Bee Keeping

South of Virginia, Kentucky, and Kansas single-walled hives may be employed in most localities with good success in outdoor wintering. On the approach of the cool or the rainy season a close-fitting quilt should be laid over the frames and several folded newspapers pressed down on this, or a cushion filled with dry chaff or some other soft material may be used instead of paper. The cover or roof should be absolutely rain-proof, yet between this cover and the cushion or papers should be several inches of space with free circulation of air. In order to permit this ventilation above the top packing, the cover should not rest upon the cap or upper story all of the way around, or if it does, an auger hole in each end, protected by wire-cloth against the entrance of mice, should give free passage to the air. In the more northern portion of the section referred to some further protection is advisable (fig. 17), and is really necessary in the mountainous parts of the same territory if the best results are to be obtained. Farther north, and especially in the cold Northwest, much greater protection becomes an absolute necessity. Quilts with newspapers or thin packing above do not alone suffice. The side walls of the hive may be made of pressed straw (fig. 18). These, with top packing, if kept dry outside, are excellent for outdoor wintering, even in climates so cold that ordinary wooden hives do not afford sufficient protection.

In the severest climates, however, still greater protection on all sides of the colony is needed, and packing with chaff or other soft material is decidedly the best plan. The thickness of this surrounding packing should be from 2 inches to 8 or 10 inches for single colonies, according to the severity of the climate, but if four or more colonies are grouped for the winter, so as to make the natural warmth generated mutually advantageous, somewhat less packing will be sufficient. A most important point is to have the soft warmth-retaining packing come in close contact with the edges of the combs, and above all not to have a hive wall, either thick or thin, between this material and the bees. A good plan is to construct an open framework or skeleton hive of laths, cover it with sacking, or, preferably, some less fuzzy cloth which the bees will not gnaw, and after placing it in an outer wooden case large enough every way to admit of the necessary packing about the colony, to fill in on all sides with some dry, porous material (fig. 19). If the frames are shallow, like the Langstroth, it is better to construct the inner case so as to place them on end, and thus give a deeper comb for the winter. Layers of newspapers may come next outside the cloth covering of the framework. Wheat chaff answers well to complete the packing. Wool is to be preferred, but is of course too expensive unless a waste product. Ground cork, waste flax, hemp, sawdust, etc., in fact, any fine porous material, if thoroughly dry, may be used.

A board passageway 3 or 4 inches wide and three-eighths of an inch high should connect this inner apartment and the flight hole of the outer case, thus affording an exit for the bees whenever the weather may permit them to fly. When these preparations have been completed, the hive is ready for the combs, which, with adhering bees, are taken from the summer hive and inserted in the winter hive. A quilt is then laid on the frames and the top packing put on. This, for convenience, may be held in a cloth-bottomed tray. It is quite important, as already mentioned, that air be allowed to circulate freely above the packing. The outside case must be quite rain-proof or else wholly protected from the rain by a roof.

All other necessary conditions having been complied with shortly after the gathering season closed, the combs may be lifted from the summer hives and placed in these specially arranged winter cases before cold weather wholly stops the bees from flying out. Thus prepared for the winter the colonies will need but slight attention from October until March, or, in the North, even later, and the losses will be limited to the small percentage of cases due to failure of apparently good queens.

THE RISK OF LOSS THROUGH DISEASE AND ENEMIES.

Winter losses through disease superinduced by unfavorable surroundings which it is within the power of the bee keeper to avoid have already been considered. But one other very serious disease has been widespread.

FOUL BROOD OR BACILLUS OF THE HIVE.

This is a highly contagious affection which, as it mainly affects the developing brood in the cells, is commonly known as "foul brood." It is due to a microbe (Bacillus alvei) whose spores are easily transported from hive to hive by the bees themselves, by the operator, in honey, or in combs changed from one hive to another. Once established in an apiary, it usually spreads, unless speedily and energetically checked, until all of the colonies in the neighborhood are ruined and even exterminated. The most apparent symptoms are the turning black of larvæ in open cells, many sealed cells with sunken caps, frequently broken in and containing dead larvæ or pupæ in a putrid condition, brown or coffee-colored, jelly-like or ropy in consistency, and giving off an offensive odor. The disease, though known to exist in nearly all countries, can hardly be said to be common. The writer, in an experience of over thirty years in bee keeping in several States of the Union, as well as in a number of foreign countries, has met the disease but rarely, and has had but one experience with it in his own apiary, it having been in this instance brought in by a neighbor who purchased bees at a distance. It was easily cured, without great loss. Thus the beginner's risks of disaster in this direction are, if he be forewarned, comparatively small. He may, furthermore, gain assurance from the fact that, should the disease invade his apiary, prompt and intelligent action will prevent serious loss.

The following is the treatment for a colony which still has sufficient strength of numbers to be worth saving: The bees are to be shaken from their combs just at nightfall into an empty box, which is to be removed at once to a cool, dark place. They are to be confined to the box, but it must be well ventilated through openings covered with wire cloth. During the first forty-eight hours no food should be given to them, and during the second forty-eight hours only a small amount of medicated sirup—a half pint daily for a small colony to a pint for a strong one. This food is prepared by adding one part of pure carbolic acid or phenol to 600 or 700 parts of sugar sirup or honey. At the end of the fourth day the bees are to be shaken into a clean hive supplied with starters of comb foundation. This hive is to be placed outside on a stand some distance from all other colonies, and moderate feeding with medicated sirup or honey should be continued for a few days thereafter.

The combs of diseased colonies which contain brood may be assembled over a single one of these colonies, or, if the amount of brood be too great for one colony to care for, over several such diseased colonies, until the young bees have emerged. All of the honey is then to be extracted. While it is wholesome as food, it should not be offered for sale, lest some of it be used in feeding bees or be inadvertently exposed where foraging bees might find it and carry to their hives the germs of this disease, harmless to other creatures but so fatal to bee life. A good use for this honey is to employ it in making vinegar. One and one-third pounds added to each gallon of rain water or soft spring water and allowed to ferment for three months in a warm place makes a quality of vinegar quite equal to the best cider vinegar. Provision for the free circulation of air through the cask should be made. This is easily secured by placing the cask, not completely filled, on its side and boring an auger hole in each end near the upper side, the holes to be covered with cheese cloth or fine gauze, to keep out insects.

If the honey containing the germs is to be used for feeding bees, it is to be diluted with half its own quantity, by measure, of water and kept at the boiling point for three hours in a water bath—a vessel within another containing water.

The combs from which the honey has been extracted, as well as all of the pieces built by the bees during their four days' confinement, may be melted into wax, by thorough boiling in soft water. This wax should be kept liquid for 48 hours or longer, to allow all impurities to settle. These will include the foul brood spores, which may then be removed with, the impure wax by scraping or cutting away the bottom of the cake. These scrapings should be burned. The same disposition had better be made of the frames from which the combs containing germs were removed.

In all of this work the utmost care should be exercised to avoid the dripping of honey about the apiary or the exposure of implements, receptacles, or combs smeared with or containing honey from the diseased colonies. It may even be better, in order to save time and possible risk, where but few combs and a comparatively small amount of honey are involved, to destroy all of these immediately after their removal from the hive. The old hive and all utensils used about the diseased colony should be disinfected by washing in a solution of corrosive sublimate—one-eighth ounce in one gallon of water—and should afterwards be exposed to the air and sun for some time. If healthy colonies are to be manipulated immediately after handling diseased ones the hands of the operator must also be disinfected by washing in the solution just mentioned.

Those who care to try and save combs and brood should employ the remedial method developed by the late Professor Cheshire. This is explained in full in his work on bee keeping,[C] and a brief statement of it may also be found in "The Honey Bee," Bulletin No. 1, new series, of the Bureau of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture. Notwithstanding these remedies, some will prefer, where healthy colonies of bees can be bought at moderate prices, to burn diseased bees, combs, and frames rather than spend time to effect a cure, and risk, as they fear they may, the further spread of the pest. To kill the bees thus is, however, neither profitable, humane, nor necessary, for if confined as described above and separated at once from the other colonies, this work being done at nightfall, when all of the bees are in their hives, the risk of spreading the disease will not thereby be increased, nor is the labor much greater than that involved in the removal of combs and bees for burning. And if it be found that the diseased colonies are weak in numbers and seem, therefore, individually hardly worth saving, this need not be taken as an excuse for the death sentence, as several colonies may be smoked and shaken together into the same box to make a single strong colony, the best queen of the lot having been selected and caged in the box in such a way that the workers can release her within a few hours by eating through candy.

BEE PARALYSIS.

Among other diseases of a bacterial nature paralysis is most noticeable, although not to be dreaded as foul brood. It affects the adult bees only, producing a paralyzed condition of their members and a swelling up of their bodies. The diseased bees, often set upon by other workers, lose the hairy covering of their bodies, and, black and shiny in appearance, may often be seen wriggling away from their hives to die. In such cases the working force of the affected colony frequently becomes so greatly reduced as to preclude any return in the form of honey or swarms during the given season. The source from which the bees obtain the original infection is unknown, but, once in the apiary, it is spread mainly by the entrance of affected workers into healthy colonies, and probably also by the visits which bees from healthy colonies make to the diseased ones, the latter often being so weakened in numbers as to be unable to protect their stores from healthy bees out on robbing expeditions.

Ordinary paralysis may generally be cured by strewing powdered sulphur over the combs, bees, and along the top bars of the frames, the precaution first having been taken of removing all unsealed brood. This brood would be killed by the application of sulphur, but as there is no danger whatever of spreading the disease by the transfer of brood or honey from one hive to another, provided absolutely every one of the adult bees has first been shaken or brushed from the combs, the latter may be given to healthy colonies which need strengthening.

Another simple plan for getting rid of the disease and yet utilizing the available strength of the affected colonies is to close their hives at night and move them a mile or more, locating them, if possible, outside of the range of other bees. As the brood in these colonies remains healthy all that is sealed or even well advanced in the larval stage may have the bees shaken from it and be distributed among the remaining colonies of the apiary. The bees of the diseased colonies thus become rapidly reduced in numbers, and several of the colonies themselves may soon be combined, the best queen being selected to continue egg deposition. Eventually the diseased apiary becomes, by the removal of the developing brood and the death of the old bees, reduced to nothing. None of the queens should be saved nor should any of the adult workers be returned to the healthy apiary.

A combination of the sulphur cure with the last plan mentioned—that of getting rid of the disease through the removal of brood combs from affected colonies—is really, all in all, the best procedure. When a fairly strong colony has been made up by shaking the adult bees of two or more together and this removed to an isolated locality, the application of sulphur may be made before any brood has been started. It is well, also, to replace the queen with a vigorous one from stock entirely unrelated to the diseased bees. Should any signs of the disease reappear, constant removal of the brood should be followed, as mentioned in the preceding paragraph.

Other bacterial diseases, though existing, have developed only very locally or have been too limited in the amount of injury inflicted to require special mention here.

INSECT AND OTHER ENEMIES.

ROBBER BEES.

Robbing is sometimes a more serious matter, although it very rarely happens that a little careful attention just at the right time on the part of the bee keeper would not avoid all serious trouble on this score. When bees find nothing to gather during weather when they can still fly out they are easily tempted to appropriate the stores of weaker colonies. Exposure of combs of honey at such times may even occasion a combined attack upon a good colony otherwise quite able to take care of itself. It is then that the greatest destruction ensues, for such a colony will defend itself vigorously, and a pitched battle, with perhaps fifty or sixty thousand Amazons on either side, leaves the ground literally strewn with dead and dying.

If the invaders conquer, every drop of honey is taken from the few vanquished that are likely to be still alive; and in turn the despoilers invariably fight among themselves as to the possession of the booty. When the robbing takes place during the absence of the owner, the condition of the robbed colony may not attract immediate attention, and during warm weather moth larvæ gain full possession of the combs within a few days. When this condition is observed, the whole damage is very likely to be attributed to the moth larvæ. Colonies that have been left queenless for some time, and those weakened by disease or by overswarming, are especial marks for such attacks. Of course these defects should be remedied whenever observed, but meanwhile, if legitimate field work is likely to be interrupted, every colony should be assisted in protecting itself against assault by having its hive made secure and the entrance such a narrow pass as to enable a few workers to repel attack there.

Should robbers get well started before being observed, the entrance of the hive should be narrowed at once, and wet grass or weeds may be thrown loosely over it, or a pane of glass may be stood against the front of the hive in a slanting manner to confuse the intruders. In extreme cases the attacked colonies may be removed to a cellar for a few days, plenty of ventilation being given during confinement, and a new location, apart from other colonies, selected, on which they are to be placed just at nightfall; or, instead of putting them in the cellar, they may be taken a mile or more away and returned only when the danger has passed. With these precautions, little loss is to be feared on this score.

In general, the intelligent owner who gives careful attention to certain important points in bee management finds that he very rarely has disease to contend with, and that the reduction of profits through the depredations of bee enemies is not, in most parts of the Union, a serious discouragement. Altogether it seems to the writer that the risks in these directions are even less in bee keeping than those usually met in the keeping of other animals, which, like bees, are legitimately made to contribute to the wealth of the individual and of the nation.

LEGISLATION AFFECTING APIARIAN INTERESTS.

Many States have in recent years passed laws having for their purpose the eradication or suppression of contagious diseases among bees. State and county inspectors have been appointed under these laws, whose duty it is to go about and ascertain where diseased colonies of bees are located, and recommend the treatment to be given, or in some cases to carry out this treatment, even to the complete destruction of colonies or apiaries where the virulence of the attack seems to warrant it. Where these laws have been conscientiously and energetically executed, much has been accomplished toward freeing the apiaries of the given State from disease.

Some States have passed laws making it a misdemeanor to spray fruit trees during the time of blossoming, since thereby bees are poisoned, and besides the injury to the apiarist the pollination of the fruit blossoms is seriously interfered with.

Laws against the sale of adulterated goods as genuine, known commonly as pure-food laws, are in operation in some of the States, and where bee inspectors or bee keepers have taken the pains to have these laws applied to the marketing of honey, a check has been put upon the selling of adulterated honey in the liquid form, which has been practiced to a greater or less extent and still occurs in some of the city markets.

In general, the rights of bee keepers to own and cultivate bees, either within the limits of cities or on farms adjoining those devoted to grazing and general stock raising, are becoming more clearly defined through decisions of supreme and county courts. In this connection the work of the National Bee-Keepers' Association should receive mention.

This organization is in no sense a trades union, but has for its purpose the defense of its members against unjust attacks upon their legal rights, the suppression, in so far as possible, of the sale of adulterated honey, the securing of legislation for the protection of its members and favorable to the general advance of the industry, as well as the dissemination among its members of advanced ideas in bee management and information regarding the marketing of apiarian products. The membership fee of one dollar per annum entitles every honey producer to membership and participation in all of the benefits enumerated, as well as to the published report of the annual convention held by the association. The membership numbers nearly 2,000 at the present time, and the influence of this large body of intelligent beemasters is already being appreciably felt in the general advance of the industry in this country.

JOURNALS TREATING OF APICULTURE.

As a matter of general information, the following list of journals relating to apiculture is given. It comprises all those published in this country at the present time.

The American Bee Journal, Chicago, Ill.
Gleanings in Bee Culture, Medina, Ohio.
The Bee Keepers' Review, Flint, Mich.
The American Bee Keeper, Falconer, N. Y.
The Progressive Bee Keeper, Higginsville, Mo.
Western Bee Journal, Kingsburg, Cal.
The Rural Bee Keeper, River Falls, Wis.

FARMERS' BULLETINS.

The following is a list of the Farmers' Bulletins available for distribution, showing the number and title of each. Copies will be sent to any address on application to any Senator, Representative, or Delegate in Congress, or to the Secretary of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. The missing numbers have been discontinued, being superseded by later bulletins: