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Table of Contents
  • Audiet Pugnas vitio Parentum / Rara Juventus. Hor: Young men—the few who are left after the crimes of their fathers—will hear of battles. [School and College Latin Exercises]
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  • Scheme for the Classes of a Grammar School
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  • Letter Concerning the Benefit Performance of Comus for Milton's Granddaughter
  • Proposals for printing by subscription, Essays in Verse and Prose.
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  • Dedication to The Female Quixote
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  • An Account of an Attempt to Ascertain the Longitude by Sea, by an Exact Theory of the Variation of the Magnetical Needle
  • Dedication and Preface to An Introduction to the Game of Draughts (1756)
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  • Preface to Richard Rolt, A New Dictionary of Trade and Commerce
  • Reflections on the Present State of Literature
  • TO THE PUBLIC
  • Review of John Armstrong, The History of the Island of Minorca (1756)
  • Review of Stephen White, Collateral Bee-Boxes (1756)
  • Review of Thomas Birch, The History of the Royal Society, vols. 1–2 (1756)
  • Review of Arthur Murphy, The Gray’s-Inn Journal, 2 vols. (1756)
  • Review of Joseph Warton, An Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope (1756)
  • Review of James Hampton, The General History of Polybius (1756)
  • Review of Thomas Blackwell, Memoirs of the Court of Augustus (1753–56)
  • Review of Alexander Russell, The Natural History of Aleppo (1756)
  • Review of Four Letters from Newton to Bentley (1756)
  • Review of William Borlase, Observations on the Islands of Scilly (1756)
  • Review of Archibald Bower, Affidavit (1756); John Douglas, Six Letters and Review of Mr. Bower’s Answer (1757); and John Douglas, Bower and Tillemont Compared (1757)
  • Review of Francis Home, Experiments on Bleaching (1756)
  • Review of Stephen Hales, An Account of a Useful Discovery (1756)
  • Review of Charles Lucas, An Essay on Waters (1756)
  • Review of Robert Keith, A Large New Catalogue of the Bishops (1756)
  • Review of Patrick Browne, The Civil and Natural History of Jamaica (1756)
  • Review of Charles Parkin, An Impartial Account of the Invasion under William Duke of Normandy (1756)
  • Review of A Scheme for Preventing a Further Increase of the National Debt (1756)
  • Review of Conferences and Treaties (1756)
  • Review of Philosophical Transactions (1756)
  • Review of Richard Lovett, The Subtil Medium Prov’d (1756)
  • Review of Benjamin Hoadley and Benjamin Wilson, Observations on a Series of Electrical Experiments (1756)
  • Review of Johann Georg Keyssler, Travels (1756)
  • Review of Elizabeth Harrison, Miscellanies (1756)
  • Review of Jonas Hanway, A Journal of Eight Days Journey (1757)
  • Review of Jonas Hanway, A Journal of Eight Days Journey, Second Edition (1757)
  • Reply to a Letter from Jonas Hanway in the Gazetteer (1757)
  • Review of Samuel Bever, The Cadet (1756)
  • Review of the Test and Con-Test (1756)
  • Review of William Whitehead, Elegies (1757)
  • Review of A Letter to a Gentleman in the Country on the Death of Admiral Byng (1757)
  • Preliminary Discourse in the London Chronicle
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  • "Dedication to John Lindsay, Evangelical History of Our Lord Jesus Christ Harmonized
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  • Of the Duty of a Journalist (1758)
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  • To The Public in the Public Ledger (1760)
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  • Preface to J. Elmer, Tables of Weights and Prices
  • From The Italian Library Containing an Account of the Lives and Works of the most valuable authors of Italy (1757)
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  • Review of William Tytler, Historical and Critical Enquiry into the Evidence Produced … Against Mary Queen of Scots
  • Contributions to John Kennedy, A Complete System of Astronomical Chronology, Unfolding the Scriptures
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  • Review of Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller
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  • The Case of Collier v. Flint
  • Translation of Sallust, De Bello Catilinario
  • General Rules of the Essex Head Club
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© 2023
Review of Stephen White, Collateral Bee-Boxes (1756)
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By Johnson, Samuel

Samuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand

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Review of Stephen White, Collateral Bee-Boxes (1756)1
Collateral Bee-Boxes; Or a new, easy, and advantageous method of managing Bees. In which part of the honey is taken away, in an easy and pleasant manner, without destroying, or much disturbing the Bees; early swarms, if desired; are encouraged, and later ones prevented. By Stephen White, M.A. [1756]
The reverend author of this little treatise appears to be a man of ingenuity, candor, and, what is far more valuable, of piety; willing to communicate his knowledge for the advantage of others, and careful to learn before he presumes to teach, having, as he declares, tried every method before he found the right, and “been almost forty years in making a bee-box.”2
The boxes must be cubes of about eight inches and an half measured within, made of strong dry boards. In the fore part, at the bottom, must be an opening four inches long, and only half an inch high, that is, so low as to exclude a mouse. In the


Page 276

upper part behind must be fixed a piece of crown-glass five inches high and three broad, which must be covered with a shutter to be opened at pleasure. At the two ends of the box, a space is to be left near an inch wide at the bottom; the two ends are made by pieces of slit deal shooting into the edges of the front and back-boards. The boxes have no bottom board. A stick crosses the box from end to end about three inches from the bottom, to support the combs. There must be a board to cover the end, which, as it is to be moveable, must be tied on with tape, which the author fastens by pegs fixed in the box, and turned round at pleasure.
When bees are to be hived, two boxes must be tied together, the ends having the passages of communication left open where they join, and being covered with end-boards at the two outer ends. The rest of the process is as in the common way. When the bees are entered, the box must be covered with a linen cloth and green branches. Where the boxes are placed is of much less importance than is generally thought, the author having known them to thrive on the north side of a high tower. If the shutter of the window be kept close, and the sun fenced off, they will not suffer much inconvenience. They bear cold with little injury; but the hot sun in summer melts their wax, and in winter hinders them from sleep, and makes them consume their stores. He places his boxes on stages one above another, with a cover over head, and a board before them to shelter them from the sun.
When the bees are hived it is proper to look through the glass, to see in which of the boxes they have settled; the mouth is then to be stopped, that they may pass only through the empty box. When they have filled one, they will begin to work in the second, and then a third must be added, by taking off the end-board, which they will have fastened with wax, and putting the new box close with an open passage, the mouths of the two-end boxes must be stopped, that they may go in and out only at the midmost.
About the middle of August you must uncover the glasses, and peep into the hives. Those bees that have filled three


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boxes may, without danger, lose one. About three in the afternoon, therefore, observe the end-box, in which there are fewest bees; open the mouth, and divide it from the middle, by sliding a plate of tin between them; the communication being thus stopped, the bees in the single box will fly out in about two hours, leave the box empty, and join their fellows; the end-board must then be tied on the end of the two boxes, and they may be left till next spring.
By the use of these boxes the time of swarming may be adjusted. Bees do not leave their habitations but for want of room, of which they may have, by this method, more or less at pleasure. If they are confined to two boxes they will swarm early; if three be allowed them, the swarm will be late and larger. After the first swarm it will be proper to prevent a second, by adding box after box, as often as they are filled. Such colonies as require four boxes to keep them from swarming will admit the master to take two boxes in the autumn.
If moths spin their webs in the box it must be cleansed, or the box must be taken away.
It has been found by experience, that bees swarming late, and wanting provisions of their own, cannot be preserved by honey given them, however liberally, either because such honey corrupts, or because the crude wax, called bee-bread, is necessary to their support. When two colonies therefore are weak, there is no way but that of suffering them to perish, or supplying one by the destruction of the other.
The ingenious author having given these plain and benevolent directions, cautions his reader against a mistake which is very common, and which has hitherto deluded the author of this abstract. It has been imagined by many well-meaning men, that bees may be multiplied without end, and that consequently there are no limits to their products and the profits arising from them. But this author confesses, that his method will, in a few years, stock a country with as many bees as it will maintain, which, in some places, are very few. “There are now in my village,” says he, “only ten colonies of bees; and I am persuaded that no greater number can subsist here;


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whereas, in some countries that promise less, there is a profusion of honey. I therefore cannot promise great things; but hope that by my method the poor will be benefited, though not inriched.”3
No one, who intends the pleasure of a bee garden should be contented with this abstract, but consult the original treatise, which has a neat cut of the bee and boxes.
Editorial Notes
1 Eddy, no. 2; LM, I.27–28; to his “skilled condensation of the entire pamphlet” (Eddy, p. 36), SJ adds his own comments, particularly at the beginning and end.
2 White, Bee-Boxes, p. xii. Elsewhere in his introduction, White, the rector of Holton in Suffolk, says, “as it is next to impossible, to turn our thoughts to the observation of these creatures, without lifting them up, at the same time, in adoration of Him who formed them, this will, in a manner, sanctify our pleasures, and turn even our Diversions, into a Sacrifice to our Maker” (pp. viii–ix).
3 This is largely paraphrase, with some quotation, of White, Bee-Boxes, pp. 57–61.
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Document Details
Document TitleReview of Stephen White, Collateral Bee-Boxes (1756)
AuthorJohnson, Samuel
Creation Date1756
Publ. DateN/A
Alt. TitleN/A
Contrib. AuthorJohnson, Samuel
ClassificationSubject: Beekeeping; Subject: Honey; Genre: Book Review
PrinterN/A
PublisherJ. Richardson
Publ. PlaceLondon
VolumeSamuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand
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