Rural economy for cottage farmers and gardeners, a treasury of information on cowkeeping, sheep, pigs, poultry, the horse, etc.

Front matter

1 UNO Nt

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Introduction

In order to render the arrangement of the subjects treated of in this little volume as convenient as possible, all extraneous matter has been omitted, and they have been placed under distinct and appropriate heads, so that the least experienced reader may find the point on which he seeks information without difficulty.

And in supplying to a large class of readers, who cannot afford to buy expensive and complete books, the cheap and unpretending publication now offered to them, the editors think that they are promoting that diffusion of useful knowledge which is among the best boons of a bountiful Providence to the people

. of the United Kingdom,

Contents

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E agp‘ Sivdiea 1 Es “te ee ual Pall bd of ved fe Cc White's Hive—Nadir Hive, &e. ont The Swarms and Stocks .., jo Defence of the New Method—Feeding—Winter Man- Sietity Directions to Beo-Kocnets «> <<. e = f bi na ion ws _ aa Carrot “ee a * vf a one oy or The I arsnip a ee om . 4 re ia oe » The Bean ee . ad ne ee The Pea Ww or wee ra oe ~ Onion “ee : fe ry ore 2. eee Rhubarb ee ore rf 7 Indian Corn .. is aon bie The V Marrow tie List of ts in Common Cultivation for the Use of Man Wee Coles = 4 v 8 ° ee wer me odo Calendar ies ~ oes How to Out a Cottage Garden did soe The of Order in the Garden ~~ wd phan 4 a Proper Choice of Fruit Trees To the Fruitfulness of Pear Trees a ee ~ A Few Really Good Gooseberries .. oa See Strawberries miGdae a ses P pomeestion ‘ wee = eee " eee The u ee eet oe see ow t oon ee the Lettuce ied Sic = Characters to Servants . Se i ace + one Chestnut eee eee oo What shall I do with the Leaves ? oe eee Observation and idi YS eee - oo

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Chapter II. Modern Method Of Bee-keeping

THE usual method of keeping bees in England is that {eddescal renewsl and) désienitiod, « ice to be condemned, not only on the ground of cruelty, but also from the serious loss thereby occasioned. In every other country of Europe the practice is different: bee-keepers never destroy their bees, but take away a of their produce, and leave them the remainder for winter sustenance. Thus, some place one hive upon another, and in the autumn remove the upper one: others turn out their hives and cut out as much comb and honey as they think the bees can well spare, and by these means they obtain from 20 Ibs. to 40 Ibs. of honey from each hive, and still te: frmpaianenine: bees for future seasons. This method, imperfect as it is, is far superior to that adopted by our country people, of burning the bees, as it is olled, that a smothering them with brimstone ; and we think we shall be fully able to shew this, notwithstanding Cobbett says, ‘It is whimsical to save the bees when you take the honey. You must Seed them ; and if saved, they will die of old age before the next fall.’ This opinion shows the writer to have been really unacquainted with the natural history of bees, and the economy of bee-keeping. Tet us suppose a bee-master in Germany to possess twenty stocks of bees—and many have from 150 to 200— and he takes 30lbs. of honey from each; he has 600 Ibs., and still retains his twenty stocks ; whereas, by the English method of choosing annually the heaviest and lightest stocks for destruction, supposing that ten hives are taken, and each produces 80lbs., we have but 800lbs. of honey, and only half the stock with which to commence the ensuing year!

But the foreign method, though possessing such

THE HONEY BEE, 11L advantages, does not equal what may be done by the better plan of management we are about to explain ; in which we wish to enforce a maxim of a celebrated bee-keeper,—NEVER KILL YOUR BEES—because this, and the prevention of ing constitute the grand features of the superior method. “1 have said it is best to prevent swarming: now hear the reason. The queen bee lays from 10,000 to 30,000 eggs inthe year. In a stock containing 3000 bees, almost all of them in middling years will be busy in nursing the grubs, for they are such good Ss, that they think it their first duty to feed their young ; gathering honey is their second. A swarm goes off ; you have two queens, each with 3000 bees, busy in rearing the eggs which the two queens lay all the ‘summer. They have no spare time to gather honey, and so in a bad year a stock with plenty of bees in it will be often almost empty of honey when you take it up in the autumn, and sometimes even die in the summer if not fed. Now if you prevent swarming by giving them plenty of room, 3000 bees, who were nurses before to the grubs of one queen, will be enough to do the nursing work to the hive, though it is so much larger; for each hive has only one queen, and one queen cannot lay eggs enough to require more nurses, though two may. The other 3000 will store honey for you in the spare room you give them.” In odes to obtain this spare room, if you jaye your bees in straw hives, the following is the method: procure two boards, an inch and-a-half or two inches thick, and of a size a little larger than the’ breadth of your hives ; let there be a piece cut out of the front, in a sey. direction, and another piece similarly on the right and left side of each, to answer the double purpose of doorways, and to allow the moisture from the hives to dram away more readily, as shown in Fig. 1. The side entrances must

made to fit exactly, when the boards are placed together. Before swarming time, in May, a wellstocked hive of last year is to be placed on one board, an empty hive on the other, a small piece of wood being p over that part of the two entrances which is between the two hives—as at c, Fig. 2.

Fig 2

Then stop up the doorway of the full hive, so that the bees may have no way of egress, except through that which is empty, at 4, and if possible, shift the new entrance along the stool on which you have placed your hives, until it comes opposite the part where the old entrance at @ was; and this being sprinkled with a little honey or syrup, the bees will — be soon accustomed to the change. Here, then, you have given your bees room, and instead of swarming, they will soon commence their work of building and storing in their new abode, while the queer, with the nurses, is occupied in rearing a new brood shortly to eome forth in strength, to assist in the good work. When the hive is full it should be removed, lest the bees, for want of room, should swarm off, or lose many days’ work, by hanging out in a cluster at the entrance, as they are often seen to do previously to swarming.

The removal must be effected in this manner: in the middle of a fine day, when most of the bees will be out gathering food, cut off the passage between the two hives, by slipping a piece of tin between the side entrances at c, Fig. 2. Shut up the entrance 8, that at a, and push the hives along the stool, so that the doorway a@ may be over that part of the stool where 6 was. If a great disturbance shortly take place at the mouth of the hive, it is a sign that the queen is in the hive you wish to remove, in which ease you must take away the tin which separates them, and wait until another day. If, on the contrary, the bees go on quietly working, you may be sure that the queen is in the old hive, and that all is well. They must then be left until their labours cease in the evening, when, a little before dark, open the entrance 6, and the prisoners, alarmed at their long separation from their queen, will speedily find their way into the old hive to rejoin her. You may then remove the hive, and placing an empty one in its place, take out the separating slide at c, which will leave it ready for operations on the morrow.

Here, then, you have a full hive, perhaps early in June, and that without destroying a single bee, before those on the old plan have commenced their honey gatherings, and at a time when the produce may be disposed of at a higher price than when the honey all comes to market in the autumn. But there is another thing connected with the anti-swarming system which

is of the greatest importance in bee management— that is VENTILATION.

The queen bee will not lay her eggs im a temperature lower than eighty degrees, as that degree of heat appears tc be necessary for hatching the young brood g

ps therefore, if the new hive be kept cooler than this, she will remain in the old hive to raise her progeny, and there also the workers will deposit the pollen from the anthers of flowers, which forms the bee bread, or food of the young offspring ; while in the other hive nothing will be placed but the finest wax and honey. ‘To ventilate the hive, have fixed in the top a piece of zinc, as large as a crown piece, punched full of small holes; this must be covered until the bees have commenced their combs, then the covering must be removed. The bees will endeavour to fill up the holes with propolis, a gummy substance which they collect from the bark of trees, on which account you must daily keep the holes open by pricking them through with a piece of wire; you will thus ensure a regular and constant current of fresh air through the hive, entering at the doorway and going out at the top, keeping the hive cool, and enabling the bees to perform their work much more quickly and better than they are able to do without ventilation, while the result to yourself will be, that you will have the purest virgin wax and honey.

Chapter III. Capping-—-white’s Hive—nadir Hive, Etc

Ir is sometimes useful, early in May, before the bees have acquired sufficient strength to work in the side hive, to place a small box or bell glass at the top, in which the supernumerary workers may employ their seisure in laying up a small store of honey for you. An inverted fommat will nc the ie equally as well as a glass, besides ig cheaper an less liable to be ait .

A board should be fitted to the top of the hive, made of 1} inch deal, as seen in Fig. 3. The dotted — lines show the place of the flower-pot; a is the hole for the bees to pass through from the hive; besides this, four square holes, 5, are to be sunk one inch deep in the board and covered with pieces of perforated zinc. These communicate with four holes, an inch in diameter, bored from the circumference, as at e. In this way, when your flower-pot is placed on the board, there will be a current of cold air entering the holes atc, passing through those at }, and out at the top of the pot, over which a small piece of pierced zme should also be placed. The cap is in this way effectually ventilated without disturbing the hive, or lowering the temperature required for the breeding of the queen, The bees will stop up the small holes in the zinc at b, they must therefore be occasionally opened by passing a piece of wire, bent upwards at the end, through the aperture at c. The outer holes must be stopped with corks till the bees begin to work, and at any other time when it is not too hot within. In a good season, the flower-pot will be filled in a week, and may then be removed, by carefully slipping two thin plates of zine between the flower-pot and the board, then lifting away the upper plate, together with the pot, to a place of safety; the other plate, which has in the mean time prevented the bees from coming out at the top of the hive, may then be taken off, and a bung placed in the hole at a. The bees remaining in the pot may be got rid of by nage d them, in the evening, near the mouth of the

ive from which they were taken, to which they will return in the manner already described ; or they may be subjected to the fumigating process, hasnt to be explained. For several reasons, we are inclined to recommend straw hives in preference to boxes for bee-management: they are more easily procured, they are cheaper, and if properly protected on the outside, have less tendency to contract damp, which is so fatal to bees. Besides, they have a pretty rustic appearance about them, which boxes, however ornamental, are deficient in; and there is nothing that cannot be accomplished with them, in connexion with bottom boards of the kind we have described, at least as well as with boxes. Yet, as most writers on the subject recommend wooden hives, as possessing superior advantages to straw ones, and we have ourselves, in some respects, experimentally proved their value, we shall not deem it amiss to give a description of them. Undoubtedly the best of all is that invented by the Rey. Stephen White, of Holton in Suffolk, nearly one hundred years ago; and which has since received such improvements as to bring it into practicable management. His plan is this: two boards must be prepared in a similar manner to those described for straw hives, (Fig. 1), except that side entrances need not be mede in the boards. The front doorway may be lengthened to eight inches ; two clamps of wood should also be screwed underneath each board to strengthen it and prevent warping; the two boxes, (Fig. 4), are to be made eleven inches square, and nine inches high inside, of 14 inch deal or elm, except the sides, which are to be placed together, these need not be more than half an inch thick. “The top of the box ought to project on three sides half an inch

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THE HONEY BEE.

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In the above drawing, the boxes are placed so as to show their construction ; when in use they are pushed close together and kept secure by the projecting pieces on the back and front of A, for better protection and appearance, and as affording convenience for lifting. On the top, a two or three inch hole should be cut in the centre, for placing a bell-glass or small hive, and for the purpose of feeding or ventilation. In making a box, it is best to leave the roof withinside unplaned ; if too smooth, the bees often have a di in making the first combs adhere, and they sometimes fall in consequence. A window may be placed at the back and front, or at the end, five inches high and six wide; the glass should be thick, secured by putty, but it must not fit too tightly, or it is apt to crack from the swelling of the wood. The best and neatest way of securing the windows is by a sliding shutter of zmc. Round the window there must be a projecting moulding, mitred at the corners; on one side the piece of moulding is moveable, and to the back of this is screwed a plate of sheet zinc; this passes in a rabbet to receive it, cut on the remaining three sides at the back of the lower edge of the moulding.”

The communication between the boxes must be through openings at the bottom of each, about eight inches long and half an inch wide, which, when the hives are side by side, must correspond very exactly. A sheet of zine, nearly the size of the side, forms the best divider to slip in between when communication is not desired. This may be lifted up sufficiently high to allow the bees to pass through the lower aperture into the side hive, but need not be entirely removed, as it serves to close the other opening at the top, similar to that at the bottom, the sole use of which is merely to introduce a knife to cut out the combs,

which otherwise would be a matter of some difficulty. Pieces of wood, three inches wide, should be screwed on to the front and back of one box, with sufficient projection to lap over the other box when they are placed side by side, so as to exclude the air and light, and keep them the more firmly together, (see A, Fig. 4). The boxes may be fastened to. the boards by hooks and eyes, and they should be weighed

THE HONEY BER. 119 together, and the weight marked on each box, for it is very important to know this, as otherwise, in the autumn, there may be difficulty in ascertaining the exact amount of food left for winter supply. When painted, and well protected from the sun and rain, these boxes will last a very long time. The method of management of these boxes is the same in every respect as that we have recommended for the straw hives. The holes at the top serve either for capping or ventilation. It is not always proper to have the front doorway so wide as eight inches; that is only necessary in the busy season of honey-gathering, and even then the entrance should be closed at dusk, to keep out moths, which are great enemies of bees. In winter, also, you will sometimes require to close the doorway entirely, that the bees may not be tempted out when snow is on the ground, which if they do, they surely perish. The sunshine of winter sometimes deceives them, and attracts them from home, and the cold blasts destroy numbers ere they can return. In order to avoid these troubles, have some blocks made to fit exactly in the doorway after these patterns, one of which is covered with perforated zinc, to serve in winter to prevent the bees from coming out, and in the summer evenings to keep moths from entering, and yet at the same time to admit air; the others are for the purpose of contracting the entrance as may be necessary: that with the single opening is for winter use, and the one with four holes for the early ng and autumn, when the bees are not so busy.

Af the hive be attacked by wasps, or by another stock of bees, the pierced zine block must be used as speedily as possible, to shut out the aggressors, when the bees within will most probably be able to conquer those already entered. In the Bee-Keeper’s Manual, one of the best works for the amateur apiarian, Taylor recommends that the doorway of the box B should be made behind instead of the front, and that when it is desired that the bees should commence working in that box, that they should be turned completely round, the front of the one then to occupy the place of the back of the other. The doorway of the full hive at the back is then to be stopped, and that of the empty one in front to be opened. The bees will then find their entrance at the usual place. We have not ourselves tried this plan of reversing the hives, but see no reason why it should not answer very well, for as bees always return to the spot to which they have been accustomed, it is better when the new doorway is opened, that it should stand exactly over the place where they used to enter. To accomplish this, when straw hives are used, it is customary to have the stool on which the bottom boards are placed as long as three of the boards would occupy. The doorway of the hive a (Fig. 2), is exactly over the middle of the stool in front, while the bees are working in that hive only; but when they are required to work in the other, the entrance 4 will have to be placed just where @ has been before, while @ occupies the formerly empty space on the stool. The plan of reversing will only require the stool to be of the length of two boards, and therein presents an advantage. Napir Hivine.—A simple plan called Nadir hiving, or hiving downwards, is sometimes adopted with very good effect. Bees appear to have a strong desire to work downwards rather than in any other direction, so that in giving them room below we only follow nature, in which we cannot do wrong. There need not be much expense connected with this method. A board may be put on a common butter tub, and fastened down to it; there must be two holes made in the board, and the hive placed upon it shortly before swarming time. The bees, instead of leaving the hive in a swarm, will occupy the tub, and the temperature of this being lower than that of the hive, the queen will not descend, but remain above for breeding; and the honey and wax made in the tub will consequently be pure and of fine quality. J. W. Jeston, Esq., of Henley, states that with this contrivance he found twenty-six pounds of honey in the tub, besides what was in the hive for the bees to live on; so he took the honey in the tub for his use, and replaced it to be filled again.

Prorit, &c.—We do not think it necessary to enter into the explanation of all the plans which have been devised for the purpose of bee-husbandry, as they are much more complicated than the methods we have shown; some are very expensive, and adapted only for those who follow the pursuit for recreation alone. We can confidently recommend the plans described as simple, inexpensive, and effective, and far more profitable than the old method. On this point one writer says :—‘‘ On the old plan of burning the bees, a cottager’s stock is sometimes large, sometimes small. After a bad honey year, he is often tempted to burn many of his good old stocks, in order to make up by numbers the same quantity of honey which in better years he gets from few. Suppose he leaves three stocks, of which two stand the winter, and the next year turns out a very good bee year, he is then not ready to make the most of it, and of course only gets one-tenth of the honey which he would if he had twenty stocks, as he ought to have. Man has nothing to do with the weather, as I said before ; and I am very glad of it, for I am sure it is managed betbetter as it is. All I can do is to show you how you may make the most of a good year, get a fair quantity of honey in a middling year, and not lose ail your bees (as many people do) ina bad one. It is found that in ten years four are very bad years, four middling years, and two very good, when almost any quantity of honey may be got on a good plan. Two hundred and ninety pounds have been taken from one stock wtihout hurting the bees, while the heaviest cot= tage-hive I ever heard of wasunder 100lbs. If I, with ten stocks, get 60 lbs. of honey from each, which I easily can without destroying one of my stocks, am I not better off at the end of the year than you, whose ten stocks have all swarmed, and who, when you take up all the swarms in the autumn, think yourselves well off if you get 20 lbs. from each. You get 200 lbs. I get 600 lbs. of honey.” My. Nutt, too, states that in one season, from May 27th to June 18th, he obtained 183 lbs. of honey from one stock of bees. Now if we take the value of this honey to be but one shilling per pound, we have £9 for the 183 lbs. of honey. But fine honey is really worth double this value, so that a cottager possessing two or three stocks of bees may, by proper management, fully realise the amount of profit we set down in our first chapter. We must frankly confess that we have not ourselves realised such large results from our bees, nor have we taken honey from a side-box earlier than June 10th; yet we ought not to doubt the -accuracy of Mr. Nutt’s statement, and we feel sure that any person who faithfully follows our methods, attending strictly to ventilation, will be well rewarded for his trouble.

Chapter IV. On The Union Of Swarms And Stocks

THE question is frequently asked by the defenders of the old system of bee-management, “But if we prevent swarming, by giving the bees room, how are we to keep up our stock?” ‘To this we reply, “Keep a few stocks from which to obtain fresh swarms, but never take more than one swarm from each hive during the season.” If a cast should come forth, the

THE HONEY BEEF. 123 readiest way of returning it to the parent stock is to take the bees when they are quietly hived, and suddenly dash them into a large tub or pan of water, placed just before the hive from which they came; then put a board sloping upwards from the tub to the mouth of the hive, take out the bees with a skimmer, lay them on the board, and as they dry in the sun, they will ascend to their old habitation, apparently none the worse for their rough treatment. This isa plan we have frequently followed, and always with perfect success, and have generally been able to make the queen a prisoner in her upward march with her now discomfited guards to her former domicile.

There will be no difficulty in recognising the queen from her greater size and more taper body, as shown in the engraving on page 106. When we have not been successful in securing her majesty, no inconvenience has followed, for according to Huber, should a young queen return to the hive, she is speedily destroyed by the reigning monarch. “The cluster of bees that surround her having allowed her some freedom, she seemed to advance towards that part of the comb where her rival stood; then all receded before her, the multitude of workers separating the two adversaries gradually dispersed, until only two remained, these two removed, and allowed the queens to come in sight. At this moment the reigning queen rushed on the stranger with her teeth, seized her near the origin of the wing, and succeeded in fixing her against the comb without any possibility of motion or resistance ; next, curving her body, she pierced her unhappy victim with a mortal wound.”

It will be frequently found in the autumn, that some of your stocks which have swarmed, or some of your new swarms are too weak to stand the winter. This will especially be the case after a cold wet summer, or otherwise bad honey year. Instead, however, of doing as you would formerly have done, by taking up these light hives, and smothering the bees with brimstone, let the injunction before given weigh upon x en your minds, NEVER KILL YouR BEES, for there 1s not the slightest necessity for continuing that barbarous practice, as you may take the honey and yet do some good beside, by uniting your weak stocks of bees to stronger ones, by the method we shall now describe. The hives should be first weighed, and those which do not weigh as much as 20 lbs. should be selected for deprivation. ‘ You may find in damp meadows,” says Cotton, “a fungus which children call ‘ frog’s cheese,’ and ‘puff balls.’ When quite ripe, if you pinch them, a dirty powder, like smoke, will come out. Pick them when half ripe, put them in a bag, and when you have squeezed them to half the size, dry them in an oven or before the fire. The fungus is fit for use when it will hold fire like tinder; keep this dry till the time you take your bees.”

There is another kind of fungus found ing in vaults or cellars, which burns without previous , ing, and will answer the required purpose as well as the other; or rags soaked in a weak solution of saltpetre in water and then dried will do. We have sometimes used common blotting-paper in the absence of other materials. “A round box made of thick tin, without any solder, must be provided. This box must be about two inches in diameter, and an inch and a half deep, with a conical moveable top, about an inch and a half high, perforated with holes.” There must also be some holes at the bottom, to admit air, and it must be supported on legs made of wire, as shown in the cut.