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The sides of this (Fig, 101, a, a), facing east and west are three
and a half feet long, two feet high on the south end, and two and a
half feet on the north. They are in one piece, which is secured by
nailing the boards which form them to cleats, which are one inch
from the ends. The north end (Fig, 101, b) is three feet by two and a
half feet, the south (Fig. 101, b), three feet by two, and made the
same as are the sides. The slanting top of the sides (Fig. 101, a, a)
is made by using for the upper board, the strip formed by sawing
diagonally from corner to corner a board six inches wide and three
feet long. The cover (Fig. 101, g), which is removed in the figure, is
large enough to cover the top and project one inch at both ends. It
should be battened, and held in one piece by cleats (Fig. 101, h) four
inches wide, nailed on to the ends. These will drop over the ends of
the box, and thus hold the cover in place, and prevent rain and snow
from driving in. When in place this slanting cover permits the rain to
run off easily, and will dry quickly after a storm. By a single nail at
each corner the four sides may be tacked together about the hives,
when they can be packed in with straw (Fig. 101), which should be
carefully done if the day is cold, so as not to disquiet the bees. At the
centre and bottom of the east side (Fig. 101, c), cut out a square
eight inches each way, and between this and the hive place a
bottomless tube (the top of this tube is represented as removed in
figure to show entrance to hive), before putting around the straw and
adding the cover. This box should be put in place before the bleak
cold days of November, and retained in position till the stormy winds
of April are passed by. This permits the bees to fly when very warm
weather comes in winter or spring, and requires no attention from the
apiarist. By placing two or three hives close together in autumn—yet
never move the colonies more than three or four feet at any one
time, as such removals involve the loss of many bees—one box may
be made to cover all, and at less expense. Late in April these may
be removed and packed away, and the straw carried away, or
removed a short distance and burned.
CHAFF HIVES.
Messrs. Townley, Butler, Root, and others, prefer chaff hives,
which are simply double-walled hives, with the four or five inch
chambers filled with chaff. The objection to these I take to be: First,
Danger that so limited a space would not answer in severe seasons;
Second, That such cumbrous hives would be inconvenient to handle
in summer; and, Third, A matter of expense. That they would in part
supply the place of shade, is, perhaps, in their favor, while Mr. A. I.
Root thinks they are not expensive.
BURYING BEES.
Another way to winter safely and very economically, is to bury the
bees. If this is practiced the ground should either be sandy or well
drained. If we can choose a side-hill it should be done. Beneath the
hives and around them, straw should be placed. I should advise
leaving the entrance well open, yet secure against mice. The hives
should all be placed beneath the surface level of the earth, then form
a mound above them sufficient to preserve against extreme warmth
or cold. A trench about the mound to carry the water off quickly is
desirable. In this arrangement the ground acts as a moderator. Five
colonies thus treated the past winter, (1877-8) lost all told less than
one-half gill of bees. As this method has not been so long tried, as
the others, I would suggest caution. Try it with a few colonies, till you
are assured as to the best arrangement, and of its efficacy. I am
inclined to think that it is next to a good snow-bank, as a winter
repository.
SPRING DWINDLING.
As already suggested, this is not to be feared if we keep our bees
breeding till late autumn. It may be further prevented by forbidding
late autumn flights, frequent flights in winter, when the weather is
warm, and too early flying in spring. These may all be curtailed or
prevented by the packing system as described above, as thus
prepared the bees will not feel the warmth, and so will remain quiet
in the hive. Nine colonies which I have packed have been
remarkably quiet, and are in excellent condition this, February 25th,
while two others unpacked have flown day after day, much, I fear, to
their injury. I would leave bees in the packing till near May, and in the
cellar or ground, till early flowers bloom, that we may secure against
too rapid demise of bees in spring.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE HOUSE APIARY.
DESCRIPTION.
This is a double-walled house, which may be rectangular or
octagonal in form. The outer wall should be of brick, and made as
thin as possible. Inside of this there should be wooden strips two-
inches thick, which should receive a layer of paper-sheeting inside,
which may be held by nailing strips two-inches wide immediately
inside the first mentioned strips. These last strips should receive lath,
after which all should be plastered. This may cost more than a purely
wooden structure, but it will be more nearly frost-proof than any other
kind of wall, and in the end will be the cheapest. There will be two
dead air-chambers, each two inches deep, one between the paper
and brick, the other between the paper and the plaster. The entire
wall will be at least eight inches thick. If desired, it may be made less
thick by using one-inch strips, though for our very severe winters the
above is none too thick. The doors and windows should be double
and should all shut closely against rubber. The outer ones should
consist of glass, and should be so hung as to swing out, and in hot
weather should be replaced with door, and window-screens, of
coarse, painted, wire gauze. A small window just above each colony
of bees is quite desirable.
Somewhere in the walls there should be a ventilating tube—a
brick flue would be very good—which should open into the room just
above the floor. Above it might open into the attic, which should be
well aired. Ventilators such as are so common on barns might be
used.
The pipe for admitting air, should, as in the cellar before
described, pass through the ground and enter the floor from below. A
good cellar, well ventilated and thoroughly dry will be convenient,
and should not be neglected. I would have the building but one story,
with joists in ceiling above eight inches thick. Above these I would
sheet with building paper, fastened by nailing strips two inches deep
on top, above which I would ceil with matched boards. I should lath
and plaster below the joists. The hives, which are to be kept
constantly in this house, may rest on two rows of shelves, one at the
floor, the other three feet high, and should be arranged for both top
and side storing in the small section frames. Indeed, the hive need
only consist of the two rabbeted side-boards (Fig, 30, c), and a
division-board with quilt. The entrances of course pass through the
wall. An alighting-board, so hinged as to be let down in summer, but
tightly closed over the entrance during very severe winter weather, I
should think would be very desirable. Between the double windows,
which it will be remembered shut closely against rubber, sacks of
chaff may be placed in winter, if found necessary to keep the proper
temperature. With few colonies this might be very necessary. The
adjacent entrances should vary in color, so that young queens would
not go astray, when they returned from their "Marriage flight."
There are various dangers that are likely to vex the apiarist, and
even to stand in the way of successful apiculture.—Yet, with
knowledge, most, if not all of these evils may be wholly vanquished.
Among these are: Robbing among the bees, disease, and
depredations from other animals.
ROBBING.
This is a trouble that often very greatly annoys the inexperienced.
Bees only rob at such times as the general scarcity of nectar forbids
honest gains. When the question comes: Famine or theft, like many
another, they are not slow to choose the latter. It is often induced by
working with the bees at such times, especially if honey is scattered
about or left lying around the apiary. It is especially to be feared in
spring, when colonies are apt to be weak in both honey and bees,
and thus are unable to protect their own meager stores. The
remedies for this evil are not far to seek:
First. Strong colonies are very rarely molested, and are almost
sure to defend themselves against marauders; hence, it is only the
weaklings of the apiarist's flock that are in danger. Therefore, regard
for our motto, "Keep all colonies strong," will secure against harm
from this cause.
Second. Italians, as before stated, are fully able, and quite as
ready, to protect their rights against neighboring tramps. Woe be to
the thieving bee that dares to violate the sacred rights of the home of
our beautiful Italians. For such temerity is almost sure to cost the
intruder its life.
But weak colonies, like our nuclei, and those too of black bees,
are still easily kept from harm. Usually, the closing of the entrance so
that but a single bee can pass through, is all sufficient. With the hive
we have recommended, this is easily accomplished by simply
moving the hive back.
Another way to secure such colonies against robbing is to move
them into the cellar for a few days. This is a further advantage, as
less food is eaten, and the strength of the individual bees is
conserved by the quiet, and as there is no nectar in the fields no loss
is suffered.
In all the work of the apiary at times of no honey gathering, we
cannot be too careful to keep all honey from the bees unless placed
in the hives. The hives, too, should not be kept open long at a time.
Neat, quick work should be the watch-word. During times when
robbers are essaying to practice their nefarious designs, the bees
are likely to be more than usually irritable, and likely to resent
intrusion; hence the importance of more than usual caution, if it is
desired to introduce a queen.
DISEASE.
The common dysentery—indicated by the bees soiling their
hives, as they void their feces within instead of without—which has
been so free, of late, to work havoc in our apiaries, is, without doubt,
I think, consequent upon wrong management on the part of the
apiarist, as already suggested in Chapter XVII. As the methods to
prevent this have already been sufficiently considered, we pass to
the terrible
FOUL BROOD.
This disease, said to have been known to Aristotle—though this
is doubtful, as a stench attends common dysentery—though it has
occurred in our State as well as in States about us, is not familiar to
me, I having never seen but one case, and that on Kelly's Island, in
the summer of 1875, where I found it had reduced the colonies on
that Island to two. No bee malady can compare with this in
malignancy. By it Dzierzon once lost his whole apiary of 500
colonies.—Mr. E. Rood, first President of the Michigan Association,
has lost his bees two or three times by this same terrible plague.
The symptoms are as follows: Decline in the prosperity of the
colony, because of failure to rear brood. The brood seems to putrefy,
becomes "brown and salvy," and gives off a stench, which is by no
means agreeable, while later, the caps are concave instead of
convex, and have a little hole through them.
There is no longer any doubt as to the cause of this fearful
plague. Like the fell "Pebrine," which came so near exterminating the
"silk worm," and a most lucrative and extensive industry in Europe, it,
as conclusively shown by Drs. Preusz and Shönfeld, of Germany, is
the result of fungous or vegetable growth. Shönfeld not only infected
healthy bee larvæ, but those of other insects, both by means of the
putrescent foul brood, and by taking the spores.
Fungoid growths are very minute, and the spores are so
infinitesimally small as often to elude the sharp detection of the
expert microscopist. Most of the terrible, contagious diseases that
human flesh is heir to, like typhus, diphtheria, cholera, small pox,
&c., &c., are now thought to be due to microscopic germs, and
hence to be spread from home to home, and from hamlet to hamlet,
it is only necessary that the spores, the minute seeds, either by
contact or by some sustaining air current, be brought to new soil of
flesh blood or other tissue—their garden spot—when they at once
spring into growth, and thus lick up the very vitality of their victims.
The huge mushroom will grow in a night. So too, these other plants
—the disease germs—will develop with marvelous rapidity; and
hence the horrors of yellow fever, scarlatina, and cholera.
To cure such diseases, the fungi must be killed. To prevent their
spread, the spores must be destroyed, or else confined. But as these
are so small, so light, and so invisible—easily borne and wafted by
the slightest zephyr of summer, this is often a matter of the utmost
difficulty.
In "Foul Brood" these germs feed on the larvæ of the bees, and
thus convert life and vigor into death and decay. If we can kill this
miniature forest of the hive, and destroy the spores, we shall
extirpate the terrible plague.
REMEDIES.
If we can find a substance that will prove fatal to the fungi, and
yet not injure the bees, the problem is solved. Our German scientists
—those masters in scientific research and discovery, have found this
valuable fungicide in salicylic acid, an extract from the same willows
that give us pollen and nectar. This cheap white powder is easily
soluble in alcohol, and when mixed with borax in water.
Mr. Hilbert, one of the most thoughtful of German bee-keepers,
was the first to effect a radical cure of foul brood in his apiary by the
use of this substance. He dissolved fifty grains of the acid in five
hundred grains of pure spirits. One drop of this in a grain of distilled
water is the mixture he applied. Mr. C. F. Muth, from whom the above
facts as to Herr Hilbert are gathered, suggests a variation in the
mixture.
Mr. Muth suggests an improvement, which takes advantage of
the fact that the acid, which alone is very insoluble in water, is, when
mixed with borax, soluble. His recipe is as follows: One hundred and
twenty-eight grains of salicylic acid, one hundred and twenty-eight
grains of soda borax, and sixteen ounces distilled water. There is no
reason why water without distillation should not do as well.
This remedy is applied as follows: First uncap all the brood, then
throw the fluid over the comb in a fine spray. This will not injure the
bees, but will prove fatal to the fungi.
If the bees are removed to an empty hive, and given no comb for
three or four days, till they have digested all the honey in their
stomachs, and then prevented visiting the affected hive, they are
said to be out of danger. It would seem that the spores are in the
honey, and by taking that, the contagion is administered to the young
bees. The honey may be purified from these noxious germs, by
subjecting it to the boiling temperature, which is generally, if not
always, fatal to the spores of fungoid life. By immersing the combs in
a salicylic acid solution, or sprinkling them with the same, they would
be rendered sterile, and could be used without much fear of
spreading contagion. The disease is probably spread by robber bees
visiting affected hives, and carrying with them in the honey the fatal
germs.
I have found that a paste made of gum tragacanth and water is
very superior, and I much prefer it for either general or special use to
gum Arabic. Yet it soon sours—which means that it is nourishing
these fungoid plants—and thus becomes disagreeable. I have found
that a very little salicylic acid will render it sterile, and thus preserve it
indefinitely.
ENEMIES OF BEES.
Swift was no mean entomologist, as shown in the following
stanza:
The eggs of the bee moth are white, globular and very small.
These are usually pushed into crevices by the female moth as she
extrudes them, which she can easily do by aid of her spy-glass-like
ovipositor. They may be laid in the hive, in the crevice underneath it
or about the entrance.—Soon these eggs hatch, when the gray, dirty
looking caterpillars, with brown heads, seek the comb on which they
feed. To better protect themselves from the bees, they wrap
themselves in a silken tube (Fig, 102) which they have power to spin.
They remain in this tunnel of silk during all their growth, enlarging it
as they eat. By looking closely, the presence of these larvæ may be
known by this robe of glistening silk, as it extends in branching
outlines (Fig, 103) along the surface of the comb. A more speedy
detection, even, than the defaced comb, comes from the particles of
comb, intermingled with the powder-like droppings of the caterpillars,
which will always be seen on the bottom-board in case the moth-
larvæ are at work. Soon, in three or four weeks, the larvæ are full
grown (Fig, 104). Now the six jointed, and the ten prop-legs—making
sixteen in all, the usual number of caterpillars—are plainly visible.
Fig. 106.
These larvæ are about an inch long, and show, by their plump
appearance, that they at least, can digest comb. They now spin their
cocoons, either in some crevice about the hive, or, if very numerous,
singly (Fig, 105, a) or in clusters (Fig, 105, b) on the comb, or even
in the drone-cells (Fig, 105, c) in which they become pupæ, and in
two weeks, even less, sometimes, during the extreme heat of
summer, the moths again appear. In winter, they may remain as
pupæ for months. The moths or millers—sometimes incorrectly
called moth-millers—are of an obscure gray color, and thus so mimic
old boards, that they are very readily passed unobserved by the
apiarist. They are about three-fourths of an inch long, and expand
(Fig, 106) nearly one and one-fourth inches. The females (Fig, 107)
are darker than the males (Fig, 107), possess a longer snout, and
are usually a little larger. The wings, when the moths are quiet (Fig,
107) are flat on the back for a narrow space, then slope very
abruptly. They rest by day, yet, when disturbed, will dart forth with
great swiftness, so Réaumur styled them "nimble-footed." They are
active by night, when they essay to enter the hive and deposit their
one or two hundred eggs. If the females are held in the hand they
will often extrude their eggs; in fact, they have been known to do this
even after the head and thorax were severed from the abdomen, and
still more strange, while the latter was being dissected.
Fig. 107.
Male. Female.
HISTORY.
REMEDIES.
In Europe, late writers give very little space to this moth. Once a
serious pest, it has now ceased to alarm, or even disquiet the
intelligent apiarist. In fact, we may almost call it a blessed evil, as it
will destroy the bees of the heedless, and thus prevent injury to the
markets by their unsalable honey, while to the attentive bee-keeper it
will work no injury at all. Neglect and ignorance are the moth
breeders.
As already stated, Italian bees are rarely injured by moths, and
strong colonies never. As the enterprising apiarist will only possess
these, it is clear that he is free from danger. The intelligent apiarist
will also provide, not only against weak, but queenless colonies as
well, which from their abject discouragement, are the surest victims
to moth invasion. Knowing that destruction is sure, they seem, if not
to court death, to make no effort to delay it.
In working with bees, an occasional web will be seen glistening in
the comb, which should be picked out with a knife till the
manufacturer—the ruthless larva—is found, when it should be
crushed. Any larva seen about the bottom board, seeking a place to
spin its cocoon, or any pupæ, either on comb or in crack, should also
be killed. If, through carelessness, a colony has become hopelessly
victimized by these filthy, stinking, wax devourers, then the bees and
any combs not attacked should be transferred to another hive, after
which the old hive should be sulphured by use of the smoker, as
before described (page 216), then by giving one or two each of the
remaining combs to strong colonies, after killing any pupæ that may
be on them, they will be cleaned and used, while by giving the
enfeebled colony brood, if it has any vigor remaining, and if
necessary a good queen, it will soon be rejoicing in strength and
prosperity.
We have already spoken of caution as to comb honey and
frames of comb (page 216), and so need not speak further of them.
Fig. 109.
Larva.
Imago.
This louse (Fig, 109) is a wingless Dipteron, and one of the
uniques among insects. It is a blind, spider-like parasite, and serves
as a very good connecting link between insects and spiders, or, still
better, between the Diptera, where it belongs, and the Hemiptera,
which contains the bugs and most of the lice. It assumes the semi-
pupa state almost as soon as hatched, and strangest of all, is,
considering the size of the bee on which it lives, and from which it
sucks its nourishment, enormously large. Two or three, and
sometimes even more, (the new Encyclopedia Britannica says 50 or