49. The hives ought not to be liable to be blown down in high winds.

49. The hives ought not to be liable to be blown down in high winds.

My hives, being very low in proportion to their other dimensions, it would require almost a hurricane to upset them.

50. It should enable an Apiarian who lives in the neighborhood of human pilferers, to lock up the precious contents of his hives, in some cheap, simple and convenient way.

A couple of padlocks with some cheap fixtures, will suffice to secure a long range of hives.

51. A good hive should be protected against the destructive ravages of mice in winter.

It seems almost incredible that so puny an animal should dare to invade a hive of bees; and yet not unfrequently they slip in when the bees are compelled by the cold to retreat from the entrance. Having once found admission, they build themselves a nest in their comfortable abode, eat up the honey, and such bees as are too much chilled to make any resistance; and fill the premises with such an abominable stench, that on the approach of warm weather, the bees often in a body abandon their desecrated home. As soon as the cold weather approaches, all my hives may have their entrances either entirely closed, or so contracted that a mouse cannot gain admission.

52. A good hive should have its alighting board constructed so as to shelter the bees against wind and wet, and thus to facilitate to the utmost their entrance when they come home with their heavy burdens.

If this precaution is neglected, much valuable time and many lives will be sacrificed, as the colony cannot be encouraged to use to the best advantage the unpromising days which so often occur in the working season.

I have succeeded in arranging my alighting board in such a manner that the bees are sheltered against wind and wet, and are able to enter the hive with the least possible loss of time.

53. A well constructed hive ought to admit of being shut up in winter, so as to consign the bees to darkness and repose.

Nothing can be more hazardous than to shut up closely an ill protected hive. Even if the bees have an abundance of air, it will not answer to prevent them from flying out, if they are so disposed. As soon as the warmth penetrating their thin hives tempts them to fly, they crowd to the entrance, and if it is shut, multitudes worry themselves to death in trying to get out, and the whole colony is liable to become diseased.

In my hives as soon as the bees are shut up for Winter, they are most effectually protected against all atmospheric changes, and never _desire_ to leave their hives until the entrances are again opened, on the return of suitable weather. Thus they pass the Winter in a state of almost absolute repose; they eat much less honey[12] than when wintered on the ordinary plan; a much smaller number die in the hives; none are lost upon the snow, and they are more healthy, and commence breeding much earlier than they do in the common hives. As some of the holes into the Protector are left open in Winter, any bee that is diseased and wishes to leave the hive can do so. Bees when diseased have a strange propensity to leave their hives, just as animals when sick seek to retreat from their companions; and in Summer such bees may often be seen forsaking their home to perish on the ground. If all egress from the hive in Winter is prevented, the diseased bees will not be able to comply with an instinct which urges them "To leave their country for their country's good."

54. It should possess all these requisites without being too costly for common bee-keepers, or too complicated to be constructed by any one who can handle simple tools: and they should be so combined that the result is a simple hive, which any one can manage who has ordinary intelligence on the subject of bees.

I suppose that the very natural conclusion from reading this long list of desirables, would be that no single hive can combine them all, without being exceedingly complicated and expensive. On the contrary, the simplicity and cheapness with which my hive secures all these results, is one of its most striking peculiarities, the attainment of which has cost me more study than all the other points besides. As far as the bees are concerned, they can work in this hive with even greater facility than in the simple old-fashioned box, as the frames are left rough by the saw, and thus give an admirable support to the bees when building their combs; and they can enter the spare honey boxes, with even more ease than if they were merely continuations of the main hive.

There are a few desirables to which my hive makes not the slightest pretensions! It promises no splendid results to those who purchase it, and yet are too ignorant, or too careless to be entrusted with the management of bees. In bee-keeping, as in other things, a man must first understand his business, and then proceed on the good old maxim, that "the hand of the diligent maketh rich."

It possesses no talismanic influence by which it can convert a bad situation for honey, into a good one; or give the Apiarian an abundant harvest whether the season is productive or otherwise.

It cannot enable the cultivator rapidly to multiply his stocks, and yet to secure, the same season, surplus honey from his bees. As well might the breeder of poultry pretend that he can, in the same year, both raise the greatest number of chickens, and sell the largest number of eggs.

Worse than all, it cannot furnish the many advantages enumerated, and yet be made in as little time, or quite as cheap as a hive which proves, in the end, to be a very dear bargain.

I have not constructed my hive in accordance with crude theories, or mere conjectures, and then insisted that the bees must flourish in such a fanciful contrivance; but I have studied, for many years, most carefully, the nature of the honey-bee; and have diligently compared my observations with those of writers and practical cultivators, who have spent their lives in extending the sphere of Apiarian knowledge; and as the result, have endeavored to adapt my hive to the actual wants and habits of the bee; and to remedy the many difficulties with which I have found its successful culture to be beset. And more than this, I have actually tested by experiments long continued and on a large scale, the merits of this hive, that I might not deceive both myself and others, and add another to the many useless contrivances which have deluded and disgusted a credulous public. I would, however, most earnestly repudiate all claims to having devised a "perfect bee-hive." Perfection can belong only to the works of the great Creator, to whose Omniscient eye, all causes and effects with all their relations, were present, when he spake, and from nothing formed the universe and all its glorious wonders. For man to stamp upon any of his own works, the label of perfection, is to show both his folly and presumption.

It must be confessed that the culture of bees is at a very low ebb in our country, when thousands can be induced to purchase hives which are in most glaring opposition not only to the true principles of Apiarian knowledge, but often, to the plainest dictates of simple common sense. Such have been the losses and disappointments of deluded purchasers, that it is no wonder that they turn from everything offered in the shape of a patent bee-hive, as a miserable humbug, if not a most bare-faced cheat.

I do not hesitate to say that those old-fashioned bee-keepers, who have most steadily refused to meddle with any novelties, and who have used hives of the very simplest construction, or at least such as are only one remove from the old straw hive, or wooden box, have, as a general thing, realized by far the largest profits in the management of bees. They have lost neither time, money nor bees, in the vain hope of obtaining any unusual results from hives, which, in the very nature of the case, can secure nothing really in advance of what can be accomplished by a simple box-hive with an upper chamber.

_A hive of the simplest possible construction_, is only a close imitation of the abode of bees in a state of nature; being a mere hollow receptacle in which they are protected from the weather, and where they can lay up their stores.

_An improved hive_ is one which contains, in addition, a separate apartment in which the bees can be induced to lay up the surplus portion of their stores, for the use of their owner. All the various hives in common use, are only modifications of this latter hive, and, as a general rule, they are bad, exactly in proportion as they depart from it. Not one of them offers any remedy for the loss of the queen, or indeed for most of the casualties to which bees are exposed: they form no reliable basis for any new system of management; and hence the cultivation of bees, is substantially where it was, fifty years ago, and the Apiarian as entirely dependent as ever, upon all the whims and caprices of an insect which may be made completely subject to his control.

No hive which does not furnish a thorough control over every comb, can be considered as any substantial advance on the simple improved or chamber hive. Of all such hives, the one which with the least expense, gives the greatest amount of protection, and the readiest access to the spare honey boxes, is the best.

Having thus enumerated the tests to which all hives ought to be subjected, and by which they should stand or fall, I submit them to the candid examination of practical, common sense bee-keepers, who have had the largest experience in the management of bees, and are most conversant with the evils of the present system; and who are therefore best fitted to apply them to an invention, which, if I may be pardoned for using the enthusiastic language of an experienced Apiarian on examining its practical workings, "introduces, not simply an _improvement_, but a _revolution_ in bee-keeping."

FOOTNOTES:

[12] A writer in the New England Farmer for March, 1853, estimates that the mild winter has been worth in the saving of fodder to the farmers of New Hampshire alone, two and a half millions of dollars! By suitable arrangements, bees even in the very coldest climates can have all the advantages of a mild winter.