Foul brood is very contagious, and strong measures must be taken to stamp it out directly its presence is discovered. In a bad case the whole colony must be burnt. If the hive is a good one, it may be preserved, but then it must be thoroughly disinfected by being scalded and painted inside and out with carbolic acid. When the disease is discovered in an early stage the combs only need be destroyed, the bees being shaken off them and treated as a swarm. They should be put into a new hive on frames of foundation, and fed with syrup medicated with Naphthol-beta. This drug is supplied in packets by the principal dealers in bee-appliances, and full directions for use are printed on each packet. The old hive and everything connected with the diseased colony must be burnt or thoroughly disinfected. If the combs contain much honey it may be utilised for human consumption without fear; but on no account must it be given back to the bees. When fresh brood develops in the new combs, a sharp look-out must be maintained for the reappearance of the disease; if it should manifest itself, in however slight a degree, the operation of renewing hive and combs must be gone through again. The disease must be looked for in other hives, and these, if found to be affected, must at once be dealt with in a similar way. The source of infection should be ascertained, and if it be found that a neighbouring bee-keeper has any diseased colonies, he should be persuaded to take immediate steps to cure or destroy them.
Bees do not suffer from the attacks of many enemies in this country. Wasps are sometimes troublesome around the hive entrances in the autumn, and titmice are rather too fond of making a meal on a bee or two in the winter. The latter have an amusing way of bringing the bees out of the hive by tapping with their beaks on the alighting board, until a worker appears to see what the matter is, for which act it is immediately seized and swallowed. Field-mice like honey, and will sometimes play havoc with the combs of a weak colony; but if the entrance is not more than 3/8 inch deep, they will find it difficult to force a passage in the hive.
The most troublesome pests, when they get in the hives, are the caterpillars or the wax-moth. They riddle the combs with their numerous silk-lined tunnels, devouring all the pollen brood and honey that come in their way. It is difficult to get rid of these caterpillars without destroying the combs. All moths found in the quilts should be destroyed, for they lay the eggs which produce the caterpillars. The wax-moth is very destructive in bee-hives in America, but one seldom hears of its doing much damage in England, except in badly-kept or neglected hives. Two balls of naphthaline placed on the quilts will help to keep the wax-moth away.
A curious parasite called the bee-louse (Branla cocca) is sometimes found attached to the body of the queen, and occasionally also the workers. Though it belongs to the order of flies, it is blind and wingless, and most resembles a tiny reddish-brown spider. A few of these parasites do not seem to inconvenience the queen-bee.
Ants may be kept out of the hive by placing the legs in saucers containing water. Earwigs do no harm in the hive.
Experienced bee-keepers are often able to increase their colonies cheaply in the autumn by driving their neighbour’s bees. Unhappily there are still many owners of bees in this enlightened country to whom the hive is as a sealed book that they have never attempted to open. They do not trouble to look after their bees, and, when wanting the honey, would destroy them to obtain it, if some practical bee-keeper did not come forward and offer to do the work for them, asking to be allowed to take the bees he has saved from destruction in return for his services, a request which the owner is generally willing enough to grant. It requires a man of some little experience to drive bees successfully, so we will not go into the details of the operation here. Suffice it to say that the straw hive or skep from which the bees are to be driven is fixed in an inverted position, and another skep placed over it into which the bees, by repeated rapping, are driven. Driven bees can generally be bought fairly cheaply in the autumn. Several lots of driven bees should be put together into a wooden hive provided with frames fitted with foundation, or better still, ready drawn-out combs if you have them. Rapid feeding must then be commenced at once, and sufficient food for winter stores should be taken down and sealed over before the middle of September.
We must not be surprised if our extracted honey becomes opaque and solid on the approach of cold weather. This process is called candying or granulation, and is, in fact, a proof of the purity of the honey, though some kinds granulate much sooner than others. Well-ripened honey, when granulated, will keep good for years.
In concluding these papers a few words on the natural history of bees may be of interest. Some of my readers will be surprised when I tell them that there are about two hundred different kinds of bees to be found in England. Up to the present I have been talking only about one of these, and this one, properly speaking, is a honey-bee. Almost all the other bees are solitary in their habits, that is, they do not live in large colonies in hives, but singly or in pairs in holes in the ground, in old stumps or walls, or in the hollow stems of plants. Still they are, many of them, very interesting, and well worth studying. They all feed on honey, and may be found on various kinds of flowers throughout the spring and summer. Some of them are large and beautiful like the well-known humble-bees; others are small and inconspicuous. Some resemble our honey-bee so closely that none but an expert could tell them apart; others again have such a strong likeness to wasps that a novice would scarcely give them credit for sweeter relationships.
QUEEN HUMBLE-BEE (Bombus terrestris).