SYMPTOMS TO BE OBSERVED.
As no part of the breeding season is exempt, the stocks should be carefully observed during spring, and fore part of summer, relative to increase of bees. When one or more is much behind others in this respect, make an examination immediately. (I would here urge again the convenience of the simple, common hive, over those more complicated, or suspended, and difficult to turn over. In one case we might make an examination in season; in the other, too much trouble and difficulty might cause it to be put off too long.) The hive must be inverted, and the bees smoked out of the way. Our attention is to be directed to the breeding cells; with a sharp-pointed knife, proceed to cut off the ends of some of them that appear to be the oldest; bearing in mind that young bees are always white, until some time after they take the chrysalis state. Therefore, if a larva is found of a dark color, it is dead! Should a dozen such be found, the stock should be condemned at once, and all the bees driven into an empty hive. (The directions for this have been given, see page 31.) If honey should be scarce, at the time, they should be fed.
SCALDING THE HONEY TO DESTROY THE POISON FOR FEEDING.
The honey from the old hive may be used, if you will only first destroy the virus. This, I have ascertained, may be done by scalding: add a half-pint of water to about ten lbs.; stir it well, and heat it to the boiling point, and carefully remove all the scum.
Stocks in which the disease has not progressed too far, will generally swarm.
WHEN TO EXAMINE STOCKS THAT HAVE SWARMED.
Three weeks from the first swarm, will be the time to examine them. I make it a rule to inspect all my stocks at this period. It is easily done now, as about all the healthy brood (except drones) should be matured in that time. By perseverance in these rules, I allow no stocks to dwindle away until they are plundered by others. If all my neighbors were equally careful, this disease would probably soon disappear. This is like one careless farmer allowing a noxious weed to mature seeds, to be wafted by winds on the lands of a careful neighbor, who must fortify his mind to continual vigilance, or endure the injury of a foul pest. So with the successful apiarian; in sections where the disease has appeared (it has not in all), he must be continually on the watch; it is the price of success.
CARE IN SELECTING STOCK HIVES FOR WINTER.
Again, after the breeding season is over, in the fall, every stock should be thoroughly inspected, and all diseased ones condemned for stock hives. It is better to do it, even if it should take the last one. It would pay much better to procure others instead, that are healthy.
Persons wishing to eat the honey from such hives, will experience no bad effects from it, if they are careful to remove all the dead brood, as they take it out of the hive.