Part 16 (1/2)

There is not an intelligent, observing Apiarian who has been in the habit of carefully examining the operations of bees, not only in his own Apiary, but wherever he could find them, who has not seen strong stocks flouris.h.i.+ng under almost any conceivable circ.u.mstances. They may be seen in hives of the most miserable construction, unpainted and unprotected, sometimes with large open cracks and clefts extending down their sides, and yet laughing to defiance, the bee-moth, and all other adverse influences.

Almost any thing hollow, in which the bees can establish themselves, and where they have once succeeded in becoming strong, will often be successfully tenanted by them for a series of years. To see such hives, as they sometimes may be seen, in possession of persons both ignorant and careless, and who hardly know a bee-moth from any other kind of moth, may at first sight well shake the confidence of the inquirer, in the necessity or value of any particular precautions to preserve his hives from the devastations of the moth.

After looking at these powerful stocks in what may be called log-cabin hives, let us examine some in the most costly hives, which have ever been constructed; in what have been called real ”Bee-Palaces;” and we shall often find them weak and impoverished, infested and almost devoured by the worms. Their owner, with books in his hand, and all the newest devices and appliances in the Apiarian line, unable to protect his bees against their enemies, or to account for the reason why some hives seem, like the children of the poor, almost to thrive upon ill-treatment and neglect, while others, like the offspring of the rich and powerful, are feeble and diseased, almost in exact proportion to the means used to guard them against noxious influences, and to minister most lavishly to all their wants.

I once used to be much surprised to hear so many bee-keepers speak of having ”good luck,” or ”bad luck” with their bees; but really as bees are generally managed, success or failure does seem to depend almost entirely upon what the ignorant or superst.i.tious are wont to call ”luck.”

I shall now try to do what I have never yet seen satisfactorily done by any writer on bees; viz.: show exactly under what circ.u.mstances the bee-moth succeeds in establis.h.i.+ng itself in a hive; thus explaining why some stocks flourish in spite of all neglect, while others, in the common hives, fall a prey to the moth, let their owner be as careful as he will, I shall finally show how in suitable hives, with proper precautions, it may always be kept from seriously annoying the bees.

It often happens, when a large number of stocks are kept, that in spite of all precautions, some of them are found in the Spring, so greatly reduced in numbers, that if left to themselves, they are in danger of falling a prey to the devouring moth. Bees, when in feeble colonies, seem often to lose a portion of their wonted vigilance, and as they have a large quant.i.ty of empty comb which they cannot guard, even if they would, the moth enters the hive, and deposits a large number of eggs, and thus before the bees have become sufficiently numerous to protect themselves, the combs are filled with worms, and the destruction of the colony speedily follows. The ignorant or careless bee-keeper is informed of the ravages which are going on in such a hive, only when its ruin is fully completed, and a cloud of winged pests issues from it, to destroy if they can, the rest of his stocks. But how, it may be asked, can it be ascertained that a hive is seriously infested with the all-devouring worms? The aspect of the bees, so discouraged and forlorn, proclaims at once that there is trouble of some kind within. If the hive be slightly elevated, the bottom-board will be found covered with pieces of bee-bread, &c. mixed with the _excrement of the worms_ which looks almost exactly like fine grains of powder. As the bees in Spring, clean out their combs, and prepare the cells for the reception of brood, their bottom-board will often be so covered with parings of comb and with small pieces of bee-bread, that the hive may appear to be in danger of being destroyed by the worms. If, however, none of the _black_ excrement is perceived, the refuse on the bottom-board, like the shavings in a carpenter's shop, are proofs of industry and not the signs of approaching ruin. It is highly important, however, to keep the bottom-boards clean, and if a piece of zinc be slipt in, (or even an old newspaper,) by removing and cleansing it from time to time, the bees will be greatly a.s.sisted in their operations. As soon as the hive is well filled with bees, this need no longer be done.

Even the most careful and experienced Apiarian will find, too often, that although he is perfectly well aware of the plague that is reigning within, his knowledge can be turned to no good account, the interior of the hive being almost as inaccessible as the interior of the human body.

The way in which I manage, in such cases, is as follows.

Having ascertained, in the Spring, as soon as the bees begin to fly out, that a colony although feeble, has a fertile queen, I take the precaution at once to give it the strength which is indispensable, not merely to its safety, but to its ability for any kind of successful labor.

As a certain number of bees are needed in a hive, in order as well to warm and hatch the thousands of eggs which a healthy queen can lay, as to feed and properly develop the larvae after they are hatched, I know that a feeble colony must remain feeble for a long time, unless they can at once be supplied with a considerable accession of numbers. Even if there were no moths in existence to trouble such a hive, it would not be able to rear a large number of bees, until after the best of the honey-harvest had pa.s.sed away: and then it would become powerful only that its increasing numbers might devour the food which the others had previously stored in the cells. If the small colony has a considerable number of bees, and is able to cover and warm at least one comb in addition to those containing brood which they already have, I take from one of my strong stocks, a frame containing some three or four thousand or more young bees, which are sealed over in their cells, and are just ready to emerge. These bees which require no food, and need nothing but warmth to develop them, will, in a few days, hatch in the new hive to which they are given, and thus the requisite number of workers, in the full vigor and energy of youth, will be furnished to the hive, and the discouraged queen, finding at once a suitable number of experienced nurses[23] to take charge of her eggs, deposits them in the proper cells, instead of simply extruding them, to be devoured by the bees.

While bees often attack full grown strangers which are introduced into their hive, they never fail to receive gladly all the brood comb that we choose to give them. If they are sufficiently numerous, they will always cherish it, and in warm weather, they will protect it, even if it is laid against the outside of their hive! If the bees in the weak stock, are too much reduced in numbers, to be able to cover the brood comb taken from another hive, I give them this comb with all the old bees that are cl.u.s.tered upon it, and shut up the hive, after supplying them with water, until two or three days have pa.s.sed away. By this time, most of the strange bees will have formed an inviolable attachment to their new home, and even if a portion of them should return to the parent hive, a large number of the maturing young will have hatched, to supply their desertion. A little sugar-water scented with peppermint, may be used to sprinkle the bees, at the time that the comb is introduced, although I have never yet found that they had the least disposition, to quarrel with each other. The original settlers are only too glad to receive such a valuable accession to their scanty numbers, and the expatriated bees are too-much confounded with their unexpected emigration, to feel any desire for making a disturbance. If a sufficient increase of numbers has not been furnished by one range of comb, the operation may, in the course of a few days, be repeated. Instead of leaving the colony to the discouraging feeling that they are in a large, empty and desolate house, a divider should be run down into the hive, and they should be confined to a s.p.a.ce which they are able to warm and defend, and the rest of the hive, until they need its additional room, should be carefully shut up against all intruders. If this operation is judiciously performed, the bees will be powerful in numbers, long before the weather is warm enough to develop the bee-moth, and they will thus be most effectually protected from the hateful pest.

A very simple change in the organization of the bee-moth would have rendered it almost if not quite impossible to protect the bees from its ravages. If it had been so const.i.tuted as to require but a very small amount of heat for its full development, it would have become very numerous early in the Spring, and might then have easily entered the hives and deposited its eggs among the combs, without any let or hindrance; for at this season, not only do the bees at night maintain no guard at the entrance of their hive, but there are large portions of their comb bare of bees, and of course, entirely unprotected. How does every fact in the history of the bee, when properly investigated, point with unerring certainty to the power, wisdom and goodness, of Him who made it!

If there is reason to apprehend that the combs which are not occupied with brood, contain any of the eggs of the moth, these combs may be removed, and thoroughly smoked with the fumes of burning sulphur; and then, in a few days, after they have been exposed to the fresh air, they may be returned to the hive. I hope I may be pardoned for feeling not the slightest pity for the unfortunate progeny of the moth, thus unceremoniously destroyed.

Bees, as is well known to every experienced bee-keeper, frequently swarm so often as to expose themselves to great danger of being destroyed by the moth. After the departure of the after-swarms, the parent colony often contains too few bees to cover and protect their combs from the insidious attacks of their wily enemy. As a number of weeks must elapse before the brood of the young queen is mature, the colony, for a considerable time, at the season when the moths are very numerous, are constantly diminis.h.i.+ng in numbers, and before they can begin to replenish the exhausted hive, the destroyer has made a fatal lodgment.

In my hives, such calamities are easily prevented. If artificial increase is relied upon for the multiplication of colonies, it can be so conducted as to give the moth next to no chance to fortify itself in the hive. No colony is ever allowed to have more room than it needs, or more combs than it can cover and protect; and the entrance to the hive may be contracted, if necessary, so that only a single bee can go in and out, at a time, and yet the bees will have, from the ventilators, as much air as they require.

If natural swarming is allowed, after-swarms may be prevented from issuing, by cutting out all the queen cells but one, soon after the first swarm leaves the hive; or if it is desired to have as fast an increase of stocks, as can possibly be obtained from natural swarming, then instead of leaving the combs in the parent hive to be attacked by the moth, a certain portion of them may be taken out, when swarming is over, and given to the second and third swarms, so as to aid in building them up into strong stocks.

But I have not yet spoken of the most fruitful cause of the desolating ravages of the bee-moth. If a colony has _lost its queen_, and this loss cannot be supplied, it must, as a matter of course, fall a sacrifice to the bee-moth: and I do not hesitate to a.s.sert that by far the larger proportion of colonies which are destroyed by it, are destroyed under precisely such circ.u.mstances! Let this be remembered by all who have any thing to do with bees, and let them understand that unless a remedy for the loss of the queen, can be provided, they must constantly expect to see some of their best colonies hopelessly ruined. The crafty moth, after all, is not so much to blame, as we are apt to imagine; for a colony, once deprived of its queen, and possessing no means of securing another, would certainly perish, even if never attacked by so deadly an enemy; just as the body of an animal, when deprived of life, will speedily go to decay, even if it is not, at once, devoured by ravenous swarms of filthy flies and worms.

In order to ascertain all the important points connected with the habits of the bee-moth, I have purposely deprived colonies in some of my observing hives, of their queen, and have thus reduced them to a state of despair, that I might closely watch all their proceedings. I have invariably found that in this state, they have made little or no resistance to the entrance of the bee-moth, but have allowed her to deposit her eggs, just where she pleased. The worms, after hatching, have always appeared to be even more at home than the poor dispirited bees themselves, and have grown and thrived, in the most luxurious manner. In some instances, these colonies, so far from losing all spirit to resent other intrusions, were positively the most vindictive set of bees in my whole Apiary. One especially, a.s.saulted every body that came near it, and when reduced in numbers to a mere handful, seemed as ready for fight as ever.

How utterly useless then, for defending a queenless colony against the moth, are all the traps and other devices which have been, of late years, so much relied upon. If a single female gains admission, she will lay eggs enough to destroy in a short time, the strongest colony that ever existed, if once it has lost its queen, and has no means of procuring another. But not only do the bees of a hive which is hopelessly queenless, make little or no opposition to the entrance of the bee-moth, and to the ravages of the worms, but by their forlorn condition, they positively invite the attacks of their destroyers. The moth seems to have an instinctive knowledge of the condition of such a hive, and no art of man can ever keep her out. She will pa.s.s by other colonies to get at the queenless one, for she seems to know that there she will find all the conditions that are necessary to the proper development of her young. There are many mysteries in the insect world, which we have not yet solved; nor can we tell just how the moth arrives at so correct a knowledge of the condition of the queenless hives in the Apiary. That such hives, very seldom, maintain a guard about the entrance, is certain; and that they do not fill the air with the pleasant voice of happy industry, is equally certain; for even to our dull ears, the difference between the hum of the prosperous hive, and the unhappy note of the despairing one, is sufficiently obvious. May it not be even more obvious to the acute senses of the provident mother, seeking a proper place for the development of her young?

The unerring sagacity of the moth, closely resembles that peculiar instinct by which the vulture and other birds that prey upon carrion, are able to single out a diseased animal from the herd, which they follow with their dismal croakings, hovering over its head, or sitting in ill-omened flocks, on the surrounding trees, watching it as its life ebbs away, and stretching out their filthy and naked necks, and opening and snapping their blood-thirsty beaks that they may be all ready to tear out its eyes just glazing in death, and banquet upon its flesh still warm with the blood of life! Let any fatal accident befall an animal, and how soon will you see them, first from one quarter of the heavens, and then from another, speeding their eager flight to their destined prey, when only a short time before, not a single one could be seen or heard.

I have repeatedly seen powerful colonies speedily devoured by the worms, because of the loss of their queen, when they have stood, side by side with feeble colonies which being in possession of a queen, have been left untouched!

That the common hives furnish no available remedy for the loss of the queen, is well known: indeed, the owner cannot, in many cases, be sure that his bees are queenless, until their destruction is certain, while not unfrequently, after keeping bees for many years, he does not even so much as believe that there is such a thing as a queen bee!

In the Chapter on the Loss of the Queen, I shall show in what way this loss can be ascertained, and ordinarily remedied, and thus the bees be protected from that calamity which more than all others, exposes them to destruction. When a colony has become hopelessly queenless, then moth or no moth, its destruction is absolutely certain. Even if the bees retained their wonted industry in gathering stores, and their usual energy in defending themselves against all their enemies, their ruin could only be delayed for a short time. In a few months, they would all die a natural death, and there being none to replace them, the hive would be utterly depopulated. Occasionally, such instances occur in which the bees have died, and large stores of honey have been found untouched in their hives. This, however, but seldom happens: for they rarely escape from the a.s.saults of other colonies, even if after the death of their queen, they do not fall a prey to the bee-moth. A motherless hive is almost always a.s.saulted by stronger stocks, which seem to have an instinctive knowledge of its orphanage, and hasten at once, to take possession of its spoils. (See Remarks on Robbing.) If it escape the Scylla of these pitiless plunderers, it is soon dashed upon a more merciless Charybdis, when the miscreant moths have ascertained its dest.i.tution. Every year, large numbers of hives are bereft of their queen, and every year, the most of such hives are either robbed by other bees, or sacked by the bee-moth, or first robbed, and afterwards sacked, while their owner imputes all the mischief that is done, to something else than the real cause. He might just as well imagine that the birds, or the carrion worms which are devouring his dead horse, were actually the primary cause of its untimely end. How often we see the same kind of mistake made by those who impute the decay of a tree, to the insects which are banqueting upon its withering foliage; when often these insects are there, because the disease of the tree has both furnished them with their proper aliment, and deprived the plant of the vigor necessary to enable it to resist their attack.

The bee keeper can easily gather from these remarks, the means upon which I most rely, to protect my colonies from the bee-moth. Knowing that strong stocks supplied with a fertile queen, are always able to take care of themselves, in almost any kind of hive, I am careful to keep them in the state which is practically found to be one of such security. If they are weak, they must be properly strengthened, and confined to only as much s.p.a.ce as they can warm and defend: and if they are queenless, they must be supplied with the means of repairing their loss, or if that cannot be done, they should be at once broken up, (See Remarks on Queenlessness, and Union of Stocks,) and added to other stocks.

It cannot be too deeply impressed upon the mind of the bee-keeper, that a small colony ought always to be confined to a small s.p.a.ce, if we wish the bees to work with the greatest energy, and to offer the stoutest resistance to their numerous enemies. Bees do most unquestionably, ”abhor a vacuum,” if it is one which they can neither fill, warm nor defend. Let the prudent bee-master only keep his stocks strong, and they will do more to defend themselves against all intruders, than he can possibly do for them, even if he spends his whole time in watching and a.s.sisting them.

It is hardly necessary, after the preceding remarks, to say much upon the various contrivances to which so many resort, as a safeguard against the bee-moth. The idea that gauze-wire doors, to be shut daily at dusk, and opened again at morning, can exclude the moth, will not weigh much with one who has seen them flying and seeking admission, especially in dull weather, long before the bees have given over their work for the day. Even if the moth could be excluded by such a contrivance, it would require, on the part of those who rely upon it, a regularity almost akin to that of the heavenly bodies in their courses; a regularity so systematic, in short, as either to be impossible, or likely to be attained but by very few.

An exceedingly ingenious contrivance, to say the least, to remedy the necessity for such close supervision, is that by which the movable doors of all the hives are governed by a long lever in the shape of a hen-roost, so that the hives may all be closed seasonably and regularly, by the crowing and cackling tribe, when they go to bed at night, and opened at once when they fly from their perch, to greet the merry morn.

Alas! that so much ingenuity should be all in vain! Chickens are often sleepy, and wish to retire sometime before the bees feel that they have completed their full day's work, and some of them are so much opposed to early rising, either from ill-health, or downright laziness, that they sit moping on their roost, long after the cheerful sun has purpled the glowing East. Even if this device were perfectly successful, it could not save from ruin, a colony which has lost its queen. The truth is, that almost all the contrivances upon which we are instructed to rely, are just about equivalent to the lock carefully put upon the stable door, after the horse has been stolen; or to attempts to prevent corruption from fastening upon the body of an animal, after the breath of life has forever departed.

Are there then no precautions to which we may resort, except by using hives which give the control over every comb? Certainly there are, and I shall now describe them in such a manner as to aid all who find themselves annoyed by the inroads of the bee-moth.