The Bee Keeper's Guide, Third Edition / Containing concise practical directions for the management of bees, upon the depriving system

by J. H. Payne

APRIL.

Clean the hive-boards for the last time, and supply food, if required, as before directed. The Wax-moth, that redoubtable enemy to Bees, appears this month; they may be seen frequently at twilight running upon the outside of the hives: destroy them as much as possible, and, as Huish says, "frighten not away the Bats that fly about the hives, for they destroy numbers of them." A full supply of small hives, boxes, glasses, and adapters should now be provided, old ones cleaned, or new ones purchased. A few large hives also should be ready, for if from inattention to giving room and ventilation, a swarm should be compelled to leave their hive, they will be wanted.

Weak hives are now very subject to an attack from robbers, the best protection that can be afforded them is the slider, page 18, with the help of which three or four Bees will guard the entrance more effectually than many times that number without it.

MAY.

The time will now have arrived for supplying each stock with a small hive or other receptacle for honey, as directed in [Chap. IV]. and should the season be a favourable one, the supply even of a second may be found necessary before the end of the month. Continue to destroy Queen wasps and hornets, and to watch carefully for moths. Should the bees of any hive appear inactive at this time, or should they not be seen to carry in pellets of farina whilst others are doing it, and this inaction continue for eight or ten days, lose no time in examining the hive, and should the moths have begun their work of destruction, which may be known by seeing the combs joined together by their silken webs, cut away the combs affected with a sharp knife, and the hive may, perhaps, be saved.

JUNE.

Strict attention should now be paid to room and ventilation, for, as has been said in page 24, if both these be carefully observed, swarming may be prevented altogether. Swarms may now be purchased as directed in [Chap. II]. About the middle of the month, in good seasons, small hives and glasses may be taken off, full directions for which may be found in [Chap. V].

At the end of the month look for wasps' nests, and destroy them;—a very easy and effectual method of doing it is to fill a common squib or serpent case with a mixture of sulphur and gun-powder, in equal parts, with a very small quantity of nitre all finely powdered and rammed very hard into the case, set fire to it by means of touch-paper, and when in a state of ignition, stick it into the hole of the nest and place your foot upon it, when it ceases to burn let a person with a spade turn out the nest; in this manner a great number may be effectually destroyed in one night. And a more simple method than this, even, has been recently discovered: It is by putting turpentine in a bottle, and inserting the neck of the bottle into the hole leading to the nest and surrounding it with earth; very little turpentine is required, merely as much as will wet the sides of the bottle; if applied in the dusk of the evening every wasp will be dead by the following morning. "In no instance,"—says a Correspondent, in the Gardeners' Chronicle,—"have I known it to fail of the desired effect, except in cases where the nest was deeper in the ground, or at a greater distance from the mouth of the hole than I had anticipated; a partial failure may sometimes occur where there happens to be two entrances to the nest, instead of one, but a second application the following evening is sure to prove effectual."

JULY.

Small hives and glasses must now be taken off as they are filled and sealed up, (and stored in cool places, observing to keep them in the same position as when standing upon the stocks,) and their places supplied by empty ones. Go on destroying wasps' nests.