BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
Of the cause of the periodical mortality known by the name of Disappearing Trouble or Spring Dwindling nothing definite is as yet known. It appears to be a result of certain climatic conditions in the autumn preceding a winter or early spring honey-flow from certain encalypts, and is looked upon rather as a condition of the bees than a disease. A characteristic of this trouble is that there are no symptoms. Colonies become gradually, and sometimes rapidly, weaker day by day without more than the normal number of dead bees being visible in or near the hives, while under microscopical examination neither dead nor live bees from the dwindling colonies differ in any way from bees of normal colonies in districts unaffected. If the dwindling takes place during midwinter the queen and the last hundred or so of bees perish from cold; when it oceurs in spring, the bees and queen swarm out and join some other colony when a point of numbers is reached from which the colony could no longer recover. The queens of colonies which dwindled in this way, when introduced to normal colonies in an unaffected locality, do not reproduce dwindling in succeeding seasons, and the combs from which the bees disappeared in no way affected other bees which were put on then.
During the spring of 1909, and again in 1912, heavy losses of bees were experienced in the country near the Granpians, but not in the serub country on and inside the ranges. In both 1909 and 1912 there was a dearth of pollen in the preceding autumn, followed by a honey-flow from ironbark eucalyptus, _E. leucoxylin_ and _E. sideroxylin_. The former is known by different names in different localities, such as white ironbark, bluegum, whitegum, and spotted box. The latter is everywhere called red ironbark. Both are winter bloomers, and secrete neetar very freely, but produce no pollen for bees.
It has been suggested that the abnormal aetivity of the bees during a period when they should be semi-dormant, which is caused by the flowering of ironbarks, causes the premature wearing out of the workers, and there seems to be some force in this contention. The opposition to it is, however, the faet that when the tree variously known as cabbage gum, bastard box, peppermint, &c., flowers during the winter months, bees work freely on it and come through strong. This tree, however, produces pollen freely, and, while but little brood can be reared owing to low temperatures, the nitrogen withdrawn from the body of the bee by the secretion of the enzyme which is necessary for the changing of the nectar into honey, is continuously replaced by the consumption of pollen found on the blosson from which the nectar is gathered, and thus the vigour and vitality of the bee are maintained when gathering from pollen-producing blossoms, but impaired when working on flowers producing nectar only.
Dr. Kramer, a well-known Swiss authority, states that sugar syrup (which contains no nitrogen) fed to bees and extracted contained the same amount of nitrogen as pure honey. The nitrogen was added out of the bee's own organism. "That," Dr. Kramer says, " explains why after being fed sugar, bees are so eager for pollen, also why bees rapidly become enfeebled upon being fed sugar when no pollen or substitute is available " (_Gleanings in Bee-culture,_ Dec. 15, 1912, page 817).
As bees do not obtain pollen from ironbark blossoms, a winter flow from that source is the equivalent to heavy sugar feeding with a lack of pollen at the same time, which, as Dr. Kramer further on in the same article says, " so rapidly decimates the colonies."
Pending the collection of further data on this subject, and the discovery of a means of supplying nitrogen artificially, beekeepers in localities liable to this trouble will be well advised to remove their colonies to some other locality during the " off year " preceding the blooming of the ironbark.
## XX.--Enemies of the Bee.
The worst enemies to bee-keeping are the three brood diseases of bees comprised under the general term of Foul-brood, and a disease of adult bees called Bee Paralysis. These diseases and their treatment were described in detail in chapter XIX. Other enemies of bees are insects and birds of several species.
Insect Enemies.
_Bee Moths._
Bee or Wax Moths are great pests where common or black bees are kept in a careless manner. As a rule, black bees and neglect are found together. There is but little, if any, trouble from Bee Moths in a well kept apiary of Italian bees.
There are two species, the "Larger Bee Moth " (_Galleria mellonella_) and the "Lesser Bee Moth " (_Achruca grisella_); both species are frequently found in the same apiary; and these pests are present in most parts of the world where bee-keeping is carried on. The larvae of both moths are great enemies to bees, and may become very destructive. They perforate the comb with burrows, thereby destroying the cells, and often cover it with a network of sixteen threads. The destruction of the cells and the impediments caused by the silken network partly smother the larvae, and, as the adult bees are greatly hampered by the threads in feeding them, the larvae are liable to be starved.
The "Larger Bee Moth," which measures about 1 inch in length, is of a dark brown colour, and the under wings are a light grey on the margin, with a lighter colour towards the centre. When young, the caterpillars are yellowish in colour, and when fully grown are a dull greyish colour.
The "Lesser Bee Moth " is a uniform coloured drab-grey moth, with a yellow head. The larvae are whitish, with brown heads. They are usually found in Spring, on the floor of hives, amongst the waste wax, which consists chiefly of the caps of the honey cells, emptied by the bees during the Winter. The floor of the hive should, therefore, be scraped clean at the first examination of hives in Spring, and the _debris_ removed and burnt. When quilts or mats are used over the frames the larvae and cocoons of the lesser wax moths are often found between the top bars and the quilt.
In Vietoria there are at least four broods in a season; the first, appearing in early Spring from caterpillars that have passed the Winter in a semi-dormant condition, is not so destructive as the others appearing later, because the larvae, being smaller, eat less than those of the larger sort, and also because they do not spin quite so profusely. Italian or Ligurian bees are not attacked to any extent.
## Prevention and Remedies.
A good hive, filled with a strong colony of Italian bees, is the best preventive against these pests. Cleanliness is of the greatest importance, and to obtain this use frame hives. All moths, cocoons, and larvae should be destroyed when found. All hives should be made of timber
profitable for an adult to engage in the destruction of dragon flies in this manner, boys will readily take to it as a pastime.
#### 1.4.1.1 Antis
Antis are often troublesome in an apiary, and while the number of bees actually destroyed by certain species is not very large, they keep the bocs in a state of irritation and excitement, resulting in the stinging of persons and animals coming near the hives. There are four out of the many species of ants which annoy bees and their owner more than the rest. These are (1) the Red Ant (Meat Ant), (2) the Sugar Ant, (3) the Black Wood Ant, and (4) the small Black Ant.
Amongst amateur beekeepers and the public generally an idea prevails that to protect bees against ants the hive must be raised on a stand, the legs of which stand in water, or that the hive must by some other means be made inaccessible to ants. When beekeeping is carried on commercially such devices are almost impossible and ineffective. The amount of material and labour required to put even a moderate-sized apiary on ant-proof stands, and the time necessary to keep the devices in working order, would be an altogether too heavy item of expenditure. While this way of protecting hives against ants is, perhaps, the best for one or two hives of bees, it is not only too laborious, but also ineffective in an apiary, for while with constant attention it is possible to keep the ants away from the hive itself, many of the bees returning home heavily laden during a honey-flow might on the ground near the hive, and there fall victims to ants before they have rested sufficiently to again take wing to reach their home. Where hives are standing directly on the ground, bees alighting on it walk home, which they are quite able to do, although too exhausted to fly. A colony of bees in normal condition, and located in a properly-constructed hive, is quite able to take care of its home, provided any ants' nests in the immediate neighbourhood of the apiary are destroyed.
The Red Ant, which is the most troublesome, is easily traced to its hill, and can quickly be destroyed by means of carbon bisulphide, such as is used for the destruction of rabbits in their burrows. On a cold day, or towards evening, put a tablespoonful of the liquid into each hole and immediately close it up with wet clay. The gas into which the liquid evaporates is heavier than air, and penetrates to the lowest depth of the ants' nest, destroying ants, larvae, and eggs. Carbon bisulphide is highly inflammable and explosive; great care should, therefore, be exercised in handling it, and no light allowed within a considerable distance of it. Further, to be effective it should not be exploded after it is applied to the ant-hill, as some suppose.
When carbon bisulphide is not available, a temporary expedient may be employed by repeatedly putting ashes on the ant-hill, or covering it up with green bushes; in either case the ants will shift camp, but not infrequently move to a spot nearer to the bees, and destruction is, therefore, the only effective remedy.
Sugar Ants are nocturnal in their habits, and, therefore, often remain unnoticed; they will often establish themselves under hive-stands, and although I have never known them to kill bees, as the Meat or Red Ants do, yet they annoy bees much after sunset in attempts to enter the hive. Sugar ants may be destroyed with carbon bisulphide as advised above, but if located under a hive the latter should be closed and temporarily removed, but returned to the spot before morning and the bees liberated.
Wood Ants are shiny black ants about \(\frac{1}{4}\) inch in length. They live in holes carried down to a depth of 2 feet occasionally. There is a number of such burrows some distance apart, and sometimes connected with surface tunnels. There are also summer nests made of fibre and pieces of fine grass, and built against the stems of young trees or in stumps and behind the bark of dead trees. This ant is, fortunately, not found in many districts; it is very difficult to deal with, as there are so many small nests not easily found. The distinguishing characteristic of this species is its indifference to cold. It will be found quite active at times when bees are in a semi-dormant state. It is never seen out in sunlight, but keeps in the shade, and does its marauding work nously at night. Carbon bisulphide applied to the nests whenever found is the only remedy. The small black ant, which sometimes becomes very numerous in apiaries, is distinguished from the former by its more slender build, quicker movements, and much larger colonies. Its objective is honey, as distinguished from the Wood Ant, which preys upon bees.
Of the many ant remedies advertised, some are useless, while others cannot be applied in an apiary, as they would be destructive of bee life.
_Spiders._
There are several species of spiders which prey on bees. The black spider with a red mark will increase rapidly in an apiary if left undisturbed, and will exaet a heavy toll in bees. The lurking places under covers and other shelter spots about hives should be periodically examined, the spiders killed, and the balloon-like cocoons containing their eggs burned.
_The Australian Bee Eater_ (_Merops ornatus_).
As a destroyer of bees this bird holds pride of place. Mr. C. Freneb, in the _Journal of Agriculture_ of February, 1902, says: This beautiful bird is unlike any other of our Australian birds, and cannot easily be mistaken. The general plumage of this bird is a beautiful golden green and azure blue, the feathers of the throat being of a rich yellow. Length of bird, according to Mr. Campbell, 10 inches, including tail, 6 inches, and bill 12 inches, the tail feathers assuming a peculiar shape and colour. The habits of this bird are partially migratory, and the birds are to be found in the northern parts of Victoria. They appear in September, and, according to Mr. Campbell and other ornibologists, leave again in March. The eggs, usually five in number, are deposited in holes made mostly in the sandy banks of rivers.
The bee eater, as its name implies, has a bad reputation as a destroyer of bees, but the strictly insectivorous nature of the bird renders
it, with all its faults, much more valuable than many people think. I have seen the holes in which the young are reared strewed with the remains of beetles, plant bugs, moths, &c., and but very few bees; but these latter the parent birds may dissect before feeding their young. The bee eater is one of the most beautiful of our indigenous birds, and, when on the wing, has somewhat the flight of our well-known and much-esteemed wood swallows or summer birds.
_The Wood Swallow_ (_Artamus personatus_).
Wood swallows, of which there are several species, are much more numerous than bee eaters, and although each wood swallow will, perhaps, eat less bees and more other insects than a bee eater, the aggregate damage done to the beekeeper by wood swallows is much greater than that done by bee eaters. On cool days, when few other insects than bees are about, hundreds of wood swallows will sometimes keep in the vicinity of an apiary for days catching the bees which come out for water, and thus deplete the colonies of adult bees at a time when they can ill be spared. These birds, after catching a bee, alight somewhere and break the bee in two, the abdomen, with the sting, being discarded. On this account a much greater number of bees is required to feed the bird, and the absence of the abdomen of the bee, with its distinguishing coloured rings, in the craw of birds shot and dissected, has led superficial observers to the belief that these birds do not eat bees.
Mr. C. French, in the _Journal of Agriculture_ for May, 1902, says of the Masked Wood Swallow, the species illustrated herewith: The male of this species has, according to Gould, the face, ear coverts, and throat jet black, bounded with a narrow line of white, crown of the head sooty black, gradually passing into the deep grey which covers the whole of the upper surface, wings and tail, the latter tipped with white; all the under surface very delicate grey, thighs dark grey; iridis blackish brown; bill bluish at base, becoming black at the tip; legs and feet bluish grey. The female differs principally in having the colouring of the bill and the black mark on the face much paler.
The nests of the wood swallow are frail, and somewhat carelessly built of small twigs and fibre, and in the case of the Masked Wood Swallow half-dried grass is often used as a lining. The nest is built mostly in low trees and bushes, and contains two to three eggs.
There is a number of other birds which eat a few bees occasionally, or take to it as a freak. In the first case the damage done is insignificant, while in the latter the killing of the one or more individual birds will supply the remedy.
_Dilcks_.
Ducks and bees are mutually destructive; that, at least, is the writer's experience. Adult ducks, when once they take to eating bees, cannot be cured of the habit. In the case of young ducklings the evil supplies its own remedy, for, sooner or later, a sting will lodge somewhere in the bird's anatomy, and cause what an uninitiated onlooker would take to be a fatal fit. Adult ducks do not seem to be affected in any way,The Wood Swallow (Artamus personatus).
[Illustration from French's Handbook of the Destructive Insects of Victoria, Part IV., p. 147.]no matter how many bees they swallow at waterholes where bees come to drink, or which they catch on low flowering plants such as dandelions and clovers. Quite early in his bee-keeping experience the writer was compelled to dispense with ducks, for they would do little else than eat bees from morning to evening. Fowls do not in any way interfere with bees, nor bees with fowls. When insect food is scarce, fowls will eat dead bees, and sometimes drones, but I have never known them to eat live workers.
## XXi
Beeswax.
" Beeswax has its origin in the nectar or honey consumed by bees and transformed by them into fatty matter by a process of digestion and secretion. It is an organie, not a mechanical production, and issues in the form of scales from between the ventral plates of the abdomen of the worker bee." (T. W. Cowan, Wax Craft, page 45.)
The production of wax by the honey bee is in a certain ratio to that of honey; thus, bees in trees or box hives yield, on the average, one pound of wax to twenty pounds of honey. With the introduction of the bar frame hive, and the method of extracting the honey from the combs and returning them to the hive to be refilled with honey by the bees, the ratio of wax to honey has been considerably altered and stands at 1 to 80. In other words, the production of extracted honey for the same weight of wax is four times that of the primitive method of cutting out the combs to obtain the honey. As a result, the price of honey has declined while that of wax has advanced during recent years. The wax is the product of a transformation of the honey or nectar when retained in the body of the bee for a time under certain conditions. Many attempts have been made to turn surplus honey into wax by feeding it back to the bees, but none have proved suecessful from a commercial point of view. While, therefore, the proportion of wax to honey cannot be profitably increased, so far as its production is concerned, there is room for much improvement in the methods of obtaining the wax from the combs, in the handling, refining and marketing.
Thousands of pounds of beeswax are annually thrown away, or burned with old black brood combs, because the old-fashioned method of boiling the combs in a bag submerged under water fails in obtaining more than a mere fraction of the wax contained in them. New comb consists entirely of wax, and is white or yellow in colour, according to the flora from which the bees obtained the nectar converted into wax. When brood is reared in the cells the comb first becomes brown and, after a time, black, tough, and heavy. Each bee larva, before changing to the chrysalis stage, spins a ceooon, and as generation succeeds generation in the same cells old brood comb contains numbers of these in each cell, one inside the other; but, although the appearance of the comb is entirely changed, the original wax cells are still there. When old brood comb is dissolved by boiling in water each of the ceooons set loose by the melting of the comb becomes coated with liquid wax which elings to the fibrous material of the ceooons, and but little will rise to the surface when boiled in a bag kept under water.
To obtain all the wax, or at least the maximum from old combs, pressure is required--something of the nature of a cheese press. The press shown in the illustration (Fig. 1) is a stout wooden box securely bolted together and lined with tin; inside of this is a slanted grating and bottom, leaving a chamber of 10 x 10 inches (12 inches deep) into which an ordinary sugar bag is inserted. The old comb is dissolved by boiling and poured into the bag, the latter is then folded down, the press block put on, and the screw gradually worked down. Water and wax escape by the outlet into a separating tank which retains the wax, but allows the snrplus water to escape.
Fig. 1 shows the press complete, excepting that a board should be fastened across the top of the uprights with a hole to guide the screw, so that it works evenly and steadily. The uprights should either be securely fastened to the floor of a little platform or braced to the wall by stays at the top. The frame consists of two uprights, about two feet eight inches long, made of 6-inch x 2-inch timber, with cross piece of similar dimensions at the top, and a floor piece 12 inches wide near the bottom, the four being mortised and bolted together at the intersections, the screw block being slightly let into the cross piece and bolted. The screw is a 2-inch wooden carpenter's bench screw. The body of the press is made of \(\frac{5}{8}\)-inch shelving, blocked or dove-tailed together at the corners, and measures 11\(\frac{3}{8}\) in, x 11\(\frac{8}{8}\) in, inside by 12 in, deep. The bottom is fitted into the body flut on the underside; the upper-side has an incline of 1 inch from the sides to the groove in the centre, which latter inelines towards the outlet in front, as shown in Fig. 2. \(\Lambda\) frame 3 inches wide runs round the top of the body, bracing it together, and projecting upwards by 1 inch over the top edge of the body, forms a rabet \(\frac{5}{8}\) inch x 1 inch. The whole body is lined with tin inside, the groove terminating in a spout. Figures 3, 4 and 5 show the fittings inside the lining. Fig. 4 is the bottom of the grating, made of pieces of wood \(\frac{5}{8}\) inch thick and 1 inch deeper in the centre than at the ends, to correspond to incline of the bottom of the body, on the lining of which they rest. They are \(\frac{3}{2}\) inch apart, and slats \(\frac{5}{8}\) inch wide by \(\frac{5}{8}\) thick, set 3-16th apart, are nailed crossways on to the top of them as shown in Fig. 4.
Fig. 3 shows the four sides of the grating, each of which is unconnected with the others, and consists of slats \(\frac{3}{8}\) inch x \(\frac{5}{8}\) inch, set 3-16th apart, nailed on to a piece 1 inch x \(\frac{5}{8}\) at top, which rests on the rabet at top of body, when inserted in the latter. \(\Lambda\) doubled piece of tin in a sawker made endways into the slats connects them at the bottom without obstructing the passage of the liquid pressed.
Fig. 5 is the press block, made of a piece of hardwood, with stout iron handle, which is raised and a lever put through when the block is to be lifted. A board \(\frac{1}{8}\) inch thick' and measuring 10 inches x 10 inches (which is the clear measurement inside the grating), fastened to the hardwood block, has slats the same as the sides of the grating.
For pressing honey out of cappings or comb, a piece of hessian sufficiently large to lap over double when the press is full, is tucked into the grating. If there is any difficulty in getting the pressed cake out of it it is overcome by drawing out one or two of the sides of the grating.
For pressing wax from combs, press eakes or refuse, it is best to use a bag, just fitting inside the grating. The bag should he of good hessian or similar material, with a square bottom like a woolpack.
The wax should be boiled up with water, and before the first lot is poured into the press, the bag should be inserted and boiling water poured in to prevent the wax adhering to the bag and woodwork when it cools. When fully pressed down unserew, lift out the press block, shake up and fold the bag afresh, and press again, or pour in more if there is but little
Figure 4: Top view of Bottom of Press Block. Figure 5: Press Block.
refuse. The liquid wax and water run into a receptacle standing under the spout, and are separated by means of a separating tank described further on.
There are several types of wax presses, and while a wood-slatted one, as the one described, is preferable, its construction requires a certain amount of skill and handiness with tools not possessed by every beekeeper. \(\Lambda\) press made almost entirely of metal is obtainable from dealers in bee-keepers' supplies. Fig. 6 is the press ready to set up; also two nonlocks for wax cakes at the back.
In Fig. 7 the different parts are shown.