This is a simple, and, as we conceive, very effectual method.
We apprehend that very few precautions are cessary for preserving bees in winter. They are not torpid in that season provided they be numerous, , and then they cluster together towards the top of the hive.- But, like other insects, they are liable to torpidity when single, or where there are few ed together, and that torpidity, by an extraordinary increase of cold, will end in death. With the view of saving their provision, it has been proposed to keep bees torpid, or in an ice-house all winter. It is doubted that in a certain degree of cold they cease to consume honey, and animals may live an indefinite time in a state of torpidity. The hives ought not to be exposed to sunshine in the depth of winter, for the bees are induced to go out, and the sudden cold that follows deprives them of the power of .
ing.
The cultivation of bees forms one considerable branch of rural economy, and we could wish to see it much farther extended. This country is capable of supporting at least four or five times the number of hives now kept in it ; and, without indulging in the speculations of extravagant profit, which are ge nerally entertained by the authors who write on the subject, we will confidently affirm, that every one who attempts keeping bees on a moderate scale, and pays them some attention, will find it advantageous. There are repeated instances of bees swarming natu rally three times during a season ; and in the present ,year, 1810, we have known five swarms come from a single hive. Bonner calculates, that 20 stock hives in each parish of Scotland, or 16,000 in all, would, in se ven years, by each merely producing one swarm, aug ment to above two millions and forty-eight thousand. He allows a deduction of forty-eight thousand for losses, which leaves two millions of stock hives. The loss, however, would be much more considerable ; but from the parishes being about a fifth above what he supposes, the difference will not be proportionally great. Such an increase could hardly follow, and some unfavourable years might be destructive of most of the stock ; yet, on the whole, the hives would be numerous compared with what they were in the outset. By another calculation, he supposes an individual pur chasing five hives at each, will obtain, in ten years, 2560 swarms, which, valued at 10s. each, makes a profit of W1280. He supposes that each hive gives one swam annually ; if they give more, that the latter are to be allotted for expenses and in cidental losses. But in similar calculations we should hardly look further than three years ; and it is quite moderate enough to say, that each hive will give one swarm, which may be preserved until the end of the third year. Therefore, as the price of hives in this
year, 1810, is £2, 2s., supposing a stock of ten is obtained, it is far from improbable, that, at the end of the third year, it will be found to have increased to eighty ; and it is likely, also, that other thirty or forty swarms have left the stock hives, or that first swarms have sent out a colony. The reasons we have already given spew why an excessive number of bees cannot be maintained in one place ; and speculations in rearing them should be divided among several indi viduals residing in different districts. The trade of foreign countries in wax is very considerable ; and the increasing demand for it may render the culture of bees more worthy of notice at home. In the year 1806, there was exported from the port of Mogadore, in Africa, 231,555 pounds of bees wax.
The honey bee is frequent in the wild state in warmer climates, but is very rarely to be found in Britain ; nevertheless it is said to exist, and that a hive was discovered within these some years. Thus the animal may have either been domesticated at a very remote period by the inhabitants, or it may have been brought from abroad. Naturalists doubt whe the wild honey bee is a native of America, though existing in numbers in the woods. It is ra ther supposed to have been carried thither in the six teenth or seventeenth century. Honey is said to be a great article of subsistence in Madagascar, and in other places where bees are common in the clefts of trees. In Africa, there is a small bird called cuculus indicator, or the honey bird, which, uttering a pecu liar note, and flitting from bough to bough, will in fallibly lead the traveller to a swarm in some hollow of a tree. Sec Swammerdam Biblia Naturce. Ma raldi sur les A beilles,Ment. de l' Academie des Sciences, 1712. Reaumur, Me,noires pour scrvir a l' Histoire des Insectes, tom. v. Schirach, Histoire Naturelle de la Reine des :Medics. Bergman, De Anibus et Mel lificii vicissitudinibus ea Alveorum ponleratione Ges t imandis : Opuscula, tom. v. Ray, Memoire sur l' His toire dcs Abeilles, Journal de Physique, tom. xxiv. Bonnet, (Euvres, torn. v. Della Rocca, Traite cont plet sur les Abeilles. Butler, The Feminine .Monar chy. Hartlib, Commonwealth of Bees. Thorley, In guzry into the Nature, Order, and Government of Bees. Wildman On the Management of Bees. Brom wich, The Experienced Bce Keeper. Bonner, A new plan for speedily increasing the number of Bee Hives zn Scotland. Huber, New Observations on the Na tural History Of Bees.' See also Arts.