[27] In the spring of the year, great care is also needful as regards feeding and in opening hives.
DRAINING HONEY FROM THE COMBS.
Those of our readers who prefer eating "run honey" to honey in the comb may be glad of some instruction as to the best way of separating the two. For this purpose, it is better to let the honey run without squeezing, in order to preserve both its transparency and flavour.
Take a sharp knife, and slice the combs on both sides, keeping the knife parallel with the partition wall, so that every cell may be laid open. Place these broken combs in a sieve, or on a piece of muslin stretched across and tied round the opening of a pan or large-mouthed jar. Allow the honey to flow out of the combs spontaneously, and reserve the squeezing process for a separate jar, so that the honey of the first drained jar may be perfectly pure, both in appearance and flavour. That which has pressure put on it will be waxy in flavour and thick. Some persons recommend that the opened combs be placed in the sun, as the heat will cause the honey to run more freely. The great disadvantage of this is, the temptation the honey offers to bees, who will be eager to gain a share. Honey, whilst in the combs, keeps remarkably well when left in the supers; if cut out, the combs should be folded in writing-paper, and sealed up, so as to effectually prevent the free entrance of air: they should then be placed in a warm, dry closet.
Honey, like most vegetable products, should be fresh every year. It may easily be kept from one season to another; but when kept beyond that time, unless very carefully stored in a warm temperature, it will crystallize in the comb, and it is liable to ferment when in jars separated from the comb.
DISEASES OF BEES.
Dysentery is a disease produced either by long confinement, by dampness, or by feeding in the winter. The first thing bees do when disturbed is to fill themselves with food, so that in winter weather, when they cannot get out to void their fæces, hives should not be meddled with, otherwise the complaint may be brought on. It is also engendered in many instances by the state of the weather in winter months, and is indicated by the yellow colour of the excrement, and by its being voided upon the floors and at the entrance of the hives, which bees in a healthy state generally keep clean. All, that can be done for them when affected is to well clean or to change the floor-board, and so produce cleanliness. Having made some remarks on this disease at [page 214], in connection with bees sent to Australia, we will pass on to the more formidable, but happily less common, malady of "foul brood."
This disease does not attack the bees themselves, but affects the larvæ, by causing them to putrefy in the cells, thus destroying all hope of the rising generation. Bees are exceedingly fond of their young, and are greatly dispirited when their hives are in this plight. In common with most pestilential disorders, no satisfactory cause is assigned for its first appearance. Some apiarians contend, that "foul brood" is another name for chilled, brood; others, that the queen, by a freak of nature, deposits some of her eggs the wrong way upwards, and that these putrefy in the cells and contaminate the others. Whatever may be the origin, one thing is very certain, "it is catching;" there is, however, in the circumstance of the adult bees and of those about emerging from the cells not being injuriously affected thereby, a great help to its eradication, as will presently be shown.
There are two kinds of foul brood—one is moist and fœtid, the other is dry and not contagious, the brood merely drying up in the cells, and, from its partial character, is probably within the power of the bees themselves to overcome. In the former, instead of drying up, the brood remains dark and slimy in the cells, and emits a most unpleasant odour, perceptible at some distance from the hive.
In the year 1848, Pastor Dzierzon lost a large number of stocks from this disease; he, however, was enabled to banish it from his apiary, and communicated to a German bee-journal very wholesome advice, which Mr. Langstroth quotes, and from which we make an extract:—"When the malady makes its appearance in only two or three of the colonies, and is discovered early (which may readily be done in hives having movable combs), it can be arrested and cured without damage or diminution of profit. To prevent the disease from spreading in a colony, there is no more reliable and efficient process THAN TO STOP THE PRODUCTION OF BROOD; for where no brood exists, none can perish or putrefy. The disease is thus deprived both of its aliment and its subjects. The healthy brood will mature and emerge in due time, and the putrid matter remaining in a few cells will dry up and be removed by the workers. All this will certainly result from a well-timed removal of the queen from such colonies. If such removal becomes necessary in the spring or early part of the summer, a supernumerary queen is thereby obtained, by means of which an artificial colony may be started, which will certainly be healthy if the bees and brood used be taken from healthy colonies. Should the removal be made in the latter part of summer, the useless production of brood will at once be stopped and an unnecessary consumption of honey prevented. Thus, in either case, we are gainers by the operation."