As in warm weather the instincts of the fly is directed to the dead carcase, so is the moth directed to honey-comb left without bees in the summer season, and by a similar process is each destroyed. When the bees have been off about ten days, or perhaps a little less if the weather is very warm, examine closely for the first appearance of the moth worms on the surface of the combs in the boxes. Their presence may be known by small, thread-like webs or cocoons on the surface of the comb, growing larger as the moth worm enlarges in growth. If no remedy is applied, these worms will completely destroy the beauty of the honey in the boxes in a very few days. Watch the boxes closely, and on the first appearance of the least sign of worms in the boxes, fumigate with burning sulphur, thus: open the passages in the boxes; have ready a tight, clean box; saturate some very dry pine shavings with melted sulphur. After placing your boxes of honey in the box, set a saucer or plate in the box at the bottom, away from the honey boxes, so they will not take fire. Do not use too many shavings; if you do, it will injure the honey comb in the boxes, by giving it a green color, and imparting to it a disagreeable taste; a half-dozen shavings each four inches long is enough. Place them in the dish and ignite them, and cover closely, so no fumes can escape; let them remain for a few minutes, (not more than five, less is often sufficient; it depends something on the amount of sulphur adhering to the shavings, as well as the size of box, number of boxes to be fumigated, etc.) With a little practice you will manage correctly and successfully. As soon as the boxes are fumigated, seal up every opening carefully, and set away as before directed, in a dry, dark, cool room. Watch the boxes for a few days, to be sure the worms are all killed. If you find they are not, give them another dose of the sulphur. After the worms are all killed, and every opening to the box sealed up, wrap each box separately in paper, and they will be safe through the summer.
How the eggs of the moth get into the boxes, has always puzzled bee-keepers. It is hardly possible for the moth miller to pass through a hive crowded with bees, to deposit her eggs in the crowded boxes. How they get there must be guess-work—that they are there, is well known to many bee keepers. I feel very confident that the eggs are deposited there after the boxes are taken from the hive, and while we are getting the bees out of the boxes.
CHAPTER VI.
SWARMING AND HIVING.
UNDER the old systems of bee keeping, swarming was very imperfectly understood. And even at the present time it is amusing to see how many old bee-keepers manage their bees. This is a class of old fogies, who denounce all improvements and progress in bee keeping, and who, year after year, move in the same tracks in the management of their bees, asserting that they know all about bees that is worth knowing. It is, to say the least, amusing, to see how this class of bee-keepers manage when their bees swarm.
In the middle of some very warm day in June or July, the alarm "bees swarming," is sounded. Immediately the whole household is turned out, some beating tin pans, some sounding horns, some shaking cow bells—anything and everything with which to make a terrible din is caught up in the excitement, and every member of the household works with the sole aim of making as much noise as possible. This is done to make the bees cluster! If this is not done, they will leave for the woods! I should think the poor bees would leave any way, to get rid of the noise and the foolish whims of their owner. But no, they dislike to leave the place of their nativity, so in ten minutes or less from the time they leave the hive, they settle in a cluster on some object, generally within a half-dozen rods of the hive. And they would have done so in this case if no noise had been made. The noise did not affect them in the least.
Now the bees are to be hived, and we will see how it is done in the old way.
The bees in this case have clustered on a limb of a valuable pear tree. "Very sorry they have pitched there," says the man of perfect knowledge in bee keeping; "I dislike to injure that tree, but there is no help for it."
But first a hive must be prepared. It is not quite ready. (This is bad management.) It must be washed out thoroughly on the inside with salt and water, and rubbed over with some sweet scented herbs. A bottom board must be got ready etc., etc. At last the hive is ready. Now this wise bee keeper places a table near where the swarm clustered, sets his hive on the table, raises one edge four or six inches, takes his saw—Oh, it is a pity to cut that nice limb full of fruit from the pear tree; but it must be done, thinks this man of perfection in bee management.
He grasps the limb firmly near the cluster of bees. They are very cross, and uneasy. They have been clustered an hour or more, while he has been getting his hive ready. He saws off the limbs on which the bees are hanging, and places it carefully, with the bees adhering, on the table, by the side of the hive, covers all very nicely with a clean sheet, and leaves them alone to enter the hive. At about sunset he will place the hive with the bees in it on the stand it is to occupy.