A Manual or an Easy Method of Managing Bees

by John M. Weeks

A bee-hive should be made in a perfect workmanlike manner, so as to have no open joints; the boards should be free from shakes and cracks, because the bees will make their tenement perfectly tight, so as to exclude light and air, by plastering up all such places as are left open by the workman, with a kind of mortar, or glue, of their own make, which is neither honey nor wax, but is very congenial to the growth of worms in the first stages of their larva state, and being secured from the bees by the timber, in a short time they are able to defend themselves by a silken shroud.

Now the miller enters the hive and makes an incision into the bee-glue, or cement, with her sting, and leaves her eggs. These eggs hatch there, and the brood subsist on the glue until they have arrived so far toward maturity as to enable them to encase themselves in a silken shroud; and then they move onward.

Now unless the bees chance to catch him by the collar, or nape of his neck, while feeding, and drag him out of his place of concealment, they will be compelled to cut away the combs all around his silken path, or gallery, and drag out the worm and his fortress all together. At the same time, the bees are compelled to cut away the combs so far as to destroy many of their young brood in making room to remove the annoyance. I have known them to cut away their combs from four to eight or ten inches to re move this silken shroud, and have known them to cut and drag out their only remaining Queen before she was transformed to the perfect fly, which occasioned the entire loss of the whole colony.

Repeated experiments have demonstrated the fact, that placing bees on the ground, or high in the air, is no security against the moths. I have lost some of my best stocks by placing them on the ground, when those on the bench were not injured by them. I have made a groove in the bottom board, much wider than the thickness of the boards to the hive, and filled the same with loam: I then placed the hive on the same, in such a manner as to prevent any crack or vacancy for the worms; and yet in raising the hive four weeks afterwards, I found them apparently full grown all around the hive in the dirt. I have found them very plenty in a tree ninety feet from the ground.

The best method, in common practice, to prevent the depredations of the moth, is, to suspend the bottom board so far below the lower edge of the hive as to give the bees free entrance and egress all around the same during the moth season, or to raise the common hive, by placing under it little blocks at each corner, which produces nearly the same effect. But I know of but one rule, which is an infallible one, to prevent their depredations, and that is this: keep the combs well guarded by bees. See Rule 10.

Large hives, that never swarm, are never destroyed by the moth, unless they lose their Queen, melt down, or meet with some casualty, out of the ordinary course of managing them. They are not often in the least annoyed by them, unless there are bad joints, cracks, or shakes, so as to afford some lurking places for the worms. The reason for their prosperous condition is obvious. The stock of bees are so numerous that their combs are all kept well guarded during the moth season, so that no miller can enter and deposit her eggs.

Hives made so small as to swarm, are liable to reduce their colonies so small as to leave combs unguarded, especially when they swarm three or four times the same season. All swarms, after the first, sally forth to avoid the battle of the Queens; constantly making a greater draft, in proportion to the number left, until the combs are partly exposed, which gives the miller free access to their edges.—The seeds of rapine and plunder are thus quickly sown, and soon vegetate, and fortify themselves by their silken fortress, before the bees are aware that their frontiers are invaded. While the moths are thus engaged in establishing their posts on the frontiers of the bees, the latter are constantly and indefatigably engaged in providing themselves with another Queen, to supply the place of the old one, which has departed with a swarm, and raising young bees to replenish their reduced colony. Now as the moths have got possession of the ground on their frontiers, it requires a tremendous effort on the part of the bees to save their little colony from a complete overthrow.

If late, or second and third swarms are always returned immediately, according to the rule, the combs are kept so guarded that the moths are compelled to keep their distance, or be stung to death before they can accomplish their purposes.

Hives made so large as not to swarm may lose their Queen, and then they will abandon their habitation and emigrate into the adjoining hive, leaving all their stores to their owner, which, unless immediately taken care of, the moths will not fail to destroy.

The moths are often complained of when they are not guilty. Hives are frequently abandoned by their occupants, in consequence of the loss of their Queen, unnoticed by any observer, and before any thing is known of their fate, the hive is destitute of bees, and filled with moths.