The apiary; or, bees, bee-hives, and bee culture [1865]: Being a familiar account of the habits of bees, and the most improved methods of management, with full directions, adapted for the cottager, farmer, or scientific apiarianNeighbor, Alfred
Science
The apiary; or, bees, bee-hives, and bee culture [1865]: Being a familiar account of the habits of bees, and the most improved methods of management, with full directions, adapted for the cottager, farmer, or scientific apiarian
Thus filtered through yon flatterer's folded mail
Clings the cooled wax, and hardens to a scale.
Swift at the well-known call, the ready train
(For not a buzz boon Nature breathes in vain,)
Spring to each falling flake, and bear along
Their glossy burdens to the builder throng.
These, with sharp sickle, or with sharper tooth,
Pare each excrescence, and each angle smooth,
Till now, in finish'd pride, two radiant rows
Of snow-white cells one mutual base disclose;
Six shining panels gird each polish'd round,
The door's fine rim, with waxen fillet bound,
_While walls so thin, with sister walls combined,
Weak in themselves, a sure dependance find._
* * * * *
Others in firm phalanx ply their twinkling feet,
Stretch out the ductile mass, and form the street,
With many a cross-way, path, and postern gate,
That shorten to their range the spreading state.
IV. MANIPULATION AND USES OF BAR AND FRAME HIVES.
Having at page 36, given a description of the mechanical arrangements
of bar and frame hives, the next thing is to describe the mode of
introducing the bees, and of thus bringing the humane and scientific
hives into operation. The swarm should be first hived into a common
straw hive from the bough or shrub upon which they may have alighted;
place this hive,--into which we will suppose the bees have been
shaken,--on the ground, propped up on one side with a brick or a flower
pot, or anything of the sort that may be handy, in order that straggler
bees may join the swarm. The spot selected for this should be as shady
an one as can be found, near to the place where the swarm settled; or
it may be shaded from the rays of the sun by fixing matting on two
poles so as to prevent the heat falling on the hive; spread a sheet or
cloth on the ground where an even surface can be obtained; stake this
sheet down at the four corners, to prevent ruts and inequalities, which
are great hindrances to the bees going into the bar and frame hive;
place the latter upon the sheet without its floorboard, having its
front raised on blocks or sticks rather more than an inch,--not more,
otherwise the bees will cluster and attach themselves to the lower part
of the frames instead of going up between. These preparations will
perhaps occupy ten minutes, by which time the swarm will have become
settled and tolerably quiet. Then with a sharp rap precipitate the
bees out of the straw hive on to the sheet immediately in front of the
frame hive; give the straw hive another knock so as to dislodge all the
bees, and then take it quite away, otherwise they may, if it be left
near, perversely choose to go into that instead of the one desired.
In some cases, as when the swarm has to be brought from a distance,
and procured from a cottager about whose skill in carrying out these
directions there may be misgivings, it is best to give instructions
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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