A Manual or an Easy Method of Managing BeesWeeks, John M. (John Moseley)
Science
A Manual or an Easy Method of Managing Bees
Weeks, John M. (John Moseley)
Bees
Bees require more air in order to enable them to endure the heat of summer
and the severity of winter, than at any other time. If they are kept out
in the cold, they need as much air in the winter as in the heat of summer.
It is in a mild temperature only, that it is safe to keep them from the
pure air. If placed below frost in a dry sand-bank, they seem to need
scarcely more than is contained in their hive at the time they are buried,
during the whole winter. If kept in a clean, dry cellar, the mouth so
contracted as to keep out mice, gives them enough. But if they are kept in
the apiary, there should be a slow current of air constantly pressing in
at the bottom and off at the top thro' the ventilator.
RULE IV.
ON PREVENTING ROBBERIES.
At the moment it is observed, that robbers are within, or about the hive,
raise the bottom board so near the edge of the hive as to prevent the
ingress or egress of the bees, and stop the mouth or common entrance and
ventilator. At the same time take care that a small space on all sides of
the hive be left open, so as to afford them all the air they need. Open
the mouth only at evening, and close early in the morning, before the
robbers renew their attack.
REMARKS.
Bees have a peculiar propensity to rob each other, and every precaution
necessary to prevent it, should be exercised by the cultivator. Families
in the same apiary are more likely to engage in this unlawful enterprize
than any others, probably because they are located so near each other, and
are more likely to learn their comparative strength. I never could
discover any intimacy between colonies of the same apiary, except when
they stood on the same bench; and then, all the social intercourse seems
to subsist between the nearest neighbors only.
Bees are not likely to engage in warfare and rob each other, except in the
spring and fall, and at other times in the season, when food is not easily
obtained from blossoms.
Bees do not often engage in robbery in the spring, unless it is in such
hives as have had their combs broken by frost or otherwise, so as to cause
the honey to drip down upon the bottom board. Much care should be
exercised by the apiarian to see that all such hives are properly
ventilated, and at the same time closed in such a manner as to prevent the
entrance of robbers in the day-time, until they have mended the breach, so
as to stop the honey from running.
Clear water should be given them every day, so long as they are kept in
confinement.
I have known many good stocks to be lost in the spring, by being robbed;
and all for want of care. Bees rob each other when they can find but
little else to do; they will rob at any time when frost has destroyed the
flowers, or the weather is so cold as to prevent their collecting honey
from them. Cold, chilly weather prevents the flowers from yielding honey
without frost, as was the case in the summer of 1835, in many places.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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