A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive | Page 9

terrace for the hives to be placed upon, as
being drier both in summer and winter for the bee-master to walk upon,
when inspecting his bees, and also as less likely to afford shelter for
ants or other enemies to bees; and, besides, it is better for the bees,
which when much fatigued by their journeys, or benumbed by the cold,
are apt to fall around the hives, and would recover more quickly from
the warmth of the dry ground than if they had alighted on damp grass.
The hives should not be placed where water from the eaves of houses,
from hedges, or trees, drop upon them; but they should be near the
mansion house for the convenience of watching the bees, &c.
A small stream of water running near the hives is thought to be of
advantage, especially in dry seasons, with gently declining banks, in
order that the bees may have safe access to it.
Heaths, or places abounding in wild flowers, constitute the best

neighbourhood for an apiary, and in default of this pasturage, there
should be gardens where flowers are cultivated, and fields in which
buck-wheat, clover, or sainfoin, is sown.
But cultivating small gardens of flowers for bees is useless, except a
few early flowers near the hives for the bees to collect some pollen for
the brood, such as the common kinds of crocus, white alyssum, single
blue hepaticas, helleborus niger, and tussilago petasites, all of which
flower early; but should any of the tribe of the willows grow near, there
will be no necessity for cultivating the flowers above-mentioned, as
they yield an abundant harvest of farina, or pollen.
A rich corn country is well known to be a barren desert to the bees
during a greater portion of the year. Hence the judicious practice of
shifting the bees from place to place according to the circumstances of
the season, and the custom of other nations in this particular well
deserves our imitation.
Few places are so happily situated as to afford bees proper pasturage
both in the beginning of the season and also the autumn; it was the
advice of Celsus that, after the vernal pastures are consumed, they
should be transported to places abounding with autumnal flowers; as
was practised by conveying the bees from Achaia to Attica, from
Euboea and the Cyclad Islands to Syrus, and also in Sicily, where they
were brought to Hybla from other parts of the island.
Pliny states that the custom of removing bees from place to place for
fresh pasturage was frequent in the Roman territories, and such is still
the practice of the Italians who live near the banks of the Po, (the river
which Pliny particularly instances,) mentioned by Alexander de
Montfort, who says that the Italians treat their bees in nearly the same
manner as the Egyptians did and still do; that they load boats with hives
and convey them to the neighbourhood of the mountains of Piedmont;
that in proportion as the bees gather in their harvest, the boats, by
growing heavier, sink deeper into the water; and that the watermen
determine from this, when their hives are loaded sufficiently, and it is
time to carry them back to their places from which they came. The
same author relates that the people of the country of Juliers used the

same practice; for that, at a certain season of the year, they carried their
bees to the foot of mountains that were covered with wild thyme.
M. Maillet, who was the French Consul in Egypt in 1692, says in his
curious description of Egypt; "that in spite of the ignorance and
rusticity which have got possession of that country, there yet remain in
it several traces of the industry and skill of the ancient Egyptians." One
of their most admirable contrivances is, the sending their bees annually
into different districts to collect food, at a time when they could not
find any at home.
About the end October, all such inhabitants of Lower Egypt, as have
hives of bees, embark them on the Nile, and convey them up that river
quite into Upper Egypt; observing to time it so that they arrive there
just when the inundation is withdrawn, the lands have been sown, and
the flowers begin to bud. The hives thus sent are marked and numbered
by their respective owners, and placed pyramidically in boats prepared
for the purpose. After they have remained some time at their furthest
station, and are supposed to have gathered all the pollen and honey they
could find in the fields within two or three leagues around, their
conductors convey them in the same boats, two or three leagues lower
down, and there leave the laborious insects so long a time as is
necessary for