During a mild winter the stock of honey is often exhausted, such a season encouraging the bees to be active, without affording any resources beyond their own domicile; yet it is not uncommon to hear the keepers of bees speak of a mild winter as favourable for the bees. It is most unfavourable to them; and if feeding be not duly attended to, frequently fatal. Hence a northern aspect has been recommended for hives during winter; and if guarded by proper coverings, and contrivances against snow and other bad weather, such an aspect is highly proper. The Rev. Stephen White observes, that if hives be placed on the northern side of a building, the bees will seldom be induced to come out, and will eat much less than if exposed to the winter’s sun. Mr. Gedde recommends keeping them during winter, not only in a cold, but in a dark situation, in order to lessen the consumption of honey. He even suggests the use of an ice-house, having found that bees survive the cold in Siberia, and render Russia somewhat remarkable for its productiveness of honey. “A very observing gentleman,” says Dr. Darwin, “at my request, put two hives for many weeks into a dry cellar, and observed, during all that time, that they did not consume any of their provision, for their weight did not decrease, as it had done when they were kept in the open air.” The same observation is made in the Annual Register for 1768, p. 113. The sudden transitions from heat to cold, and from cold to heat, experienced in this country, are detrimental to bees; but these vicissitudes would not alarm me, if the bees were well sheltered, and had a convenient supply of water, salt and sugar, in the early part of the spring.

Keys thought they were not fond of salt: from my own experience as well as from that of my apiarian friends, I am satisfied that he was mistaken, and my opinion is confirmed by the following observation in Crevecœur’s Travels. “One day, having remarked that my bees frequently settled on spots, where brine had been spilt, I placed some grains of salt before their hives. What was my astonishment, when I saw them repeatedly tasting it with eagerness, and carrying it away with them! Before this experiment, I could not have believed that the manufacturers of honey could taste with pleasure, a substance so different from the nectar of flowers.”

In the winter of 1782-3, a general mortality took place among the bees in this country, which was attributed to various causes: want of honey was not one of them; for in some hives considerable store was found, after the bees were gone. Some were of opinion that it arose from the preceding being a bad breeding year, and thought the bees died of old age. Others attributed it to the moistness of the spring of 1783, which rendered the providing of pollen difficult, for without pollen no brood can be raised. The difficulty of collecting pollen was ascribed to the continual closing of the flowers over the anthers, the want of sun to burst the anthers, and the washing away of the pollen by the frequent showers after they did burst. The fatal influence ascribed to the wetness of the spring of 1782 seems to be improbable; though the wet might have affected the quantity of bees bred, it was not likely to put a stop to their breeding altogether, and the young bees ought at any rate to have escaped the desolating evil, if it were old age alone; yet wherever the mortality once made its appearance, every bee became its victim.

A similar incident occurred among the wasps in the year 1824. The queen wasps were unusually numerous in the spring of that year, and yet scarcely a wasp could be seen of any sort in the ensuing summer and autumn, though there was a great deal of fine weather and plenty of sunshine, the fruits having ripened remarkably well. In both cases, it seems probable that the mortality arose from some unfavourable circumstance at the breeding season, with which we are unacquainted. I am not aware that it has been attributed to any specific distemper of an epidemical nature. Mr. Knight noticed a similar occurrence, as to wasps, in the year 1806 (Philosophical Transactions 1807, p. 243); and in 1815, Messrs. Kirby and Spence made the same observation. Mr. Knight supposed the scarcity to arise from a want of males to impregnate the queens.

I shall now proceed to notice the maladies of bees; and state their causes, symptoms and remedies, as I have collected them from ancient and modern authors.

Dysentery.

This malady was attributed by Columella to the bees extracting and feeding upon honey collected from the blossoms of elms and spurge; he regarded it as an annual distemper. By others it has been ascribed to their feeding too freely upon the vernal honey, from whatever source derived; or from their being obliged to eat wax, through want of other food, in the early part of the spring. Madame Vicat supposed it to arise from the feeding upon honey that had been candied, in consequence of the hive being exposed to a severe winter. Reaumur instituted some experiments to ascertain the cause of dysentery, but they were not satisfactory.

The presence of this disorder is indicated by the appearance of the excrement, which, instead of a reddish yellow, exhibits a muddy black colour, and has an intolerably offensive smell. Also by its being voided upon the floors, and at the entrance of the hives, which bees, in a healthy State, are particularly careful to preserve clean. Huish compares the morbid excrement to linseed.

Vertigo.

Vertige, as Du Carne de Blangy calls it, is supposed to arise from the bees extracting the honey of deleterious plants. I have treated fully upon this subject under the head of Pasturage. In addition to what has been there stated I will give an extract from Dr. Barton’s Paper, who after observing that there is more poetry than philosophy in the following lines of Pope—