III — Modern Bee-Hives
Nutt’s Collateral Hive
The late Mr. Nutt, author of “Humanity to Honey Bees,” may be regarded as a pioneer of modern apiarians; we therefore select his hive wherewith to begin a description of those we have confidence in recommending. Besides, an account of Mr. Nutt’s hive will necessarily include references to the various principles which subsequent inventors have kept in view.
Nutt’s Collateral Hive consists of three boxes placed side by side (C, A, C), with an octagonal box b on the top, which covers a bell-glass. Each of the three boxes is nine inches high, nine inches wide, and eleven inches from back to front. Thin wooden partitions, in which six or seven openings corresponding with each other are made, divide these compartments, so that free access from one box to the other is afforded to the bees; this communication is stopped, when necessary, by a zinc slide passing down between each box. The octagonal cover B is about ten inches in diameter and twenty high, including the sloping octagonal roof, surmounted with an acorn as a finish. There are two large windows in each of the end boxes, and one in the centre box. Across the latter is a thermometer, scaled and marked so as to be an easy guide to the bee-master, showing him, by the rise in temperature, the increased accommodation required; this thermometer is a fixture, the indicating part being protected by two pieces of glass, to prevent the bees from coming between it and the window, and thereby obstructing the view.
D D are ventilators. In the centre of each of the end boxes is a double zinc tube, reaching down a little below the middle: the outer tube is a casing of plain zinc, with holes, about a quarter of an inch wide, dispersed over it; the inside one is of perforated zinc, with’ openings so small as to prevent the escape of the bees; a flange or rim keeps the tubes suspended through a hole made to receive it. The object in having double tubing is to allow the inner one to be drawn up, and the perforations to be opened by pricking out the wax, or rather the propolis, with which bees close all openings in their hives. These tubes admit a thermometer, enclosed in a cylindrical glass, to be occasionally inserted during the gathering season; it requires to be left in the tube for about a quarter of an hour, and on its withdrawal, if found indicating ninety degrees or more, ventilation must be adopted to lower the temperature. The ornamental zinc top D must be left raised, and is easily kept in that position by putting the perforated part a little on one side.
The boxes before described are placed on a raised double floor-board, extending the whole length—viz., about thirty-six inches. The floor-board projects a few inches in front. In the centre is the entrance (as our engraving only shows the back of the hive, we must imagine it on the other side); it is made by cutting a sunken way, of about half an inch deep and three inches wide, in the floor-board, communicating only with the middle box; it is through this entrance alone that the bees find their way into the hive, access to the end boxes and the super being obtained from the inside. An alighting-board is fitted close under the entrance, for the bees to settle upon when returning laden with homey. This alighting-board is removable for the convenience of packing. The centre, or stock-box A, called by Mr. Nutt the Pavilion of Nature, is the receptacle for the swarm. For stocking this, it will be necessary to tack the side tins so as to close the side openings in the partition, and to tack some perforated zinc over the holes at top; the swarm may then be hived into it just the same as with a common hive. A temporary bottom board may be used if the box has to be sent any distance, or a cloth may be tied round to close the bottom (the latter plan is best, because allowing plenty of air); and when brought home at night, the bees being clustered at the top, the cloth or temporary bottom must be removed, the box gently placed on its own floor-board, and the hive set in the place it is permanently to occupy. E E are two block fronts, which open with a hinge. A semicircular hole, three inches long and two inches wide in the middle, is cut in the upper bottom-board, immediately under the window of each box; these apertures are closed by separate perforated zinc slides. These blocks, when opened, afford a ready means of reducing the temperature of the side boxes, a current of air being quickly obtained, and are also useful for allowing the bees to throw out any refuse.
The centre F is a drawer, in which is a feeding-trough, so constructed that the bees can descend through the opening before mentioned on to a false bottom of perforated zinc. Liquid food is easily poured in by pulling out the drawer a little way; the bees readily come down on to the perforated zinc, and take the food by inserting their probosces through the perforations, with no danger of being drowned. Care must be exercised that the food is not given in such quantity as to come above the holes; by this means; each hive has a supply of food accessible only to the inmates, with no possibility, when closely shut in, of attracting robber-bees from other hives.
The exterior of these hives is well painted with two coats of lead colour, covered with two coats of green, and varnished. Notwithstanding this preservation, it is absolutely essential to place such a hive under a shed or cover of some sort, as the action of the sun and rain is likely to decay the wood, whilst the extreme heat of a summer sun might cause the combs to fall from their foundations.
Neat and tasteful sheds may be erected, either of zinc supported by iron or wooden rods, or a thatched roof may be sustained in the same manner, and will form a pretty addition to the flower-garden.
When erecting a covering, it will be well to make it a foot or two longer, so as to allow of a cottage hive on either side, as the appearance of the whole is much improved by such an arrangement.
The following directions, with some adaptation, are from “Nutt on Honey-Bees”:—
“In the middle box the bees are to be first placed: in it they should first construct their beautiful combs, and under the government of one sovereign, the mother of the hive, carry on their curious work, and display their astonishing architectural ingenuity. In this box, the regina of the colony, surrounded by her industrious, happy, humming subjects, carries on the propagation of her species, deposits in the cells prepared for the purpose by the other bees thousands of eggs, though she seldom deposits more than one egg in a cell at a time: these eggs are nursed up into a numerous progeny by the other inhabitants of the hive. It is at this time, when hundreds of young bees are daily coming into existence, that the collateral boxes are of the utmost importance, both to the bees domiciled in them and to their proprietors; for when the brood become perfect bees in a common cottager’s hive, a swarm is the necessary consequence. The queen, accompanied by a vast number of her subjects, leaves the colony, and seeks some other place in which to carry on the work Nature has assigned her. But as swarming may, by proper precaution and attention to this mode of management, generally be prevented, it is good practice to do so, because the time necessarily required to establish a new colony, even supposing the cottager succeeds in saving the swarm, would otherwise be employed in collecting honey, and in enriching the old hive. Here, then, is one of the features of this plan—viz., the prevention of swarming. The period when symptoms of swarming begin to present themselves may be known by an unusual noise, the appearance of more than common activity among the bees in the middle box, and, above all, by a sudden rise of temperature, which will be indicated by the quicksilver in the thermometer rising to seventy-five degrees, as scaled on the thermometer in the box; when these symptoms are apparent, the bee-master may conclude that additional space is required. The top sliding tin should now be withdrawn from under the bell-glass, which will open to the bees a new store-room; this they will soon occupy, and fill with combs and honey of pure whiteness, if the weather be favourable for their uninterrupted labour. It may be well here to mention, that if the glass have a small piece of clean worker comb attached to the perforated ventilating tube, the bees will more speedily commence their operations in it. When the glass is nearly filled, which in a good season will be in a very short space of time, the bees will again require increased accommodation; this will also be indicated by the thermometer further rising to eighty-five degrees. The end box, as thereon marked, must now be given them. Previously to drawing up a slide to enlarge their crowded house, the manager should carefully take off the empty end box he intends to open to them, and thoroughly cleanse it, and then smear or dress the inside of it with a little liquid honey. Thus prepared, he must return the box to its proper situation, and then withdraw the sliding tin that hitherto has cut it off from the middle box; by so doing, the store-room is again enlarged. The bees will commence operations in this new apartment. This simple operation, performed at the proper time, generally prevents swarming; by it the queen gains a vast addition to her dominions, and, consequently, increasing space for the multiplying population of her domicile. Provided the weather continue fine, and the thermometer has risen to ninety-five degrees, as marked on the scale, the remaining tin may be also withdrawn, thereby giving the bees admittance to another box. There is now no lack of store-rooms or of employment for our indefatigable labourers. The cylinder thermometer is required to be occasionally dropped into the ventilating tube of the side boxes to ascertain their temperature; for, if exceeding or approaching that of the middle box, it must be reduced by ventilating: this is done by raising the zinc tops, to allow the air to pass through the perforations. The grand object of this system is to keep the end boxes and the bell-glass cooler than the pavilion or middle box, so as to induce the queen to propagate her species there and there only, and not in the depriving part of the hive; by this means the side and upper combs are in no way discoloured by brood. The queen requires a considerable degree of warmth; the middle box does not require more ventilation than the additional openings afford. The bees enjoy coolness in the side boxes, and thereby the whiteness and purity of the luscious store are increased.”
After the foregoing directions for the working of the hive, it remains to be told how to obtain possession of the store, and to get rid of our industrious tenants from the super and end boxes, of which the super glass will be almost sure to be filled first, having been first given to them. The operation of taking honey is best performed in the middle of a fine sunny day. The mode we prefer is as follows:—Pass an ordinary table-knife all round underneath the rim of the glass, to loosen the cement, properly called propolis; then take a piece of fine wire, or a piece of string will do, and, having hold of the two ends, draw it under the glass very slowly, so as to allow the bees to get out of the way. Having brought the string through, the glass is now separated from the hive; but it is as well to leave the glass in its place for an hour or so; the commotion of the bees will then have subsided: and another advantage we find is, that the bees suck up the liquid and seal up the cells broken by the cutting off. You can then pass underneath the glass two pieces of tin or zinc; the one may be the proper slide to prevent the inmates of the hive coming out at the apertures, the other tin keeps all the bees in the glass close prisoners. After having confined the bees in the glass for a short time, you must see whether they manifest symptoms of uneasiness, because, if they do not, it may be concluded that the queen is among them. In such a case, replace the glass, and recommence the operation on a future day. It is not often that her majesty is in the depriving hive or glass; but this circumstance does sometimes happen, and the removal at such a time must be avoided. When the bees that are prisoners run about in great confusion and restlessness, the operator may conclude that the queen is absent, and that all is right. The glass may be taken away a little distance off, and placed in a flower-pot or other receptacle, where it will be safe when inverted and the tin taken away: the bees will then be glad to make their escape back to their hive. A little tapping at the sides of the glass will render their tarriance uncomfortable, and the glass may then be taken into a darkened room or out-house, with only a small aperture admitting light, which must be open; the bees, like all insects, make towards the light, and so escape. The bee-master should brush them off with a feather from the comb as they can be reached; but on no account, if there are many bees, should the glass be left, because the bees that are in the glass will gorge themselves to their full, and speedily bring a host of others from the adjacent hives, who, in a very little time, would leave only the empty combs. It is truly marvellous how soon they will carry all the store back again, if allowed to do so. An empty glass should be put on to the hive in place of the full one, as it will attract the bees up, thereby preventing the too close crowding of the hive; and, if the summer be not too far advanced, they will work more honey-comb in it.
The removal of the end boxes is a somewhat similar process, but they should on no account be taken away, at the same time as the glass, or, indeed, at a time when any other hive is being—robbed we were going to say, for it is robbery to the bees: they intended the honey for their winter food, and are much enraged at being deprived of it. First shut down the dividing tin; the bees in the end box are now prisoners separated from the hive; keep them so half an hour, and then take away the box bodily to another part of the garden, or into the dark out-house, as before recommended.
It may not be out of place here to say something respecting the enthusiastic inventor of the collateral hive—Thomas Nutt—who was an inhabitant of Spalding, in Lincolnshire. Having been disabled during a considerable period by rheumatic fever, he devoted all his attention to bees, at a time when bee-culture was but little valued; and, although it must be admitted that two boxes were used side by side long before Mr. Nutt’s day, still it is due to him to state that the adoption of three boxes was entirely his own idea, and that, so far as he then knew, the collateral system was his original invention. His statements have been severely criticised, and it does appear almost incredible that the weight of honey which he names could have been produced in one season. But as in the district where he lived there is grown an immense quantity of mustard seed—the flowers of which afford excellent forage for bees—the honey harvests there would, doubtless, be very large. If Mr. Nutt has given his little favourites too much praise, it will be only charitable now to account for his statements by an excess of zeal and enthusiasm in this his study of bee-culture. It may be that the golden harvests he spoke and wrote of have been so far useful that they have induced many to commence bee-keeping, some of whom, whilst they condemned his statements, have themselves written really useful and practical works on the subject, which otherwise might possibly never have appeared. As the monks of old kept the lamp of religion burning, however dimly, until a more enlightened age, so Thomas Nutt may have assisted in a somewhat similar manner by energetically propounding his views, and thereby causing other apiarians to rise up, whose names are now as familiar to us as household words, and whose works posterity will value. The writer of these pages has often accompanied Mr. Nutt on his visits to his patrons in the neighbourhood of London, and seen him perform his operations regardless of the anger of the bees, and free from all fear of their stings. He often expatiated on the cruelty of the brimstone match and suffocation, denouncing the barbarous custom in the following terms: “You may as well kill the cow for her milk, or the hen for her eggs, as the bee for its honey; why continue to light the fatal match, when every cottager in England has the means of saving this most useful and valuable insect?”