would be easy, for
+the other bees would soon follow. But to hunt for the queen in the
+clustering swarm is, for most of us, quite like hunting for the
+traditional needle in the haystack; and while we are hunting we are
+wasting precious time, as the swarm may make up its collective mind to
+remove from our vicinity its component atoms. In shaking, or dipping,
+or brushing the bees into the hive, we should remember to deal with
+them as gently as the situation and mental perturbation will permit.
+
+Sometimes the bees seem to feel defrauded at having a house chosen
+for them, and insist upon swarming out of their new quarters within
+a day or two after they are placed in possession. Thus it is a wise
+precaution to give the hives of the newly swarmed attention for two
+or three days, lest they indulge in this sort of perversity. If the
+bees seem unsettled and unhappy, and hang around home instead of going
+into the fields to work, it is advisable to place in the middle of
+the hive a frame of unsealed brood taken from some other colony. A
+bee’s motherly instinct may always be depended upon, since caring for
+the young is a shining civic virtue as well as a domestic duty among
+the bee-people. When there are helpless larvæ to care for, the bees
+willingly forego every personal inclination to pack up and move, and
+cheerfully proceed to give the youngsters every attention.
+
+
+DECOY HIVES
+
+When the self-appointed scouts of a bee-colony start out house-hunting
+for the swarm which is about to issue, they evidently examine the
+premises carefully; if they find a house for rent in the immediate
+neighbourhood, they are likely to go no farther in their quest. Thus
+it is the practice of many bee-keepers to place about the apiary hives
+empty, except for brood-frames filled with foundation, hoping thus to
+entice the swarms to take possession, and save all trouble. Mr. Root
+goes so far as to advise that such hives be fastened in the lower forks
+of trees in the neighbourhood of the apiary, and thus provide a most
+expedient bee-tree. A decoy hive should not contain more than three
+brood-frames, as other frames may be added when the bees move in. The
+reason for this is that the sheets of wax foundation, when sufficiently
+close together for the convenience of the bees, prove also entirely
+convenient for the occupancy of the bee-moth; and one ought to be
+particular about one’s tenants when renting houses in the apiary.
+
+Mr. West’s device for saving swarms is the most alluring of any about
+which we have read. Since the clipped queen cannot fly, she expresses
+the aspiration within her breast by climbing anything at hand, like
+a blade of grass or a shrub. Mr. West observing this, drives a bare,
+forked branch into the ground a few inches in front of the hive,
+having cleaned the ground between it and the hive of all obstacles.
+This branch having a few twigs upon it, is leaned away from the hive
+entrance. The queen promptly climbs this tree, like Zaccheus, and the
+swarm clusters around her and remains there conveniently at hand for
+hiving.
+
+
+MAXIMS FOR HIVING BEES
+
+Clip the old queen’s wings.
+
+Go through the hives every ten days to destroy queen cells.
+
+As the swarming season approaches, have hives ready with foundation in
+brood-frames, and hive stands ready to receive them.
+
+Keep a serene spirit while hiving bees.
+
+The hive in which the colony is placed should be kept cool and not
+heated from standing in the sun; it should be shaded, as the swarm will
+not enter a hot hive.
+
+If the bees refuse to accept a hive, give them a frame of unsealed
+brood to reconcile them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+HOW TO KEEP FROM KEEPING TOO MANY BEES
+
+
+THE PROBLEM
+
+“Aye, there’s the rub!” For the beginner who wishes to keep a few bees,
+this is the most difficult problem to solve on the bee-keeper’s slate,
+and it must finally be solved by each according to his own capacity and
+method.
+
+We confess frankly that we were once driven out of the bee business
+because we were too successful. Caring for fifteen or twenty hives was
+a delightful avocation. We kept our colonies strong, for we wished
+to make comb-honey; consequently, splendid swarms came off, and we
+had the fatal gift of seeing them when they came and of hiving them
+successfully. Thus our avocation began to intrench upon our vocation in
+a most alarming manner. While we enjoyed taking care of our bees, we
+were nevertheless following the vocation which we had chosen, and which
+we liked best; and the time came when we were obliged to decide whether
+we would leave our regular business and become bee-keepers, or abjure
+bee-keeping and attend to our regular business.
+
+We gave away what swarms we could and we sold some; but selling bees
+is a business quite as much as caring for them, so that was not
+practicable. Philosophically, we argued that since we had enough bees
+we would let the swarms that came off abscond and bid them God-speed;
+but here we reckoned without properly considering the amount of human
+nature which had fallen to our share. Although we knew that every swarm
+in our apiary above twenty would be an embarrassment and a tribulation,
+we could never rest content not to hive a swarm when it issued; and the
+more unattainable the place where it clustered and the less we wanted
+the bees, the more determined we were to secure that special swarm.
+
+Such inconsistency brought its own punishment, and our only resource
+was to sell out; and for many years the spot in our garden which our
+apiary once occupied was never viewed without a sense of loneliness
+and longing for its busy little tenants. During these years we thought
+it over and finally came around to the right frame of mind, and firmly
+concluded to keep bees for our own honey and our own happiness.
+We limited our ambitions to ten hives; and last summer when our
+best-tested Italian queen took us unawares and departed with a large
+and enthusiastic following, we did not mourn; all we did was to venture
+to hope that the young queen left in the hive had mated with one of our
+own handsome drones, and not with a mad black prince from one of Mr.
+Coggshall’s take-care-of-itself apiaries in our neighbourhood. As soon
+as our new brood made us sure that our queen had made no _mésalliance_
+we were entirely content.
+
+Our lack of success in preventing swarming when trying to produce
+comb-honey was a source of great chagrin to us until we read that so
+eminent a bee-keeper as Mr. Hutchinson declared that “there is no way
+of preventing first swarms profitable to the comb-honey producer,” and
+then our feelings were salved. The following are in brief a few of the
+more successful ways practised to prevent increase:
+
+_By clipping the queen’s wings._—Almost all bee-keepers practise this
+now, whatever their method of preventing increase or securing it. A
+queen with clipped wings is necessarily a “stay-at-home body,” and
+the swarm will not leave without her. However, when depending upon
+this method it is very important to guard against the hatching of
+new queens, and this can only be done by closely scrutinising the
+brood-comb to discover and destroy the queen cells. The brood-frames
+should be examined in each hive about once a week during the months of
+June and July, if this method is to succeed. Many a time have we sat
+smilingly by and watched a swarm come out of the hive with great pomp
+and circumstance, only to sneak back when it was discovered that her
+majesty was unfit for travel.
+
+_By the use of a queen trap._—This is a device used by some instead of
+clipping the wings of the queen. It is a box of perforated zinc placed
+over the entrance of the hive, the slots in it large enough to allow
+the workers to pass in and out, and small enough to hold back the
+queen and drones. Although this method saves time, yet comparatively
+few recommend it. The cost of the trap is one objection; but the
+greater objection seems to be that it inconveniences the workers when
+returning from the fields; and is, therefore, likely to affect the
+amount of honey stored, since much time is lost and some annoyance
+occasioned to the bees by being obliged to squeeze through; it also
+scrapes the pollen off their legs. (Plate XVI.)
+
+_By giving-room._—Supposing that our queen is clipped or confined,
+which is the first step, the next is to give plenty of room in the
+brood-chamber. Lack of room for brood and honey is one of the most
+potent reasons for inducing swarming. So the first thing to do after
+the disappointed swarm comes back to the hive is to tier up the supers.
+It is also well to remove from the hive a frame or two of brood which
+may be put in the hive of some weaker colony; in place of the removed
+frame is substituted another containing a starter of foundation; and
+the would-be swarm, finding that there is plenty to do, is content to
+remain at home for a time.
+
+_By extracting honey._—It will often pacify a colony to take the
+frames from the brood-chamber and extract the honey from them. This
+may be done when the brood is present, if care is taken not to run the
+separator so rapidly as to throw out the larvæ, a performance quite as
+distasteful to the young bees as to the consumer. However, this should
+not be practised unless much honey is coming in, as otherwise the brood
+may be starved.
+
+_By using large hives._—Many bee-keepers of high standing have
+practically solved the swarming problem by using large hives. The
+Dadants, well known on two continents as successful apiarists, use the
+large Quinby hives in their own apiaries, and have introduced them into
+France and Switzerland. The Dadant-Quinby hive has about the capacity
+of a twelve-frame Langstroth. The frames are both deep and large,
+measuring 18½ by 11½ inches, and so give the queen plenty of room. The
+Dadants have no trouble with swarming, as only enough swarms come off
+to make good the winter losses in their apiaries.
+
+There are three reasons why we have not used these large hives: first,
+they are too heavy to handle well, being altogether too productive
+of backaches. Second, they are necessarily much more expensive, as
+wider pieces of perfect lumber are used in the making. Third, and most
+important to us of all, we find it difficult to produce comb-honey in
+a large hive; when the bees have so much room in the brood-chamber,
+they discover no reason for carrying honey up into the supers. If we
+made extracted honey, as do the Dadants and the European apiarists,
+we would certainly use the larger hives, simply to be rid of this
+nuisance of constant swarming. The colonies grow to be so much stronger
+in the larger hives that they are much better able to withstand the
+vicissitudes of winter than are smaller colonies, which is a great
+advantage.
+
+_By the brushing or shaking-out method._—When the bees at the
+beginning of the honey-flow seem to be getting ready to swarm,
+the hive is moved to one side of the stand and on the exact site
+is placed another just like it, which contains frames set with
+foundation-starters. As gently as possible the bees are shaken or
+brushed from the frames of the old hive upon the threshold of the new,
+great care being taken to include the queen. The supers from the old
+hive are then placed upon the new hive with a queen-excluder between.
+The old hive may stand beside the new one until the brood has emerged,
+when all of the inhabitants of the old tenement are shaken in front
+of the new habitation. This shaking of a colony into a new hive so
+surprises and confounds the bees that they get the impression that they
+have already swarmed, and go to work with all diligence in their new
+quarters. The partly filled supers from the old hive encourage them
+mightily in the ways of well-doing.
+
+_By dividing swarms._—This method we have practised with quite
+satisfactory results. The troublous question is just when to divide.
+If we divide too soon we weaken the colonies, and decrease the
+honey harvest. If we wait until too late, the bees do the dividing
+themselves. The process is as follows: The queen’s wings are clipped
+before the new queen is to emerge, and she is placed in a new hive
+furnished with brood-frames containing foundation-starters; enough of
+the bees are taken to the hive with her to start a good colony, and the
+deed is done. However, the fact remains that in this way the number of
+colonies is increased as much as if the swarm had come off naturally.
+
+_By removing the queen._—Some apiarists remove the queen during the
+honey-harvest and cut out all the queen cells. They give the queen a
+nucleus if they wish more brood; meanwhile the colony will not swarm
+without her. Whether queenless bees are as easy in their minds and,
+therefore, as ready and enthusiastic in the task of gathering honey,
+is a mooted question. Bees, like people, work to the best advantage
+when they have fewest worries. One difficulty with this method is that
+before we are aware of it a queen may be reared despite our careful and
+onerous labours in hunting for queen cells. Another difficulty with
+this practice is the encouragement of the egg-laying workers, which is
+a most demoralising influence to introduce into a hive.
+
+
+AFTER-SWARMS
+
+An after-swarm is one that is led by a virgin queen and may come off
+within sixteen days after the first natural swarm departs; usually it
+occurs within a week. Most bee-keepers consider the after-swarm as a
+manifestation of “pure cussedness” on the part of a colony; but it is
+only a poorly adjusted method practised by the bees for getting rid of
+superfluous princesses. After the old queen decamps with her followers,
+there are usually several queens ready to emerge from their cells; the
+ordinary story, as told in books, is that the first queen that emerges
+hastens to slay her yet helpless sisters, or battles with them singly
+until but one queen is left in the hive; and this actually does occur
+often. However, there are differences between bee-colonies, as there
+are between individual people, and every young queen does not seem
+blood-thirsty; or perhaps in some instances the citizens restrain her
+from carrying out her murderous intent, and try to get rid of her by
+sending her forth with as many followers as can well be spared from the
+parent colony. Other queens may issue, and if this charitable instinct
+still persists, another and still another swarm may be sent out. This
+misguided kindness to young queens is as demoralising to the colony as
+unwise giving of alms is in the human world, and finally a swarm may be
+sent off so small that a teacup would hold it. Of course, this means
+certain death to all of its members. Finally the limit of endurance is
+reached, and with the last possible swarm are sent out all the young
+queens left in the hive save the one retained as queen mother. Whether
+the workers send out these burdensome members of royalty as a measure
+of good riddance, or whether in their excitement they fail to guard
+the queen cells and so let them out and they voluntarily join the
+procession, is not as yet surely ascertained. One of the formalities
+of the after-swarm is that before it occurs the queen sounds her
+pibroch, a tune which probably excites her listening subjects to rash
+departure. The bee-keeper gets to know this sound very well, and when
+he hears it, he knows that an after-swarm will issue very soon unless
+he does something immediately to prevent it. One thing particularly
+exasperating about the after-swarm is that the virgin queen, being
+lighter bodied and lighter minded than the old queen, may take the
+occasion of swarming to get married, and go on her wedding journey;
+and thus is likely to lead her followers a mad chase and leave her
+proprietor so far in the rear that he loses the swarm entirely.
+
+For the real reason of after-swarming we must look upon the colony
+as an individual; and as nature is wasteful in the production of
+individuals, these weak after-swarms are analogous to the weaklings
+among animals or plants, which must be sacrificed for some inscrutable
+reason on the altar of the preservation of the species.
+
+
+PREVENTION OF AFTER-SWARMS
+
+Mr. Hutchinson practises the following method: When the first swarm
+comes off he places it in a new hive like the old one, and puts the new
+hive on the exact site of the old one, while the latter is moved away
+just a little and faces in a different direction than before. The new
+hive has four or five frames with foundation-starters, and on it is
+placed the super with partially filled sections from the old hive, with
+a queen-excluding board between the two; thus the new swarm, having no
+brood ready, will store in the supers until the brood-comb is built.
+Most of the bees from the old hive, returning from the field, will
+enter the new hive because the entrance to the old hive is turned away.
+The old hive is then turned a little each day, until its entrance,
+which should be contracted, is parallel to the entrance of the new
+hive, and very close to it. If, on the seventh day after the first
+swarm issued, the old hive be removed to some new location, its numbers
+will have been so depleted that there will be no attempt to send off
+after-swarms.
+
+
+HOW TO UNITE COLONIES
+
+If two colonies are weak late in the season, it is often best to unite
+them. This may be done by moving the hives nearer to each other, a
+little each day, until they are side by side. The queen of one colony
+is killed, the best frames from each hive are alternated with each
+other in one hive, and the bees shaken into this; the other hive
+removed, and the one remaining placed midway between where the two
+stood. Sweetened water flavoured with peppermint may be sprayed over
+both colonies just before uniting, so that they will all be scented
+alike. The above is the method advised by Professor Cook.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE HIVE, AND HOW TO HANDLE IT
+
+
+THE BROOD-CHAMBER
+
+The essential parts of a hive are the following: A bottom board, the
+first story, or brood-chamber, containing frames for the support of the
+combs, and a cover. When extracted honey is to be produced, a second
+story like the first may be placed between it and the cover; when it
+is desired to have the surplus honey stored in section-boxes, one or
+more shallow stories containing the section-boxes are placed above the
+brood-chamber; these shallow stories are known as the supers.
+
+Formerly the brood-chamber was a mere cubiform box with two horizontal
+cross-pieces passing through the centre at right angles to each other
+for the support of the combs. Sometimes the bee-keeper furnished the
+bees with a hive made from a section of a hollow log, with a board
+nailed over one end for a cover, or the hollow log was placed in a
+horizontal position. Such a hive was known as a “bee-gum,” probably
+because it was often made from the trunk of a gum tree; but the
+bee-gums with which we were familiar in our childhood were made from
+hollow basswood logs.
+
+To-day in every well-regulated apiary the brood-chamber is furnished
+with the movable hanging frames for the support of the combs, which
+were invented by Langstroth a half-century ago, or by some modification
+of these frames. It was the invention of these frames that made
+the science of modern bee-keeping possible. A large part of the
+manipulations of the hive is dependent upon the ability to remove the
+combs from the hive separately. Two of these frames, one empty and one
+containing a sheet of foundation, are shown in Plate XII. These are of
+one of the newer styles, known as the Hoffman self-spacing frames. In
+these frames the upper part of the end-bars are wide, so that, when the
+frames are in contact, there is room for a bee-way between the combs;
+the lower part of the end-bars are narrower, so that the bees can pass
+freely around the ends of the frames.
+
+In the old days, and at present in some apiaries where home-made frames
+are used, the spacing between the frames has to be done by eye or
+rather by finger; the thickness of the tip of the finger between two
+frames being necessary to afford a bee-way. But with the new frames
+in the market to-day this is done away with, as they are arranged to
+space themselves, thus relieving the novice of much anxiety and some
+embarrassment in deciding whether his finger is as thick as that of the
+average apiarist. Also in these newer frames a little staple at each
+end of the top sets each frame exactly right in relation to the ends of
+the hive.
+
+Before the frame is placed in the brood-chamber it is to be supplied
+with a sheet of comb-foundation; this insures the building of the comb
+in the desired position, so the frames can be removed from the hive.
+Bees do not naturally make their combs straight, but curve them so that
+they are less likely to be broken. It is necessary, therefore, in order
+to get straight combs to confine the operations of the bees within set
+bounds; this is done by putting a sheet of foundation in each frame.
+
+One of the attractions of bee-keeping is that much of the material we
+work with is pleasing, and some artistically beautiful. A sheet of
+foundation-comb made of the most delicate wax, frescoed on either side
+with rhomb insets in hexagonal pattern, is a joy to the artistic eye.
+It is absolutely necessary that the foundation should be put into the
+frame in such a manner that it will not sag or bulge when it is built
+out into the comb and filled with the heavy honey or brood. To keep
+these large sheets from bulging and breaking they are held in place
+by fine wire which is strung back and forth across the frame, passing
+through holes made with a small awl in the end-bars. These holes should
+be about two inches apart, the upper one one inch from the top bar, and
+the lower one something less than an inch from the bottom bar, making
+four wires in the Langstroth frame. After these holes are made, put a
+small tack at one end near the lower hole, twist the wire around it,
+then thread the wire back and forth, making four wires parallel with
+the top and bottom bars, and fasten the wire with a tack; care should
+be taken not to draw the wire too tightly; simply draw up the slack.
+
+The sheets of foundation as sold by the dealers are a little smaller
+than the space in the frame, so that when they are fastened to the top
+bar a bee-space is left between the sheet and the bottom and end-bars.
+See Plate XII.
+
+The sheet of foundation is fastened to the top bar of an ordinary frame
+by means of a Van Deusen wax-tube fastener, which is simply a hollow
+tube that may be dipped in and filled with the hot wax which issues
+through a small hole at the sharp, bent end of the tube; as the point
+is drawn along where the foundation and frame meet it leaves a stream
+of hot wax that seals the two together. However, the most satisfactory
+way is to get brood-frames, like the Hoffman, which have two grooves
+in the top bar. Set the foundation in the groove at the centre, and
+introduce a strip of wood which is wedge-shaped in cross-section,
+thin edge first, into the adjoining groove, driving it or pressing
+it in hard so that it pushes the thin partition over, and wedges the
+foundation firmly in place. These strips for wedging come with the
+frames.
+
+After the foundation is fastened to the top bar the frame and
+foundation are laid, wire side up, on a board just the size of the
+piece of foundation so that it will slip inside the frame. This
+board is kept wet to prevent the wax from sticking to it. Then we
+use the spur wire-embedder, which is like the tracing-wheel used by
+dressmakers, except that the teeth are spread apart alternately so
+that they pass astride the wire and press it down into the foundation;
+to do this successfully, the foundation should be warm; working near
+a lamp or in a warm room will suffice. Embedding the wires by heating
+them with electricity instead of using the spur-embedder is a common
+practice in large apiaries where electricity is available, or where it
+pays to buy a battery with proper attachments. This outfit with the dry
+cells costs about five dollars, and is a paying investment when the
+apiary is large. (Plate III.)
+
+
+THE SUPER
+
+The super is that part of the hive that is placed above the
+brood-chamber and is designed to receive the surplus honey, either comb
+or extracted.
+
+When extracted honey is produced the super may resemble the
+brood-chamber described above, or it may not be so high, fitted
+to receive a frame little more than half as deep as the standard
+Langstroth frame used in the brood-chamber.
+
+When comb-honey is produced, the super is only about half as high as
+the brood-chamber. For this reason a hive consisting of a brood-chamber
+and one super for comb-honey is termed a one-and-a-half-story hive.
+(Plate XV.)
+
+A complete super fitted for comb-honey consists of the following
+parts: (1) The outer wall, which is of the same length and width
+as the brood-chamber and of the right height to hold the style of
+section-boxes used; on the lower side of each end a tin strip is
+fastened to support the fixtures that it is to contain; (2) the
+section-boxes; these are the wooden frames containing the comb-honey
+when it is placed on the market; each holds about one pound of honey;
+four of these are shown in the Plate XIV; (3) the section-holder; this
+is a rack fitted to hold and support one row of section-boxes, as shown
+in Plate XIV; when in place in the super, it rests on the strips of
+tin mentioned above; (4) the fence; this is a device placed between
+the rows of section-boxes to keep the bees from building the comb
+beyond the edges of the section-boxes; the style used with the plain or
+no-beeway section is shown in Plate III; the vertical cleats on this
+fence provide for a bee-space between it and the section-boxes, so that
+the bees can build out the comb even with the edge of the section-box;
+(5) the super springs; these are three flat springs, fastened to the
+inner face of one side-wall in such a way that they press the fences
+and the section-boxes closely together. (Plate XII.)
+
+There are several types of supers in use that differ, in certain
+details, from the one described above. In some, the rows of
+section-boxes and fences are pressed together by thumb-screws which
+pass through one side-wall of the super. Many bee-keepers still use
+section-boxes with beeways, that is, boxes having the top and bottom
+narrower than the two sides. When such boxes are used, the fences lack
+the vertical slats, or posts; in fact, a simple strip of tin may serve
+as a fence.
+
+Most of the section-boxes in use now are made of a single piece, which
+is dovetailed at the ends and has three transverse V-shaped grooves cut
+in one side so that it can be bent into shape, as shown in Plate II.
+These flat basswood sections afford very pretty material with which
+to work. The novice, in putting them together, almost always bends
+them with grooves outside at the corners, instead of inside, and then
+wonders why they are askew, and break. We wet the sections where they
+are grooved before we begin working with them. This may be done by
+brushing each individual flat with warm water, which is a very tedious
+process; but it is better to take a handful of them as they lie, the
+grooves all in a line, set them on edge and pour a little water from a
+pitcher on the grooves. This wets many at a time with little trouble.
+To set up a section, it should be taken in the hands, grooves up,
+bend the ends upward evenly, fastening the dovetailed edges together
+gently. Haste and jerkiness are as disastrous in handling sections as
+in handling bees.
+
+The foundation for the comb-sections is much lighter in weight than
+that intended for the brood-frames. Some apiarists fill the entire
+section with this foundation, except for the bee-spaces at the bottom
+and at the sides. But we never do this, unless we are obliged to do
+it to coax the bees to use the supers; for it is not so satisfactory
+as to use a narrow strip for a guide at the top of the section, as a
+starter to show the bees where to build the comb. We cut these strips
+about an inch deep and almost as wide as the section, and, with the
+Daisy fastener, fix each strip at just the middle line of the upper
+bar of the section. The objection to filling a section with a complete
+sheet is, first, the expense of the foundation; and, secondly, that
+it is likely to give a tough central portion or “fish-bone” to the
+comb-honey. (Plate XIV.)
+
+
+HOW TO PREPARE THE SUPER
+
+If they are not ordered set up ready for use, the supers come in flat
+pieces with dovetailed ends, and putting them together is a pleasing
+occupation, after one has learned how. The best way to learn how is
+to carefully observe a super already properly set up; for, though the
+directions for putting these together are as plain as may be, yet a
+person may err therein and yet not be a fool. Unless one has learned,
+or can learn, to drive a nail, one had best not undertake bee-keeping,
+for the bee-keeper must become a carpenter to be successful; it adds
+much to the interest of the occupation to make all sorts of things
+for one’s own bees. The principle on which the super is built is that
+it may hold the sections tightly in place, and not allow them to drop
+through. Therefore, at the bottom of the super, along each narrower
+end, is a tin strip to support the ends of the section-holders; to keep
+the ends of the section-holders even a wedge-shaped strip of wood is
+nailed across the end of the super, thick edge down and flush with the
+bottom edge, resting against the tin strips. We use the Hetherington
+super springs, one at each end and one at the middle of one side of the
+super; the trick of putting these in is to set them opposite the
+posts of the fence, one at either endpost, and one at the middle post,
+else the spring will be of no use. Driving in the sharp end of this
+spring successfully requires a little practice. The super is now ready
+to be filled. (Plate XII.)
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XII
+
+(_a_) Two self-spacing frames; one of them fitted with a sheet of
+foundation.
+
+(_b_) An empty super, showing the springs and the wedge-shaped piece at
+the end.
+
+(_c_) The Doolittle division board feeder.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+                                          _Photograph by Brown Brothers_
+
+PLATE XIII. EXAMINING THE BROOD-FRAMES]
+
+First place a fence in the super on the side opposite the spring; then
+a section-holder filled with four starters, always remembering that
+these foundation-starters should be at the top of the section. Then
+place another fence and another section-holder. The eight-frame super
+will hold six of these rows, with fences between and one on each side.
+Putting in the last fence is the final test of whether the springs are
+in the right place, for, if they are right and press against the posts
+of the fence, it will be very hard to push in this last fence; when it
+is in, the sections are all held snugly in place. (Plates III, XV.)
+
+Where the super is placed on the hive, it should closely fit the top
+of the brood-chamber, with no cracks between. If the hive has a flat
+cover, which leaves only a bee-space above the sections, the cover
+may be placed immediately above the super, with nothing between. With
+covers like the telescope cover, a super-cover is needed. This may be a
+quilt or a piece of enamelled cloth; but we prefer a super-cover made
+of a thin board, bound on the ends to prevent warping, which is now on
+the market.
+
+
+HOW TO HANDLE THE BEES
+
+It is generally believed, and for good reasons, apparently, that bees
+like some people and despise others, who are just as good, so far as
+we can detect. This apparent capriciousness has been explained in many
+ways. Some hold that the bees have a fine sense of smell, and thus
+distinguish us by odours rather than by sight; and in this case their
+ire is aroused because they do not like the perfume exhaled by the
+obnoxious person. Others claim that it depends upon the movements; if
+one moves nervously and quickly, he is much more subject to attacks.
+It is certainly true that if a bee, which is buzzing threateningly, is
+struck at, she becomes more enraged and is more certain to sting, but
+this is because she recognises an aggressive foe because of the act.
+However, the senior partner in our apiary is an exceedingly active and
+nervous man, and I have seen him move with all haste and energy while
+working with bees, and though he seldom uses bee-veil or gloves, he
+is rarely stung. Our bees seem to be acquainted with him, and accept
+his rapid movements as one of the common-places of bee existence. It
+is well for anyone who wishes to work with bees to spend some time in
+the bee-yard just watching the little citizens coming and going, and
+listening to the peculiarly soothing hum which always fills the air
+around the hives. It is sympathy with the bees more than actions that
+finally results in handling them without harm.
+
+
+HOW TO OPEN THE HIVE
+
+First of all, fire up the smoker. The way to do this properly is to
+place some easily ignited material in the bottom of the fire-chamber,
+touch a match to it, and crowd in above it material which will make
+plenty of smoke, and will not burn too rapidly; give a puff or two with
+the bellows to be sure that the fire is started. We have used excelsior
+in our smoker because it was near at hand, but it is not a perfect or
+lasting fuel. Fine chips, especially planer shavings, old rags, greasy
+cotton waste, and even pine needles are used. Anything is desirable
+that will make a smudge and will not burn out too quickly; for when
+we are working with the bees we have little time or inclination to
+stop and “putter” with the smoker; and we cannot afford to have the
+smoke give out at the critical moment when we most need its protecting
+incense. A minimum amount of fire with the maximum amount of smoke
+is the desirable quality in the smoker. If the fire gets too hot the
+blasts will burn the bees, which is an outrage, and which is never
+permitted by a civilised individual. The Corneil smoker has a hook
+attached to the bellows, so it may be hung on the edge of the open hive
+to be at hand in time of need. If it becomes too hot, we lay it flat on
+the ground so as to stop the draft. Each time after the smoker is used
+it should be emptied, otherwise it is likely to start a conflagration.
+We have an ash pail near the apiary in which we always empty the
+smoker on our way back to the bee-room. Mr. Root speaks of never using
+the smoker until it is needed; when his bees trouble him, he gently
+pats them on the back with a little grass to get them out of his way
+as he lifts up the frames. And we never can admire Mr. Root enough
+for dealing thus gently with his bee-people. But we would not advise
+the novice to try this, as a person has to be on very intimate terms
+with bees to be able to pat them on the back with grass and impunity.
+However, this is an ideal to work toward. The nervous beginner almost
+invariably uses too much smoke, and this makes his little dependents
+unhappy. The breathing of smoke is hardly a pleasant experience for
+us, and it seems to be still more distressing to the bees. We remember
+once how, in the enthusiasm of our novitiate, we inadvertantly smoked
+the bee-man instead of the bees in our misguided efforts to help, and
+the result was a blueness of the atmosphere which rendered more smoke
+superfluous. Every beginner ought to get at least one headache from the
+fumes of the smoker to teach him charity and care.
+
+There are several reasons why the hive must be opened, aside from the
+fun one derives from the experience. First, the brood needs to be
+examined occasionally to see that it is all right, and in the fall the
+brood-comb must be examined to see that there is enough honey stored
+within it to winter the bees. Second, during the swarming season to
+find and remove the queen cells. Third, to hunt for the queen to be
+sure she is present and active, or perchance to find her and clip her
+wings. Fourth, to take off supers filled with honey. A warm day should
+be selected for opening the hive for whatever reason, and the middle
+of the day is the best time for the work.
+
+Send two or three puffs of smoke in at the entrance to drive back the
+frightened sentinels who keep careful watch of the portals of the hive.
+Then lift one edge of the cover of the hive a little and send two or
+three puffs in the crack; then lift off the cover and set it down
+beside you; then lift the quilt or super-cover at one edge, and give
+two or three puffs of smoke beneath it to drive the bees down among the
+frames, always remembering that under ordinary circumstances a very
+little smoke is necessary to frighten and subdue the bees. In fact the
+same rule applies to smoking bees as to smoking tobacco; if one is
+moderate in its use, the least harm will result.
+
+
+HOW TO EXAMINE THE BROOD-CHAMBER. (Plate VIII.)
+
+Stand at one side of the hive, and not in front of it. Hang the smoker
+on the side of the hive, so as to have it within reach. Mr. Root
+advises sitting on the cover of the hive set on edge while you examine
+the brood-frame. This will do for a well-poised person, but we prefer a
+little stool, which we can carry easily from hive to hive, as we wish
+something that we can sit on calmly as the situation requires. Commence
+at one side and loosen the outside section with a knife, or what is
+better, an old screw-driver. Take the frame by the projecting ends,
+and lift it up so that you may examine it on one side, then twirl it
+half-way over to examine it on the other. It requires some experience
+to placidly lift out a frame, covered with what at first sight looks
+like a dark, boiling, viscous fluid, fit only for a witch’s cauldron,
+but which soon to the startled eye resolves itself into bee particles.
+If the brood must be examined or queen cells found, then it becomes
+necessary to get rid of this seething, enveloping bee-mass, which is
+done in a manner that seems like nothing less than tempting Providence.
+The brood-frame is seized firmly in the operator’s hands, and held
+about waist high in front of the hive, then let to drop, hands and
+all, swiftly to within about six inches of the doorstep of the hive,
+then suddenly jerked back again; the bees being heavy and receiving
+the downward impetus, keep right on as a man keeps on when his bicycle
+stops suddenly in a rut—with this difference that the bees land safely
+at the entrance of the hive, into which they scamper as soon as their
+dazed wits will allow. One would naturally think that the bees would
+attack the active agent of this indignity, but while bees are ever
+ready to fight recognised enemies, they have evolved no plan of action
+which is equal to a cataclysm, except to get under cover as soon as
+possible. Thus being shaken from their foundations is to them what an
+earthquake is to us, and the attitude of Riley’s boy is theirs.
+
+    “Where’s a boy a-goin’ an’ what’s he goin’ to do,
+    An’ how’s he goin’ to do it, when the world bu’sts through?”
+
+Thus it is that among the first accomplishments of the apiarist is the
+one that enables him skilfully and with dispatch, and without harming
+the individuals to shake the surprised little mob off the frame or out
+of the boxes, to a place where its members may recover shelter and
+equanimity as expeditiously as possible.
+
+After the comb is freed from the bees, it requires some experience with
+honey-comb topography to see at a glance just the condition of the
+brood. There may be cells that look empty until a ray of light reveals
+at the bottom a glistening egg; and there may be cells with a little
+milky substance at the bottom in which the young larva is floating; or
+in some cells the bee grubs may be distinctly seen if they are four
+or five days old. If the cells are capped, it may puzzle the novice
+to know what lies behind that closed waxen door. If the cells contain
+honey, the substance of which the cap is made is whiter than that which
+covers the brood. In case of worker-brood the cap is depressed slightly
+below the plane of the comb, which is not the case if the cells contain
+honey. The large size of the drone cells distinguishes them readily
+from the cells of the workers. Often honey is stored in drone cells,
+for the bees seem to like to make these larger cells, and for good
+reason, since they give greater storage capacity for the amount of wax
+used. However, the drone cells which contain brood are covered with
+dark, dirty, yellow caps which are quite convex, looking like kopjes
+on the comb plain. At the height of the honey season there should be
+plenty of brood, and later the cells in the brood-frames should be
+filled with honey. The cells containing bee-bread are not capped, as
+this staff of bee life is packed so hard that it does not need to be
+covered. All honey remains uncapped until it is properly evaporated and
+ripened. (Plate VIII.)
+
+After one frame has been thus examined, it should be leaned up against
+the side of the hive so as to give space to lift out the next frame
+without crushing the bees.
+
+
+HOW TO FIND THE QUEEN CELL
+
+Fortunately for us, this is quite prominent, being a veritable oriel
+in shape. However, there may be other excrescences of the comb which
+somewhat resemble a queen cell; sometimes the queen cell may be more
+or less embedded and so escape observation. The bee-keeper who is
+cocksure that he can find all the queen cells in his hives has to be
+most experienced, and even then cocksureness may come to grief. But
+this unglazed oriel window in which the queen develops is usually quite
+noticeable, and is ordinarily decorated with a small, hexagonal pattern
+in relief. We have often wondered if this was done for the sake of
+decoration, or because the bees are so in the habit of fashioning wax
+into hexagonal patterns that they do it involuntarily. For the person
+who rashly asserts that honey-comb is the result of fortuitous force
+and pressure, this queen cell with its hexagonal frescoes is a poser.
+(Plate V.)
+
+To cut out the queen cell a sharp, pointed knife is necessary, in
+order to injure the comb beneath the cell as little as possible.
+
+
+HOW TO FIND THE QUEEN
+
+If we simply need assurance that the queen is present and active, the
+discovery of eggs or young larvæ in the cells is sufficient evidence
+of her presence, and saves the tiresome search for her majesty. But
+if we wish to find her, she is usually present on the middle frame of
+the hive. It is not safe to pull out this middle frame from the narrow
+place which it occupies for fear of hurting the queen and crushing
+the other bees; so it is best always to take out an end frame, first
+looking at it carefully to make sure she is not upon it; then shake off
+the bees and set it beside the hive, and move the other frames along
+in the space thus made until we are able to remove the middle frame
+with ease. It requires some experience to ferret out the queen from
+the bee-mob which seethes over the comb. The burly, big, blunt-ended
+drones are much more readily detected. However, after a little training
+in the devious ways of royalty one becomes expert in seeing that
+long, graceful, pointed body extending far back of the wings which
+characterises the queen. If the bees are not too much disturbed, she
+is likely to be surrounded by a rosette of workers, all with their
+faces toward her, for even in the court of the hive etiquette does not
+permit that the ladies-in-waiting turn their backs to the queen. If for
+any reason the queen is to be lifted out, she should be seized by the
+wings or thorax or imprisoned in a queen trap, but never under any
+circumstances should she be seized by the abdomen. (Plate XVI, Queen
+trap.)
+
+
+CLIPPING THE QUEEN’S WINGS
+
+This does not mean cutting off all four of the wings, but that the
+wings on one side should be clipped, leaving stubs not more than an
+eighth of an inch long. Various devices have been invented to aid
+clumsy hands in cutting off the royal petticoats. One, the Monette
+queen-clipping device, is a little cone-shaped cage made of wire laid
+in spirals. She goes into this cage head first and the door is shut
+behind her. Then the scissors are slipped between the spirals at the
+proper point and the deed is done. Another simple device is a bit of
+section-board whittled in the shape of a tiny bootjack with a rubber
+band stretched rather tightly across the prongs. The forks are placed
+across the queen so that the rubber presses against the thorax, thus
+pinning her fast to the comb while she is barbered. The only skill
+needed in this device is in fixing the tension of the rubber band so
+that it will be sufficient to hold her majesty fast, and yet not stiff
+enough to hurt her. Our invariable plan is as follows: After the queen
+is discovered, we hold the brood-frame in one hand, pick up her royal
+highness in the other most gently, then still more gently set the frame
+down, leaning it against the hive; then, holding her royal person
+firmly but carefully in our own unworthy thumb and fingers, clip her
+wings with presuming scissors; then, putting the scissors down as we
+pick up the frame, and put her back as nearly as possible on the spot
+where we found her. We always use the sharp-pointed embroidery scissors
+for this delicate operation.
+
+
+HOW TO TAKE OFF HONEY IN SUPERS
+
+Lift the hive cover and quilt with a slight introduction of smoke,
+then lift off completely. Smoke from above for a moment, being very
+careful not to burn the bees, always remembering that smoke is meant
+to scare and not to punish. Then loosen the super with a screw-driver
+if the bees have fastened it down with bee glue, lift it and place
+it on a bottom board near at hand. Put on an unfilled super if it is
+needed and cover the hive. Lift the honey-sections out of the super,
+brushing off the adhering bees with a bee-brush, so that they will fall
+on the doorstep of the hive, and place each section as it is cleaned
+in a basket or box in which it is to be carried to the store-room.
+This is our usual way of procedure when our apiary is small, and we
+do this work during spare moments which are not predictable the night
+before. However, there is one best way to do this work, and that is
+to put on a Porter bee-escape the night before the super is to be
+removed. Wise from experience, we advise beginners to study this device
+and become imbued with a knowledge of its workings to the extent of
+being able to tell which is the upper and which the under side, lest
+disastrous results ensue and all of the bees escape into the super
+instead of out of it. If the bee-escape is placed on the night before,
+there will be no bees in the super when it is removed next day. To
+introduce a bee-escape one does not need to lift off the super; simply
+lift it up at one side, send a little smoke into the crack, push in
+the bee-escape, and then set it straight upon the hive and the super
+straight upon it. (Plates III, XVIII.)
+
+The novice might conclude that a good plan would be simply to set off
+the super near the hive, and let the bees find their own way back to
+their brood and kindred. But bee-nature has to be reckoned with in this
+instance, and the bees, conscious that the honey is their own, are
+likely to uncap the cells and carry the honey into the hive; or worse
+still, the bees from other hives will be attracted to these open stores
+and will begin to rob. And in the bee courts of equity, when bees begin
+to rob, then the “devil is to pay.”
+
+There have been various bee-tents devised under which the supers are
+placed after being removed from the hive. These tents are arranged with
+a little hole at the top by which the bees may escape, but may not
+return. Doctor Miller invented a simple plan of piling several supers
+filled with honey on top of each other, leaving no crevices between
+them; over these was spread a cloth with a hole in the middle, over
+which was placed a wire cone with a hole in the top large enough to let
+a bee pass out. Thus the bees from all of the sections escaped, one
+by one, and robbing was avoided. However, the bee-escapes introduced
+between the super and the hives are used to-day by most enterprising
+bee-men.
+
+
+OBSERVATION-HIVES (Frontispiece)
+
+Anyone who has worked long with bees, cannot fail to become filled
+with curiosity concerning the way their work is carried on in the
+mysterious darkness of the hive; to such a person, the observation-hive
+is a source of perennial delight, as well as of interesting and useful
+knowledge.
+
+Observation-hives have been used by bee-keepers from the time of Huber
+to the present, and naturally many forms of them have been devised. The
+type in most common use now is a small hive, containing one, two or
+three frames, and furnished with glass sides, through which the bees
+can be observed. The glass sides are covered with a door or curtain,
+except when observations are being made; for, if not, the bees will
+cover the glass with a coat of propolis, rendering it opaque.
+
+It is somewhat difficult to keep a colony in good condition upon a
+single frame; and if two or more frames are used side by side the
+observer is unable to see what goes on between the frames. Professor
+Kellogg, of Stanford University, has devised a perfectly satisfactory
+two-frame observation-hive for his laboratory. It consists of a
+glass-sided box, large enough to hold two Langstroth frames, one above
+the other; as both sides of the comb are exposed, any individual bee
+may be kept constantly in sight while she is working. The passage
+which leads from the hive to the opening in the window has a glass
+top, so the actions of the bees as they enter the hive may be watched.
+A hood of thick black cloth is pulled down over the hive when the
+observations are finished. Similar observation hives may be purchased
+of dealers in apiarists’ supplies.
+
+Such an observation-hive would be of great value to the enterprising
+bee-keeper, as it would be the means of helping him to understand
+conditions which were puzzling, and thus aid him in dealing with crises
+that are sure to occur. The advantage of this hive over any other is
+that frames from any hive may be kept under closest observation. But
+if the hive were a means of interest merely, it would still be worth
+while, for the bee-keeper cannot know too much about the ways of bees,
+_supposing all he knows is true_.
+
+
+MAXIMS FOR OPENING THE HIVE
+
+Have the smoker ready to give forth a good volume of smoke.
+
+Use the smoker to scare the bees rather than to punish them.
+
+Do not stand in front of the hive lest the bees passing out and in take
+umbrage.
+
+Be careful not to drop any implements with which you are working; take
+hold of all things firmly.
+
+Move steadily, and not nervously.
+
+Do not run if frightened, for the bees understand what running away
+means as well as you do.
+
+If the bees attack you, move slowly away, smoking them off as you go.
+
+If a bee annoys you by her threatening attitude for some time, kill her
+ruthlessly.
+
+If stung by a bee, rub off the sting, instead of pulling it out with
+the nails of the thumb and forefinger and thus forcing more venom into
+the wound.
+
+Ammonia applied to the wound made by a bee-sting will usually afford
+immediate relief.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+DETAILS CONCERNING HONEY
+
+
+HOW TO MAKE COMB-HONEY
+
+Every bee-keeper who sends to the market honey in the comb enfolded in
+an attractive carton, or with the section neatly glazed, has produced a
+work of art; for comb-honey as now marketed is an æsthetic production,
+and the bee-keeper is an artist as much as if he had painted a
+picture or had fashioned a jewel. To most people who have an apiary
+as a pleasurable adjunct to life in the country, the production of
+comb-honey is most attractive, while the production of extracted honey
+does not appeal to them at all. Just the word “honey” calls to the mind
+of most people a vision of amber sweetness set in white-walled, waxen
+cells.
+
+The production of comb-honey is attended by more difficulties than
+is the production of extracted honey. The reason for this is largely
+because the bees work more readily in cells already made from which
+the honey has been extracted, than they do in sections where they
+must undertake all of the expense and labour of producing wax for the
+comb. More than this, honey may be extracted from the comb of the
+brood-chambers, a harvest which is lost to the producer of comb-honey.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XIV
+
+(_a_) Alley’s queen and drone trap.
+
+(_b_) A well filled section.
+
+(_c_) One empty section-holder, and one filled with section-boxes, in
+which are foundation-starters; two of these have been added to by the
+bees.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+                                          _Photograph by Brown Brothers_
+
+PLATE XV. One and a half story hive for comb-honey; the super is filled
+with section-boxes.]
+
+For the production of comb-honey it is necessary that the colony
+winter in excellent condition and develop much well-fed brood early
+in the season, so that there shall be a great number of active young
+workers in the hive just before the chief honey-harvest of the summer
+begins. In New York State we have two large honey harvests, that of
+the basswood in July and the buckwheat in August, so our colonies are
+made strong and ready by the last of June. In order to have the bees
+ready to work, the swarming fever must be subdued or controlled before
+this period of honey-flow. The colonies are carefully watched early in
+the season, and if after the first pollen-gathering occurs there is no
+honey coming in, the bees are fed so that the brood may be developed.
+We rarely have to feed at this season of the year as the fruit bloom
+gives our bees plenty of honey for rearing their brood, and we never
+expect any surplus before the basswood season.
+
+The supers are put on when there is plenty of brood and plenty of honey
+to feed to it in the hive; and under such conditions our bees, though
+Italians, usually push up into the sections at once. We prepare the
+sections with mere strips of wax foundation for starters. (Plate XIV.)
+
+Supers thus equipped put on at this time and under such conditions seem
+to take away all desire to swarm on the part of the bees, if the queen
+cells have been previously removed.
+
+If the brood-chambers are crowded when the super is put on, the queen
+may go up into it and start brood. This rarely occurs with us, but in
+case it does a queen-excluding honey-board may be introduced between
+the super and the brood-chamber. Sometimes a colony seems unwilling
+to go into the super after it has been added, and the bees will hang
+on the outside of the hive and threaten to swarm, and through doubt
+and vacillation lose two or three of the precious days of the basswood
+harvest.
+
+The usual reason why the bees will not go into the super is that they
+are not sufficiently crowded below; if they have room they prefer to
+store their honey in the brood cells rather than carry it to the upper
+story.
+
+If a colony is strong and has plenty of brood and honey and is still
+obstinate, men of experience advise the taking of a frame of sections
+from a colony which is storing in the supers and putting bees and all
+in the midst of the unused super of the reluctant colony. We have never
+tried this because we were never obliged to. It sounds very practical
+and sensible, and it is practised by Mr. Root, and that is sufficient
+recommendation.
+
+Our way of coaxing the bees into a super which they have sedulously
+ignored is to place in it some of the imperfect sections, which are not
+worth much in the market and which contain some capped honey and many
+empty cells. One section-holder filled in this way seems to encourage
+the reluctant colony to climb and to store as rapidly as possible.
+
+In large apiaries the following plan is followed: First, put on a super
+of shallow extracting frames from which the honey has been removed; as
+these cells are all ready, the bees are likely to go to work in them
+at once; and after they are working well raise the super, and put in
+one below it filled with sections containing starters, and all will be
+well. In dealing with this phase of bee-keeping it is well to remember
+that full sheets of foundation in the sections are more attractive to
+the bees than starters; and that sections containing comb already made
+are still more pleasing, and if some of these made cells contain honey,
+their attractiveness is doubled. One condition should be observed in
+putting on a super in the summer: it should be shaded in some way; if
+it is in the direct rays of the sun, the heat is likely to keep the
+bees out of it. However, later in the season bees may be induced to
+work in the super by placing over it a cushion so that it will be warm.
+
+
+TIERING UP
+
+If the honey is coming in at a good rate, and the bees are working
+well, when the sections in the super are something more than half
+full, lift it up and place another containing sections with starters
+beneath it. The reason for this is that the bees would not naturally
+go into the empty super if it were placed on top until the other was
+completely filled. But with this plan they continue working in the
+super, even though it be on top, and meanwhile find it “handy” to fill
+the intervening sections. If the honey-flow is great, even another
+super may be placed next the hive and below the other two. However, in
+our practice we rarely put on more than two, usually taking off the
+top one when we need to interpolate another. This process is called
+“storifying” in the English books, which is a most graphic term and
+should be introduced into our nomenclature.
+
+
+TAKING OFF SECTIONS. (Plate XX.)
+
+In taking off the sections we do not need to wait for the completion
+of every one in the super. The outside rows are rarely perfect, and we
+usually put these unfinished sections back on some other hive to be
+finished.
+
+These unfinished sections, if not too empty, serve very well to sweeten
+the daily bread of the home table. If sent to the market they bring low
+prices, and the bee-keeper who is working for comb-honey should plan to
+have as few of them as possible. While the honey left long in the super
+has a much finer flavour than that which is removed early, yet care
+should be taken not to leave the sections on the hive so long that the
+comb becomes soiled. It is an interesting fact that honey ripened in
+the hive gains special richness, as if it were somehow imbued with the
+spirit of the little socialists that make it.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+                                          _Photograph by Brown Brothers_
+
+  PLATE XVI. Drone and queen trap, below; queen mailing and
+  introducing cage, above at the left; queen-protector and
+  queen-cage used in queen-rearing, in centre; and bee-escape, at
+  the right.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+                                            _Photograph by Verne Morton_
+
+PLATE XVII. “IN APPLE-BLOSSOM TIME”]
+
+Toward the end of the season it is best not to tier up, but to place an
+empty super on top. The bees will not use it unless necessary, but will
+devote their energies to the sections below. The great danger to be
+avoided in tiering up is a surplus of partly filled sections, and the
+way we avoid this is not to interpolate a super until the one on the
+hive is at least three-fourths filled.
+
+
+STAINED SECTIONS
+
+A regular part of bee exercise consists of promenading up and down
+and across the sealed honey; the bee has not as yet, unfortunately,
+attained the fastidiousness which leads her to wipe any of her six feet
+carefully before entering her domicile, consequently the sections of
+honey thus walked over may be stained and unmarketable. There is no
+remedy for this except to look after the supers carefully, and take out
+the sections before they are soiled.
+
+Some sections may look dirty because old wax is used in making the
+caps. If such is the case, and it is simply yellow, the wax may be
+bleached by standing it in the sun or by subjecting it to sulphur
+fumes. Some apiarists have special rooms and others tight boxes for
+the sulphur bleaching. Only two things are necessary to accomplish
+this successfully; first, that the room or box be tight; second, that
+the sulphur placed in an iron dish be heated so that the fumes are
+strong and all-pervading. Some say that the sulphur should be heated
+so that if a match be touched to it, it will flame. The combs need not
+be subjected to such fumes more than a half-hour to become as white as
+they can be bleached.
+
+
+SCRAPING THE SECTIONS
+
+In preparing comb-honey for the market, it is necessary to first
+scrape the propolis from the sections so as to leave the wood white
+and beautiful. To do this the section should be set square on and in
+line with the edge of a table, and below should be a pan to receive the
+scrapings. Hold the section firmly in one hand and scrape the side that
+is in line with the edge of the table with a downward stroke of the
+knife; a case-knife is best for this. To scrape the wood clean and not
+in any way injure the honey, and to do the work rapidly, measure the
+skill attained in this business. In scraping the sections it is best
+to have four of the shipping-boxes at hand, so that the honey may be
+graded and placed in its proper class as it is cleaned.
+
+
+GRADING COMB-HONEY
+
+First, as to the way the sections are filled, or in other words, as to
+the bee technique. There are three grades—Fancy, No. 1, and No. 2. In
+the fancy grade almost every cell is well filled, and the comb has the
+surface evenly built and well capped. No. 1 has an even surface and is
+well filled, but may not be so perfect in the corners as is the fancy.
+No. 2 must be at least three-fourths full. Anything below No. 2 is
+called chunk honey if sold in the comb, but it is more profitable to
+extract honey from all sections that range below No. 2.
+
+Second, as to the colour of honey: It is graded as white, amber,
+buckwheat and dark, and these need no explanation. Thus honey is listed
+perhaps as “fancy white,” or “fancy buckwheat”; in each case it is the
+best of its kind.
+
+
+SHIPPING-CASES
+
+These should be ordered rather than made, as a good-looking
+shipping-case adds materially to the value of the honey. These cases
+come in different sizes, and have one side made of glass so that the
+handlers may see that the contents are fragile, and therefore may
+possibly be persuaded to deal with them gently; the cases come in flats
+and are easily put together. For anything that looks so well put up
+as honey sealed in its perfect cells, it has a most amazing capacity
+for leaking. Once, in the enthusiasm of girlhood and inexperience, I
+carried some honey carefully packed in a box in my trunk, hoping to
+give a friend a treat. Needless to say that honey was “linked sweetness
+long drawn out,” by the time I arrived at my destination; and all the
+clothes that I carried in my trunk were literally “too sweet for any
+use.”
+
+Shipping comb-honey to market is likely to be a disastrous performance
+at best, since it is almost impossible to guard against careless
+handling. Some ship in glass-covered sections which protect the comb,
+and make a very attractive appearing product.
+
+Shipping the sections in cartons is winning its way now for fancy
+grades. A carton is a pasteboard box which may be bought in flats with
+the shipper’s name printed upon it. While these cartons may be bought
+in almost any style, from perfectly plain to those highly ornamented,
+and provided with tape handles, yet we believe there is a chance for
+personal initiative in this particular field. An artistic design in
+pretty colours, individual and unique, would certainly prove a special
+attraction for selling honey in cartons. The great advantage gained
+from the use of the carton is that the honey reaches the consumer in a
+neat package without further handling, and may be carried like a box
+of bonbons. When cartons are used the shipping case should be a size
+larger than for the plain sections.
+
+
+MARKETING COMB-HONEY
+
+There are two ways of marketing honey open to most bee-keepers. First
+and best, the local market. If the honey can be placed in the hands of
+the grocer directly from the bee-keeper, certain advantages accrue. The
+comb is not broken by much careless handling, and it reaches the market
+in good shape. Though the price may be somewhat lower perhaps than the
+highest quoted prices, yet it is reliable, and there is no discount for
+breakage in shipping, and for differences of opinion in grading. It is
+certainly far more satisfactory for all concerned to place comb-honey
+on the home market; this is usually practicable for all except the
+greater apiarists. We know one man who has about forty hives, and who
+lives in a town of about three hundred inhabitants; though he produces
+a reasonable amount of honey he very inadequately supplies the demand
+for it in this little village, and he receives city prices.
+
+The second and least desirable method of marketing comb-honey is to
+ship it to a commission merchant. If this is done, it is well to select
+a middleman in whom we have absolute confidence, or we are likely soon
+to become pessimistic regarding his honesty; so frequently is the price
+of honey reduced on account of breakage and leaking and other accidents
+which this very frail delicacy is heir to, that we rarely realise the
+prices quoted in the newspapers. If a good middleman can be found,
+then our advice is to stick to him, and send him the very best product
+possible, fairly graded and in the most attractive form, hoping that he
+may be able to do for us what we should do for ourselves, and that is,
+work up a special market.
+
+
+STORING COMB-HONEY
+
+It is far better to market comb-honey the year it is made. However, if
+it is to be stored, it must be placed in a room that has a constant
+temperature above 60°F. It is best to fumigate the sections if there
+is any danger from the bee-moth, for this little rascal will destroy a
+great amount of comb-honey in a very short time. (See “Bee-Moth.”)
+
+
+CANDIED COMB-HONEY
+
+Some kinds of honey will granulate much sooner than others. The longer
+the honey is left in the hive and the more perfectly it is ripened,
+the less liable it is to granulate. Extracted honey will candy much
+sooner than honey left in the comb. We have kept comb-honey more than
+a year without crystals appearing in it. The only way to prevent
+comb-honey from candying is to keep it in a temperature that does not
+fall below 60 degrees. After honey is candied in the comb, nothing can
+be done with it except to sell it at a lower price, or keep it to feed
+back to the bees. The latter is probably the most profitable way to
+dispose of it. Some people like comb-honey after it is granulated and
+the home-table may use a certain amount of it.
+
+
+MAXIMS FOR PRODUCING COMB-HONEY
+
+Keep the colonies strong.
+
+The bees should be kept warm and well fed in the spring.
+
+The bees must have wintered well.
+
+The colony must have brood and plenty of honey in the brood-chambers at
+the beginning of the honey season.
+
+Never let the honey in sections or supers be exposed in the apiary to
+incite robbery.
+
+Keep the sections in a room in which the temperature never falls below
+60°.
+
+Fumigate the sections before they are stored if you are troubled with
+bee-moth.
+
+Send the honey to market in as attractive form as possible. Make your
+product individual in appearance, and strive to create for it a special
+market.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+EXTRACTED HONEY
+
+
+HOW TO PRODUCE IT
+
+It is certainly fortunate for bee-keepers that centrifugal force is
+one of the unalterable laws of the physical world. However, this force
+might never have been of any use to the apiarist had it not been
+for a certain Major Francesco de Hruschka of Venice, who is a most
+interesting figure in the history of bee-keeping. Next in importance to
+the invention of the movable frames by the venerable Langstroth was the
+invention of the honey-extractor. We have a picture of Major Hruschka
+in our minds as not only a brave man of war as indicated by his
+military rank, but also as a happy man of peace, who loved his hives
+with their little citizens, and who also possessed notable domestic
+virtues and loved the companionship of his children and was interested
+in their doings. For it was when his little son accompanied him to
+his apiary and, having a comb full of honey set up in a basket, began
+whirling it boy-like by the rope attached to the handle, that the Major
+discovered the honey was being thrown out of the comb by this action.
+Instead of spanking the boy as most fathers would have done, the
+thoughtful Major cogitated on the fact that such a simple motion should
+have emptied the comb of honey, and he straightway proceeded to invent
+the first honey-extractor. This was in 1865; up to that time the liquid
+honey was extracted by a method which we remember well. The comb was
+crushed, and with it too often, alas! the dead bees, larvæ and any dirt
+whatsoever that happened to be present; this mixture was suspended in
+a cloth bag, over a tub or vat in a warm room; and the honey, carrying
+with it much of the débris, slowly dripped out reeking with an aroma
+and a flavour quite unknown in these regenerate days, and forming a
+product that may well be spared from the world’s marts.
+
+Since 1865, many honey-extractors have been invented in America,
+and almost all of them which have survived the test of use are
+satisfactory. The perfection of the invention is an automatically
+reversible machine with ball bearings, highly geared in order to attain
+the maximum of steadiness and rapidity with the appliance of a minimum
+of power.
+
+The principle of construction underlying all of the best extractors is
+a cylindrical can containing wire pockets in which the combs are set on
+edge, and which are revolved by being geared to a crank at the top of
+the can. There is room for more or less honey below the wire pockets,
+and at the bottom of the can is a faucet or honey gate, through which
+the extracted honey may be drawn off into a pail or vat.
+
+The extractor is a very excellent adjunct to any apiary, however
+small, even if comb-honey is the chief product, for it saves much honey
+that otherwise would be wasted. When the apiary consists of less than
+forty hives of bees, one of the small non-reversible extractors may be
+used. These weigh less and cost less; but every frame of comb has to be
+taken out after the honey has been extracted on one side and reversed
+and put back in order to clear the honey from the other side. Though
+the automatic reversible machine costs more and is heavier, it is far
+more satisfactory on the whole, if there is much honey to be extracted.
+
+
+EXTRACTING-FRAMES
+
+The frames used for extracting honey are in form similar to those
+which hold the brood, except they may not be so deep. However, most
+bee-keepers use both supers containing the shallow extracting-frames,
+and also those filled with frames of the full depth. The bees will go
+into the shallow frames more readily than into the deeper ones, as they
+are better able to keep the small chambers warm. But if the colony is
+very strong and the harvest good, the deeper frames are acceptable to
+the bees and save the time of the bee-keeper. (Plate XVIII.)
+
+
+WHEN TO EXTRACT HONEY
+
+Some producers practice extracting the honey before it is capped, so
+as to save the trouble and expense of uncapping. There is one danger
+attending this method: the green, unripened honey is thus often
+extracted, and it is the most insipid of sweets. Honey needs to ripen
+slowly in a warm temperature in order to be palatable. Some, like
+Quinby, advocate the ripening of honey in vats or evaporators after
+it has been extracted. But it is the consensus of opinion that honey
+to be of perfect flavour needs to ripen in the warm, bee-odour-laden
+atmosphere of the hive. The bees ordinarily leave the honey uncapped
+for some time as it thus ripens more readily. Therefore, those who
+produce an especially fine quality of extracted honey usually begin
+to tier up as soon as the super is fairly filled and before the honey
+is capped. The bees have ample room to go on storing honey in the
+interpolated super, and do not bother to cap the honey already stored
+above. Thus these supers, three or four or as many as practicable, are
+left on the hive until the end of the honey harvest, and thus the honey
+attains its proper ripeness and flavour.
+
+There are others who claim that honey is never properly ripened until
+capped, and therefore practice tiering after the cells of comb are at
+least partly covered.
+
+
+UNCAPPING. (Plate XIX.)
+
+There are various knives invented for this process, the Bingham
+uncapping knife being the favourite. It is used thus: The frame
+containing the honey standing on one end and leaning over a receptacle
+for the caps is held with the left hand, the knife in the right hand
+begins at the bottom of the comb and running backward and forward as
+it is moved upward shears off very neatly the covering of the cells.
+The knife must be very sharp, and skill in cutting is shown in just the
+merest film of wax which is removed. A pan of hot water should be at
+hand on an oil stove perhaps; every time a sheet of capping is removed,
+the knife needs to be scraped on a stick, which will not dull it; and
+quite often it should be dipped in the hot water to clean it. If there
+is much uncapping to be done, it is best to have two knives, keeping
+one in the pan; for cleanliness and heat are quite as potent factors as
+is sharpness in making the uncapping knife effective.
+
+There are on the market uncapping-cans, the Dadant being the most
+popular. It is a double can with an arrangement on top convenient for
+holding the end of the frame on a pivot and with wooden cross-pieces on
+which the knife may be wiped. Below there is a wire screen for holding
+the cappings, with a space in the bottom of the can for the honey which
+drains off, and which is always of the most excellent and delicious
+quality. Of course, the cappings are saved to be made into beeswax.
+
+
+CARE OF EXTRACTED HONEY
+
+Honey, whether in the comb or out, will crystallise when subjected
+to low temperature or when left standing for a long time. However,
+extracted honey crystallises much more readily than that which is in
+combs; and this crystallisation is one of the problems of putting up
+and marketing extracted honey. To prevent it extracted honey should
+be evaporated until it is thick, sealed while hot in air-tight cans,
+and kept in a room the temperature of which never falls below 65° F.
+It should be kept in tin or galvanised iron cans, rather than in wood.
+Some people seem to have been successful in using wooden vessels for
+holding the honey after having given them a coating of wax; but the way
+honey gets through small places is more proverbial among bee-keepers
+than is the ability of the stingy man to do the same; even when a tub
+or pan seems water-tight the honey will triumphantly work its passage
+through.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XVIII
+
+Taking off upper story of hive containing combs for extracting. The
+bees have been moved from the supers by the bee-escape seen at the
+right.
+
+                                           _Photographs by Verne Morton_
+
+  Extracting-room showing extractor, strainer, uncapping can,
+  bee-escape, smoker, uncapping knife, gloves, funnel, supers and
+  sections, extractor pocket containing extracted sections, partly
+  filled sections as yet uncapped, extracting frame with comb, etc.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XIX
+
+                                           _Photographs by Verne Morton_
+
+Uncapping comb before extracting the honey.
+
+Placing uncapped comb in one of the pockets of the extractor.]
+
+In order to preserve extracted honey in packages it must be canned
+or bottled, and the air entirely excluded. There are two methods of
+accomplishing this: First, the honey is heated in bulk, and run off
+into hot cans or bottles. Second, the honey is put in the bottles
+first and then heated; in both cases the honey is heated by hot water.
+Perhaps the easier method is to heat it in bulk, and if there is not at
+hand a double boiler, one can be improvised by using a wash-boiler in
+which pails containing the honey may be set. In any case the honey and
+the water surrounding it should be of the temperature of the room to
+begin with; then a slow, steady fire is needed to bring the temperature
+of the water up to 160° F. Mr. Root advises the use of a gasoline stove
+for this purpose as the heat may thus be carefully regulated, and it is
+very important that the process be a slow one. After the temperature of
+the honey reaches 160° F. it may be poured into freshly scalded cans
+or bottles and sealed, air-tight. If bottles are used, the corks should
+have paraffine poured over them so as to make sure of excluding the air.
+
+
+PACKAGES FOR EXTRACTED HONEY. (Plate XXI.)
+
+Mason fruit jars are extensively used for this as they are practical,
+cheap and useful afterward. The No. 25 honey-jar, somewhat resembling
+the Mason can, is made purposely for putting up honey, and is
+attractive in appearance. The Muth bottles are made in four sizes for
+extracted honey; the largest holding two pounds, and the smallest a
+quarter of a pound. These bottles are decorated with a design of an old
+straw skep, and bear the prophetic inscription “pure honey” moulded
+into the glass. Jelly-glasses are often used and paraffined paper is
+placed over the honey, just as it is placed over jelly to exclude the
+air before the tin cover is put on. Glass packages are by all means the
+most attractive for extracted honey in small quantities. However, tin
+pails of various sizes are in use, and may be serviceable for a cheap
+and inferior grade of honey, which is thus made ready for the consumer
+who is willing to buy “aside unseen.” But a fine quality of honey
+rejoices in the light of day and in the scrutiny of eyes which may look
+at it first critically and then longingly.
+
+The most practical packages for shipping honey in quantity are the
+large, square cans in common use which hold sixty pounds each. These
+are convenient for shipping and for measuring and are safe from
+breakage.
+
+The advantages of extracted honey over that of comb-honey are: Almost
+double the honey may be produced, because the bees having no comb to
+build, devote their energies to storing honey; and also the honey from
+the brood-combs may be extracted; it is more easily and safely handled
+and shipped; it is more easily produced, since the bees work more
+readily in the emptied cells of the extracted combs than in sections
+where they are obliged to build new cells; swarming is more easily
+controlled, because the bees more readily accept the enlargement of
+their quarters when the supers contain fully made comb, also larger
+hives may be used.
+
+The disadvantages are: It is more “mussy” and requires special
+apparatus; and unless great care is given, the bees will be starved
+through this convenient way of pilfering their stores.
+
+
+MAXIMS FOR THE PRODUCER OF EXTRACTED HONEY
+
+Use glass or tin, rather than wood, for honey receptacles.
+
+Be careful not to expose the honey as you take it out of the supers,
+lest the bees begin robbing.
+
+Honey should be canned while hot, and kept from the air.
+
+Heating honey to a higher temperature than 160° destroys its flavour.
+
+Cooling honey to a temperature below 60° produces granulation.
+
+Work in a warm room.
+
+Have a label of your own, with some unique and individual design,
+which, when placed on the package, will render it attractive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+POINTS ABOUT BEESWAX
+
+
+HOW TO MAKE IT
+
+Beeswax is a unique product; the little socialists of the hive have
+formed a trust for its manufacture, which for many and good reasons
+has never been infringed upon. The special value of beeswax is that it
+retains its cohesiveness and ductibility, under both higher and lower
+temperatures, than do other kinds of wax. It has a specific gravity of
+960–972, and melts at 143–145° F.
+
+Beeswax has been in demand in the world since ancient times, being put
+to many and diverse uses. Now, however, the making of foundation-comb
+is the most important of these uses and most affects the beeswax
+market of to-day. Countless thousands of sheets of wax foundation are
+manufactured yearly in America. When foundation was first used it was
+thought that it might be adulterated safely with paraffine, but it was
+soon found that beeswax thus adulterated, when subjected to the heat of
+the hive in summer, would invariably bulge, buckle and sag. We know an
+apiarist who lost money, honey, bees and temper through trying to use
+this kind of foundation, which did not stand firm.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XX
+
+                                           _Photographs by Verne Morton_
+
+Drawing honey from extractor. The honey is strained through a fine wire
+strainer set in the top of the pail.
+
+Pouring extracted honey into keg for shipping in bulk.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXI
+
+Extracted honey in pails—candied
+
+                                           _Photographs by Verne Morton_
+
+Extracted honey in glass jars ready for market.]
+
+
+THE PRIMITIVE METHOD
+
+The process of making wax from honey-comb may be primitive and yet
+quite successful. Well do we remember the method as practised in the
+days of our early youth in the kitchen of the old farmhouse, usually a
+comfortable and altogether delightful room. Its yellow-painted floor
+seemed to have caught the sunshine streaming in through white-curtained
+windows and held it there for us to tread upon. The chintz-covered
+settee and Boston rockers, and a few widths of bright rag carpet, made
+one end a cozy sitting-room. At the opposite end the cupboards, their
+shelves covered with elaborately scalloped newspapers, and beset with
+orderly dishes and tinware, bespoke the kitchen. Midway between stood
+the heavy cherry drop-leaf table which revealed the dining-room; in
+the midst of this Protean apartment stood the cook-stove, polished so
+that it would put to shame the rosewood case of a piano, bearing on its
+top the pink-copper tea-kettle singing gayly after its daily bath of
+cleansing buttermilk, and holding within the roaring fire which ever
+seemed the spirit and soul of the place. The neatness that held sway
+in this kitchen was the perfect sort that conduces to comfort, and not
+to misery. Only at certain periods was this delectable room given over
+to discomfort and untidiness; these included “wash-days,” the days
+following the yearly sacrificial rite of butchering and the days when
+beeswax was made.
+
+We were wont to make beeswax as follows: The broken combs were packed
+in a muslin bag which was weighted by a sinker and hung in the
+wash-boiler by tying the bag to the poker, which was placed crosswise
+the top. By this contrivance the bag was completely surrounded by
+water, which filled the boiler, and yet did not touch the bottom, and
+so there was no danger of burning; the cloth acted as a strainer and
+the bag was pressed occasionally; this act being judiciously performed
+by means of the tongs, which had previously been cleaned. After the wax
+had boiled out the boiler was taken off and the whole contents cooled,
+after which the wax was taken from the top in pieces and remelted in a
+dish set on the back side of the stove so as not to burn, then poured
+into oiled bread-tins, and thus caked for the market. Some of it was
+clarified for special use thus: It was allowed to simmer on the back of
+the stove for some hours in water to which vinegar had been added, and
+then was dipped off into scalloped patty-tins and a neat little loop of
+cord inserted at one side. These cakes when cooled had a long though
+scarified existence ensconced in work-baskets with spools of thread,
+for wax thus cleaned and prepared made very pretty little gifts for
+lady-friends. But the experience of rendering wax was never complete
+without spilling some of it on the stove, which spread with fearful
+rapidity and smoked with stifling smoke; because of the certainty of
+this accident we always made the beeswax in the late fall, lest our
+bees regarding the pungent smoke as a direct invitation should come
+visiting in embarrassing numbers.
+
+Sundry old pieces of rag carpet were spread on the floor around the
+stove to keep the yellow paint intact from the wax, which was so hard
+to clean off. We had no benzine in those days, and our only resort was
+boiling hot water, which cleaned off the paint as well as the wax.
+
+One privilege that was always granted to us children on this day was
+that of having “our fingers made.” As the wax was cooling the finger
+was dipped in it, and the film was cooled while the finger was held
+very still; then the film was slipped off, a crucial point in the
+process, and used as a mould into which was poured the cooling wax; and
+presto! there was the finger as natural as life to every crease and
+wrinkle, but with a death-like pallor that rendered the row of fingers
+thus made a fascinatingly gruesome collection, as if they had been
+chopped off with a hatchet.
+
+This old process of rendering wax in the wash-boiler is still practised
+where apiaries are small. Mr. Root advises the following modification:
+Sticks are placed crosswise the bottom of the boiler on which the bag
+is placed; the bag is packed very full of wax by pressing the comb into
+balls with the hands before it is put in. Water is added and the whole
+is placed upon the stove and brought slowly to a boil, then a board
+that acts as a follower on the bag is placed on top with a heavy weight
+upon it; this acts as a press and decreases the bulk in the bag,
+leaving the wax floating on the surface.
+
+
+THE SOLAR WAX-EXTRACTOR
+
+There are many modern and up-to-date methods advised for extracting
+wax. The most common is through the use of the Solar wax-extractor,
+which was invented for extracting honey in California, where the sun
+can be depended upon to do its work unflinchingly day after day. There
+was more than myth in the story of Icarus who fastened his wings on
+with wax, and then dared to face the sun. The ancients evidently knew
+that no other substance of the sort is so susceptible to the sun’s
+rays. I shall never forget my amazement at the efficiency of the
+first Solar extractor that I ever saw; it was home-made and there was
+naught in its appearance to indicate its power. The comb was hard and
+blackened and full of dirt, while the wax that oozed out and hardened
+below was as shining and yellow as if the sun itself had exhaled it.
+A Solar extractor ought to be in every apiary where twenty colonies
+or more are kept, and into this every fragment of comb should be put
+instead of storing it to become infested by the bee-moth, or leaving it
+around to incite the bees to robbing. The fragments thus are saved and
+without any expense or trouble are made into a beautiful product for
+the market.
+
+There are several of these Solar extractors made and sold by dealers.
+The Doolittle, the Rauchfuss and the Boardman are the three commonly
+used. The Doolittle is small and all right for a small apiary.
+The Rauchfuss has a clever arrangement by which the wax in flowing
+out overflows from one pan to another and thus cleanses itself
+automatically. The Boardman is especially adapted for large apiaries,
+and is on rockers so that it may be tilted to face the sun. The general
+plan of the Solar wax-extractor is as follows: It consists of a shallow
+box lined with sheet-iron on which is a frame for holding the comb
+with a strainer below it, and a place where the wax thus extracted is
+received. The box has a tight-fitting glass cover, and all the woodwork
+on the box is painted black so as to absorb all the heat possible.
+The box is tilted so as to get the direct rays of the sun, and it is
+important that the cover be of one pane of glass, or several panes
+matched without cross sash, as such sash interferes with the rays of
+the sun. Here in the East this extractor works excellently during the
+summer months. If the wax does not look clean as it comes from the
+extractor, it may be put through again. The only difficulty with the
+Solar extractor is that here in the East it works only in the summer
+time, and that it does not extract all the wax from the refuse which
+bears the graphic and euphonious name of “slumgum.”
+
+
+THE SWISS WAX-EXTRACTOR
+
+There are many patent wax-extractors which are run by the heat of a
+stove. The best of these utilise steam for heating the wax, though
+some of them use hot water in a sort of a modification of the old
+wash-boiler method. The best of these machines for a small apiary is
+the Swiss extractor, which may be set over a kettle of hot water, like
+an ordinary vegetable steamer, which it resembles. The comb is placed
+in a wire basket, which has a cone-shaped bottom, over which the wax
+flows down as it melts and drains off through a spout into a pan in
+which it is to be caked. This machine costs only three or four dollars
+and is simple and excellent; though it takes but comparatively little
+comb at a time, it keeps up a continual performance and there is no
+danger whatever of burning the wax. The basket may be replenished from
+time to time, and a large amount of wax may be extracted in a day while
+other work is being performed in the room. Mr. Root has an improved
+Swiss extractor and so has Mr. D. A. Jones, and both of them are most
+satisfactory. Mr. Jones’s machine is the larger and may be used as an
+uncapping can as well; the cappings when taken off falling directly
+into the extractor.
+
+
+THE WAX-PRESS
+
+Wax is such a precious product in these days of the manufacture of
+foundation-comb that every particle of it should be saved. This is
+quite impossible with any of the extractors; as the slumgum always
+holds much wax, to extract which a wax-press is needed. All wax-presses
+are necessarily rather expensive machines when bought, and not very
+easily manufactured at home. In some of them the comb is melted by
+steam and in some by hot water; in others the heated wax is dipped from
+a kettle of hot water and poured into the press.
+
+The German steam wax-press is in general use in America, Mr. Root
+having an improvement on it. It is a strongly built can, at the bottom
+of which is a place for water, and above it an arrangement to receive
+the wax drippings. A basket of perforated metal holds the comb and
+occupies the larger and upper part of the can; a follower worked by a
+screw presses down upon the heated comb and forces the wax down and out
+through a spigot. This machine weighs sixty pounds and costs fourteen
+dollars, and if the apiary contains more than forty hives of bees, such
+a wax-press will pay for itself soon with the wax which would otherwise
+be lost.
+
+We have seen one home-made press constructed from a half barrel worked
+by the machinery of a cheese-press. The follower was cleated on the
+under side, and the barrel was filled with boiling water; the wax as
+it was pressed out was run off by a spout at the top. Another which
+was used successfully was simply a box with cleated bottom and a
+cleated follower into which the hot wax was poured and pressed out
+most successfully. One of the wax presses used by many is called the
+Hatch-Gemmill press, which is run on the principle of dipping the hot
+wax off hot water and squeezing it through the press.
+
+
+REFINING WAX WITH SULPHURIC ACID
+
+On a small scale this may be done in an agate or porcelain-lined
+kettle. Mr. Root even advises on occasion the use of a large iron
+kettle. The kettle is filled half full of water, 100 parts to one part
+acid, and is brought nearly to the boiling point over a slow fire; the
+wax is then added and is kept hot for a little time after it is melted,
+and then the fire is allowed to die down; as soon as it is cool enough
+so that the dirt has settled, the wax is dipped off, great care being
+taken not to stir up the settlings. If an iron kettle is used it should
+afterward be thoroughly washed with boiling water, and rubbed with
+fresh lard or some other unsalted grease to stop the action of the acid
+upon it. Beeswax may be bleached by exposing it in thin sheets to the
+sunlight.
+
+
+ADULTERATED BEESWAX
+
+Dishonest dealers have attempted to adulterate beeswax with several
+substances; tallow, paraffine and cerasin being more commonly used.
+Tallow or other greasy adulterants may be detected by the smell; and
+because the cakes of wax containing them feel and look greasy. But
+paraffine and cerasin are not so easily detected by the eye or feel.
+The specific gravity test is the one used by dealers. A piece of wax
+known to be pure is placed in a jar of water, and enough alcohol is
+added so that the wax will just settle to the bottom. Then a piece of
+the suspected wax is placed in the jar, and if it contains either
+paraffine or cerasin it will still float. Another test but not so exact
+is made by chewing the wax; if it is pure it will be brittle and break
+as it is chewed, but adulterated wax is cohesive like gum.
+
+
+MAXIMS FOR BEESWAX MAKING
+
+The wax-market is always good, and the wise bee-keeper saves every
+scrap of this precious material.
+
+Do not be mussy when making beeswax, or it will take longer to clean up
+than to make the wax.
+
+Do not use galvanised iron vessels for boiling wax as the quality is
+thus injured.
+
+Clean wax off with hot water or benzine.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+FEEDING BEES
+
+
+WHEN TO FEED
+
+At least twice during the season bees are likely to need more food than
+they can get in the fields, if the bee-keeper is to do a profitable
+business. Once early in the spring when for some reason the nectar
+supply fails, and it is desirable to stimulate the rearing of brood;
+again, late in the season when the colony has not enough honey for
+winter use. When the cupidity of the bee-keeper leads him to extract
+too much honey, then must he forsooth open his pocketbook and buy
+expensive sugar to feed back to those whom he has robbed. However, bees
+should be watched closely; they may need feeding at any time, for it is
+hard to predict when the honey or pollen harvest may fail in a given
+locality.
+
+When food is given the bees in the spring, it is largely for the
+sake of stimulating them to extra activity; and thus develop large,
+strong colonies ready for work as soon as the harvest occurs. The
+brood-chambers should be closely watched in the early spring and if
+there is not sufficient food for the brood present, it should be
+provided. In the fall the hive should be examined by the middle of
+September or the first of October. A colony of ordinary size ought to
+have at least thirty pounds of capped honey. The ordinary Langstroth
+frame, when filled on both sides, contains about five pounds of honey;
+therefore, there should be an equivalent of six filled frames in each
+hive. If the swarm lacks this amount, an estimate should be made of how
+much more it needs, and this amount should be fed.
+
+Bees are usually fed upon honey or syrup made from the best granulated
+sugar, although some have claimed that the best grade of coffee-sugars
+make a good syrup; but the consensus of opinion is in favour of the
+granulated. The syrup is made in two ways: First, by heat. Melt the
+granulated sugar in its own weight or measure of water; it should be
+heated slowly, and never reach a temperature higher than 180° F. lest
+it burn, for scorched syrup fed in winter is as fatal to bees as so
+much poison. The mixture should be stirred until the sugar is entirely
+dissolved, then allowed to cool slowly, and it is ready for use. If
+there are many to feed, a wash-boiler is a very convenient utensil to
+use, as it is easier to make a large quantity at a time. Because of the
+danger of scorching a cold process has been evolved. It consists of
+taking equal measures of sugar and water; the latter should be boiling
+hot and the two stirred together until the sugar is dissolved. This may
+be done in a churn or in the honey-extractor. In following this process
+it is best to add the sugar a bowlful at a time, while stirring the
+mixture industriously. The syrup should be thin when finished, as it
+is better to let the bees attend to the ripening of it.
+
+
+HOW TO FEED
+
+There are two general plans for feeding bees. One is to place the syrup
+outside the hive, and the other to place it within the hive. The first
+is much more convenient for the apiarist, but unless the work be done
+very carefully or in the evening, and the syrup well guarded, the bees
+may become demoralised and begin robbing. Feeding outside the hive can
+be done only during warm weather. There are several simple feeders in
+which the syrup is placed at night, and taken away in the morning; but
+the method most generally followed is to fill a Mason fruit can with
+the syrup and place on it a perforated cover, then invert it in a box
+in front of the hive; the entrance to this box is so connected with the
+entrance to the hive that robbing is impossible. The box and cover are
+sold under the name of the Boardman feeder. As there is very little
+air in the can, the syrup oozes out very slowly through the perforated
+cover, and the bees take it as fast as it comes. This feeder is
+satisfactory in that we can tell at a glance when it needs replenishing.
+
+However, most apiarists follow the custom of feeding within the
+hive, and strive to accomplish this without loss of warmth in the
+brood-chambers, and without disturbing or daubing the bees. Of all the
+devices for feeding within the hive, the division board feeder is the
+most practical. It consists simply of a division board made to hold
+the syrup, which is placed in the hive instead of a frame, Plate XII.
+There is a hole at the top so that it may be refilled by simply pushing
+back the cover, and pouring in the syrup from a pitcher. The only
+objection to this feeder is its size, as it does not hold more than two
+pounds of syrup, and if used for fall feeding would need to be filled
+many times. This feeder is especially useful for stimulating the bees
+in the spring, and is also most practical in developing nuclei. In a
+small apiary it is quite practical for all purposes.
+
+Of the larger inside feeders the Smith, the Heddon and the Miller are
+generally used. These are alike in one respect; they are flat boxes
+placed directly above the frames and beneath the quilts. The Heddon and
+the Miller each take a certain specified number of pounds of syrup, so
+that when we use them we can tell just how much we are feeding. The
+Miller is especially convenient in this respect, and has one advantage
+over the others in that the entrance for the bees is directly above
+the centre of the brood-chamber, so that the bees may enter it easily
+without loss of heat. This fact renders it an excellent feeder for cold
+weather. Some still use the pepper-box feeder, which consists of a tin
+can with perforated cover, inverted above the frame, but this lifts the
+quilts and lets in the cold, and is awkward to use; and as it does not
+hold very much it is quite inconvenient to manage.
+
+Some altruistic people take the frames of comb from which honey has
+been extracted and fill the cells with syrup. This is done by laying
+the comb flat and letting the syrup into it through a fine sieve, or by
+using a force-pump with a spray nozzle. After the frame is filled it is
+allowed to stand on edge until the drain has ceased and then it is hung
+in the hive, and presto! the bees never know that they have been robbed.
+
+In the happy days, when we were getting our first experience, we fed
+some colonies for the winter by introducing chunk honey into the bottom
+of the hive and it worked like a charm, except that we were obliged to
+lift the hive to put in the honey, and again to remove the beautifully
+cleaned comb. One never realises how beautiful empty honey-comb may
+be unless he has had the privilege of examining a freshly made comb
+or one which the bees have cleaned. Bee-books advise putting in the
+chunk honey above the brood-frames, using Hill’s device above it so it
+will not be crushed by the quilt. We have done this, setting the comb
+in every direction, and our bees ignored it in a most provoking way;
+but when they found it at the bottom of the hive, they carried it up
+at once. We never knew why our bees were so contrary in refusing to
+take the honey from above because other people’s bees seem to like it
+administered in that way.
+
+
+HOW AND WHEN TO FEED CANDY
+
+If necessary to feed the bees in midwinter many people use candy. This
+is made by boiling granulated sugar in a double boiler until it is
+brittle when dropped in cold water. It is then taken off and stirred
+and poured into flat dishes to harden, from which it can be taken as
+a cake and placed on top of the frame at the centre of the hive. Some
+pour the candy into the wooden butter-trays and after it hardens invert
+the tray over the middle of the brood-nest. Some, instead of caking it
+thus, mould it in a brood-frame by holding the frame flat on a table
+or board covered with oil paper and pouring the candy in; it thus
+hardens fast to the frame, and may be put directly in the brood-nest.
+The famous Good candy, so called because it was invented by Mr. Good,
+although the excellence of the product would have given it that name
+anyway, is made by taking extracted honey, and heating it until it is
+quite thin, but not allowed to boil, and mixing into it confectioner’s
+sugar until the spoon can no longer stir it; then the mixture is taken
+out, and placed on a board and more sugar kneaded into it until it is
+of firm consistency. In hot weather more sugar is needed than in the
+winter. In making this candy skill is evinced in getting it as soft as
+possible, and yet stiff enough so that it will not flow. Only the best
+honey is used for this; and if the confectioner’s sugar seems impure,
+then granulated sugar should be pounded in a mortar or rolled under a
+rolling-pin until fine and used instead. The confectioner’s sugar may
+be tested by putting a little in a glass of water and noting if there
+is a sediment.
+
+
+FEEDING RYE FLOUR
+
+This is given as a substitute for pollen, and is often of great use
+in the spring when the flowers are late in blossoming, or when severe
+rains wash the pollen from the fruit bloom. Pollen or its equivalent
+is absolutely necessary for rearing the brood. The unbolted rye flour,
+or even oatmeal, or whole-wheat flour may be used by the bees as a
+substitute with perfect success. The meal may be mixed with the candy
+if it is desirable; but the usual way is to place it in a trough or box
+that is shallow, press it down hard so that it will be not more than an
+inch or two thick, to prevent the bees from getting suffocated while
+working in it. We must remember that the bee has two rows of holes
+along each side of the body through which it breathes, and thus could
+be suffocated as easily in soft flour as in water. The box containing
+the meal is usually placed a few rods distant from the apiary, and
+often some old combs with honey in them are placed on top so as to
+attract the bees to the box, and let them know that it contains food
+for them. Most bee-keepers say that the box needs to be placed in the
+sun or the bees ignore it.
+
+
+FEEDING FOR HONEY
+
+Some bee-keepers practise feeding all the colonies early in the season
+so that the brood has plenty of sugar-syrup stored near it when the
+honey season opens; and since the brood-comb is full the bees begin
+at once to store in the supers. Mr. Boardman who invented the best
+entrance-feeder practises this, with the result of getting more honey
+than other bee-keepers of his neighbourhood, who do not feed at this
+time. It is especially valuable in years when the honey is scarce, for
+then the bees store all the honey they gather in the supers. However
+there is one thing to consider carefully in this feeding, and that
+is the relative price of syrup and honey. If the market is glutted
+and honey is plentiful and cheap, this sort of feeding would better
+be practised cautiously; but when honey is scarce and dear, it is
+certainly a safe experiment.
+
+
+FEEDING BACK
+
+When the sections are not well filled in the late season, it is the
+practice of some apiarists to feed extracted honey in order to fill
+them. For this only the best honey is used; it is mixed with water,
+ten pounds of honey to one of water, and heated so that it is a fluid
+and then poured in the larger kind of feeders, and is put in at night,
+as the smell of the heated honey particularly incites bees to robbing.
+However, the flavour of honey which has been fed back is inferior to
+that which is only once made, and but a few apiarists practise feeding
+back successfully.
+
+
+WATERING BEES
+
+If there is no fresh water in the immediate vicinity of the hives,
+special provision should be made to secure it, as it is a highly
+desirable adjunct to a well-regulated apiary. While there are times
+during the season when the bees get most of the moisture they need
+from the nectar, there are other times when they drink water eagerly.
+This is especially so in the spring when they are gathering much
+pollen and little water, and the weather is warm. Running water is
+more desirable, and if the drip from a faucet flow over a board, or
+on pebbles, it affords a nearly ideal drinking place for the bees,
+since they can drink freely and are in no danger of drowning. Some
+bee-keepers invert a Mason jar filled with water, on a board that has a
+few shallow groves, perhaps one-eighth inch deep; the water flows out
+slowly owing to atmospheric pressure; if a little salt be added to the
+water the bees lap it up eagerly.
+
+
+MAXIMS FOR FEEDING
+
+Keep close watch of the bees during the entire season, so as to know
+whether they need feeding or not.
+
+Feed only good honey or the best sugar.
+
+Never feed scorched sugar in the winter, as it will surely kill the
+bees.
+
+Observe the practice of feeding at nightfall to preclude robbing.
+
+Never spill the syrup or honey around the yard lest robbers be led on
+to black deeds.
+
+Feed small amounts to stimulate a swarm or nucleus. Bees are
+susceptible to small encouragements.
+
+Be careful never to cool off the brood-chamber when feeding in early
+spring or late fall.
+
+See to it that the bees have water near by, especially early in the
+season.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+HOW TO WINTER BEES
+
+
+IDEAL CONDITIONS
+
+The wintering of bees in the northern latitudes is usually attended
+with more or less loss. Although we now think we know the conditions
+necessary for perfect wintering, it is only now and then that they are
+attained. There are so many unhappy and unpredictable circumstances and
+vicissitudes, that one must needs be a true prophet as well as a good
+bee-keeper to be sure that all his swarms will successfully pass the
+period of snow and cold.
+
+The problem of wintering hinges as much on protection from dampness as
+on protection from the cold. We all know that double windows in a room
+keep the frost off the panes. The reason for this is that the dampness
+of the room is not allowed to come in contact with the cold outside
+glass. So it is with the beehive; if it is single-walled the dampness
+from the breath of the bees causes the frost to gather on the walls
+of the hive, which later melts and wets the bees so that they chill
+easily; the double-walled hive is a guard against this condition.
+
+
+GETTING READY FOR WINTERING
+
+First of all that watchward of the bee-keeper must be fully realised,
+“Keep the colonies strong.” Most men of experience do not attempt to
+winter a colony that is not large enough to cover at least four of the
+Langstroth brood-frames. If a colony is as small as this, the division
+boards should be used to contract the hive and make it as cosy and
+comfortable as possible. It is far safer to try to winter a colony that
+covers six frames than one that covers only four; the more the bees the
+warmer the hive, the less the loss, and also the less missed are those
+that die. To secure good swarms it is best to keep up the breeding
+throughout the summer, which can be done by feeding if the honey is
+scarce.
+
+Next in importance to a strong colony is good honey and plenty of it
+sealed in the combs, so that wholesome food may help to sustain the
+bees during this trying period. With a four-frame colony four frames
+of sealed stores will be enough. A Langstroth brood-frame should
+hold about five pounds of honey if it is well filled. If the colony
+is larger, then more honey must, of course, be given. We never allow
+any of our colonies to begin winter without at least thirty pounds
+of sealed honey, and when a colony is very large we have given it
+thirty-five pounds. This may seem wasteful extravagance on our part,
+but the honey not used in the winter is of use in the spring. It is
+necessary that the honey be of good quality; the bee is such a neat
+housekeeper that she will suffer death rather than let food pass
+through her alimentary canal when she is dormant, and thus render
+unsanitary the bee-city, a devotion to municipal sanitation which is
+hardly found elsewhere in the annals of living beings. If honey of poor
+quality is fed to the bees and they hold within themselves such food,
+disaster is likely to ensue. In preparing the hive for winter what is
+known as the Hill’s device, which is a series of curved pieces of wood
+held in place by a strip of tin, is placed above the frames to support
+the cushion so as to allow the bees to readily climb over them. We use
+a super cover in our chaff hives instead of the Hill’s device.
+
+There are three ways of wintering bees in common use. First in
+the chaff or double-walled hives left in the open. Second, in
+tenement-hives. Third, the hives are carried into cellars. The
+reprehensible way of leaving bees out of doors in single-walled
+hives with no protection during the winter is no longer practised by
+civilised people.
+
+
+OUTDOOR WINTERING
+
+Many apiarists protect the hive by a box, several inches larger than
+the hive in every diameter, placed over the hive, the spaces between
+being packed with chaff or dried leaves. A passage-way out is always
+preserved so that the bees may fly out during the early warm days, and
+free themselves from the accumulated waste. This is a cheap way of
+securing the advantages of a chaff hive. Such boxes are sold by the
+dealers, and many good words are said for this method of wintering.
+
+
+THE CHAFF HIVE
+
+The chaff hive is probably the most perfect of all of the devices
+for out-of-door wintering when convenience and the saving of work as
+well as success are taken into consideration. The chaff hive is a
+double-walled hive with wall spaces packed with chaff. It is a certain
+guard against extremes and sudden changes of temperature, as it remains
+cool in the hot and warm in the cold weather.
+
+The chaff for packing should be fine. That from timothy hay, oats or
+wheat is commonly used; saw dust and planer shavings and dried leaves
+closely packed are also often resorted to. The packing should be below
+as well as on the sides of the hive. A cushion made of burlap and
+filled with chaff is put above a Hill’s device or super cover, as this
+is the most convenient method of packing the hive on top. The bees
+should be thoroughly established and have their stores ready as early
+as October 1st. It is claimed by the admirers of the chaff hive that
+they prevent spring dwindling by keeping the bees warm in the early
+spring; and also that they keep the hive cool enough so that the brood
+is not developed in the combs until the proper time for it.
+
+The chaff hives are sufficiently warm to preserve bees during ordinary
+winters, but neither they nor any other out-door device were entirely
+successful during the long, protracted cold of the winter of 1903–04
+when many bee-keepers in the Northern States lost 40 per cent. of their
+bees. It might be wise when such a winter occurs to give some temporary
+protection to the hives, like covering them with boughs of evergreen or
+building a close windbreak. The entrance to a chaff hive should always
+be contracted in winter to keep out cold and mice.
+
+
+THE TENEMENT HIVE
+
+This is a box made for holding from two to ten hives, and which we have
+used with perfect success. Our favourite tenement-hive was arranged for
+six hives in two stories. The bottom was packed well with dry leaves
+or chaff, and three hives were set somewhat near each other. Entrances
+were boxed back, affording a front hall for each hive-entrance. After
+three hives were thus set in and packed with chaff on every side and
+between, a shelf was put across and on this were set three more hives
+which were likewise packed. The entrances to the upper row were on the
+same side as those to the lower row, and the cover of the box sloped
+back from the front of the hives and was hinged along its highest
+edge; thus when we wished to examine the hives we lifted the cover and
+examined the bees from the back side instead of standing directly in
+front of the entrance. Our losses were rare and small while using these
+tenements. The advantage of the tenement over the chaff hive is that it
+is cheaper, and that several colonies packed together help to keep each
+other warm.
+
+
+WINTERING IN CELLARS
+
+The way we always wintered bees in the old days was by placing them
+in a cellar which was used for vegetables and was ill-ventilated and
+damp. We well remember that in the spring the cellar windows were
+covered with arrested prisoners; we do not recollect that we lost many
+colonies, but if we did not, it was owing to the ways of inscrutable
+Providence rather than our own understanding of the needs of the bees.
+Probably most of the bees in the Northern climates are wintered in
+cellars; and because they are wintered in all sorts of cellars with
+varying degrees of dampness the mortality among them is likely to
+be great. A cellar fit for wintering bees should be cemented on the
+floor and sides, made mouse and rat tight, and should be well drained,
+well ventilated and so arranged that the temperature may be kept in
+the neighbourhood of 45° F. In such a cellar the hives lifted off
+the bottom boards should be placed four or five inches apart on two
+scantlings laid on the floor. In the next tier the middle of a hive
+should bridge the opening between the lower hives on which it rests.
+This arrangement gives plenty of ventilation to the hive from below,
+and it is very important that the air be introduced below rather than
+above. The cellar should be kept dark, and if the weather is warm
+and the bees seem uneasy it should be ventilated at night by opening
+the windows, which, by the way, should have wire screens to keep out
+intruders. Some leave the bottom boards out on the summer stands, each
+board bearing the same number as the hive which rests upon it, and
+thus in the spring it is easy to find the home of each colony; but if
+the bees are brought into the cellar without the bottom boards on the
+hive they are quite likely to fly out more or less. Usually, therefore,
+they are brought in on the bottom boards, and these are piled in
+some convenient place until needed in the spring. In this case it is
+advisable to have a map made of the apiary, and the hives and their
+places numbered on the map, and thus each hive may be returned to its
+old stand in the spring.
+
+If bees are wintered in the ordinary house-cellar it is far better to
+partition off the part used for the bees from that used for vegetables,
+and much pains should be taken to keep the air good and the cellar well
+ventilated.
+
+Special bee-cellars are in vogue in some large apiaries. The cellar is
+sometimes made beneath the bee-house, and sometimes it is a structure
+by itself. Of all such cellars, the Bingham seems to us the cheapest,
+and surely quite as practical as the others. It is built like a square
+cistern, twelve feet square at the bottom, sixteen feet at the top
+and six feet deep; it is cemented at the bottom and on the sides, and
+the ceiling is flush with the level of the ground. Over this is built
+a gable roof, the eaves extending down to a drain on either side so
+that all the water is carried off. The ventilation is secured through
+a pipe extending from the cellar ceiling to the top of the roof. The
+floor over the cellar is tight and covered with sawdust; access to
+the cellar stairs is gained through a trap door. Such a cellar as this
+should be built on a dry knoll. Mr. Bingham has wintered successfully
+ninety colonies in this house; and it will hold nearly twice as many.
+
+The bees may come out of the hives and die in great numbers when they
+are wintered in a cellar. If any such seem distended and swollen they
+have probably died of dysentery, and the matter should be looked into
+immediately. However, many of the bees that die in winter are likely
+to be the old ones which are not vigorous enough to stand the strain
+of the cold. The cellar floor should be swept several times during
+the winter and all the dead bees removed so they shall not pollute
+the atmosphere. The cellar should always be dark, but the bees can be
+easily examined with a lamp, or what is better, a bull’s-eye lantern.
+
+The carrying of hives into the cellar is an onerous task when the
+apiary is large. The entrance to the hive should be closed the night
+before so as to be sure the whole family is moved. The hives should be
+carried with as little perturbance to the occupants as may be; several
+methods of carrying the hives easily and quietly have been invented.
+Mr. Root uses a wire bent like a V with the wooden piece of a common
+pail bale at the angle. The prongs of the V are bent at right angles
+into hooks which hook under the bottom board; two men carry the hive,
+one on each side, each with a carrier just described. Mr. Miller has a
+simple rope carrier that slips under the cleated ends of the hive. Mr.
+Boardman has a delightful device, which is a carrier in the shape of a
+push-cart with two wheels. A board just large enough to set the hive
+upon with rope handles at either side serves admirably.
+
+
+WHEN TO PUT BEES IN THE CELLAR
+
+This should be done as soon as steady cold weather comes on. In this
+northern climate the colonies should be ready in October, for the
+appointed time for putting them in the cellar is likely to occur
+between the first and fifteenth of November. If put in too soon and the
+weather is warm they become uneasy; they should be put in during a dry
+day so that the hives will not be dampened by rain or fog.
+
+
+WHEN TO TAKE BEES OUT OF THE CELLAR
+
+This is decided somewhat by the bees themselves; if they awaken and
+push out and try to escape in great numbers, it is a sign that they had
+best be put out as soon as it can be safely done. Mr. Root makes the
+practice of putting his bees out of the cellar in the middle of a warm
+day in midwinter, so that they may have a cleansing flight, and then
+puts them back in the cellar that night; which shows that a merciful
+man is good to his bees. However, some other bee-keepers think that
+this taking them out in midwinter is fraught with danger.
+
+In a climate like that of New York it is hardly safe to take the hives
+from the cellar before the last of April or the first of May. The
+general rule is to wait until there is a prevalent temperature of
+70°, and the willow, the alder, and the soft maples are in blossom,
+so that the bees may gather pollen as soon as they are put out. The
+glowing banners of the red maple blossoms give signal to most of the
+bee-keepers in the northern climate that it is time that the bees were
+on the wing.
+
+
+SPRING DWINDLING
+
+The cause of this is attributed to various conditions by various
+bee-keepers. The evidence of it is shown by the listlessness of the
+swarm, and by the dying of the bees. Whatever the reason, all apiarists
+agree it is more common during cold, backward springs, and that it is
+less prevalent when the bees are put out in warm, sunny locations. The
+only remedies suggested are that the brood-chambers be contracted so
+that the bees can easily keep the comb warm, and that plenty of good
+syrup and rye flour and water be given to the bees if they are unable
+to get food from the flowers. Many apiarists have tried the joining of
+two colonies when this dwindling appears, hoping thus to get enough
+bees in a hive to keep it warm, but they all agree that this does not
+help the matter.
+
+
+MAXIMS FOR WINTERING
+
+Keep the colonies strong. Be sure that a good-sized swarm has at least
+thirty pounds of sealed stores.
+
+Pollen should not be left in the comb for winter use.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+                                       _Photograph by M. V. Slingerland_
+
+PLATE XXII. WINTER QUARTERS IN CHAFF HIVES]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+                                            _Photograph by Verne Morton_
+
+PLATE XXIII. PLUM BLOSSOMS
+
+The fruit-bloom is a great aid to the bees while rearing their brood.]
+
+Be sure that the honey is of good quality, and not made from decayed
+fruit or honey-dew.
+
+Give the hive ventilation from below.
+
+If wintered out of doors, give the bees a chance to fly.
+
+If wintered in cellars, do not put too many bees in a cellar. If you
+have space for fifty colonies, do not try to winter more than thirty in
+it.
+
+In cellars take off the bottom boards and arrange the hives so that the
+bees will get plenty of ventilation from below.
+
+Have a thermometer in the cellar and keep watch of it. This should not
+show more than ten degrees of variation. If the temperature rises to
+55°, open the windows at night.
+
+Keep the cellar dark and the air sweet.
+
+Sweep the dead bees off the cellar floor several times during the
+winter.
+
+Contract the brood-chamber in the fall, and again, if necessary, when
+the hives are set out in the spring, until there is only comb enough so
+that the bees can cover it well.
+
+See that the bees have plenty of food and good water near by when set
+out in the spring.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+REARING AND INTRODUCING QUEENS
+
+
+QUEEN-REARING
+
+In a small apiary there is little need for the special rearing of
+queens; the natural increase may safely be depended upon to supply
+all the colonies which lose their queens or which have unprofitable
+ones. It is always well for even the most casual bee-keeper to take
+the trouble to re-queen from his strongest and best colonies. However,
+the time when queen cells are naturally built may not be the most
+convenient or the most desirable time for giving certain colonies a
+new mother. This being the case, queens may be developed through the
+power of suggestion, as follows: Select a frame of brood from the best
+colony; with a toothpick tear down the partitions between three worker
+cells which contain eggs or larvæ less than two days old and destroy
+two of the eggs or larvæ; repeat the operation in several places. Place
+the frame back in the hive, being very sure that there is sufficient
+space between it and its neighbouring frame, so that good queen cells
+may be built. If there is a scarcity of honey, feed the bees. The
+cleverness of bees is clearly proven by the readiness with which they
+take a hint, and they almost invariably build queen cells upon the
+comb thus treated.
+
+This method we have found perfectly satisfactory, but for those who
+rear queens for sale, other very interesting practices have been
+invented. The greatest of these was devised by Mr. Doolittle, one of
+the foremost queen-breeders in America. He makes artificial queen cells
+by dipping a small, smoothly rounded stick in warm wax repeatedly,
+thus making a little cup, thin at the edge and thick at the bottom.
+Rows of these little cups are placed on a bar the thickness of a
+brood-frame and fastened there with hot wax. In each cup is introduced
+a bit of royal jelly and a very young larva. The bar is then inserted
+horizontally into a frame of brood-comb, part of the latter being cut
+away to give room for the future cells, which project down from the
+bar. In such a royal nursery, he develops his queens for the market.
+
+
+INTRODUCING QUEENS
+
+Though royalty in the hive is of quite another feather than in human
+society, yet there is quite as much ado when it comes to installations
+in one as in the other. While a bee-colony is absolutely devoted to its
+own queen, it may seriously object to a queen thrust upon it by some
+outside power. And thus it happens that the introduction of a new queen
+into a hive is fraught with danger to her majesty as well as to the
+pocket-book of the bee-keeper.
+
+
+BALLING THE QUEEN
+
+“Balling” in the hive is an indignity that may well have suggested to
+other societies the method of black-balling unwelcome seekers after
+honours. The bees ball an unwelcome queen by gathering around her
+in a compact mass, remaining there until the unfortunate usurper is
+smothered or starved, or both. As if to live up to their mathematical
+reputation, this ball is quite spherical because each bee is an
+animated atom of centripetal force scrambling and pushing toward the
+centre. This method of smothering royalty is regarded as an evidence
+of the worker’s reluctance to sting a fertile queen. But observations
+are recorded which state that the bees on the outside of the ball seem
+fiercely trying to sting, and that the individuals nearest the queen
+ofttimes share her fate because of this venomous attitude of their
+sisters. Whether this use of the sting by the outsiders is for the
+purpose of fighting their way toward the centre, or whether they are
+mad with a desire to kill the queen, is by no means a settled question.
+However, if they were bent upon stinging her to death, she would
+scarcely be alive after having been balled for some time; while it is
+a matter of common experience that by breaking up the ball and driving
+off the murderers, the queen may be saved. Sometimes the bees will ball
+a queen for a time, then voluntarily release her and accept her.
+
+There are two ways generally followed for dissolving this lump of
+excited regicides and saving the queen. One is to drop the ball in a
+shallow bowl of water. This baptism seems to cool the hot blood and
+the bees swim off, trying to preserve their own lives. The other is to
+smoke the ball until it dissolves into individual bees, so anxious to
+get breath for themselves that they forget to shut off the breath of
+the obnoxious queen. There is a danger attending the latter method, for
+unless the smoking be done carefully and without blowing hot air on
+the bees, they will become infuriated by the heat and surely sting the
+queen; as they evidently regard her, and rightly, as the cause of their
+suffering.
+
+
+WHEN TO INTRODUCE A QUEEN
+
+The colony should have been queenless long enough to realise the danger
+of the situation, but not long enough to have done much toward building
+queen cells and developing larval queens; in the latter case they
+prefer a queen of their own dynasty and object to any other. Thus, if
+a queen is to be superseded she should be removed and, about two days
+later, the new one should be introduced.
+
+It requires experience to know certainly that a colony has become
+queenless, for often, when there is no brood or eggs in the cells there
+is a virgin queen, which eludes the eye, as she does not appear very
+differently from the workers; a colony with virgin queens of its own
+cannot be induced to accept an introduced queen.
+
+Mr. Root tests a colony which he suspects is queenless in the following
+clever way: He takes a cage containing a laying queen and holds it
+over the frames so that it touches them and the bees may thus get the
+scent. If the bees have no queen they express their pleasure at this
+godsend in a very pretty manner by a joyful fluttering of the wings,
+which conveys the idea of happiness to even our dull senses. To such a
+colony, the queen may be given with no formalities.
+
+
+HOW TO INTRODUCE A QUEEN
+
+The colony should be made good-natured by having plenty of food. If
+there is scarcity of honey, the bees should be fed for a day or so,
+great care being taken not to start other colonies to robbing by
+exposing the syrup. The queen is then introduced in a queen-cage,
+which should be placed between the brood-combs. This should be done
+as carefully as possible without disturbing the bees. At the end of
+forty-eight hours an examination should be made, and if the bees are
+balling the cage, she should be left twenty-four hours longer. When the
+bees gather around the cage in normal numbers she may be entrusted to
+them without fear.
+
+
+QUEEN-CAGES
+
+First of these are the shipping-cages, and it is a thrilling moment
+when one takes a package from the mail, labelled “Queen Bee, Deliver
+Quick.” And it is still more exciting when the cover slides around,
+revealing her gracious majesty with a few attendants, safe beneath the
+wire screen; for no bee-dealer would be so heartless or foolish as to
+send a queen on a journey without a few ladies-in-waiting to give her
+companionship and care.
+
+The cage in which a queen is shipped is always tagged or labelled with
+directions for introducing the queen, which, if followed implicitly,
+almost always insures success.
+
+The plan of a queen-cage is a cell made of wire screen with twelve to
+fifteen meshes to the square inch, large enough to allow the bees to
+thrust in their antennæ and thus get acquainted with their proposed
+sovereign, but not large enough to permit a sting to be effectively
+thrust through. The cell, itself, is large enough so that the prisoner
+will not suffocate if the cage is balled. At one end of the cage is an
+opening into which is pressed a cork of candy, over which is tacked a
+piece of pasteboard, through which is a central line of perforations.
+At first the bees are wild to get at the queen, and incidentally in
+their attack they get a taste of the candy through the holes in the
+pasteboard. This distracts their attention, and they work industriously
+at biting away the pasteboard to get at the candy. And by the time
+they have worked their way through the delectable door, their attitude
+towards the prisoner is naturally sweetened, and usually they accept
+her at once. The “Good candy” is used for this purpose, for the queen
+is also sustained on this confection during her incarceration, and
+unless a moist candy is used, she will suffer for lack of water.
+
+Home-made cages are usually employed in introducing queens from the
+home apiary. These are of various forms and devices, the Miller being
+a favourite. His materials are as follows: One block of wood 3 × 1¼ ×
+⅜ in.; two blocks of wood 1 × ⁷⁄₁₆ × ⅜ in.; two pieces of tin 1 in.
+square; two pieces of fine wire 9 in. long; one piece of wire-cloth 4½
+× 3½ in.; four wire nails ½ in. long. (Plate V.)
+
+The illustration shows how the material is used. The space between the
+two small blocks of wood, held in place by the pieces of tin forms a
+door for the candy. The large piece of wood serves as a plug at the
+other end of the cage, which may be removed, and the cage set down over
+the queen, thus capturing her without handling her. When a queen is
+placed in a cage she should always be allowed to climb up into it. It
+is not natural for her to climb down.
+
+
+THE NUCLEUS METHOD
+
+This method of introducing very valuable queens is said by experts to
+be absolutely safe. It is accomplished by making a nucleus of two or
+three frames of brood, which is sealed and some of it just breaking
+through the cell caps. Not an adult bee is permitted to remain, and
+there should be as few uncapped larvæ as possible, since such will
+starve. The queen is placed on these combs and the young bees, as
+they issue innocent of men’s scheming, accept her as their legitimate
+mother, and a colony is soon built up. A nucleus hive of this sort
+must be placed in a warm room, unless it is hot weather, as there
+are no bees to warm the brood. Care must also be taken to put a wire
+screen over the entrance of the hive for a day or two to prevent the
+queen from escaping if she becomes uneasy midst such a dreary waste of
+adolescence.
+
+
+MAXIMS FOR INTRODUCING QUEENS
+
+Be sure the colony is queenless before attempting to introduce a queen.
+
+Be sure the bees have not progressed far in rearing young queens.
+
+Be careful not to anger or disturb the bees by smoke or hot blast or
+otherwise when placing the queen in the hive.
+
+If honey is scarce, feed the colony before trying to introduce the
+queen.
+
+Place the cage containing the queen on the frames near the centre of
+the brood-chamber, wire cloth below her, so that the cage rests on the
+bars of the frames.
+
+Do not disturb the colony for forty-eight hours after introducing the
+queen-cage.
+
+Be careful not to allow the queen to escape by flight when liberating
+her.
+
+Remember, a queen crawls up instead of down.
+
+After queens are two or three years old they should be replaced by
+young queens.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+ROBBING IN THE APIARY
+
+
+A CAUSE OF DEMORALISATION
+
+The moral law seems to be as potent among the bees as among men,
+and if the law be broken there is a moral penalty attached. Nothing
+demonstrates this more fully than robbing in the apiaries, for as
+soon as it begins utter demoralisation ensues. All legitimate work is
+stopped, and all the energies of the bees are devoted to ill-gotten
+gain and in fighting with each other, or attacking anything or anybody
+that comes near them. One of the signs of this demoralisation is that
+robbing makes the bees very cross. The experienced bee-keeper can
+detect robbing by the angry humming which pervades the apiary, which is
+a sound as different from the ordinary contented hum of the working bee
+as martial music is from a pastoral symphony.
+
+
+WHY BEES ROB
+
+Bees rob for the very human and natural reason that the stores gathered
+by the hard work of others are coveted and are more easily stolen
+than earned by labour. When dealing with bees we must always remember
+that the interest of the individual centres in its own colony, and
+that it has neither love nor devotion to any other colony, nor to
+bees in general; indeed, quite otherwise. Endowed with an instinct
+almost fiendish, bees seem to understand when another colony is weak
+or discouraged, and, therefore, offers a legitimate field for plunder.
+Strong colonies are seldom robbed, as they are able to drive out and
+kill the thieves; but the weak colony is a constant temptation to ill
+doing, and should be carefully watched and guarded.
+
+
+WHEN BEES ROB
+
+This occurs usually when there is little honey to be found in the
+field. Satan provides mischief for the idle six feet and four wings
+quite as efficiently as for hands. At the end of the honey-harvest
+there may be a general temptation throughout the apiary to break open
+vaults of precious stores belonging to others, and escape with the
+contents. At the close of the honey season strong colonies usually have
+plenty of sentinels to guard the entrance and look after suspicious
+strangers. Never at any time should honey-comb be left open around the
+apiary, for it always leads to robbing. It seems to suggest to the bees
+that honey gathered is a much more desirable product than that worked
+for in the fields.
+
+Sometimes when preserving or pickling is going on in the house the bees
+start to rob the kitchen; and while they may be deterred by screened
+windows, yet the smell of the sweets may so excite them to desires for
+forbidden wealth that they seem to become discontented with the grind
+of daily toil, and so begin robbing their neighbours.
+
+
+HOW THE ROBBING IS DONE
+
+The robber, unless she be hardened by success, alights on the threshold
+of the hive which contains coveted stores with an air that is decidedly
+apologetic, having the general appearance of a prospecting dog with his
+tail apprehensively between his legs. She shows her guilty conscience
+by dodging back if she meets one of the legitimate owners coming out of
+the hive; she is thus trying the skill and prowess of the sentinels,
+for if by assuming bravado she can pass the sentinels she is usually
+safe; then she has nothing to do but to fill with honey and to run the
+gauntlet of the sentinels again, for perchance some of them may stop
+her and ask her why she is going out of the hive _filled_ with honey, a
+proceeding altogether reprehensible in the bee world. If she succeeds
+in carrying back to her own hive the honey thus stolen, she creates
+great excitement there and soon she leads back a mob to pillage;
+and the air is full of bees bent on wickedness. Mr. Root describes
+graphically the successful robber thus: “A bee that has stolen a load
+is generally very plump and full, and as it comes out has a hurried and
+guilty look; besides it is almost always wiping its mouth like a man
+who has just come out of a beer shop. Most of all it finds it a little
+difficult to take wing as bees ordinarily do because of its weight.” As
+a consequence a robber bee borne down with its load of sweetness is
+likely to crawl up the hive a little way so as to have the advantage of
+a high place to “jump from” as it takes wing. The virtuous worker comes
+out of the hive slim and depleted of her load and flies off leisurely
+to the field, while the robber comes out stuffed full and furtively
+climbs up the side of the hive in order to be able to be off.
+
+We usually detect robbing in our apiary by the fighting which we
+observe about the entrance; when we see a pair of workers rolling over
+and over with each other in the grass near the hive we know that one
+of them is a robber, but as we do not know which one we are obliged
+to apply the test meted to the knights of old, and believe that the
+one who survives is in the right. However, we take measures at once to
+defend this hive. Also if we discover the bees to be particularly cross
+some day, we look about to see what has aroused their ire, and nine
+times out of ten find that robbing is the cause of their ill temper.
+
+
+HOW TO STOP ROBBING
+
+Contract the entrance to the hive being robbed. To do this we place
+blocks in front of it, leaving only enough space so that one or two
+bees can pass in at a time. The robbers having to enter in single file
+attract the attention of the suspicious sentinels and are either driven
+back or killed at once. It is unsafe to close the entrance entirely,
+unless it is done with a wire screen, for the bees within will smother
+unless the air is admitted through the entrance. It is always well
+to keep the entrance of the hive which contains a weak colony or a
+nucleus somewhat contracted as a measure of insurance. If contracting
+the entrance does not stop robbing, Mr. Root advises strewing long
+grass about the entrance which he wets thoroughly. The robbers are too
+wary to try to rob after they have wet their “feathers” in passing
+through this grass; for thus handicapped they could hardly escape from
+their enraged victims; while the robbers already within the hive after
+having thus to crawl out will hasten home to get their clothes dry. Mr.
+Doolittle uses a common sheet which he places over the hive that is
+being robbed, while Mr. Miller places over the victimised hive a bee
+tent of mosquito netting, which has a hole in the top which permits the
+robbers to escape.
+
+A bee tent is a most useful adjunct to the apiary; there are many times
+when it may be used, but it is especially useful in preventing robbing.
+It is simply a tent made of mosquito netting large enough to be set
+over the hive and the operator. When opening the hives at midday the
+tent is used to prevent the robbers from attacking the exposed stores.
+
+Mr. Root advises working at nightfall when bees are cross or given to
+robbing; but most bee-keepers declare that the bees will crawl all
+over one at night, and are no more to be gotten rid of than a porous
+plaster, at which Mr. Root promptly responds, “Do not stand near the
+lamp.”
+
+Enterprising men exchange places of the robbers and victims, which
+produces a confusion that restores quiet. The robbers come back to
+the weak colony laden with its own stores and join it and help fight
+off intruders; while a strong colony of robbers is quite capable of
+defending itself.
+
+Another clever trick practised in Europe is to place some disagreeable,
+strong-smelling substance on the bottom board of the hive that is being
+robbed; wormwood, musk, carbolised paper, are used for this. The odour
+disconcerts the robber unless she is lost to all sense of bee decency;
+and if she does steal honey from such a hive and returns home her doom
+is sealed; for although in the bee world the way of the transgressor is
+not always hard, the way of the citizen that smells differently from
+her sisters leads to her murder and sudden death.
+
+If a robber colony has almost completed its nefarious work, some people
+believe that it is best to let it make a clean job, and thus become
+satisfied there is no more plunder to be had, else the robbers will
+hunt other hives for depredation. The bee memory seems to be very
+good, and if the robbers have not cleaned up all the honey which they
+remember is there, they hunt for it elsewhere. We could never bring
+ourselves to a frame of mind to permit this calmly, though it seems
+like sensible advice. Robbing makes us so indignant that we refuse to
+allow the spoils to the victor.
+
+Bees are certainly very clever, and they are able to learn. The old and
+successful robber soon reasons it out that where the bee-keeper with a
+smoker belches forth annoying fumes, there are to be found open hives
+ready for robbing; such bees will follow the operator from hive to
+hive, taking their tithe from the helpless colonies. For such robbers
+as these a way to appease them is a device for letting them rob where
+they can do little damage. Unsalable comb partly filled is put in hives
+or supers piled up. These are ventilated by having a wire screen above,
+the cover lifted, and the entrance contracted so that only one bee can
+pass in and out at a time. This keeps the robbers busy and happy and
+out of the way, and the process is called “slow robbing.”
+
+Some apiarists remove the robbed colony to a cellar for a day or two
+until it can recover its communal courage.
+
+
+BORROWING
+
+When a colony is queenless, or for some reason has no brood, it often
+allows the robbers to come and go at will, as if it had found life
+worthless anyhow, and that there was no use in struggling. It seems
+possessed of the sort of pessimism which leads to stoic recklessness.
+This can usually be stopped by giving the plundered colony a queen and
+brood; as soon as the bees find they have something worth while to live
+for and fight for they are mightily heartened and offer a brave defence.
+
+
+WHAT BECOMES OF THE ROBBED COLONY
+
+Some of the bees are adaptable, and when they lose courage in defending
+their own stores they turn about and help carry these stores to the
+hive of the robbers, which they join, thus swearing allegiance to a
+new flag. Others, more loyal, will cling to the old empty comb, cluster
+there, hopeless and despairing until they die of starvation.
+
+
+MAXIMS TO PREVENT ROBBING
+
+Be sure that the bees are robbing, before applying remedies.
+
+Keep the colonies strong.
+
+Keep watch of the hives in early spring and late fall when there is no
+honey coming in.
+
+Leave no honey or loose comb open around the apiary under any
+circumstances.
+
+If bees are determined to rob when the hives are opened by the
+operator, it is best to work under a bee tent or after nightfall.
+
+Robbing demoralises the whole apiary. If the bees are cross, look out
+for robbers.
+
+Be very careful in uncapping not to let the bees get a taste of the
+chyle food, as that makes them very cross and wild to rob.
+
+Keep Italians.
+
+Do not let the colony become queenless, as a queenless colony is
+legitimate prey for many depredators.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE ENEMIES AND DISEASES OF BEES
+
+
+THE BEE-MOTH (_Galleria mellonella_)
+
+This miserable little pest is classic in its devastations as it is
+mentioned by the old writers, Aristotle paying to it bitter tribute.
+It belongs to a family of secretive moths which fold their dull wings
+closely about the body, and thus look more like bits of sticks than
+like insects. They are called the snout moths (_Pyralidæ_) because
+the palpi extend out in front of the head in a highly ornamental and
+striking manner.
+
+The bee-moth is a most insidious creature, hiding in cracks, and, when
+it flies, darting about with almost inconceivable swiftness. It is
+only by such means that it eludes the watchful bees. Professor Kellogg
+observes that the moth simply works against time when it rushes into a
+hive by laying its eggs rapidly, dodging about with the utmost rapidity
+to leave as many progeny as possible before the bees can get hold of
+her and tear her asunder, a fate which surely awaits her. So it seems
+that even a parasite may be brave and go to certain death in fulfilling
+its destiny. Mr. Cook says that the moth will lay eggs while her head
+and thorax are being dissected, which shows that even after death she
+is efficient for mischief in the hive.
+
+The eggs are small and white and are put into crevices. From such an
+egg there hatches a caterpillar which spins about itself a silken tube,
+wherein it lives and in some mysterious way is protected from the bees.
+It may be that these tubes are of such texture that the bees cannot
+sting through them; or they may simply be sufficiently thick to protect
+their inmate from bee observation. The caterpillar lives upon the wax
+and young bees, and also upon the bee-bread; it is a voracious eater,
+and tunnels through the comb, destroying everything in its path. Those
+who have had experience with it say that by holding an infested comb to
+the ear, the noise made by the industrious jaws of the caterpillar can
+be distinctly heard. Its presence can be detected by the filth and the
+débris on the bottom board of the hive and also by the silken tubes on
+the comb. When the caterpillars destroy the bee larvæ, the bees take
+out the remains and dump them in front of the hive, thus gaining among
+the ignorant, a reputation for infanticide which they little deserve.
+
+In favourable locations the growth of these moths from egg to adult may
+require six weeks; the caterpillar when about an inch in length changes
+to a pupa, in a very thick, protecting cocoon of tough silk. The silk
+made by these caterpillars is of a most excellent quality; there is in
+the Cornell University Museum a filmy but strong silken handkerchief
+made by bee-moths passing and repassing over a flat board; it was made
+quite involuntarily as the caterpillars spin wherever they go. The
+bee-moth is especially destructive to stored comb if it is piled close
+together.
+
+
+REMEDY
+
+To prevent the injuries of this pest the colonies should be kept
+strong. The bee-moth follows the rule of other parasites and attacks
+only the weak and the irresolute, and never injures a comb that is
+covered with bees. A queenless colony, dejected and discouraged,
+is usually victimised by it. The Italian bees have learned to cope
+with the bee-moth and exterminate it whenever attacked by it. Some
+bee-keepers, when a comb becomes infested, introduce it into the centre
+of an Italian colony, being sure that the little wretches will find
+there the fate they deserve. But to us this seems rather an imposition
+upon a self-respecting colony of bees.
+
+The use of plain, simple, well-made hives is a protection from the
+bee-moth, as such hives do not afford hiding-places for moths and eggs.
+
+Before comb is stored it should be put in a closed box out of doors,
+and a saucer of carbon bisulphide placed on top of the comb and left
+for a day. The deadly gas of this poison is heavier than the air and so
+falls instead of rising. Care should be taken not to breathe the fumes
+more than is necessary and hence the work should be done in the open
+air. Another reason for this is that the gas is inflammable, and hence
+no fire should be allowed near it. There is another reason why the
+work should be done in the open and that is because of the sickening
+stench of the gas. Comb thus treated should be stored in a perfectly
+tight receptacle, or else be set an inch or so apart on shelves. The
+bee-moth caterpillar does not seem to like to work in combs that are
+not set as closely together, as they are in the hives.
+
+If combs infested with the bee-moth are subjected to a temperature of
+10° F. the moth is usually exterminated. However, the pest normally
+passes the winter in the pupa state, and seems to be able to survive
+in hives left out of doors, wherever the bees can survive. It should
+be remembered that the bee-moth works only during the summer from May
+until October, and remains quiescent during the winter. As a matter
+of fact the modern up-to-date bee-keeper has almost no trouble with
+the bee-moth. It is a special enemy of the heedless and careless man
+who neglects his hives, and thus may well deserve to have his bees
+exterminated.
+
+If a colony is attacked by the bee-moth, the hive should be thoroughly
+cleaned; new good comb should be introduced and only enough so that the
+bees can cover it. The infested comb should be fumigated with carbon
+bisulphide, and after the moths are killed it may be given to a strong
+colony to clean out and use.
+
+
+THE INDIAN-MEAL MOTH (_Plodia interpunctella_)
+
+The Indian-meal moth sometimes forsakes its bins of grain and meal and
+devastates the honey-comb. It does not measure more than one-eighth of
+an inch across its wings, and its caterpillar is almost too small to be
+noticed, unless it occurs in great numbers. It sometimes attacks the
+honey-comb in the North, and in the South it is often a great nuisance.
+The only remedy for this very small pest is to change the bees to
+smaller hives, and expose the infested comb to the fumes of carbon
+bisulphide.
+
+
+BEE-MOTH MAXIMS
+
+The shiftless bee-keeper is the one who complains of the wax-worm.
+
+Keep Italian bees.
+
+Keep the colonies strong.
+
+Do not leave more comb in the hive than the bees are able to cover.
+
+Use well-made hives with no crevices.
+
+If you see a web upon the comb, hunt out the caterpillar and kill it at
+once.
+
+If bee-moths get into the honey store-room, close the room and fumigate
+it with brimstone or carbon bisulphide.
+
+
+FOUL BROOD
+
+This is an infectious bacterial disease, and its presence in the
+apiary may be attended by serious results. When it first appeared in
+America, large apiaries were completely destroyed. In 1874, Professor
+Cohn discovered the organism which causes the disease, and which bears
+the name of _Bacillus alvei_. This microbe attacks the immature larvæ
+and they die in the cells. It always attacks, to a lesser extent, the
+adult bee; but these leave the hive to die and are not such a dangerous
+source of infection as are the decaying larvæ. Infected honey is the
+medium by which the disease is ordinarily spread from hive to hive.
+Undoubtedly robbing is to a great extent responsible for its prevalence.
+
+
+HOW TO DETECT FOUL BROOD
+
+The brood appears in irregular patches and it does not all hatch; the
+caps to the brood cells may be sunken and broken at the centre, the
+holes being irregular, instead of the neat circular perforations which
+may be found above the healthy larvæ. The sure test of the presence
+of the disease is found in the dead body of the larva, which is dark
+and discoloured; and if a toothpick or pin be thrust into it and then
+drawn back, the body contents will adhere to it in a stringy mass, to
+the extent of a half or even an entire inch, as if it were mucous or
+glue; later the bodies of the larvæ dry and appear as black scales in
+the cell bottoms. Another evidence of the presence of the disease is a
+peculiarly disagreeable odour which permeates the hive, which Mr. Root
+likens to that of a glue pot.
+
+_Remedies._—These have been worked out by many bee-keepers, notably by
+Mr. William McEvoy, inspector of bees in Ontario, Canada. His remedy
+is as follows: When there is a good honey flow so the bees will not
+suffer, all the comb is taken from the infected colony and frames with
+foundation-starters are given instead. Having no young to feed, the
+bees use all the infected honey in their stomachs for making comb. At
+the end of the fourth day all this comb is removed and new frames with
+foundation are substituted, and the deed is done.
+
+Mr. Root’s practice is to remove the hive from its stand about dark,
+to prevent robbing, and put another just like it in its place which
+contains frames filled with foundation. The bees are shaken from the
+infected hive into the new one. Here they are shut in without food for
+three or four days, thus being compelled to use all the honey in their
+honey sacs. Then they are fed and the disease does not appear again
+in colonies thus treated. Mr. Root burns all the infected comb and
+frames and disinfects the hives with hot water before they are used
+again; other apiarists of experience support Mr. Root in this matter.
+Fumigating the hives with burning brimstone would perhaps be an easier
+or a surer way of disinfecting the hives.
+
+Many apiarists who do a large business do not destroy the infected
+comb, but render it in a steam wax press. They also thin the infected
+honey and boil it for two hours, adding to it a little salicylic acid,
+and use it to feed back to the bees. But this would hardly pay, unless
+great care were taken, as one drop of the infected honey would start
+the disease anew.
+
+Some have tried medicated syrup as a remedy. It is true that syrup made
+with salicylic acid or beta-naphthol will retard the disease, but most
+bee-keepers believe that it is not a sure remedy.
+
+
+BLACK BROOD
+
+This appeared in New York so frequently that it was called the New
+York bee-disease. It was differentiated from foul brood by Dr. Wm. R.
+Howard, of Texas, who found the bacillus and described it. The chief
+way of telling it from foul brood is that the contents of the body of
+the dead larva is jelly-like, instead of gluey. However, Dr. Veranus
+Moore and Dr. G. Franklin White, of the New York Veterinary College
+at Cornell University, worked upon this disease for some time and,
+in 1903, reported that the bacillus of this disease is _alvei_ and
+identical with that discovered and described by Cohn as the cause of
+foul brood.
+
+
+PICKLED BROOD
+
+This disease of the brood differs from the others in that the
+body-contents of the dead larva are watery and that no peculiar stench
+in the hive emanates from them. Neither is it so contagious as foul
+brood, though it may seriously cripple an apiary, if not checked. The
+remedy for foul brood is applied with success to colonies suffering
+from this disease.
+
+
+DIARRHOEA
+
+This disease is part of the difficulty of wintering. It is induced by
+the bees’ habit of retaining waste matter in the body until they can
+fly out of the hive, for thus they preserve the cleanliness of their
+home. The first symptom of the disease is the soiling of the hive
+entrance with brownish excrement; the bees are also likely to die in
+great numbers, their bodies being much swollen.
+
+The cause of the disease is attributed to cold and dampness, and poor
+food. If, in the fall, the bees store honey made from the juices of
+rotting fruit or cider refuse, or from honey-dew excreted by plant
+lice, they are very likely to perish by feeding upon it during the
+winter. But even with good honey bees wintered in cold, damp hives are
+liable to contract the disease.
+
+
+PREVENTION
+
+Give the bees plenty of good food for winter. If the honey they have
+gathered in August is extracted, feed them syrup from the best of
+sugar. In winter keep the hives in proper temperature, with sufficient
+good air and ventilation. After the disease once appears, there is no
+remedy, except warm weather, which will promptly bring relief.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE ANATOMY OF THE HONEY-BEE
+
+
+A detailed discussion of the anatomy of the honey-bee does not fall
+within the scope of this book; for such a discussion, special works on
+insect anatomy must be consulted. But there are certain of the more
+general features of the structure of the bee which the bee-keeper
+should know; and a discussion of these, merits a place even in an
+elementary book on bee-keeping.
+
+In treating of insect anatomy it is customary to divide the subject
+into two parts: first, external anatomy, which treats of the structure
+of the body-wall; and, second, internal anatomy, which treats of the
+parts found inside the body-wall.
+
+
+I. EXTERNAL ANATOMY
+
+_The body-wall._—Insects differ fundamentally from man and other
+backboned animals. With us, the muscles and other soft parts are
+supported by an internal skeleton; with the insects the body-wall, that
+part which corresponds to our skin, is hard and serves as a skeleton.
+In some respects this is a better arrangement than that which obtains
+with us, for the skeleton of an insect serves as an armour to protect
+the body as well as a support for the soft parts.
+
+This arrangement of parts holds with the appendages of the body of
+an insect as well as with the body itself; the legs, mouth-parts and
+antennæ are all tubular organs, having a firm outer skeleton supporting
+the inner parts.
+
+Movement of the body and its appendages is provided for by narrow,
+flexible, zone-like areas in the skeleton which encircle the body and
+the appendages, at frequent intervals. This segmented condition of
+the body is easily seen in the hind part or abdomen, which appears to
+consist of a series of rings.
+
+The microscopic structure of the body-wall is comparatively simple.
+There is an inner cellular part which consists of a single layer of
+cells: this is the hypodermis (Plate XXV, 2, _h_); and the outer or
+hard part: this is the cuticle (Plate XXV, 2, _c_).
+
+The hypodermis is the active living part; it produces the cuticle,
+which receives additions from it constantly during the life of the
+insect. On this account, when a section of the cuticle is examined with
+a microscope it presents a layered appearance.
+
+_Moulting of the cuticle._—From time to time during the growth of the
+insect the outer layers of the cuticle are shed; this is known as
+moulting. After a moult, the inner layers of the cuticle, which have
+now become the outer layers, but which are still soft, stretch to
+accommodate the increased size of the body, and then soon become hard.
+This moulting, or shedding of the skin, takes place about six times
+during the development of the bee. Several moults occur during the
+larval life: one when the larva changes to a pupa, and the last one
+when the pupa changes to the adult or winged form, just before leaving
+the cell in which it has been developed.
+
+_The head._—The segments of which the body of an insect is composed are
+grouped into three regions: the head, the thorax, and the abdomen.
+
+The head is the first of the three regions. It is formed of several
+segments grown together so as to form a compact box. It bears the eyes,
+the antennæ, and the mouth-parts.
+
+The eyes are of two kinds, which are distinguished as the compound eyes
+and the simple eyes.
+
+The compound eyes are two in number, one on each side of the head;
+they are the organs commonly recognised as the eyes. They are called
+compound eyes because each consists of a great number of little
+eyes closely pressed together. If a compound eye be examined with a
+microscope, it will be seen to present the appearance of a honey-comb,
+being composed of a great number of six-sided elements; each of these
+is a separate eye.
+
+In addition to the compound eyes, the bee has three simple eyes, or
+_ocelli_, as they are termed. They are situated on the upper part of
+the head between the compound eyes.
+
+The antennæ are two slender, many-jointed organs projecting from the
+front part of the head. Their use has not been fully elucidated.
+They are doubtless sense organs; and it is believed that certain
+microscopic pits, which occur in great numbers in their cuticle, are
+the organs of smell. It is possible, also, that the antennæ function as
+organs of touch, certain hairs with which they are furnished being the
+tactile organs.
+
+The mouth-parts are very complicated. They consist of an upper lip, a
+lower lip, and two pairs of jaws between the lips.
+
+The upper lip is known as the _labrum_. It is a flap-like projection
+situated above, or in front of, the other mouth-parts (Plate XXV, _u_).
+
+The first pair of jaws, those situated nearest the labrum, are the
+mandibles (Plate XXV, 3, _md_). Each mandible consists of a single hard
+piece. They are the biting organs. Certain wild bees, distantly related
+to the honey-bee, dig holes in wood with their mandibles for nests
+for their brood. The honey-bee uses its mandibles as tools for the
+manipulation of wax and propolis, and as weapons in its combats.
+
+The second pair of jaws, which are situated between the mandibles and
+the lower lip, are the maxillæ (Plate XXV, 3, _mx_). Each maxilla is a
+long blade. The maxillæ, combined with the lower lip, constitute what,
+in popular language, is known as the tongue, the organ by means of
+which the food is conveyed to the mouth, or the nectar extracted from a
+flower.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+                                         _Photograph by Ralph W. Curtis_
+
+PLATE XXIV. SUMAC IN BLOSSOM AND BLOSSOM OF MOUNTAIN MAPLE
+
+The Sumac is an excellent honey-producer.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  PLATE XXV. FIG. 1.—Vertical longitudinal section of the body of
+  a larva of an insect; _s_, body-wall or skeleton; _m_, muscles;
+  _a_, alimentary canal; _h_, heart; _n_, nervous system; _r_,
+  reproductive organs. FIG. 2.—Section of the body-wall; _c_,
+  cuticle; _h_, hypodermis; _t_, trichogen or hair-forming cell.
+  FIG. 3.—Head of a bee and its appendages; _a_, antenna; _c_,
+  clypens; _u_, upper lip or labrum; _m_, mandible; _mx_, maxilla;
+  _l_, lower lip or labium; _p_, labial palpus. FIG. 4.—Glands
+  of a honey-bee (after Girard); _1_, supracerebral glands; _2_,
+  postcerebral glands; _3_, thoracic glands. FIG. 5.—The wax plates
+  (after Cheshire).]
+
+The lower lip, or labium (Plate XXV, 3, _l_), is the long central part
+of the so-called tongue; it bears on each side a long appendage;
+these are the labial _palpi_ (Plate XXV, 3, _p_).
+
+_The thorax._—The thorax is the central region of the body. It consists
+of three body-segments, which are grown together so compactly in the
+adult insect that it is difficult to distinguish them. The thorax bears
+the organs of locomotion, the wings and the legs.
+
+There are two pairs of wings; but the two wings of each side are so
+closely united that they appear as one. The union is accomplished by
+a row of hooks on the front edge of the hind wing, which fasten into
+a fold in the hind edge of the fore wing. The wings are strengthened
+by a framework of heavy lines, which extend in various but definite
+directions. Between these lines the wing is a thin membrane.
+
+There are three pairs of legs, a pair borne by each of the three
+body-segments of which the thorax is composed.
+
+Each leg consists of nine segments and a pair of claws at the tip
+of the last segment. The first two segments, the _coxa_ and the
+_trochanter_, are short; then follow the two principal segments, the
+_femur_, or thigh, and the _tibia_, or shank; the five remaining
+segments constitute the _tarsus_ or foot. A striking peculiarity in
+the _tarsi_ of bees is that the first segment differs greatly in form
+from the other segments and is much larger, approaching the _tibia_ in
+size. This enlarged tarsal segment has received the special name of
+_metatarsus_.
+
+The legs serve several functions besides that of locomotion. Thus, on
+each fore leg there is an organ for cleaning the antennæ. The antenna
+cleaner consists of a circular notch near the base of the _metatarsus_,
+which is furnished with teeth like a comb (Plate VII, F, _a_), and a
+spur projecting back from the _tibia_ in such a way as to close this
+notch when the leg is bent. The antenna to be cleaned is drawn through
+this notch and thus the dirt is combed from it.
+
+On the middle legs there is a strong spur at the distal end of the
+_tibia_ which is used in loosing the pellets of pollen brought to the
+hive on the hind legs.
+
+The third pair of legs are furnished with three organs which deserve
+mention here. _First_: the wax pincers. Both the _tibia_ and the
+_metatarsus_ are wide; the joint uniting them is at one edge, hence by
+alternately bending and straightening the leg at this joint, the space
+between the two segments (Plate VII, B, _wp_) is opened and shut like
+pincers. This organ is used to loosen from the abdomen the scales of
+wax. _Second_: the pollen-combs. These are several comb-like series of
+spines, borne on the inner surface of the _metatarsus_ (Plate VII, B,
+_pc_). When a bee visits a flower the pollen is gathered by the tongue
+and fore legs and some of it becomes entangled among the hairs on the
+thorax. It is then combed from these parts by means of the pollen-combs
+and transferred to the pollen baskets. _Third_: the pollen basket.
+There is a pollen basket on the outer surface of the _tibia_ of each
+hind leg. It consists of a fringe of hairs, surrounding a smooth,
+concave area which occupies the greater part of the outer face of this
+segment of the leg. In it the pollen is packed when combed from the
+hairs, and transported to the hive.
+
+_The abdomen._—The abdomen is the last of the three regions of the
+body. It consists of a series of comparatively simple, overlapping
+segments, without conspicuous appendages.
+
+
+II. INTERNAL ANATOMY
+
+_Relative position of the internal organs._—As has been shown in the
+preceding pages, the body-wall serves as a skeleton, being hard and
+giving support to the other organs of the body, which are contained
+within it.
+
+The accompanying diagram (Plate XXV, 1), which represents a vertical
+longitudinal section of the body of the larva of an insect, will
+enable the reader to gain an idea of the relative positions of some
+of the more important organs. The parts shown in the diagram are the
+following: The body-wall or skeleton (_s_); this is made up of a series
+of overlapping segments; that part of it which is between the segments
+is thinner, and is not hardened, this remaining flexible and allowing
+for the movements of the body. Just within the body-wall, and attached
+to it, are represented a few of the muscles (_m_); it will be seen
+that these muscles are so arranged that the contraction of those on
+the lower side of the body would bend it down, while the contraction
+of those on the opposite side would act in the opposite direction. The
+alimentary canal (_a_) occupies the centre of the body and extends
+from one end to the other. The heart (_h_) is a tube open at both ends,
+and lying between the alimentary canal and the muscles of the back.
+
+The central part of the nervous system (_n_) is a series of small
+masses of nervous matter, connected by two longitudinal chords; one of
+these masses, the brain, lies above the alimentary canal; the others
+are situated, one in each segment, between the alimentary canal and
+the ventral wall of the body; the two chords connecting these masses,
+or ganglia, pass one on each side of the œsophagus to the brain. The
+reproductive organs (_r_) lie in the cavity of the abdomen and open
+near the hind end of the body. The respiratory organs are omitted from
+this diagram for the sake of simplicity.
+
+_The respiratory system._—The most striking peculiarity in the
+structure of insects is the form of their organs for breathing, for
+they do not breathe through the mouth as we do. If an insect be
+carefully examined, there can be found along the sides of the body, a
+series of openings; these are the openings through which the air passes
+into the respiratory system, and are termed spiracles. The spiracles of
+the honey-bee are small, and are not easily found by one not trained
+to look for such things; but if the reader will examine the sides of
+one of our larger caterpillars, he will have no trouble in seeing them.
+Typically, there is a pair of spiracles, one on each side of the body,
+in each of the body-segments, but they are lacking in the head and in
+some of the other segments. The spiracles lead into a system of air
+tubes, termed tracheæ, which carry the air to all parts of the body.
+When the body of an insect is opened, the tracheæ appear as silvery
+threads, on account of the contained air. In the adult honey-bee
+certain of the tracheæ are greatly expanded so as to form large air
+sacs. (Plate XXVI _b_, 2).
+
+_The glands._—Those glands found in the body of the honey-bee that are
+of most interest to the practical bee-keeper are the following:
+
+In the larva there is a pair of long, tubular glands, which secrete the
+silk of which the cocoon is made. These glands open through a common
+duct, which has its outlet near the mouth.
+
+In the adult worker bee there are four pairs of glands opening into
+the mouth, which have been much discussed by students of this subject.
+These glands are designated both by number and by name as follows:
+System I. or supracerebral glands; system II. or postcerebral glands;
+system III. or thoracic glands; and system IV. or mandibulary glands.
+
+The supracerebral glands or system I. (Plate XXV, Fig. 4, 1) are
+situated in the head above the brain. They open by two openings in the
+floor of the mouth cavity, one on each side.
+
+The postcerebral glands or system II. (Plate XXV, Fig. 4, 2) are
+situated in the head behind the brain; their outlets unite into a
+common duct which opens on the middle line of the anterior end of the
+œsophagus at the base of the tongue.
+
+The thoracic glands or system III. (Plate XXV, Fig. 4, 3) are situated
+in the thorax; their outlets unite into a common duct, which joins the
+ducts from the postcerebral glands, the two systems of glands opening
+through a common opening.
+
+The mandibulary glands or system IV. are two small glands one on each
+side opening at the base of the mandible.
+
+There has been much discussion regarding the function of these
+different glands; and even now any statement of conclusions must be
+regarded as provisional.
+
+The supracerebral glands are large in nurse bees and shrunken in the
+old bees that no longer nurse the brood; they are normally found only
+in the workers. It is therefore believed that they secrete the milky
+food, commonly called royal jelly, which is fed to all larvæ during
+the first days of their development, to the queen larvæ throughout
+their development, and to the adult queen during the egg-laying period.
+The food fed worker and drone larvæ during the latter part of their
+development is produced in the chyle-stomach of the nurse bees, and is
+semi-digested food.
+
+The other systems of glands enumerated above produce the saliva, which
+is supposed to perform a great variety of functions. “It helps the
+digestion; it changes the chemical condition of the nectar harvested
+from the flowers; it helps to knead the scales of wax of which the
+combs are built, and perhaps the propolis with which the hives are
+varnished. It is used also to dilute the honey when too thick, to
+moisten the pollen grains, to wash the hairs when daubed with honey,
+etc.”
+
+The wax glands are found only in the worker. There are four pairs of
+them. They are situated on the ventral wall of the second, third,
+fourth and fifth abdominal segments, and on that part of the segment
+which is overlapped by the preceding segment. Each gland is simply a
+disc-like area of the hypodermis, the cells of which take nourishment
+from the blood and transform it into wax. The cuticle covering each
+gland is smooth and delicate, and is known as a wax plate. The wax
+exudes through these plates and accumulates, forming little scales.
+(Plate VI, X, also Plate XXV, Fig. 5.)
+
+_The alimentary canal._—The form of the alimentary canal of the adult
+honey-bee is shown in Plate XXVI. The following parts can easily be
+recognised: the œsophagus, a slender tube, beginning at the mouth and
+extending through the head and thorax to the base of the abdomen.
+Here there is a sac-like enlargement of the canal, which is termed
+the honey-stomach; it is in this that the nectar accumulates as it
+is collected by the bee, and is carried to the hive. Behind the
+honey-stomach lies the true stomach, the chief digestive organ. Closely
+applied to the true stomach are several small tubes, which open into
+it; which are known as the Malpighian tubes; they were named after
+one of the early anatomists who described them; they are the urinary
+organs. Next to the true stomach is the small intestine; and behind
+this, the large intestine.
+
+_The reproductive organs._—The internal reproductive organs are
+situated in the abdomen; there is a set on each side, but the two sets
+open by a common duct, whose outlet is at the hind end of the body.
+
+The reproductive organs of the female are shown on Plate XXVI (_a_),
+Fig. 1. There are two ovaries (_o_), one on each side of the body.
+Each ovary consists of a large number of parallel egg-tubes, within
+which the eggs are developed. The egg-tubes of each ovary open into an
+oviduct (_od_). The two oviducts unite and form a single tube on the
+middle line of the body; this is the _vagina_; the _vagina_ leads to
+the external opening of the system. Communicating with the _vagina_,
+there is a sac-like pouch, the _spermatheca_, which is the reservoir
+for the seminal fluid; this is filled at the time of pairing, and the
+_spermatozoa_ may remain alive in it for several years.
+
+Each egg-tube produces many eggs. As the eggs increase in size, they
+pass towards the oviduct. When the egg is fully developed a shell is
+formed about it. This shell has a minute opening through it at one end;
+this is the micropyle. At the time the egg is laid a _spermatozoon_ may
+pass from the _spermatheca_, where thousands of them are stored, into
+the egg through the micropyle, and thus the egg is fertilised.
+
+With most animals, the egg must be fertilised in order that it may
+develop. But with bees, both fertilised and unfertilised eggs develop,
+the former into females, that is, workers or queens, the latter into
+males, that is, drones.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  PLATE XXVI. (_a._) The reproductive organs of the honey-bee.
+  (From Leuckart, slightly modified.) FIG. 1.—Reproductive organs
+  of a queen; _o_, _o_, ovaries; _od_, oviduct; _s_, spermatheca;
+  _g_, gland; _p_, poison sac connected with the sting. FIG.
+  2.—Reproductive organs of a drone; _t_, _t_, testes; _v_, vas
+  deferens; _s_, _s_, seminal sacs; _m_, _m_, mucous glands; _ed_,
+  ejaculatory duct; _b_, pouch or bulb. The bulb and the following
+  parts are everted through the outer opening at the time of
+  pairing.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  PLATE XXVI. (_b._) FIG. 1.—The internal anatomy of the
+  honey-bee (after Cheshire). _o_, œsophagus; _hs_, honey sac;
+  _p_, stomach-mouth; _cs_, true stomach or chyle-stomach; _m_,
+  malpighian tubes; _si_, small intestine; _li_, large intestine;
+  _h_, heart or dorsal vessel; _n_, central nervous system; _1_,
+  supracerebral glands; _2_, postcerebral glands; _3_, thoracic
+  glands. The respiratory system and the reproductive organs
+  are not shown in this figure (after Cheshire). FIG. 2.—The
+  respiratory system of the honey-bee. _s_, _s_, _s_, spiracles;
+  _a_, enlarged trachea or air sac (adapted from Leuckart).]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+                                            _Courtesy of Ginn & Company_
+
+PLATE XXVII. AN OLD-FASHIONED APIARY]
+
+Closely associated with the reproductive organs of the female is the
+sting; this is a barbed dart connected with a poison gland, whose use
+is well known.
+
+In the abdomen of the male there is a pair of organs, the testes, in
+which the _spermatozoa_ are developed. These correspond in position
+to the ovaries of the female, but are much smaller. From each testis
+there extends a tube corresponding to the oviduct, this is the _vas
+deferens_. The two _vasa deferentia_ unite and form the single
+ejaculator duct. Each _vas deferens_ is enlarged just before it joins
+the ejaculatory duct, forming a reservoir for the accumulation of
+_spermatozoa_; these reservoirs are termed the seminal sacs. Appended
+to each seminal sac there is a large glandular sac, which adds mucus to
+the seminal fluid. Near the outer end of the ejaculatory duct there is
+a pouchlike enlargement into which the _spermatozoa_ pass. Here they
+are massed into a compact body, known as the spermatophore, which is
+transferred to the female at the time of pairing. The terminal part
+of the reproductive organs of the male, the intermittent organ, has
+several appendages, which are firmly grasped in the opening of the
+reproductive organs of the female and are torn from the male when the
+two pairing individuals separate. This causes the death of the male.
+The male has no sting. (Plate XXVI, Fig. 2.)
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+INTERRELATION OF BEES AND PLANTS
+
+
+HONEY-FLOWERS
+
+The facts revealed by science are not always beautiful, however
+interesting they may be. But the discovery of the interrelation of
+flowers and insects, that partnership which has existed so long that
+it has modified both partners, seems to belong to the realm of art or
+poetry rather than to that of science. Since plants must needs spend
+their lives where they are developed from seeds, they may not roam
+abroad like animals to seek their mates. But this is a difficulty which
+they readily overcome, through sending their messages by the uneasy,
+flying insects; and of all these messengers, the bee is surely the
+flowers’ favourite. Its fuzzy body, admirably adapted to be a pollen
+brush, its swift wings and its sedulous attention to business, all tend
+to make it the most important of the flower-partners. Thus, especially
+for the bee, have thousands of flower species developed nectar, in
+pockets placed cunningly to entice her to take upon herself a pollen
+load. And for countless ages the flowers have painted their petals
+various hues and shed on the atmosphere their perfume, to advertise to
+the bee-world that they had pollen and nectar to spare.
+
+This partnership has naturally modified the insects less than the
+flowers, as the latter were obliged to develop innumerable devices for
+winning attention from their messengers; naturally also the insects
+have been more largely modified in their mouth-parts and appliances
+for carrying pollen, than in other directions. Their habits have also
+been modified in a measure, and the bee has in some mysterious way been
+persuaded to work on one kind of blossom at a time. The poetic reproach
+that the bee is a heartless rover, rifling the lily of sweets only to
+desert her for the rose, is as unjust as it is untrue. Repeatedly have
+we watched a bee at work in a bed of pinks. Though clover and other
+blossoms were near by, she passed methodically from pink to pink, and
+naught tempted her to fickleness. That the bees use pollen for bread,
+is a part of the bargain; for the flowers grow it in plenty for both
+themselves and their partners.
+
+Each species of “honey-plant” has developed its own special device for
+securing the services of bees to carry its pollen; and no study is more
+interesting than the unravelling of these flower secrets. Even the
+novice may do this by asking the flower these three questions: “Where
+is your nectar?” “Where is your pollen?” “What is the path the bees
+must follow to get to the nectar?” For ready and accurate answers to
+such questions, the flowers are not to be surpassed; and if there is
+any doubtful point, the bees are ready to help elucidate it. There are
+so many flowers that have become the special partners of the bees that
+it is not within the scope of this book to make an adequate list. Some
+of the more important are the flowers of trees, and some of farm crops;
+some bloom in gardens and some are mere weeds.
+
+
+TREES
+
+Fruit trees, when in blossom, give much pollen and honey at a time when
+these are greatly needed by the bees for rearing brood.
+
+Peach, pear, apricot, plum and especially apple trees, when in bloom
+are encompassed about with the happy chorus of busy and grateful
+bees; and no other creatures can so successfully vocalise blissful
+contentment as they. Many careful experiments have proved beyond
+doubt that the help of bees is necessary for securing the pollination
+requisite to produce good crops of fruit. The wise and successful
+fruit-grower recognises this fact and, mindful of his true interests,
+does not spray his fruit trees with poisons while they are in
+blossom, lest he thereby kill his friends, the bees. Moreover, to use
+arsenical sprays, at such a time, is injurious to the petals and the
+fruit-producing organs of the flowers; and it is also too early to
+spray successfully against the codlin moth. In many states, legislation
+forbids the spraying of poisons during fruit-tree bloom, because it is
+a useless and wanton destruction of the bees.
+
+Some time since great injustice was done the bees through the
+accusation that they punctured the ripe fruit for the sake of the
+juices. This was the special complaint of grape-growers. Investigations
+have proved that bees never puncture the rind of ripe fruit, although
+they sometimes are tempted to sip the oozing juices, after the rind is
+broken through some other agency.
+
+Even before the fruit-bloom the willows offer a feast to break the fast
+of the hungry swarms. Half the winter the pussy-willow stands waiting
+in her furs to be ready with her grist of pollen, so that the bees may
+make bread during the first warm days of spring. The willows burned
+their bridges behind them eons ago and depend almost entirely upon the
+bees for fertilisation, since they are diœcious. Some apiarists have
+claimed that their bees get no nectar from certain species of willow;
+but this could hardly be so if trees of both sexes were present in a
+locality; for the staminate flowers offer pollen and the pistillate
+flowers give nectar to induce the bees to fetch and carry for them.
+
+The maples are not much behind the willows in offering the bees food
+after their winter fast. The bloom of the red maple is regarded by most
+bee-keepers as permission from Spring to bring out the bee-hives from
+the cellar and tenements. All our common species of maple are very much
+visited by the bees.
+
+The locusts often yield large crops of honey, although they vary with
+the seasons in this respect. Honey-locust, when in bloom, is covered
+with bees.
+
+The tulip tree is one of the most beautiful of our ornamental trees
+and it gives a great amount of dark, rich honey. In New York it
+blossoms in May and June and, like the locusts, is a great help to the
+bees after the fruit-bloom is over. This is a common tree in the woods
+of the South and is not rare in Northern forests. It should be planted
+even more generally than it is at present, for the sake of the bees.
+
+The basswood, of all honey-producing trees, is the most important
+and most beloved by the bees. It blooms in July and only for a brief
+season; therefore, it is important that the colonies be strong and
+able to make the most of these few precious days of harvest. Basswood
+honey has a strong flavour when first gathered. But after it is ripened
+and sealed it has a delightful flavour. The way our forests have been
+stripped of basswood during the past twenty-five years is nothing
+less than heartrending to the bee-keeper; for to him this tree ranks
+next to the white clover in importance. Mr. Root had a single colony
+take forty-three pounds of honey in three days from basswood, and Mr.
+Doolittle had a colony take sixty pounds in the same period. The tree
+is beautiful, and might well be used for shade along roadsides and also
+in ornamental planting. It grows rapidly; young trees, transplanted
+from the woodland, blossom in five or six years thereafter. No
+bee-keeper should allow the basswood to be cut on his premises; and he
+should grow as many young trees as possible.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXVIII
+
+Thorn-apple blossoms.
+
+                                        _Photographs by Ralph W. Curtis_
+
+Wild crab-apple blossoms.]
+
+[Illustration: PLATE XXIX. BUCKWHEAT IN BLOSSOM]
+
+Other honey-producing trees of note are the sourwood (_Oxydendrum
+arboreum_) of the South, the guajilla of Texas, the cabbage palmetto of
+Florida, and the eucalyptus of California.
+
+The flowers of sumac often yield much nectar and are sedulously worked
+by the bees. This picturesque shrub is not properly appreciated
+because it is so common. Its foliage is beautiful in the summer and is
+brilliant in the fall. Its blossoms, as well as its fruit, conduce to
+make it an interesting and ornamental shrub for planting.
+
+
+HONEY PLANTS WHICH YIELD OTHER VALUABLE CROPS
+
+To raise plants solely for the sake of the honey they produce has not
+proved a financial success so far in America. Mr. Root estimates that
+it would require 500 acres covered with plants blooming in succession
+to keep 100 colonies of bees busy; and, at present, most land here is
+worth too much to be put to such use. It is doubtful if artificial
+pasturage will ever prove a paying investment in agricultural sections.
+
+However, many apiarists devote some land to honey-gardens, and such
+a garden may be a beautiful and interesting place, for many of the
+honey-plants are ornamental. Also, many apiarists have introduced
+certain honey-weeds on waste land in the vicinity of their apiaries
+with excellent results.
+
+Fortunately, many plants very valuable to the agriculturist and
+horticulturist are the best honey-producers; and if a farmer has only
+twenty colonies of bees, it will pay him to reap one crop from his
+land and let his bees reap another.
+
+Of all such plants the clovers are the most important. Not only do they
+make the best of forage and hay, but they also help to fertilise and
+aërate the soil, and should be a factor in every crop rotation. Clovers
+and other _legumes_ have upon their roots nodules filled with bacteria,
+which are underground partners of the plant. These bacteria fix the
+free nitrogen of the air and leave it in the soil available for plant
+food. Red clover is not so great a source of honey as are the other
+clovers, since its corolla tubes are so long that usually it is only
+worked by bumblebees. But the long-tongued Italians are able to get
+considerable honey from red clover at times.
+
+Crimson clover grew as a weed for a long time in America before it
+became an important factor in horticulture. It is an annual and its
+home is in southern Europe. It thrives best in loose, sandy soils
+and is of great value as a cover crop for orchards. It is a good
+honey-plant.
+
+Alsike is a perennial and grows in low meadows, from Nova Scotia to
+Idaho. Its blossoms look like that of the white clover, except that
+they are larger and are tinged with pink. This is a valuable clover for
+pasturage, and also for hay, and it stands next to the white clover as
+a honey-plant.
+
+The white clover is the very best plant for producing honey in the
+United States east of the Rocky Mountains, and the flavour of its
+honey is famous the world over. While in hard soil, the white clover
+lasts only two or three years, it is perennial on rich, moist lands.
+It is a cosmopolitan plant and may be found in almost all regions of
+the temperate zones. It is an ideal plant for pastures and should be
+established everywhere on land not under the plow. It shows well its
+partnership with the bee by turning down its flowerets as soon as they
+are fertilised, and leaving those in need of pollen still erect. We
+have seen a head of white clover with a single floweret, erect and
+white, calling to the bees, while all of its sister flowerets were
+deflected and brown.
+
+Among the medics we find the veteran of all clovers, the alfalfa, which
+has been under cultivation for twenty centuries, and came to America
+with the Spanish invasion. It was established in California in 1854,
+and has worked its way eastward. But it is only recently that it has
+been practicable to grow it in the East. This has been made possible
+by the discovery that it will grow on soil inoculated with its root
+bacteria. Alfalfa is a true perennial and may be cut for hay three
+times a season, and is of highest value as fodder or forage. It is a
+superb honey-plant, furnishing great quantities of light-coloured and
+excellent honey. It will support more bees to the acre than any other
+plant known. For artificial pasturage it is the most promising of all
+honey-plants.
+
+Buckwheat is, in many localities, doubly profitable as a grain and as
+a honey-plant; especially is it so in middle and western New York,
+where the hills in autumn are made brilliant with great fields of the
+wine-red stubble. Buckwheat is usually sown late in the season, often
+on ground where oats have already been grown earlier in the year. It
+blossoms in August and even in September, and furnishes a wealth of
+nectar when there is little to be found elsewhere. The honey made from
+buckwheat is dark, reddish brown and brings a lower price in most
+markets than do the lighter-coloured varieties. Though it is strong
+in flavour, it is preferred by many, and on our table it alternates
+with basswood and clover. It has always seemed poetic justice that
+the plant which produces buckwheat cakes should produce the honey
+to eat with them. The following are the good points of buckwheat as
+a crop: It is profitable, the grain always brings a good price; it
+grows well on poor soil; it is one of the best agencies for ridding
+a field of weeds. There is a certain gameness about buckwheat which
+we have always admired and which was thus characterised by a farmer
+of our acquaintance: “Buckwheat is a gritty plant; if it can get its
+head above ground it will blossom. I have seen it, during dry seasons,
+blossom when its stalks were so short that the _bees had to get down on
+their hands and knees to gather the honey_.” While this may be putting
+the case rather strongly, yet it expresses well the habits of the plant.
+
+Black mustard, rape and turnips all furnish nectar for excellent honey.
+The seed of mustard and rape brings a good price, and the root of the
+turnip is always valuable.
+
+The blossoms of the red raspberry yield a delicious honey, and the
+grower of small fruits may well add bees to his farm as a source of
+profit.
+
+
+GARDEN FLOWERS
+
+Most of the blooms in flower gardens, as well as vegetable gardens,
+are worked by the bees. Mignonette is a valuable honey-plant, as it
+blossoms for a long time. Marjoram, thyme and sage give rich, spicy
+honey. The sunflower is also a good honey-plant.
+
+
+WILD FLOWERS AND WEEDS
+
+We shall never forget our profound amazement when we saw, for the
+first time, in a narrow valley of the Mojave Desert a great city
+of white bee-hives. Nothing in that desolate landscape could we
+discern that bore the slightest resemblance to a honey-plant. The
+gray sage-brush which grew everywhere looked to us about as promising
+for honey-production as so much slag from a furnace; and yet this
+sage-brush of the desert gives the bees the best of pasturage. The
+bloom begins down in the valley and climbs the mountain side slowly,
+thus giving bloom for a long period.
+
+There are two species of sage that yield honey, the white and the
+black, or button sage. They are allied to the mints, which are
+generally good honey-plants. We learned to care much for the spicy
+sage-honey. A professor of Greek, who was for some time in the American
+school at Athens, tells us that the sage-honey is very similar in
+flavour to the famous honey of Hymettus, which is made from thyme.
+
+The horse-mint is a very important honey-plant of the lower Mississippi
+Valley and of Texas. Its corolla tubes are so long that only the
+Italians and other long-tongued bees can get its honey. Catnip,
+motherwort and gill-over-the-ground and gall-berry all furnish an
+abundance of nectar.
+
+The blue thistle emigrated to Virginia in colonial times, and now
+covers with a heavenly blue thousands of acres of the desolate,
+uncultivated, red Virginia soil. It is a great boon to the bees of the
+region, as its blossoms creep slowly up its stalks, thus affording
+nectar for many weeks. It is related to borage, which is another good
+honey-plant.
+
+Spider flower (_Cleome pungens_), the Rocky Mountain bee-plant (_Cleome
+integrifolia_), and figwort (_Scrofularia venalis_) have all been
+planted by bee-keepers in their honey-gardens, because they give such a
+great amount of honey per plant.
+
+During September and early October the bees work busily on the various
+species of goldenrod and asters, and gather from them a considerable
+amount of honey, which is rich in colour and taste. The two common
+species of _Impatiens_ also give the bees good fall pasturage.
+
+Fireweed (_Epilobium angustifolium_) comes wherever forests have been
+cleared and burned off. It blooms late and yields a fine quality of
+honey. The unlovely Spanish needle (_Coreopsis_) also gives much honey.
+The milkweed yields good honey, yet it overdoes the matter by loading
+the feet of the bee with its pollen sacs, until the poor messenger dies
+of exhaustion under the burden of its message, or dies a prisoner in
+the blossom.
+
+The cheerful and ubiquitous dandelion has this much in its favour, that
+it is beloved by the bees and often gives them honey and pollen at a
+time in the spring when they need it for brood-rearing.
+
+Of all the weeds which will pay the apiarist to establish in waste
+places, the most profitable are the mellilots, or sweet clovers, of
+which there are two species, the white and the yellow. These are most
+beneficent weeds, for they carry nitrogen to the soil like other
+clovers, and they are easily exterminated by cultivation, so they are
+not to be feared.
+
+Sweet clover in blossom fills the atmosphere of the country road with
+perfume, for it is almost everywhere a roadside weed; and, as might be
+expected, it is most attractive to the bees. While the honey made from
+it is rather strong in flavour, yet it is of good colour, and sells
+well. When it is mixed with the honey from other flowers, it adds much
+to the excellence of the flavour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+BEE-KEEPERS AND BEE-KEEPING
+
+
+Most business occupations lead to rivalry and all the selfish
+emotions incident to competition; not so is bee-keeping; quite the
+opposite, indeed, as there is a freemasonry that holds bee-keepers
+together and renders their attitude toward each other friendly and
+helpful. Bee-keeping is everywhere a bond of brotherhood and a sign
+of congenial tastes. One night at a dinner-party the gentleman on
+my right was a stranger, known to me only by reputation as a lawyer
+of high standing and great erudition. He was reserved and silent,
+and evidently bored by the trivialities of table-talk. Some one
+incidentally spoke of our bees, when the face of my neighbour became
+illumined with interest, and he said, “I am sure that by becoming a
+lawyer I spoiled a good bee-keeper. I have never found anything else
+so interesting as bee-keeping;” and thus was swept away the curtain of
+cold conventionalism which had hung between us, and we began, from that
+moment, to be friends.
+
+Nowhere is this brotherly interest more noticeable than in the
+bee-books and the bee-journals. The former bear evidence, on every
+page, of kindness and courtesy to all; while the latter are like
+friendly correspondence published, wherein John Smith of Maine
+explains his views on the bee business to Timothy Jones of Oregon, and
+incidentally sends his kindest regards to the family.
+
+I never take into my hands that delightful book, “A B C of Bee
+Culture,” without turning to the biographies of noted bee-keepers, and
+looking again at the faces there depicted, noting the noble forehead of
+Huber; the keen, scholarly face of Dzierzon; the judicial countenance
+of Friend Quinby and the beautiful expression of the venerable
+Langstroth. And thus on, page by page, and getting, by the way, a
+friendly greeting from the kindly eyes of Professor Cook, that most
+excellent of good teachers; and finally deriving sincere satisfaction
+from a long look at the keen, humorous face of Mr. A. I. Root himself.
+These leaders in apiculture are men with whom one is proud to be
+associated. And the fact that there are, in the United States, 300,000
+persons engaged in bee-keeping, makes one hopeful that our republican
+institutions are to be guarded by intelligent citizenship.
+
+It is interesting to note that knowledge of bees has been given to
+the world by men who have attained the high peaks of scientific fame.
+Such knowledge began with Aristotle and Pliny in ancient times, and
+received no additions during the uncertain Dark Ages. It began anew
+with Swammerdam, in the seventeenth century, was augmented by Linnæus,
+De Geer, Réaumur, Bonnet, Lyonnet, Fabricius, Latreille, Lamarck, and
+finally reached a climax in the study of the habits of the bee by the
+blind Huber, who was born in Geneva in 1750. His observations made
+with his own brain, but with the eyes of his wife, niece and servant,
+form a classic in bee literature. In 1811 there were born, a continent
+apart, two great bee-keepers: Langstroth in Philadelphia, and Dzierzon
+in Silesia. Both were clergymen, but were also true scientists, and
+both invented means by which the combs could be moved and examined.
+Langstroth carried his invention farther, and in 1852 devised the
+movable frame which revolutionised bee-keeping.
+
+Up to this time the business of the bee-man was largely guess-work. He
+did not know anything about the condition of his bees in the hive, for
+he had no way of penetrating that dark chamber. The ways of reaping
+the honey-harvest were devious; at best the combs were torn from the
+hives with little regard for the rights and lives of the bees. Finally,
+there was devised the truly infernal plan of killing the bees with the
+fumes of burning brimstone, before taking their treasure; this method
+undoubtedly originating in the turgid theology of the times.
+
+However, about the time of Langstroth, someone, or perhaps many, had
+discovered that bees stored their honey in the upper part of the hive;
+and the old box-hive had a few auger-holes in the top, over which
+was inverted a box, which the bees usually filled, and thus saved
+themselves from the brimstone pit. We remember well the delight in our
+family when we used, for the first time, such boxes with glass sides;
+and as we saw they were being filled with combs, we rejoiced that we
+need not “take up” any more swarms, as the suffocation by sulphur fumes
+was termed.
+
+When, to the invention of the box super, was added the greater
+invention of Langstroth, and finally thereunto was added the invention
+of the honey-extractor, bee-keeping became a science, instead of a
+haphazard avocation.
+
+Bee-keeping in America has since then passed through many phases and
+survived many experiments. Our bee-keepers have been wide awake and
+willing to try all things and hold fast to the good. Once, having read
+of the floating apiaries of the Nile, which follow the flower bloom
+along the banks, an enthusiast tried the same scheme on the Mississippi
+River, starting at the southern part early in the season and coming
+north abreast of the spring; but too many bees were left behind to make
+this profitable. Another enterprising gentleman took his bees south
+winters, but the cost of transportation took away the profits. Now,
+however, another plan for gaining pasturage is proving most successful;
+_i. e._, the establishment of out-apiaries. As seventy-five or a
+hundred colonies will usually take all the nectar of a given locality,
+the bee-keeper places his surplus colonies in other apiaries far enough
+distant, so there is good pasturage for all. Mr. A. L. Coggshall has
+about 3,000 colonies in out-apiaries in central New York.
+
+The up-to-date bee-keeper is not merely an operator in his apiary,
+but a co-operator with his bees, and we firmly believe that the bees
+are being educated by the partnership, as well as the bee-keeper.
+Bees certainly do learn by experience, as is well instanced by some
+Cyprians, which, in their native home, build columns of wax and
+propolis at the hive-entrance to keep out the large death’s-head moth
+which preys upon them. After living in this country for two years,
+the bees discovered that there were none of these moths about, and so
+ceased building these bars. The readiness with which our bees use the
+comb-foundation and fit their combs to the frames and follow the hint
+given by the starters in the sections, all point to their adaptability;
+and however others may regard the matter, we never take off a section
+filled with just one pound of pearly comb and amber honey that we do
+not pay tribute to the bee intelligence which placed it there, and
+regard the little artisans as true partners in our enterprise. And we
+never doubt that in the future this co-operation and co-education of
+bees and bee-keepers will result in a perfection of honey-production as
+yet undreamed.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+                                         _Photograph by Ralph W. Curtis_
+
+PLATE XXX. BOX-ELDER
+
+Staminate and pistillate flowers. This and the other maples and the
+willows give the bees pasturage in early Spring.]
+
+[Illustration:
+
+                                         _Photograph by Ralph W. Curtis_
+
+PLATE XXXI. BLOSSOMS OF BLACK LOCUST
+
+The locusts often yield large crops of honey.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+BEE-HUNTING
+
+
+The mere mention of these words always brings to us memories of high
+hills, wound about by picturesque roads, bordered by rail fences,
+from the corners of which the goldenrod still flung its banners to
+the breeze, though September and, mayhap, frosts had come. Beyond the
+fences were knolly pastures, cropped close except where the mullein,
+the thistle and the immortelle vaunted their immunity from the attacks
+of grazing herds; and still beyond were upland meadows, green with
+second-crop clover; and crowning all were forests beginning to glow
+with autumnal hues. Forth into such roads, pastures, meadows and
+woodlands were we wont to fare of a sunny morning, to hunt bees with
+our father, whose woodcraft was not the empty accomplishment of the man
+of this generation, but was attained on those same hills of western
+New York when he was a pioneer boy, and the deer and the wolves roamed
+those forests, and the beavers built their dams in the valley.
+
+Our equipment for hunting was a bottle of diluted honey; a box with
+a sliding glass cover, containing pieces of empty comb; and a sharp
+stake, four feet high, topped with a cross-piece on which to set the
+box. When we were far enough afield, some unwary bee was lifted from
+its goldenrod revel and imprisoned in the box, where one of the empty
+combs had been filled from the bottle for her special delectation.
+Like a worthy bee, she began to fill at once; meanwhile, the stake was
+pushed into the ground and the box placed upon it, the cover removed,
+and we all retired for a little distance to watch. When the bee
+finally lifted herself and our honey into the air, we gave her closest
+attention. To make sure of the exact position of her bonanza, she
+always arose in a spiral, each circle being larger than the one before,
+and finally turned the spiral in a certain direction. When she suddenly
+darted away with almost the speed of a bullet, it was always the eyes
+of our father, blue as the sky against which the bee was outlined, that
+detected her direction; for young eyes, however keen, counted little
+against trained eyes in this competition.
+
+Then there always followed a time of anxious waiting for the return
+of the bee. Meanwhile we stretched out on the dry sod in the sun and
+listened to the chirping of the crickets, or the sweet notes of the
+meadow larks and idly watched a hawk circle on even pinions above our
+heads; or we told stories of other days of successful bee-hunting.
+If the bee returned within fifteen minutes, all was well and we were
+confident that the tree was distant not much more than a mile. But if
+we had to wait a half hour we usually caught other bees and started
+over again, hoping to find some nearer colony. If our first visitor
+came back soon, and especially if she was followed by her anxious
+sisters, we were satisfied. With several bees flying in the same
+direction, it was always easy to get the “line,” which we marked by
+some peculiar tree or other noticeable object in the landscape. When
+several of our visitors were eagerly filling themselves with honey,
+the cover was shoved over them and they were carried for a distance
+along the line and then liberated, and the line from this new location
+ascertained. Thus were they followed, up hill and down dale, and even
+through woodlands; finally, we would come to a place in a forest where
+we could follow the line no farther, and then we took our first lesson
+in geometry by getting a cross-line. This was done by carrying some of
+the bees in the box for some rods to the right or left; and when they
+were established there we knew that at the apex of the angle made by
+the two intersecting lines stood the bee-tree.
+
+The triumph which filled us when we finally discovered that stream
+of black particles entering some knothole or the broken top of a
+tree, made us breathless; and all the way home we tried to temper our
+excitement so as to make the announcement of our discovery with a
+nonchalance characteristic of invariably successful hunters.
+
+However, we were by no means always successful. Sometimes it would be
+too late in the day before we established a line; and again a line
+would lead us in a disgusting fashion to some unsuspected apiary; and
+now and then in a woodland tangle we crossed and crisscrossed lines,
+nearly breaking our necks gazing into tree-tops, all to no avail. Then,
+too, even our victory might be tempered by conditions. If the bee-tree
+were small, we judged it contained little honey; if the tree were
+valuable, we doubted if the owner would allow it to be cut. As a matter
+of fact, we seldom cut a bee-tree; and when we did, we wrested from it
+a combination of rotten wood, bee-bread, crushed brood and bees that
+made a potpourri which would prove disastrous to the enfeebled stomachs
+of this generation. But, though we rarely cut a bee-tree, bee-hunting
+lost none of its fascination. For what could be more delightful than
+long days spent in the autumn sunshine, enlivened by an occupation
+vitally interesting that needs must be lazily carried on! So we never
+gave it up until the October frosts had killed all the flowers, and the
+fumes of the honey-comb that we burned failed to entice an enterprising
+bee from her winter quarters to our box.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+BEE BOOKS
+
+
+The bibliography of bee literature is extensive. Scientists of all
+nations have contributed the results of their investigations on bee
+anatomy and bee physiology, and have made bee literature, as a whole,
+most profound and technical reading. However, there are among these
+books many that were written for popular audiences, and that deal with
+the practical side of bee-keeping; of such we add a few titles of those
+best known and of special excellence.
+
+  BENTON, FRANK. “The Honey-Bee.” Mr. Benton, who is our national
+  expert of the Department of Agriculture at Washington, always
+  writes practically, and has carried on experiments with races of
+  bees, which the private bee-keeper could hardly afford to make.
+  The enterprising bee-keeper should keep in close touch with Mr.
+  Benton’s bulletins.
+
+  CHESHIRE, FRANK R. Two volumes. This is one of the finest works
+  that has ever been published upon the honey-bee and bee-keeping.
+  It is delightfully written and has many fine illustrations.
+
+  COOK, PROFESSOR ALBERT J. “The Bee-keeper’s Guide or Manual of
+  the Apiary.” This is the most extensive of all the bee-keeping
+  manuals written for American bee-keepers. It deals with all
+  phases of the subject minutely, and new editions are published
+  frequently enough to keep the book up-to-date. Professor Cook has
+  a wide reputation as a most excellent teacher, and bee-keeping is
+  one of the subjects which he taught for years in the Agricultural
+  College of Michigan.
+
+  COWEN, T. W. “The Honey-bee, Its Natural History, Anatomy and
+  Physiology.”
+
+  COWEN, T. W. “Bee-Keeper’s Guide Books.” The first of these
+  little volumes is a clear and excellent account of the anatomy of
+  the bee. The second is a concise and helpful book on the methods
+  of bee-keeping as practiced in England.
+
+  HUBER, FRANZ. “Nouvelles Observations sur les Abeilles,”
+  published in 1792. English translation in 1841. This classic in
+  bee literature is one of the most delightful of all the bee books
+  that have been written. It shows the careful methods of this
+  blind scientist who has given us more of the understanding of the
+  bee and its life than any other investigator or writer.
+
+  HUTCHINSON, W. Z. “Advanced Bee Culture.”
+
+  HUTCHINSON, W. Z. “Comb Honey.” Mr. Hutchinson is one of our most
+  successful bee-keepers, and he writes clearly and understandingly
+  of his methods.
+
+  LANGSTROTH, L. L. “The Hive and Honey-Bee.” This classic in
+  American apiculture has been revised and kept up-to-date by the
+  scholarly Dadants, father and son, who are well known on two
+  continents as successful bee-keepers. This book written by the
+  father of American apiculture is comprehensive, and is good
+  literature as well as good bee-keeping.
+
+  LUBBOCK, SIR JOHN. “Ants, Bees and Wasps.” Although this is
+  a book of scientific experiments, it should be read by every
+  bee-keeper. No other book tells so well the patience and
+  ingenuity necessary to discover what the bee knows and why it
+  does certain things.
+
+  MAETERLINCK, MAURICE. “The Life of the Bee.” This exquisite piece
+  of literature and social philosophy has attracted much attention,
+  and has introduced the world at large to the wonderful life of
+  the honey-bee in such a poetic and dramatic manner, that most
+  people have regarded it as a work of fiction. Maeterlinck is
+  said to be a practical apiarist, and his book is based upon the
+  facts of bee life as he understood them at the time the book was
+  written. Though some of his facts be questioned, yet probably his
+  statements are no more doubtful than would be those of almost any
+  bee-keeper should he try to write what he thinks he knows about
+  bees. Maeterlinck is the Homer of the bees and, therefore, he has
+  a right to poetic license.
+
+  MILLER, DR. C. C. “Forty Years Among the Bees.” This is a simply
+  told history of the experiences of a successful bee-man. It is a
+  most honest and often a humorous record of bee-keepers’ successes
+  and failures.
+
+  MORLEY, MARGARET. “The Bee People.”
+
+  MORLEY, MARGARET. “The Honey-Makers.” The first of these books
+  is written charmingly and simply for children and covers in an
+  interesting manner the life of the bee. “The Honey-Makers” gives
+  a most extended account of the relation of bees to men, giving
+  extensive quotations from Hindu, Egyptian, Greek and Italian
+  literatures and also a most interesting chapter on the curious
+  superstitions and customs regarding the honey-bee.
+
+  QUINBY, MOSES. “Mysteries of Bee-Keeping,” revised by L. C.
+  Root and now called, “Quinby’s New Bee Book.” This is a simple,
+  straightforward account of a practical man’s dealings with bees.
+
+  ROOT, A. I. “A B C of Bee Culture.” The author may be pardoned
+  if she speaks with special enthusiasm of this book, as Mr. Root
+  was the special teacher that helped the Comstock apiary achieve
+  success. The interesting and truly human way that Mr. Root refers
+  to bees is not only inspiring, but is also most practically
+  helpful. The “A B C of Bee Culture” is arranged conveniently,
+  encyclopedia fashion, so that the discussion of any subject in
+  it may be readily found. Every page of it is interesting, and is
+  based upon the actual experience of a man who is at once a keen
+  observer, a sympathetic friend to the bees, and a most successful
+  apiarist.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+  ABC of Bee Culture, 207.
+
+  Abdomen, 187.
+
+  Æsophagus, 191, Plate XXVI.
+
+  After-swarms led by virgin queen, 81.
+    prevention of 81.
+    reason of and remedy for, 79, 81.
+
+  Alder, 154.
+
+  Alfalfa, 201.
+
+  Alighting board, 15.
+
+  Alimentary canal, 187, 191, Plates XXV., XXVI.
+
+  Alley’s queen and drone trap, 12.
+
+  Alsike, 200.
+
+  Anatomy, external, 181, Plate XXV.
+    internal, 187, Plate XXVI.
+
+  Antenna cleaner, 186, Plate VII.
+
+  Antennæ, 183, Plate VII.
+
+  Ants, 27.
+
+  Apiaries, floating, 209.
+    out, 209.
+
+  Apiary, high fence for, in city, 23.
+    in village garden, 22.
+    location and arrangement of 20.
+    mowing the, 23.
+    old-fashioned, Plate XXVII.
+    old orchard good place for, 20.
+    on city house tops, 22.
+    sheep in, 23.
+    windbreak for, 22.
+
+  Apparatus for extracting, Plate XVIII.
+
+  Apple, 196.
+
+  Apple blossoms, Plate XVII.
+
+  Apricot, 196.
+
+  Aristotle, 172, 207.
+
+  Artificial pasturage, 199.
+
+
+  _Bacillus alvei_, 176.
+
+  Balling of queen, 32, 158.
+
+  Basswood, 198.
+    blossoms, frontispiece.
+
+  Bee, anatomy of, 181.
+    books, 206.
+    brush, Plate III.
+    Brush, Dixie, 19.
+    brush, use of, 101.
+    cellars, for wintering, the Bingham, 151.
+    gloves, 11, 17.
+    glue, its source, 60, 61.
+    glue made from varnish and cement, 61.
+    glue, various uses of, 62.
+    house-keepers, 34.
+    how she gathers pollen, 59.
+    how she collects propolis, 62.
+    ingratitude, 44.
+    journals, 206.
+    moth, 172.
+    moth, development of, 173.
+    moth, how to detect, 173.
+    moth, maxims, 176.
+    moth, remedy for, 174.
+    tent, 102, 168.
+    tree, 214.
+    veil, 11, 16.
+    worker, 59.
+    worker, brains of, 40.
+    worker—life and habits of, 42, 43.
+    worker, sex of, 39.
+
+  Bee-bread, 59.
+    as food, 60.
+    in cells, 98.
+
+  Bee-escape, Plate III.
+    Porter, 18.
+    Porter, use of, 101.
+
+  Bee-gum, 83.
+
+  Bee-hunting, 211.
+
+  Bee-keepers, 206.
+    books written by, 9.
+    number of, 207.
+
+  Bee-keepers’ supplies, catalogue of, 10.
+
+  Bee-keeping, 206.
+    a beginner’s order, 11.
+    as a regular business, 10.
+    attractive materials of, 85.
+    how to begin, 8.
+    too successful, 73.
+    worst way to begin, 10.
+
+  Bees, as a recreation, 5.
+    as socialists, 6.
+    a study in natural science, 6.
+    belong to the garden, 7.
+    control population, 34.
+    diseases of, 176.
+    enemies and diseases of, 172.
+    feeding of, 136.
+    German or black, 12, 47.
+    how they collect propolis, 60, 61.
+    how they secrete wax, 52.
+    how to handle them, 91.
+    how to keep from keeping too many, 73.
+    how to manage when swarming, 66.
+    how to reconcile swarm to new hive, 70.
+    how to unite colonies, 82.
+    how to winter, 145.
+    how to work with, 92.
+    hybrids, 48.
+    Italian, 12, 13.
+    Italian and black bees compared, 48.
+    Italian, Mr. Root’s test for, 48.
+    keep for sake of honey, 4.
+    keep for sake of money, 4.
+    legends and literature of, 3.
+    races of, 12.
+    races of domestic, 47.
+    reasons why one should keep, 3.
+    relations to plants, 194.
+    robbing, 164.
+    secreting wax, Plate X.
+    sense of smell, 92.
+    swarming of, 64.
+    telling the, 61.
+    watering, 143.
+    when they swarm, 65.
+    why they swarm, 64.
+    wild, 47.
+
+  Beeswax, adulterated, 126, 134.
+    clarified by vinegar, 128.
+    how to make it, 126.
+    its value, 126.
+    maxims for making, 135.
+    press, 132.
+    primitive method of rendering, 127.
+    refining of, 134.
+    rendered in wash-boiler, 129.
+
+  Beeswax-extractors, 130.
+
+  Black brood, 179.
+
+  Blue thistle, 204.
+
+  Boardman wax extractor, 130, 131.
+
+  Body wall, 181, Plate XXV.
+
+  Bonnet, 207.
+
+  Borage, 204.
+
+  Bottom board, 83.
+
+  Box elder in blossom, Plate XXX.
+
+  Box hives, 83, 208.
+
+  Brain, 188, Plate XXV.
+
+  Brimstoning bees, 208.
+
+  Brood, black, 179.
+    foul, 176.
+    foundation, 17.
+    how to examine, 97.
+    pickled, 179.
+
+  Brood chamber, 83.
+    how to examine, 95.
+    size of, 14.
+
+  Brood frame, Langstroth, how much honey it will hold, 146.
+    examining of, Plate XIII.
+    how to lift out, 96.
+
+  Brushing or shaking-out method to control swarming, 77.
+
+  Buckwheat, 201.
+
+  Buckwheat in blossom, Plate XXIX.
+
+
+  Cabbage palmetto, 199.
+
+  Cages, queen, 160, 161.
+
+  Candy for feeding bees, how to make, 141.
+    Good, 141, 161.
+
+  Cans for shipping extracted honey in bulk, 123.
+
+  Carniolan bees, 47.
+
+  Carton for comb-honey, 106, 113.
+
+  Catnip, 204.
+
+  Cell of queen, 29.
+
+  Cellars for wintering bees, 150.
+
+  Cerasin, wax adulterant, 134.
+
+  Chaff hives, 11, 14.
+
+  Chaff hives for wintering, 148, Plate XXII.
+
+  Chyle food, 36.
+    how regurgitated, 58.
+
+  City apiary, 22.
+
+  Cleome, 204.
+
+  Clipping wings of queen, 75.
+
+  Clover, 200.
+
+  Coggshall, 209.
+
+  Colonies, how to unite, 82.
+
+  Colony, queenless, 29.
+    queenless, Mr. Root’s method of testing, 159, 160.
+
+  Comb building, Plate IX.
+    built by many workers, 56.
+    drone, 37.
+    cell caps, construction of, 56.
+    foundation for brood-chamber, 85.
+    how to tell honey from brood in capped cells, 97.
+    made without pollen, 50.
+    making, described by A. I. Root, 53.
+    making, Prof. V. L. Kellogg’s observation of, 53.
+    mathematics of, 54.
+    placing in extractor, Plate XIX.
+    shape of, not fortuitous, 54.
+    strength of, 56.
+    uncapping of, Plate XIX.
+
+  Comb-honey and large hives, 77.
+    bee-moth in, 174, 175.
+    candied, 115.
+    compared with extracted honey, 106, 124.
+    conditions for production of, 107.
+    grading of, 112.
+    how to keep, 116.
+    how to make, 106.
+    in 8-frame hive, 14.
+    marketing of, 114.
+    maxims for producers of, 116.
+    shipping of, 113.
+    storing of, 115.
+
+  Combs for extracting, Plate XVIII.
+
+  Cook, Prof. A. J., method of uniting colonies, 82, 207.
+    observation on bee-moth, 172.
+
+  _Coreopsis_, 204.
+
+  Corneil smoker, 11, 16.
+    how to use, 93.
+
+  Coxa, 185.
+
+  Crabapple blossoms, Plate XXVIII.
+
+  Crimson clover, 200.
+
+  Cuticle, 182, Plate XXV.
+
+  Cyprians, 47, 210.
+
+
+  Daisy foundation fastener, 11, 17.
+
+  Dandelion, 205.
+
+  De Geer, 207.
+
+  Details concerning honey, 106.
+
+  Development of worker, 40.
+
+  Diarrhœa, prevention of, 180.
+
+  Diseases of bees, 176.
+
+  Division board, what it is, 13.
+
+  Division board feeder, Plate XII.
+
+  Dixie bee-brush, 12.
+
+  Doolittle division board feeder, 12.
+    wax-extractor, 130, 131.
+
+  Drone, the, 34, Plate V.
+    appearance of, 35.
+    cell of, 37, Plate VIII.
+    cells, how capped, 97.
+    cells, size of, 56.
+    comb, 37.
+    death of, 35.
+    eggs in worker cells, 37.
+    flight of, 36.
+    food of, 36.
+    from unfertilised egg, 36.
+    head of, Plate VI.
+    leg of, Plate VII.
+    life-history of, 36.
+    killing of, 38, 39.
+    maturity of, 37.
+    physical characteristics of, 35, 36.
+    reproductive organs of, Plate XXVI.
+    trap, 19, Plate XVI.
+    wedding flight of, 38.
+
+  Drones, great number of, 38.
+    males, 27.
+
+  Dzierzon, 207, 208.
+
+
+  Egg, 192.
+    queen, 29.
+    tubes, 192, Plate XXVI.
+
+  Eggs, unfertilised, 33.
+
+  Egyptian bees, 47.
+
+  Enemies of bees, 172.
+
+  Entrance to hive, how to contract, 167.
+
+  _Epilobium angustifolium_, 204.
+
+  Eucalyptus, 199.
+
+  Extracted honey and large hives, 77.
+    candied, 122, Plate XXI.
+    care of, 121.
+    compared with comb-honey, 106, 124.
+    drawing from extractor, Plate XX.
+    hive for, 14.
+    how to bottle or can, 122.
+    how to produce it, 117.
+    in glass jars, Plate XXI.
+    maxims for the producers of, 124.
+    packages for, 123.
+
+  Extracting room and apparatus, Plate XVIII.
+
+  Extractor, honey, invention of, 117.
+
+  Extractor, Solar wax, 130.
+
+  Extractor, wax, 130.
+
+  Eyes, compound, 183, Plate VI.
+    simple, 183, Plate VI.
+
+
+  Fabricius, 207.
+
+  Feeder, Boardman, 138.
+    Division board, 138.
+    Doolittle, 19.
+    pepper-box, 139.
+
+  Feeders, Smith, Hedden, Miller, 139.
+
+  Feeding back, 143.
+    bees, 136.
+    candy, 140.
+    chunk honey, 140.
+    for honey, 142.
+    for winter, 137.
+    how to do it, 138.
+    how to feed inside the hive, 138.
+    how to feed outside the hive, 138.
+    in fall, 136.
+    in spring, 136.
+    maxims for, 144.
+    rye flour, 142.
+    syrup in combs, 140.
+    what to feed, 137.
+
+  Females of social insects, 27.
+
+  Fence, Plate III.
+    between sections, 88.
+
+  Figwort, 204.
+
+  Fireweed, 204.
+
+  Flowers of the garden, 203.
+
+  Food of worker, 40.
+
+  Foul brood, 176, 179.
+    how to detect, 177.
+    remedy for, 177.
+
+  Foundation, brood, 17.
+    super, 11.
+
+  Foundation-comb, 126, Plate XII.
+    for brood-chamber, 85.
+    for sections, how to cut, 89.
+    how to place in frame, 85, 86.
+    size of, 86.
+
+  Foundation-fastener, Daisy, 17.
+    Parker, 18.
+    super, 17.
+    for extracted honey, 119.
+    foundation for, 84.
+
+  Frames, Hoffman brood, 86.
+    Hoffman self-spacing, 84.
+    Langstroth movable, 84.
+    self-spacing, Plate XII.
+    spacing of, 84.
+
+  Fruit, not punctured by bees, 196.
+
+  Fruit trees, 196, 197.
+
+
+  Gall-berry, 204.
+
+  _Galleria mellonella_, 172.
+
+  Garden flowers, 203.
+
+  German bees compared with Italians, 48.
+
+  German steam wax press, 133.
+
+  Gill-over-the-ground, 204.
+
+  Glands, 189.
+
+  Glands of honey-bee, Plate XXV.
+
+  Goldenrod, 204.
+
+  Grapes, not punctured by bees, 197.
+
+  Guajilla, 199.
+
+
+  Hatch-Gemmill wax press, 133.
+
+  Head, 183, Plate XXV.
+
+  Heart, 188, Plate XXV.
+
+  Hetherington super springs, 90.
+
+  Hive, arrangement in apiary, 24.
+    cover, 15, 83.
+    the description of, 14.
+    entrance, how to contract, 167.
+    essential parts of, 83.
+    history of, 83.
+    how to get the cover off, 95.
+    how to handle it, 83.
+    how to lift out the brood-frames, 96.
+    how to open, 92.
+    industries of, 50.
+    inhabitants of, 27.
+    Langstroth, 8-frame, 10-frame, 14.
+    maxims for opening, 104.
+    one and one-half story, Plate XV.
+    the reasons why it must be opened, 94.
+    telescope cover, 91.
+    tenement, for wintering, 149.
+    to change the location of, 25.
+
+  Hive-stand, 15, 24.
+
+  Hives, chaff, 14, 15.
+    chaff for wintering, 148, Plate XXII.
+    Dadant-Quinby, size of, 77.
+    decoy, 70.
+    devices for carrying into cellar, 152.
+    double-walled, 21.
+    double-walled, cover for, 22.
+    entrance toward south, 25.
+    how to group, 20, 25.
+    large, for extracted honey, 77.
+    large sizes limit swarming, 77.
+    observation, 103.
+    shade boards for, 21.
+    shaded by awning, 21.
+    shaded by thatched roof, 21.
+    shaded by trellis, 21.
+    well shaded, Plate IV.
+    where to put them, 20.
+
+  Hiving bees, Plate XI.
+    maxims for, 72.
+
+  Holy Land bees, 47.
+
+  Honey, the amount produced in the United States, 58.
+    basswood, 198.
+    buckwheat, 202.
+    composition of, 57.
+    flowers, 194.
+    gardens, 199, 204.
+    healthful food, 58.
+    how produced, 57.
+    how to take off in supers, 101.
+    house, 25.
+    not made in the true stomach of the bee, 58.
+    of Hymettus, 204.
+    the only sweet of the ancients, 58.
+    plants, 199.
+    ripened in uncapped cells, 57.
+    ripening of, 120.
+    room, 25.
+    sage, 203.
+    uncapped, 120.
+    uncapping of, 120.
+    unripened for extracting, 119.
+    weeds, 199.
+    when to extract, 119.
+    white clover, 200.
+
+  Honey-extractor, invention of, 117.
+    principles of construction of, 118.
+    use of, 119.
+
+  Honey-stomach, 57, 191, Plate XXVI.
+
+  Horsemint, 204.
+
+  House top for apiary, 22.
+
+  How to clip the queen’s wings, 100.
+    to examine frames of brood-chamber, 95.
+    to find the queen, 99.
+    to find the queen cells, 98.
+    to handle the bees, 91.
+    to introduce a queen, 160, 161.
+    to keep from keeping too many bees, 73.
+    to make comb-honey, 106.
+    to open the hive, 92.
+    to produce extracted honey, 117.
+    to rear queens, 156.
+    to stop robbing, 167.
+    to take off honey in supers, 101.
+    to winter bees, 145.
+    to winter bees in cellars, 150.
+
+  Hruschka, Major Francesco de, inventor of honey-extractor, 117.
+
+  Huber, 61, 103, 208.
+
+  Hutchinson, W. Z., method of treating after-swarms, 81.
+
+  Hymettus, honey of, 204.
+
+  Hypodermis, 182, Plate XXV.
+
+
+  Indian meal moth, 175.
+
+  Industries of the hive, 50.
+
+  Inhabitants of the hive, 27.
+
+  Introducing the queen, 157.
+    by nucleus method, 162.
+
+  Interrelation of bees and plants, 194.
+
+  Intestine, 191, Plate XXVI.
+
+  Italian bees, 47, 204.
+
+  Italian worker, description of, 47.
+
+
+  Jars for extracted honey, 123.
+
+
+  Kellogg, Prof. V. L., 53, 103, 172.
+
+  Kitchen, how bees rob the, 165.
+
+
+  Labium, 184, Plate XXV.
+
+  Labrum, 184, Plate XXV.
+
+  Lamarck, 207.
+
+  Langstroth, 207, 208.
+
+  Latreille, 207.
+
+  Laying worker, 45, 79.
+
+  Leg, 185.
+
+  Legs of honey-bee, Plate VII.
+
+  Legumes, 200.
+
+  Linnæus, 207.
+
+  Location of hive, to mark, 25.
+
+  Locust blossoms, Plate XXXI.
+
+  Locusts, 197.
+
+
+  Males of social insects, 27.
+
+  Malpighian tubes, 191, Plate XXVI.
+
+  Malthusian practices of bees, 34.
+
+  Mandibles, 184, Plate XXV.
+
+  Manum swarm catcher, 12, 19.
+
+  Maple, mountain, Plate XXIV.
+
+  Maples, 154, 197.
+
+  Marjoram, 203.
+
+  Marketing comb-honey, 114.
+
+  Mason’s cans for extracted honey, 123.
+
+  Maxillæ, 184, Plate XXV.
+
+  Maxims for beeswax making, 135.
+    for feeding, 144.
+    for hiving bees, 72.
+    for introducing queens, 163.
+    for opening the hive, 104.
+    for prevention of bee-moth, 176.
+    for producers of comb-honey, 116.
+    for the producer of extracted honey, 124.
+    for wintering, 154.
+    to prevent robbing, 171.
+
+  McEvoy, William, treatment of foul brood, 177.
+
+  Medics, 201.
+
+  Mellilots, 205.
+
+  Metatarsus, 185.
+
+  Micropyle, 192.
+
+  Milkweed, 204.
+
+  Miller, Dr., 102, 162.
+
+  Mignonette, 203.
+
+  Motherwort, 204.
+
+  Mouth parts, 184, Plate XXV.
+
+  Muscles, 187, Plate XXV.
+
+  Muth bottles for extracted honey, 123.
+
+
+  Nervous system, 188, Plate XXV.
+
+  Nucleus, method of introducing queen, 162.
+    to begin with, 13.
+
+
+  Observation hives, 103, opposite frontispiece.
+
+  Ocelli, 183, Plate VI.
+
+  Out-apiaries, 209.
+
+  Ovaries, 192, Plate XXVI.
+
+  Oviduct, 192, Plate XXVI.
+
+  _Oxydendrum arboreum_, 199.
+
+
+  Palpi, 185, Plate XXV.
+
+  Paraffine, wax adulterant, 134.
+
+  Parker foundation fastener, 18.
+
+  Partnership of bees and plants, 195.
+
+  Peach, 196.
+
+  Pear, 196.
+
+  Pickled brood, 179.
+
+  Piping of queen, 31, 32.
+
+  Planting for honey impractical, 199.
+
+  Pliny, 207.
+
+  _Plodia interpunctella_, 175.
+
+  Plum, 196.
+
+  Plum blossoms, Plate XXIII.
+
+  Points about beeswax, 126.
+
+  Poison glands, 193, Plate XXVI.
+
+  Pollen, 59.
+    fed to drone, 37.
+    how gathered, 59.
+    in cells, 98.
+    how placed in cell, 60.
+    made into bee-bread, 60.
+
+  Pollen-baskets, 59, 186, Plate VII.
+
+  Pollen-comb, Plate VII.
+
+  Porter bee-escape, 12, 18.
+
+  Propolis, how collected, 62.
+    how to dissolve, 63.
+    its source, 60, 61.
+    made from varnish and cement, 61.
+    various uses of, 62.
+
+  Pussy willows, 197.
+
+
+  Queen, Plate V.
+    armour of, 30, 31.
+    balling of, 32, 158, 159.
+    cages, 160, 161, Plate XVI.
+    cages, the Miller, 162.
+    capacity for egg-laying, 28.
+    cell, 29, Plate V.
+    cell, how to find, 98.
+    cell, how to cut out, 98.
+    clipping wings of, 75.
+    development of, 28.
+    duels, 30, 31.
+    egg, 29.
+    excluder, 78.
+    first flight of, 32.
+    head of, Plate VI.
+    her attendants, 28.
+    how she lays eggs, 33, 34.
+    how to find, 99.
+    how to handle, 99.
+    how to introduce, 160.
+    introducing by nucleus method, 162.
+    introducing cage, Plate V.
+    introducing of, 157.
+    issues from cell, 30.
+    larva, 30.
+    leg of, Plate VII.
+    maxims for introducing, 163.
+    mother of her subjects, 27.
+    piping of, 31, 32.
+    rearing, 156, 157.
+    removed to prevent swarming, 79.
+    reproductive organs of, 30, Plate XXVI.
+    selection of, 27, 28.
+    surrounded by workers, 99.
+    tested, 14.
+    trap, 19, 75, Plate XIV.
+    virgin, leads after-swarms, 79, 80, 81.
+    weapons, 30, 31.
+    wedding flight of, 32.
+    when to introduce, 159.
+
+  Queen-clipping device, 100.
+
+  Queen-excluding honey-board, use of, 108.
+
+  Queenless colony, 29.
+
+  Queens, development of new, 29.
+    females, 27.
+
+  Queen’s wings, how to clip, 100.
+
+  Quinby, 207.
+
+
+  Rape, 202.
+
+  Rauchfuss wax-extractor, 130, 131.
+
+  Rearing queens, 156.
+
+  Réaumur, 207.
+
+  Red clover, 200.
+
+  Red maple, 197.
+
+  Red raspberry, 202.
+
+  Reproductive organs, 191, Plate XXVI.
+
+  Respiratory system, 188, Plate XXVI.
+
+  Robbing, borrowing, 170.
+    fate of the robbed colony, 170.
+    how it is done, 166.
+    how to detect, 167.
+    how to prevent, 102.
+    how to stop, 167, 168, 169.
+    maxims to prevent, 171.
+    the result of, 164.
+    slow, 170.
+    when it is likely to happen, 165.
+    why, 164.
+
+  Rocky Mountain bee plant, 204.
+
+  Root, 207.
+    treatment of foul brood, 177.
+    views about smoking bees, 93.
+
+  Royal jelly, 29.
+
+  Rye flour for feeding, 142.
+
+
+  Sage, white, 203.
+
+  Sage, black or button, 203.
+
+  _Scrofularia venalis_, 204.
+
+  Section glazed for comb-honey, 106.
+    holder, Plate XIV.
+    holders, 88.
+    of honey, Plate XIV.
+
+  Section-boxes, 88, Plates II., III., XIV.
+    no bee-way, 88.
+    with beeways, 88.
+
+  Sections, 11, 17.
+    fence between, 88.
+    foundation-comb for, 89.
+    how to put together, 89.
+    how to take off, 110.
+    no bee-way, 16.
+    scraping of, 112.
+    stained, 111.
+    unfinished, 110.
+
+  Sense hairs, Plate VII.
+
+  Sense organs, 183.
+
+  Sense pits, Plate VII.
+
+  Shade for hives, 21.
+
+  Sheep in apiary, 23.
+
+  Shipping-cases for comb-honey, 113.
+
+  Skeleton, 181, 187, Plate XXV.
+
+  Slumgum, 131.
+
+  Smell, organs of, 184.
+
+  Smoking bees, should be done carefully, 93, 94.
+
+  Smoker, Corneil, 16, Plate II.
+    how to fill and use, 92, 93.
+
+  Social insects, 27.
+    increase of, 64.
+
+  Solar wax-extractor, 130, 131.
+
+  Sour wood, 198.
+
+  Spanish needle, 204.
+
+  Spraying fruit blossoms with arsenic, 196.
+
+  Spermatheca, 192, Plate XXVI.
+
+  Spermatozoa, 192.
+
+  Spider flower, 204.
+
+  Spiracles, 188, Plate XXVI.
+
+  Spring dwindling, 154.
+
+  Spur, Plate VII.
+
+  Spur wire-embedder, 86.
+
+  Stained sections, 111.
+
+  Sting, 193, Plate XXVI.
+
+  Stomach, 191, Plate XXVI.
+
+  Sumach blossoms, Plate XXIV.
+
+  Storifying, 110.
+
+  Sunflower, 203.
+
+  Super, 11.
+    boxes, 209.
+    cover, 11, 91.
+    description of, 87.
+    filled with section-boxes, Plate XV.
+    for comb-honey, 87.
+    for extracted honey, 87.
+    foundation, 17.
+    how to entice bees into, 108.
+    how to prepare, 90.
+    how to prepare and place in hive, 91.
+    partly filled, Plate III.
+    parts of, 87.
+    ready to be filled, Plate XII.
+    springs, 88, 90.
+
+  Supers, 15, 83.
+    different kinds of, 88.
+    how to take off when filled with honey, 101.
+
+  Swammerdam, 207.
+
+  Swarm, how to hive, 66, 68.
+    how to manage in difficult places, 69.
+    how to reconcile to new hive, 70.
+    how to stop, 66.
+    size of, 65.
+    throwing dirt at, 67.
+    use, fountain pump with, 67.
+    Mr. West’s device for saving, 71.
+    when given off, 65.
+
+  Swarm-catcher, the Manum, 19.
+
+  Swarming, conditions that lead to, 65.
+    control by brushing out method, 77.
+    control by extracting honey, 76.
+    control by giving room, 76.
+    control by removing queen, 79.
+    lessened by use of large hives, 77.
+    necessary to produce comb-honey, 75.
+    of bees, 64.
+    owing to queen or workers, 65.
+
+  Swarms, dividing of, 78.
+
+  Sweet clover, 205.
+
+  Swiss wax extractor, 131.
+
+  Syrian, 47.
+
+  Syrup, for feeding bees how to make, 137.
+    medicated for foul brood, 177.
+
+
+  Taking up bees, 208.
+
+  Tallow, wax adulterant, 134.
+
+  Tarsus, 185.
+
+  Telescope cover, 15.
+
+  Tenement hives for wintering, 149.
+
+  Tents for bee-keepers, 102.
+
+  Termites, 27.
+
+  Thorax, 185.
+
+  Thorn-apple blossoms, Plate XXVIII.
+
+  Thyme, 203.
+
+  Tibia, 185.
+
+  Tiering up, 108.
+
+  Tin pails for extracted honey, 123.
+
+  Tinned wire, 12.
+
+  Tongue, 184, Plate XXV.
+
+  Tracheæ, 189, Plate XXVI.
+
+  Trap for queen, 75.
+
+  Trap, queen and drone, 19.
+
+  Trees, 196.
+
+  Trochanter, 185.
+
+  Turnip, 202.
+
+
+  Uncapping, 120.
+
+  Uncapping cans, the Dadant, 121.
+
+  Uncapping knife, Bingham, 120.
+
+  Urinary organs, 191.
+
+
+  Vagina, 192.
+
+  Van Deusen wax-tube fastener, 12, 18, 86.
+
+  Varnish used as bee glue, 61.
+
+  Vas deferens, 193, Plate XXVI.
+
+  Veil, need for, 16.
+
+  Village garden for apiary, 22.
+
+
+  Wasps, 27.
+
+  Watering bees, 143.
+
+  Wax, amount of honey required to make, 50.
+    bees hang in curtains to make, 52.
+    bees secreting, Plate X.
+    the constituents of, 51.
+    how to make it, 126.
+    made in the fields, 52.
+    made when need for, 52.
+    press, 132, 133.
+    the secretion of, 50.
+    scales, 52.
+
+  Wax-extractors, 130.
+
+  Wax-glands, 52, 191, Plate XXVI.
+
+  Wax-pincers, 186, Plate VII.
+
+  Wax-plates, 51, Plates VI., XXV.
+
+  Wax-tube fastener, 18, Plate III.
+
+  Weeds, 203.
+
+  When to feed, 136.
+
+  When to introduce a queen, 159.
+
+  When to put bees into cellar, 153.
+
+  White clover, 200.
+
+  Wild flowers, 203.
+
+  Willow, 154, 197.
+
+  Wings, 185.
+
+  Wintering bees in single-walled hives, 145.
+    diarrhœa, 179.
+    getting ready for, 146.
+    how much food needed for, 146.
+    in cellars, 150.
+    in chaff hives, 148, Plate XXII.
+    in hive boxes, 147.
+    in tenement hives, 149.
+    maxims for, 154.
+    out doors, 147.
+    poor honey for, 147.
+    spring dwindling, 154.
+    when to put bees in the cellar, 153.
+    when to take bees out of cellar, 153.
+    ways of, 147.
+
+  Wire embedded by heat, 87.
+
+  Wire embedder, 86, Plate III.
+
+  Wire, tinned, 18, 85.
+
+  Worker, 39, Plate V.
+    cell of, 37, 40, 55.
+    cocoon of, 41.
+    death of, 39.
+
+  Worker eggs, in drone cells, 37.
+    head of, Plate VI.
+    laying, 45, 46.
+    leg of, Plate VII.
+    life and habits of, 42, 43.
+    life-history of, 40, 41.
+    maturity of, 41.
+    moulting of, 41.
+    old age and death of, 44.
+
+  Workers, labourers, 27.
+
+
+
+
+  TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
+
+
+  Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
+  and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
+  hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead
+  to the corresponding illustrations. Illustrations without captions
+  have had a description added, this is denoted with parentheses. Where
+  possible illustrations have been shifted to be adjacent to their
+  first reference.
+
+  The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct
+  page references.
+
+  Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
+  corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
+  the text and consultation of external sources.
+
+  Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
+  when a predominant preference was found in the original book.
+
+  Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the
+  text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
+
+    Pg 2:  ‘Form’ replaced by ‘From’ in second caption.
+    Pg 16:  ‘Cornell smokers’ replaced by ‘Corneil smokers’.
+    Pg 16:  ‘Plate I.’ replaced by ‘Plate II.’, in section on Corneil smokers.
+    Pg 70:  ‘onorous’ replaced by ‘onerous’.
+    Pg 93:  ‘Cornell smokers’ replaced by ‘Corneil smokers’.
+    Pg 146:  ‘extravgance’ replaced by ‘extravagance’.
+    Pg 164:  ‘prevades’ replaced by ‘pervades’.
+    Pg 179:  ‘disscribed’ replaced by ‘described’.
+    Pg 183:  ‘from a compact box’ replaced by ‘form a compact box’.
+    Pg 184:  ‘known at the _labrum_’ replaced by
+             ‘known as the _labrum_’.
+    Pg 196:  ‘pollenation’ replaced by ‘pollination’.
+    Pg 221:  ‘Cogshall’ replaced by ‘Coggshall’.
+    Pg 223:  ‘Guagilla’ replaced by ‘Guajilla’.
+    Pg 224:  ‘Latrielle’ replaced by ‘Latreille’.
+    Pg 225:  ‘Œsophagus’ replaced by ‘Æsophagus’ and moved to pg 219.
+    Pg 227:  Page for ‘Thyme’ changed from 230 to 203.
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79076 ***