When boxes are to be taken off, use tobacco smoke freely, to quiet the anger of the bees. Puff smoke in at the entrance of the hive, before you touch it, then start the top boxes from their fastenings, giving the bees a puff or two of smoke at every crevice about the boxes at the top and sides.
CARE OF HONEY IN BOXES IN WARM WEATHER.
Considerable care is necessary for the preservation of honey in boxes removed from the hives in warm weather. As soon as the bees are all out of the boxes, seal up all openings to the boxes, and set them away (in the same position they occupied in the hive, so the honey will not leak from the cells) in a dry, dark, cool room. We must now guard against the moth.
As in warm weather the instincts of the fly is directed to the dead carcass, 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. There 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 anyway, to get rid of the noise and 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.