Should the original queen be accidentally lost or S destroyed, the cultivator has still another means of preserving the whole colony, which, destitute of r workers' brood, would infallibly perish, by substitu ting a new one in her place. Bees are not immedi ately sensible of the loss or removal of their queen ; their labours are uninterrupted ; they watch over the young, and perform their ordinary occupations. But in a few hours agitation arises ; all appears a scene of tumult in the hive ; a singular humming is beard ; the workers desert their young, and rush with deliri oui impetuosity over the surface of the combs. Then they discover that their queen is no longer among them. There can be no question that this agitation is the consequence of bees having lost their queen ; for should she have been intentionally removed, tran quillity returns on restoring her, and, what is very singular, she is recognised. If a stranger queen be introduced after the reigning one is lost or taken away, the agitation continues ; the stranger is sur rounded, seized, and kept captive by the bees in an impenetrable cluster, where she usually dies either of hunger or from the privation of air. If eighteen hours elapse, the stranger is at first treated in the same manner, but with less rigour ; the bees gradually dis perse, and she is at last liberated. But should there be an interval of twenty-four hours after the loss of the original queen before the stranger one is substi " she will be well received," to use the words of an eminent author, " and reign from the moment of her introduction into the hive." On this head, which it is extremely important for the cultivator to • be intimately acquainted with, we are indebted to Huber for some interesting experiments. On the 15th of April, he introduced a fertile queen, months old, into a glass hive, where the bees having been twenty-four hours deprived of their queen, had already begun to construct twelve royal cells. Im mediately on placing the stranger female on a comb, the bees in the vicinity touched her with their anten na', and passing their trunks over every part of her body, supplied her with honey. These then gave place to others, by which she was treated exactly in the same manner. All vibrated their wings at once, and ranged themselves in a circle " around their sove reign." Hence resulted a kind of agitation, which gradually communicated to the workers situated on the same side of the comb, and induced them to come and see what was going on. Soon arriving, they broke through the circle formed by the first of their com panions, approached the queen, touched her with the antenna', and gave her honey. After this little ce remony, they retired, and, standing behind the others, enlarged the circle. There they vibrated their wings, and buzzed as if experiencing some very agreeable sensation. In a quarter of an hour the queen began to move from her original position, when the bees, so far from opposing her, opened the circle at that part towards which she turned, and formed a guard around. While such incidents occurred on the surface of the comb where the queen stood, all was quiet on the other side. Here the workers apparently were igno rant of the queen's arrival in the hive. They labour ed with great activity at the royal cells, as if still ig norant that they no longer stood in need of them ; they watched over the royal larva., supplied them with jelly, and the likC. But the queen having at length repaired to this side, she was received with the same respect by the bees as she had experienced from their companions on the.other side of the comb. They encompassed her, gave her honey, and touched her with theirantemise ; and what proved better that they treated her as a mother, was their immediately desisting from work at the royal cells ; they removed the worms, and devoured the food collected around them. " From that moment the queen was recog nised by all her people, and conducted herself in this new habitation as if it had been her native hive." Thus when bees have had time to forget their with queen, they receive one substituted for her with greater interest, or, perhaps, with more conspicuous demonstrations of it. The cultivator must, therefore, carefully practise one of two things when a queen is wanting in any of his hives ; he has either to procure a new one by supplying the bees with brood comb, whereby the loss will be repaired in about feukeen or fifteen days, or lie must substitute some supernu merary queen, in which case the impending evils will be completely averted in twenty.four hours.
If two clusters of bees form in swarming, and re main quite separate and distinct from each other, it skews that two queens have left the hive at the same time. But no single swarm being too large, it is ne cessary, for the welfare of the community, that one of the queens be sought for, and sacrificed, on which the whole bees will unite. There are other situations when it is also beneficial to join two or more swarms together ; such as when they are weak on leaving their hives in the summer season, or are sparingly provisioned or peopled towards winter. Numbers, we repeat, independent of affording a better security against external enemies, and in promoting the gene ral activity, are more calculated in society to resist the inclemency of the weather. Those persons, therefore, who cultivate bees solely for' the sake of profit, estimate according to the weight of a hive whether it be sufficiently strong. Hives under four pounds, being supposed to contain about 20,000 bees, are rejected ; but Bonner affirnis, that one consisting 15,000 will do well, providing the season be not far advanced. The reader will not forget what we have observed of the discrepancies among naturalists concerning the number of bees in a given weight. The last mentioned author, who was a practical ope rator in uniting swarms, directs, that the mouths of two hives, the lower one full and the higher empty, are to be applied to mai other, and a sheet, or large cloth, put round them. " The undermost hive must then be rapped with both hands, in the manner a drum is beat ; rapping chiefly on those parts of the hive to which the edges of the comb are fixed, and avoiding the parts opposite to the sides of the combs, lest they should be loosened, and, by falling together, crush the bees between them, as well as the young in the cells. The more bees there are, the sooner will
they run into the new hive ; for the concussion of the hive by the rapping alarms them as an earthquake alarms mankind, and they run to the upper hive in search of a safer habitation. When the bees are thus removed into the new hive, it may be placed where the old one stood, which will collect all the bees to gether, and within ten minutes the bees will begin working as leisurely as any natural swarm." By this means the under hive will be left quite empty, and another may be substituted, in order that three swarms shall be united. Clusters of bees may also be intro duced into a hive to strengthen it, and they are gene rally received without fighting. While the bees are ivery active, the places of a strong and a weak swarm may be interchanged ; the number of the former which are out being much greater, will return to the latter as their own dwelling, and thus strengthen it. There is likewise an easy and simple method of uni ting swarms, which consists in spreading a cloth at night on the ground, close to a hive where two new swarms are to be joined. One of them is to be brought, and put on a stick laid across the cloth, when, giving their hive a smart blow, they will drop down in a cluster. This done, and the empty hive thrown aside, the other should be expeditiously taken from its board, and set over the bees, which will spee dily ascend into it, and unite with its inhabitants. By the means here described, a swarm may be increased to any given extent. Bonner assures us, that his mode may be practised in the middle of the day with little danger, and that he has taken off four swarms in one forenoon without a single sting.
It is ungrateful to reflect, that, after all our care in watching the progress of bees, in screening them from injury, added to our admiration of their singular in dustry, we must at once sacrifice so many thousand lives in order to come at their stores. Yet such is the general, though pernicious practice ; and whole colonies, which, in another year, would send forth tens of thousands equally industrious as themselves, are utterly extirpated. The mode of doing so is well known. When the hives cease to increase in weight, or, rather, when they begin to grow lighter, a hole is dug in the ground, and some rags dipped in melted brimstone being inserted in the clefts of twigs stuck into the earth, the matches are kindled, and, putting the hive above them, the bees are quickly suffocated, and fall down in a heap. Some authors strenuously defend this practice, contending, that all expedients to save the bees are both difficult and precarious, and that they do not produce the same advantages. We conceive that its facility, combined with invete rate adherence to established customs, has proved a strong recommendation. But the majority of modern cultivators are .disposed to preserve the bees, while they share their collections. Towards the end of Sep tember, when all the flowers have faded, when there is little brood in the combs, and the bees are beginning to consume the honey they hate laid up, they may be frightened out of the hive by beating on it, and the combs then safely taken away. This, however, would reduce owner to the necessity of feeding them during winter, whence an earlier season is gene rally chose for it, that the bees may still have time to lay in winter provender. The highest part of a hive being always filled first, and with honey of the finest quality, it may be taken in the midst of summer if the bees are kept in boxes, simply by removing the upper one, and substituting another below, if that be required. As every comb is seen in the leaf hive, any one of the whole can be removed at will, and new divisions inserted. The stores of the bees should be moderately partitioned with them, and due regard always paid to the advancement of the season, and the state of the atmosphere. We cannot tell how much they will produce. Thorley declares, that, in some summers, he has taken two boxes from one hire, each containing thirty pounds of honey. We hear of hives weighing seventy, eighty, or even an hundred pounds ; but these bear no comparison with what M. Duhamel relates. A clergyman in France, who had placed a well-stocked hive over an inverted tub with a hole in the bottom, obtained no less than 420 pounds of honey and six of wax from it. The cul tivator should know the exact weight of his hives, and mark their gradual increase or diminution, which will enable him to ascertain the proper time of taking the honey. Bonner judiciously observes, that " the •harvest of honey, like that of corn, is earlier or later, •more plentiful or scarce in different years, according to the weather and the climate, and the variety of the seasons and situations." Sometimes he has known a hive become gradually lighter after the first week of August ; at other times, in favourable weather, hives situated near heath have continued working actively during the whole of August, and the greater part of September, and daily become heavier. . Of the practical separation of honey and wax we need say little, as it is universally understood by those who cultivate bees for profit. That honey which is most fluid, and runs most easily from the comb, is consider ed the best and finest. To promote the separation of the rest, the combs should be cut into very small portions, and exposed before a fire, to render the ho ney more liquid ; the product will be honey of the second degree of fineness ; and the remainder should be heated still more in a vessel over a fire, and then squeezed through a canvas bag, which will produce a coarser kind, well adapted for feeding bees. It fa cilitates the operation, to erect a stage of three or four sieves, one always finer than the other from the top, and in a short time the separation is effected. Honey comb, wrapped in paper, and kept in a cool place, may be preserved entire during a whole winter or longer. To purify the wax, nothing more is ne cessary than boiling the empty combs, and those de prived of the honey, in water, and removing the scum _which will rise in the successive meltings. The Abbe della Rocca proposes to put a quantity of comb, tied up in a linen or woollen bag, into a cauldron of water ; as the heat increases, the wax liquefies, and, escaping through the interstices of the bag, rises to the surface, while the refuse is retained behind.