But in consequence of the present neglect of this branch of rural economy, we pay annually nearly 12,000_l._ for honey alone.
The imports and exports of wax bleached and unbleached were as follows:
Returned Imported. Exported. for home the rate Consumption. of Duty
1831. 1832. 1831. 1832. 1831. 1832.
Cwt. Cwt. Cwt. s. d.
Unbleached 7,005 1,878 10,002 1 10 0 4,349 2,536 826 Bleached 195 504 94 3 0 0
Produce of Duty.
Unbleached 10,262 Bleached 823
The price of wax varies (duty included) from 5_l._ to 10_l._ a cwt.
In 1831, 7,203 cwt. of wax were imported, of which 3,892 cwt. of it came from Western Africa; 1,551, from Tripoli, Barbary, &c.; and 910 cwt.
from the United States.
In 1839, imports were 6,314 cwt., in 1841, 4,483 cwt. of wax; in 1838, 675 cwt. of honey; and in 1841, 3,761 cwt. valued at 12,000_l._ brought princ.i.p.ally from the West Indies, Germany, and Portugal.
The above statement proves the demand there is in this country for honey and wax.
It is mentioned in Wildman"s pamphlet that, when Corsica was subject to the Romans, a tribute was imposed upon it of no less than two hundred thousand pounds of wax yearly; but this is no proof of the excellence of their honey, which, according to Ovid, was of very ill account, and seems to be the reason why the tributary tax was exacted in wax, in preference to honey.
The honey collected by the bees at all times retains qualities derived from the kind of plant from whence it has been procured, as is manifest not only by the peculiar odour of the honey, such as that collected from leek blossoms and all the onion tribe, but by the effects produced by the use of honey obtained from certain plants, chiefly from the subtribe Rhodoraceae, such as the kalmia, azalea, rhododendron, &c., which yield a honey frequently poisonous and intoxicating, as has been proved by the fatal effects on persons in America. It is recorded by Xenophon in his Anabasis that, during the retreat of the ten thousand, the soldiers sucked some honey-combs in a place near Trebizonde, and in consequence became intoxicated, and did not recover their strength for three or four days; and these effects are supposed to have been produced from the honey having been extracted by the bees from the rhododendron pontic.u.m or azalea pontica of Linnaeus.
Although many of these plants have been introduced into this country, yet, probably from their small proportion to the whole of the flowers in bloom, the honey collected by the bees has not been found to be injured or to have produced any evil consequences.
The goodness and flavour of honey depend on the fragrance of the plants from which the bees collect it, and hence it is that the honey of different places is held in different degrees of estimation.
The honey gathered from the genus erica (termed _heather honey_) and most l.a.b.i.ate plants, is wholesome. That which is made early in the year is preferred to what is collected in the latter end of the season.
Whilst on the subject of honey, I will add the directions given by Wildman, how to separate the honey from the wax: "Take," he says, "the combs which have been extracted from the different hives or boxes into a close room, rather warm than otherwise, that the honey may drain more freely, and keep the doors and windows shut, to prevent the bees from entering, or else they will be very troublesome, and will attack and carry away the greater part of the honey from the combs.
"Lay aside such combs as have young bees or brood in them, as they would give your honey a bad flavour and render it unwholesome, and the bee-brood must also be separated and melted with the brood-combs. When you have thus separated the combs, let such as are very fine be nicely drained by themselves, without the least pressing whatever, having been carefully cleaned of every sort of filth, or insects, and dividing each comb in such a manner that the cells may be open at both ends, and placing them upon a sieve or coa.r.s.e cloth, that the honey may drain off quite pure and undefiled. The remainder of the combs from which the honey has been thus drained, together with those which contained the bee-bread and brood, must be put into a coa.r.s.e cloth or bag, and squeezed or pressed to get all the honey out. This will make it inferior in quality, and unfit for many uses, therefore it should be put into pots or bottles by itself, to feed bees with, for which purpose it will be better than pure honey, on account of the bee-bread that will be mixed with it, which is necessary for their subsistence.
"In order to obtain the wax in a pure state, what remains of the combs after separating the honey, together with the empty combs which had been laid aside, should be put into a copper with clean water; made to boil gently over a slow fire, keeping it constantly stirring. When it is melted, run it through a coa.r.s.e cloth or bag made for the purpose, and put it into a press to separate the wax from the dross. Let the wax run from the press into a vessel placed under it, into which put some water to prevent the wax adhering to the sides.
"If this process of boiling and pressing is repeated twice or even three times, the wax will be much purer and consequently of greater value.
Set it in a place where it may cool by degrees, in pans of the size you would choose your cakes to be, with some water in them, to prevent the wax sticking to the sides whilst hot. Honey should be kept only in stone jars, called Bristol ware, and in a cool and dry situation, but not corked up until a week or two after it has transuded through the sieve, &c., but should be carefully covered with perforated sheets of zinc to keep out insects and flies, &c. after which period the jars may be secured and put into the store-rooms.
"The only protection necessary for gentlemen,--for ladies, I presume, would never venture to undertake the dangerous task of extracting the honey combs from hives or boxes,--will be a pair of buckskin gloves, with a pair of worsted gloves over them extending to the elbows; so that the bees should not be able to creep between the gloves and the sleeves; for the face a piece of wire pattern gauze net, made in the shape of a bag, to draw with a string round the hat above the brim, which will keep it from the face, and the other open end being secured under the neck handkerchief, and with the a.s.sistance of a puff or two of smoke into any hive intended to be operated upon, the bee-master may fearlessly turn up the hive, and cut out combs or dislodge bees from their habitations, &c.
with impunity."
THE ENEMIES TO BEES, &c.
The proprietor having provided shelter for his bees, and as great a plenty of pasture as he possibly can, should next be careful to guard them from the numerous enemies which prey upon them, and destroy their honey-combs. Bees themselves, in the autumn and spring, are very often great enemies to one another, and rob each other"s hives, especially in dry seasons, when the honey gathering is almost over; and the bees from over-stocked hives, not having honey sufficient for their winter"s store, will through necessity attack the old hives or stocks, which are thinned by over swarming, carry away all their honey, and often destroy their queens. In order to prevent this havoc, contract the entrance or entrances of the hive attempted to be robbed, so that a few bees only can enter at a time, by which means the old stocks will be better able to defend themselves. If, notwithstanding this narrowness of the pa.s.sage, robbers attack a hive, the entrance should be instantly closed and kept so till the thieves are gone, and it will be advisable in the evening to examine the state of the hive, especially as to weight, and if the queen be safe, remove it to another place, at least a mile from the old locality. The person who is thus employed, at a time when the bees are full of resentment, should be well defended from their stings.
But, should he be so unfortunate as to get stung for his interference, the first thing is to extract the sting. To alleviate the irritation, cooling lotions should be applied, but the pain of a sting is relieved by applying spirits of hartshorn, or liquor pota.s.sae, to the spot where the sting entered.
One would imagine the moth to be an enemy of no consequence, but the wax-moth (_Tinea mellonella_) is a most formidable enemy. She lays her eggs under the very skirts of the hive, or in the rubbish on the floor, or even in the combs of the bees; these eggs when hatched produce a small whitish worm or larva, and it is in this stage that it commits its ravages, extending its galleries through every quarter of the combs, detaching them from the tops and sides of the hives, and causing them to fall together.
The way to destroy them is frequently to lift up the hive in the morning, and kill all you can see. The most effectual way is to drive the bees into a new hive, but this can be only done in the height of the honey season; or the affected combs may be cut out, and the bees restored to their old habitation.
Mice are likewise very destructive to bees; sometimes they enter at the door, but most commonly near the top of the hive; this they do generally during winter, when the bees are in a torpid state; when this is suspected, set a few traps about the hives.
The common bat will also sometimes take possession of a hive, and commit very great havoc amongst the bees.
Wasps and hornets must be destroyed, if possible, either by gunpowder, or by the more primitive mode of placing limed twigs before the holes, when you have discovered their nests.
The spring is the time to kill the female wasps and hornets, for then, by the death of one female, a whole nest is destroyed. Or place bottles half full of sugar and beer where the wasps frequent; they will go in to drink, and drown themselves in the liquor, not being able to get out of the bottle again. Spiders must be killed, and their nets or webs broken down, otherwise they will catch and destroy many bees.
Swallows, frogs, ants, earwigs, snails, woodlice, poultry, and small birds of almost all kinds, are reckoned amongst their foes. And, therefore, there should be no lack of vigilance on the part of the owner of bees, to keep the bee-house as clean as possible from all vermin.
The signs of dysentery having commenced in any colony of bees may be known by the floor-boards and combs being covered with stains, by the dark coloured evacuations, producing an offensive smell, and frequent deaths amongst the bees. "Bees," says Gelieu, "have no real disease; they are always in good health as long as they are at liberty, are kept warm, and provided with plenty of food. All their pretended diseases are the result of cold, hunger, or the infection produced by a too close and long confinement during winter, and by exposure to damp, &c."
They appear however sometimes to be seized, in the spring, with dysentery; this is occasioned by their feeding too greedily, it is supposed, on honey dew, without the mixture of pollen and other wholesome nutriment.
The only remedy that has been found for this disease, is to give the bees plenty of honey, such honey as that extracted from the refuse combs in the autumn, that had abundance of bee-bread pressed amongst it,--the more the better,--mixing with it a table-spoonful of salt, and giving the bees their full liberty, and a clean hive. Many things are necessary for the preservation of bees, but more especially in this country, where the bees have only one season in five, on an average of years, really good for their honey harvest; wherefore the owner should take care to provide the light stocks with a sufficient quant.i.ty of food, which they have not been able to secure by their own industry, either through the badness of the bee-pasturage, the inclemency of the seasons, the weakness of the colony, or the spoil made by their enemies; and sometimes by the ill-judged management of their owners, in robbing the bees beyond the bounds of reason.
By this last unjust way of proceeding, these poor industrious little insects are absolutely starved, and their greedy masters deservedly experience the old proverb; that "Too much covetousness breaks the bag."
It is impossible to ascertain what quant.i.ty of honey will serve a hive of bees the whole winter, because the number in the hive may be more or less, and in some years, the spring is more forward than in others; but 25 lbs. is said to be the quant.i.ty required in a common cottage-hive.
During frost, the bees consume very little food indeed; and still less during severe cold weather. Mr. White (with many other apiarians) is of opinion, that a greater degree of cold than is commonly imagined to be proper for bees is favourable to them in winter, for the bees during that period, are in so lethargic a state, that little food supports them.
The best method to feed the weak stocks, if in one of Mr. R. Golding"s improved Grecian hives, is to place some combs (drone combs reserved for that purpose) filled on one side with honey, over the centre-board, and covering it over with a common hive.
The advantage of feeding bees from above is great; they are less likely to be attacked by the bees from other hives, and they do not become benumbed by the cold, as the same temperature is maintained above as in the rest of the hive.
But in all cases, bees should be fed in autumn, and before they are in absolute want of food, otherwise they will be so poor and weak that they will not be able to ascend or descend to feed themselves. When that happens, it is almost too late to save them; however, you may try and feed them, by first tying a piece of gauze over the bottom of the hive, turning it up to receive the heat of the sun or fire, and, if the bees revive at all, place a pewter dish with some liquid honey in it, on the floor-board, and the hive over it, when the bees will draw up the honey through the gauze or net without smearing themselves, the the pewter dish having been filled with hot water to keep the honey liquid, and to diffuse a genial warmth throughout the hive, and thus secure them for a time from the cold, which would chill and even kill the bees in the winter, when they came down to the bottom of the hive to feed on the proffered bounty.
In prosperous hives or colonies, as soon as the severity of the winter"s frost is past, the queen-bee begins to lay her eggs in the various cells in the combs, and proceeds in proportion to the mildness of the season to deposit a succession. The number of young bees that may by this means rise in a hive, may endanger the lives of all the bees by famine, for the increased mult.i.tude consume a great deal of honey, an accident likely to happen if the mild weather of January or February should be succeeded by cold, rainy, or even dry weather; for it is found that the flowers do not secrete the sweet juices, which const.i.tute honey, so freely during the prevalence of dry easterly winds; and thus present a barren field for the out-of-door labours of the bees.
On this account, the proprietor should examine the hives frequently at this season, that, if necessary, he may give them a proper supply, in which he should be bountiful rather than otherwise, because the bees are faithful stewards, and will return with interest what is thus in their great need bestowed upon them.
The time of the bees" swarming is generally in the months of May and June, and sometimes July, but the latter is too late, as there are then fewer bees than in the earlier swarms, and they seldom live through the winter without much care and feeding.
The later swarms should be hived in rather smaller hives than the first, that, by cl.u.s.tering together, they may the better nourish and keep themselves warm.
The hours of their swarming are for the most part about twelve o"clock at noon, never before eight, and seldom after four in the afternoon.
The symptom of swarming, is generally the unusual number of bees seen hanging at the mouth of the hive, and if a piping noise, or a shrill note, which is made by the queen is heard, it is a sure index the bees will swarm, if the weather be warm and dry.