Humanity to Honey-Bees: or, Practical Directions for the Management of Honey-Bees Upon an Improved and Humane Plan, by Which the Lives of Bees May Be Preserved, and Abundance of Honey of a Superior Quality May Be ObtainedNutt, Thomas
Science
Humanity to Honey-Bees: or, Practical Directions for the Management of Honey-Bees Upon an Improved and Humane Plan, by Which the Lives of Bees May Be Preserved, and Abundance of Honey of a Superior Quality May Be Obtained
And what may be done with B, may also be done with either of the C. C.
boxes, as occasion requires. It may not, however, be amiss to be more
explanatory of the mode of taking away the treasures of the Bees in
the side-boxes. It will be necessary to examine minutely the state of
your boxes, particularly when the whole of your colony is full of the
Bees' works. When the tin is put down to divide an end-box from the
mother-hive, you, no doubt, make many prisoners; to prevent which, the
night before separating an end-box from a middle one, lay open the
ventilator, which will not only lower the heat of the box, but will
admit the atmospheric air, which naturally causes the Bees to leave that
apartment, and to draw themselves into the middle-box--their native
climate; when this is done, you may put down the tin-slide (D.) as
already directed, and let your Bees remain fifteen or twenty minutes in
total darkness: then open the windows of the box you are about to take
off, and if the Queen-bee is not within that box, the Bees that are in
it will show a great desire to be liberated from their disagreeable
confinement, by running about in the most hurried, agitated, and
restless manner. But should the Queen-bee be there, you will then find
the Bees show no desire to leave her;--the commotion will appear in
the middle-box. Under such circumstances, which sometimes happen, you
must act with caution; for were you to open the egress from the box,
that is, the block (F.) and tin-slide (2. or 4. as the case may be) to
permit their departure, very shortly would the whole of the working Bees
join their sovereign in the box you intended to take; and this would
be a great disappointment and complete puzzle to the Bee-master, not
thoroughly acquainted with the moves of, or proper mode of managing, his
valuable hive. To me such an occurrence would be a repetition only of a
demonstration of facts--of pleasures unspeakable, in beholding the grand
works of nature, the noble influence of her majesty--the Queen of the
Bees.
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