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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57915	A full discovery of bees Treating of the nature, government, generation & preservation of the bee. With the experiments and improvements, arising from the keeping them in transparent boxes, instead of straw-hives. Also proper directions (to all such as keep bees) as well to prevent their robbing in straw-hives, as their killing in the colonies.The second edition, by Moses Rusden, an apothecary; bee-master to the King's most excellent Majesty. Published by His Majesties especial command, and approved by the Royal Society at Gresham Coll.	Rusden, Moses.; Millton, Henry, engraver.	1685 (1685)	Wing R2312; ESTC R218543	73,763	168

I perfect Colony with three Hives whether all three Box-Hives or the uppermost of them a Straw-Hive although the manner to take them off and the directions to be observed therein are all one and the same yet the Bees themselves are more unwilling to leave the Straw-Hive than a Box-Hive when it is uppermost because whilst they have any Straw-Hive being used to such they breed in it after their old manner when they lacked room that is with a larger circumference about in proportion then they do in Box-Hives where they have room enough and therefore a Colony cannot be said to be well setled untill it hath stood one year after the first uppermost Box Hive is taken off when also a Straw-Hive hath been taken off before and then it is past danger of miscarrying if you order them rightly according to the directions of this Book and you may take a Box Hive off every year if it he a good year and your Bees standing but in an indifferent good place except your ground be overstocked with too great numbers of Colonies I shall now proceed to take them off in which are to be observed four generall heads which for more plainness I think best to set down in the form of several Chapters because they must be all very well considered before the Hive is to be taken off The first General Head to be observed before you take of the uppermost Hive VVHether a Box-Hive or a Straw-Hive to be taken off consider first the state of the Bees which is to see that there be sufficient maintenance and Store of Honey left in the middle Box for the subsistence of all the Bees that they may have enough in the spring and alwayes so much as to spare some if need were when Honey-gathering begins again now to know this observe whether the middle Hive be full of Honey or not which you may see through the glass windows before or behind and if the Combs reach to the bottom so as to fill that middle Box-Hive and the Combs against either or both windows be stopped up white then you may proceed to take off the uppermost whether it be a Straw-Hive or a Box-Hive and otherwise not whatsoever Combs or Bees more or less are in the lower and nethermost Box. However you may take off a Straw-hive in June before Honey-gathering is past though you see not the Honey at the windows of the middle Box if there be any Combs in the nethermost Box but not after the 10th of July The second General Head to he observed before you take off the uppermost Hive THE time and season of the year is very warily to be observed and understood because of the King-Bee Therefore I advise to take them off at such a time of the year wherein the time is past in which they are usually disposed to swarm which in some years is sooner and in some years later the most usual time about twenty miles from London is in the beginning of July and further off from London later in the year but for one generall observation where the harvest is earliest ripe their the Bees are soonest fitted to have there Hives taken off for we see that the harvest is ripe sooner neer London than further off sometimes two or three weeks according to the several distances of the places from London For if you take the upper Hive off in the heat of swarming time you thereby provoke them to swarm and if you take the upper Hive off after the King Bees are reduced to one you thereby endanger the loss of that one King-Bee And if that one King-Bee by any absurdity committed happen to be lost or killed then the certain destruction and loss of the whole Colony will unavoidably follow unless helped to mother King from another stock To avoid which and for the preservation of the King-Bee take the upper Hive off before they are reduced to one and to know when that is take notice when the Bees kill their Drones for then also do they kill all the superfluous young King-Bees and sometimes sooner because all is done by the order of that King which raigns and this is done before the King retires into his winter quarters and therefore take off your upper-Hive the first day as neer as you can that you see the Bees do but begin to beat away their Drones and expell them to the lower parts of the Hive as you may see them sometimes lye an handfull or two together in an heap upon the floor of the house or upon the top of the lower Box which is instead of a floor to the middle Box then is the time for you to take off your upper-Box although the Bees as yet do not kill their Drones But not to leave you in the dark when I come to describe the manner of taking the Upper-Hive off then you shall know how to preserve the King Bee although there is but one left in the Colony without which it were impossible for this Art to obtain its perfection for those who keep Bees in divers places cannot be just at the time with them all especially if they keep many unless they made it their only business therefore I shall discover how the Colony may be preserved safe though the time of the year be so far past that all the King-Bees are reduced to one yet I conclude that the time above described is the best because I find it most agreeable to the nature of the Bees The third General head to be observed before you take of the uppermost Hive BEsides the time and season of the year the time of the day also when you take off the Upper-Hive is to be observed which I advise to be about three or four a clock in the afternoon for if it be done in the morning or in the evening when all the Bees are at home there are then also greater numbers in the upper-Hive as well as in the other and the sewer Bees are in the upper-Hive the better it is to be taken off besides the Bees that come out of the upper-Hive except in the day time may be lost but the chiefest cause why I advise it to be done about three or four of the clock in the afternoon is because it is the most convenient time to put the Bees home again to their Colony when they are taken out of the upper-Hive especially when there are great numbers and when it is done so late in the year that there is but one King-Bee left and he also is in that upper-Hive to be taken off as it generally falls out when a Straw-Hive is uppermost if it be not done in July or before The fourth general head to be observed before you take off the upper-Hive THE fourth head is most material which is the manner how to take off the upper Hive which if duely observed will certainly preserve the King-Bee although there is but one left in all the Colony if you should

rob others but those only that are strong in Bees having great numbers and little food or scarce enough to maintain them do grow desperate from the sense of it and so make it their work to go about to steal and rob from others and those stocks or Colonies that have few Bees are in most danger of being robbed For the robbing Bees will go abroad whilst warm weather permits and going from one stock to another and from one Colony to another will endeavour in very small parties to get in and pilfer and where they find easy entrance and small resistance and can but carry away at three or four times only so many bellies full of stolen Honey then they will be sure to come again and bring more of their fellows and then if they get in though but a fourth number of them escape to return home again laden with Hony to their fellows yet they are sure to return again come with forces greater and greater until they overcome the Stock or Colony out of which at first only two or three Bees had escaped with a little stollen Honey and when they are overcome the true Bees will help the robbers to carry away their own Honey to their Hives according to Virgil Georg. lib. 4. Constructaque mella Diripuere ipsae et crates solvere favorem To prevent all kinds of robbing among your Bees take notice of the times of the year for robbing as followeth All the Summer whilst honey is plenty and to be had abroad for gathering then the Bees are just and honest and will not rob others so that if the next Colony or Hive were full of Honey and no Bees in it they would not go to take it unless they were shewed the way or some Bees should find it to be so by chance by going into the Hive through a mistake or the Combs broken so as to make the Hony in them smell stronger than usual In the Winter the Bees are so soon chilled with cold that they cannot go abroad therefore robbing times are only Spring and Fall In the Spring Bees are not strong as in the Fall therefore robbing is most and more strongly carried on in the Fall than in the Spring besides most of those Stocks which would have robbed others in the fall are themselves dead and starved for want of food before the Spring is so far come on as to rob Take notice also that a vacuum or empty space between the body of the Bees and the mouth of the Hive in robbing time is a great temptation to the robbers as it were inviting them to come by the advantage they have of hiding themselves for some space of time in that vacuum and by abiding there they begin to smell like the true Bees whereby they avoid the pursuit of and are not so soon found out by the true Bees thus the robbers have the greater opportunity to pilfer and when once a few robbing Bees have gotten their booty viz. A belly full of Hony and escape to their own Hives with it then that Colony or Stock out of which the robbers did but pilfer is in very great danger of being robbed To prevent this kind of robbing I have ordered the lower Box of the Colony to be taken away in the manner described before in the 17th Chapter of this Section Another cause of robbing is when there be divers passages out and into the Colony or Hive or if any Bees can get out and in under the Box or Hive by reason of the unevenness of the floor or through any other place besides the common single mouth these passages much endanger robbing because the robbing Bees and Spies by them get access into the Hive or Colony unespied by those that watch To prevent this kind of robbing I have in my directions in divers places ordered all avenues and holes about the Hive or Colony where a Bee can get out or in to be alwaies close stopped up except only their mouth passage Another great cause of robbing is a large entrance into the Colony at the mouth in robbing time which is a great disadvantage to the Colony and so also to a Stock because then is required the greater numbers of Bees to defend it whereby the Colony Bees are wearied and tired out with much watching also you may observe that the robbing Bees will be sooner abroad in the morning about their evill intentions then commonly other Bees go abroad at that time of the year and comming to a Colony or Hive so early in a morning they easily get by the guard if the passage be not so narrow that a centinel might guard it You may know robbing time when it begins by the approaching of several Bees that attempt to go into a Colony or Hive of Bees but dare not flying and hovering about the mouth of it and making many offers to get in untill for their boldness some are caught by the Bees of the Colony and suffer Death for it and others by the example of their fellows sufferings fly away to the next Hive or Colony to try their fortunes there also where if they meet with a strong guard they retire and come no more Thus in some years almost every Stock and Colony is tried by the robbing Bees To prevent this and all other kinds of robbings as well as other absurdities in ordering your Bees besides what hath been already hinted the last and chiefest help to prevent robbing is duely to keep the door or passage of your Bees shut or stopt up all the year according to the season for the causes why so many Stocks of Bees and Colonies are robbed in bad years next to the poverty and strength of the robbing Bees is the neglect of stopping them up soon enough in the fall according as I have known many who would not stop up their Bees because they thought the Bees did still gather Honey thereby to prevent the coming of robbers to them untill they saw their Bees infested with the robbers which was much like to him that shut the Stable door as soon as the horse was stolen out for when once the Bees are much troubled with the robbers if thy die not nor are robbed yet they are much weakned by them The best way therefore is to stop them up thus as soon as hony gathering is past which is sooner or later according to the year which any man may know by the Bees beginning to beat their Drones away by the Bees leaving to work apace then although in July yet narrow their passage to half an inch or an inch according to the strength of your Bees and in the begining of August norrow their passage to half an inch square and let it stand so untill the cold weather and then make it somewhat less according to the strength of your Bees for the Bees must alwaies have some air then leave them so all the winter and in February open the passage again to halfe an