BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
The moth itself, which is usually to be seen during warm summer evenings flitting about the hives, watching for an opportunity to lay its
Not only the combs within the hives, but also any which may happen to be unprotected, are liable to be attacked by the moth. No combs or pieces of combs should be allowed to lie about; when they are of no further service they should be melted into wax at once. Spare combs should always be stored in a place of safety from the moth, and inspected frequently. On the first sign of moths or grubs they should be fumigated, and a few days afterwards they should undergo a second fumigation. When there are not many to do they may be suspended in empty hives about 1 in. apart, and the latter piled one on the other, taking care that the junctions of the boxes are made smoke-tight by pasting a strip of paper round them. The top box of the pile should contain no frames. Into this place an old iron saucepan containing live wood-embers, and on to these throw a couple of handfuls of sulphur, close the cover securely, and keep closed for a couple of days. In a large apiary it is best to have a small room fitted up for the purpose. Two or three pounds of sulphur will be sufficient for a large room.
"APIARIES ACT, 1907." The fcllowing is a digest of the Apiaries Act now in force :--
2. In this Act, if not inconsistent with the context,--
"Apiary " means any place where bees are kept:
"Bekeeper " means any person who keeps bees or allows the same to be kept upon any land occupied by him:
"Disease " means foul-brood (_Bacillus alvei_ and _Bacillus larvae_), bee-moths (_Galleria mellonella_ and _dehrea grizzella_), and any other diseases or pests from time to time declared by the Governor in Council to be diseases within the meaning of this Act:
"Frame hive " means a hive containing moveable frames in which the combs are built, and which may be readily removed from the hive for examination:
"Inspector " means any person appointed by the Governor as an Inspector under this Act.
Beekeeper to givb Notice of Disease.
3. Every beekeeper in whose apiary any disease appears shall, within seven days after first becoming aware of its presence, send written notice thereof to the Secretary for Agriculture, at Wellington, or to any Inspector of Stock.
Powers of Inspectors.
5. Any Inspector may enter upon any premises or buildings for the purpose of examining any bees, hives, or bee appliances, and if the same are found to be infected with disease he shall direct the beekeeper to forth with take such measures as may be necessary to cure the disease; or, if in the opinion of the Inspector the disease is too fully developed to
be cured, he may direct the beokeeper within a specified time to destroy by fire the bees, hives, and appliances so infected, or such portions thereof as the Inspector deems necessary.
Removal of Bees to new Hives.
6. In any case in which it is found by an Inspector that the bee-combs in any hive cannot, without cutting, be separately and readily removed from the hive for examination he may direct the beekeeper to transfer the bees to a new frame hive within a specified time.
Inspector's Directions to be obeted.
7. (1.) Every direction by an Inspector shall be in writing under his hand, and shall be either delivered to the beekeeper personally or sent to him by registered letter addressed to him at his last-known place of abode.
(2.) Every such direction shall be faithfully complied with by the beekeeper to whom it is addressed, and, in default of compliance within the time specified, the Inspector may within one month destroy or cause to be destroyed by fire, at the expense of the beekeeper, any bees, hives, and appliances found to be infected with disease.
Infected Bbes, Etc., NOT to be kept or sold.
8. No beekeeper shall-- (\(a\).) Keep or allow to be kept upon any land occupied by him any bees, bee-combs, hives, or appliances known by him to be infected by disease without immediately taking the proper steps to cure the disease; or (\(b\).) Sell, barter, or give away any bees or appliances from an apiary known by him to be infected by disease.
Frame Hives to be used.
9. No beekeeper shall, after the expiry of six months from the passing of this Act, keep or knowingly allow to be kept on any land occupied by him any bees except in a properly constructed frame hive.
Offerences.
10. Every person is liable to a fine not exceeding five pounds who-- (\(a\).) Obstructs an Inspector in the exercise of his duties under this Act, or refuses to destroy or to permit the destruction of infected bees or appliances : (\(b\).) Fails to comply with any direction given under the provisions of this Act by any Inspector : (\(c\).) Commits any other breach of this Act.
A CHEAP FRAME HIVE.
(See Plate VII.)
Though there may not be much gained in the long run by making any other than good substantial hives in the first place, there may be settlers to whom the question of a shilling or two extra per hive is a consideration. In such cases the following directions for making a cheap frame hive which will comply with the provisions of the Apiaries Act should be of service :Securo a complete kerosene case, and carefully knock off one of the broad sides; nail on the original cover, which will now form one of the sides. If the sides of the case are not level all round build them up level with fillets of wood. The inside depth should be 10 in. Next nail on at each end, half an inch below the inside upper edges of the case, to suspend the frames from, a fillet of wood \(\$\) in. thick by \(
rac{3}{4}\) in. wide, and the length of the inside end of the case.
I would strongly recommend the purchasing of '' Hoffman'' frames from the manufacturers, as they require to be very accurately made, and are rather difficult to make by hand. If, however, it is desired to construct them make the top bar \(
rac{1}{4}\) in. wide by \(
rac{3}{4}\) in. deep, and \(1\$\) in. long. Shoulders should be cut out on ends \(
rac{5}{4}\) in. long, leaving a thickness of \(
rac{1}{4}\) in. to rest on the fillets. The ends should be \(8
rac{1}{2}\) in. long, the same width as the top bar, and \(
rac{3}{4}\) in. thick; bottom bar \(17
rac{1}{2}\) in. long, \(
rac{3}{4}\) in. wide, and \(
rac{1}{4}\) in. thick. There are ten frames, and as they only cost 1s. in the flat and about 10d. postage, or, say, a trifle over 2d. per frame, it may in many cases pay to purchase them.
An entrance \(
rac{3}{4}\) in. wide by \(6\) in. long should be cut out of the lower part of one end of the case, and a small alighting board be nailed on underneath, projecting from \(2\) in. to \(3\) in. in front. (See Plate VI.)
The ccer can be made from the side knocked off, and should have small fillets, \(1\) in. wide, nailed on right round the edge, to overlap the body. Cover the top with ruberoid or other waterproof material, and let it overlap the edges. (See Plate VII.)
With regard to comb-foundation, see Chapter I.
Top or surplus honey boxes can be nade in the same way, but will not require a bottom.
When setting them out for the bees the hives can be placed on four half-bricks, one at each corner; cr, better, still, sink four beer-bottles neck downwards in the ground, and set the hive on these.
The cost of this outfit, if the settler makes frames and all, will be under 1s., after paying, say, 4d for the box; and if the frames are purchased, under 2s. 6d., and his own labour.
Mr. Stewart, of Crookston, Southland, had over 200 of such hives in use last season (1906-7), from which he secured between 11,000 lb. and 12,000 lb. of first-class honey.
VI. SPRING FEEDING OF BEES.
Next in magnitude to the losses of bees which result from inattention to disease are those which occur in the spring months through starvation. Few but experienced beekeepers and those who suffer financially from losses realise how readily the food-supply may become exhausted after breeding is in full swing in spring. In my rounds hitherto I have found it a general complaint that numbers of colonies have died off in the spring. The owners did not know the cause, and when starvation was suggested they were quite surprised, as they " had left plenty of food in the hive the previous season," and it had never occurred to them that the supply might run short.
THE CAUSE OF STARVATION.
Given a fair supply of stores in late autumn, when fixing the bees up for winter, a colony will use comparatively little during the winter months, but as soon as breeding begins in the latter part of July or early August the stores are largely drawn upon for feeding the brood, and unless nectar can be gathered to help them out, the stores will rapidly diminish. As a rule willows and other spring forage afford a good supply in fine weather, but the weather is frequently far from fine at that time--generally unsettled, and against the bees securing nectar. Take a case, for example, where the bees have come out of winter quarters with a fair supply of food in the hive, the weather fine, and some nectar is being brought in from the fields. Under these conditions, where there is a good queen, breeding will go ahead very rapidly, and in a short time there will be a big lot of brood to feed, and a large quantity of food needed. If at this time bad weather should set in and last for several days, preventing the bees gathering nectar, probably within a week pretty nearly all the reserve stores within the hive will be used up, and if the bees are not seen to before they arrive at this stage they will probably die of starvation. This is not a fancifully drawn case, but a real practical one, and shows just how such large losses occur in spring.
These remarks apply, but in a vastly less degree, to other seasons of the year.
## 26 When and how to Feed.
Experienced beekeepers can judge in a moment by the weight of the hive, without opening it, whether the supply of food is running short or not, and every beekeeper should learn to do this. By putting one foot on the back of the bottom board to keep it steady, and with one hand raising the back of the hive, one can get the weight at onee, and after a little practice can judge to within 1 lb, the amount of honey inside. In this way a large number of hives can be examined in ten or fifteen minutes, and those needing food should be marked.
The safest and best food to give, unless frames of honey from known clean hives are available, is sugar-syrup. Make it as described in Chapter IV, under the heading of ''Feeding and Disinfeeting.'' Never purchase honey or accept it as a gift to feed your bees with--it is too risky, and to sterilise it would require two or three hours' boiling, which would be more trouble than the honey would be worth.
FEEDERS.
There are several kinds of feeders advertised by those who cater for beekeepers. Clean, empty combs make excellent feeders, and they can be filled by placing them on an inclined board in a large milk-dish or other similar vessel, and pouring the syrup through a fine strainer held a foot or so above them. The force of the falling syrup expels the air from the cells, and the syrup takes its place. After filling, the combs should be suspended over a vessel (to catch the drip) before placing them in the hives.
There are ''division-board'' feeders to hang in the hive like frames, and others to place over the frames, such as the ''Miller'' and ''Sinplicity'' feeders; also the ''Alexander'' feeder under the bottom board, either of which will answer the purpose, provided attention is given to replenishing the food when needed. The inexperienced should always feed _within the hive_, and in the evening.
Finally, remember that a little food given in the spring to tide the bees over a spell of bad weather will save them to give you a large return in honey later on, whereas neglect in this respect will result in their loss.
**II. Apiculture IN RELATION TO AGRICULTURE.\({}^{*}\)**
TRE benefits derived by both agriculturists and horiculturists from the labours of the bee are now very generally understood and acknowledged; but still cases sometimes occur, though rarely, of farmers objecting to the vicinity of an apiary, and complaining of bees as "'trespassers," instead of welcoming them as benefactors.
ARE BEES TRESPASSERS?
It is not, perhaps, surprising that at first a man should imagine he was being injured in consequence of bees gathering honey on his land, to be stored up elsewhere, and for the use of other parties; he might argue that the honey belonged by right to him, and even jump at the conclusion that there was so much of the substance of the soil taken away every year, and that his land must therefore become impoverished. It is true that if he possessed such an amount of knowledge as might be expected to belong to an intelligent agricultural, working upon rational principles, he should be able, upon reflection, to see that such ideas were entirely groundless. Nevertheless, the complaint is sometimes made, in a more or less vague manner, by persons who ought to know better; and even beekeepers appear occasionally to adopt an apologetic tone, arguing that " bees do more good than harm," instead of taking the much higher and only true stand by asserting that bees, while conferring great benefits on agriculture, do no harm whatever, and that the presence of an apiary on or close to his land can be nothing but an advantage to the agricultural.
BENEFICIAL INFLUENCE OF BEES ON AGRICULTURE.
The value of the intervention of bees in the cross-fertilisation of plants is dwelt upon in Chapter III, "Australasian Bee Manual," third edition,
* This paper, which constituted the nineteenth chapter of the third edition of my "Australasian Bee Manual," was an attempt, and I have reasons for believing a successful attempt, to clear up several misunderstandings that had arisen in the minds of some farmers who had come to regard the working of neighbours' bees in their pasture as detrimental to themselves, and to prove on the contrary that it is really to their interests to encourage beekeeping. Shortly after the paper was first published the subject was brought prominently forward in consequence of the action taken by a farmer in the United States to claim damages from a neighbouring beekeeper for alleged injury done to his grazing sheep by trespassing(?) bees. Needless to say, he lost his case. The paper has been extensively quoted in several American bee journals, and described as a "unique and valuable addition to bee literature." I trust it may still serve a good purpose in this country, where it first appeared.--I.H.
and the reader is referred for further information to the works of Sir J. Lubbock and of Darwin. The latter, in his work on '' Cross and Self Fertilisation of Plants,'' gives the strongest evidence as to the beneficial influence of bees upon clover-crops. At page 1,69, when speaking of the natural order of leguminous plants, to which the clovers belong, he says, '' The cross-seedlings have an enormous advantage over the self-fertilised ones when grown together in close competition''; and in Chapter X, page 361, he gives the following details of some experiments, which show the importance of the part played by bees in the process of cross-fer-tilisation :--
_Trifolium repens_ (White Clover).--Several plants were protected from insects, and the seeds from ten flower-heads on these plants and from ten heads on other plants growing outside the net (which I saw visited by bees) were counted, and the seeds from the latter plants were very nearly ten times as numerous as those from the protected plants. The experiment was repeated in the following year, and twenty protected heads now yielded only a single abortive seed, whilst twenty heads on the plants outside the net (which I saw visited by bees) yielded 2,290 seeds, as calculated by weighing all the seeds and counting the number in a weight of 2 grains.
_Trifolium pratense_ (Purple Clover).--One hundred flower-heads on plants protected by a net did not produce a single seed, whilst one hundred on plants growing outside (which were visited by bees) yielded 68 grains' weight of seed; and, as eighty seeds weighed 2 grains, the hundred heads must have yielded 2,720 seeds.
Here we have satisfactory proof that the effect of cross-fertilisation brought about by bees upon the clovers and other plants growing in meadows and pasture-lands is the certain production of a large number of vigorous seeds, as compared with the chance only of a few and weak seeds if self-fertilisation were to be depended upon. In the case of meadow-cultivation it enables the farmer to raise seed for his own use or for sale, instead of having to purchase it, while at the same time the nutritious quality of the hay is, as we shall see further on, improved during the process of ripening the seed. In the case of pasture-lands, such of those vigorous seeds as are allowed to come to maturity and to fall in the field will send up plants of stronger growth to take the place of others that may have died out, or to fill up hitherto-unoccupied spaces, thus tending to cause a constant renewal and strengthening of the pasture. The agricultural himself should be the best judge of the value of such effects.
The beneficial effect of the bees' visits to fruit-trees has been well illustrated by Mr. Cheshire in the pages of the _British Bee Journal_, and by Professor Cook in his articles upon '' Honey Bees and Horticulture '' in the _American.ipient/trist_. (see also '' Bulletin No. 18, Bee-culture,'' New Zealand Department of Agriculture.) In fact, even those who complain of bees cannot deny the services they render; what they contest is the assertion that bees do no harm.
can bees harm the soil or the crops? is, then, the question to be considered. The agricultural may say, "Granting that the visits of bees may be serviceable to me in the fertilisation of my fruit or my clover, how will you prove that I am not obliged to pay too high a price for such services?" For the answer to such a question one must fall back upon the researches of the agricultural chemist, which will furnish satisfactory evidence to establish the two following facts: First, that saccharine matter, even when assimilated and retained within the body of a plant, is not one of the secretions of vegetable life which can in any way tend to exhaust the soil, being made up of constituents which are furnished everywhere in superabundance by the atmosphere and rain-water, and not containing any of the mineral cr organic substances supplied by the soil or by the manures used in agriculture; and, secondly, that in the form in which it is appropriated by bees, either from the nectaries of flowers or as honeydew from the leaves, it no longer constitutes a part of the plant, but is in fact an excrement, thrown off as superfluous, which if not collected by the bee and by its means made available for the use of man would either be devoured by other insects which do not store honey, or be resolved into its original elements and dissipated in the air.
The foregoing statements can be supported by reference to authorities w'_ch can leave no doubt as to their correctness--namely, Sir Humphrey Davy in his "Elements of Agricultural Chemistry," written more than seventy years ago, and Professor Liebig in his " Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture and Physiology," written some ten years later, and the English version of which is edited by Dr. Lyon*Playfair and Professor Gregory. These works, which may be said to form the foundation of a rational system of agriculture, were written with that object alone in view, and the passages about to be quoted were not intended to support any theory in favour of bee-culture or otherwise; they deal simply with scientific truths which the layman can safely follow and accept as true upon such undeniable authority, although he may be incapable himself of following up the processes which have led to their discovery or which prove their correctness.
SACCHARINE MATTER OF PLANTS NOT DERIVED FROM THE SOIL.
Liebig, when describing the chemical processes connected with the nutrition of plants, informs us (at page 4*) that--
There are two great classes into which all vegetable products may be arranged. The first of these contain nitrogen; in the last this element is absent. The compounds destitute of nitrogen may be divided into those in which oxygen forms a constituent (starch, lignine, &c.) and those into which it does not enter (oils of turpentine, lemon, &c.)
And, at page 141, that--
Sugar and starch do not contain nitrogen; they exist in tue plants in a free state, and are never combined with salts or with alkaline bases. They are compounds formed from the carbon of the carbonic acid and the elements of water (oxygen and hydrogen).
Sir Humphrey Davy had already stated that, ''according to the latest experiments of Gay Lussac and Thenard, sugar consists of 42:47 per cent. of carbon and 57:23 per cent. of water and its constituents.'' Now, Liebig in several parts of his work shows that the carbon in sugar and all vegetable products is obtained from carbonic acid in the atmosphere; and that ''plants do not exhaust the carbon of the soil in the normal condition of their growth; on the contrary, they add to its quantity.''
DERIVED FROM THE ATMOSPHERE AND RAIN-WATER.
The same authority shows that the oxygen and hydrogen in these products are derived from the atmosphere and from rain-water; and that it is only the products containing nitrogen (such as gluten or albumen in the seeds or grains), and those containing mineral matter (silex, lime, aluminium, &c.), which take away from the soil those substances that are required to be returned to it in the shape of manures. The saccharine matter, once it is secreted by the plant and separated from it, is even useless as a manure. Liebig says on this head, page 21,--
The most important function in the life of plants, or, in other words, in their assimilation of carbon, is the separation--we might almost say the generation--of oxygen. No matter can be considered as nutritious or as necessary to the growth of plants which possesses a composition either similar to or identical with theirs, because the assimilation of such a substance could be effected without the exercise of this function. The reverse is the case in the nutrition of animals. Hence such substances as sugar, starch, and gum, themselves the products of plants, cannot be adapted for assimilation; and this is rendered certain by the experiments of vegetable physiologists, who have shown that aqueous solutions of these bodies are imbibed by the roots of plants and carried to all parts of their structure, but are not assimilated; they cannot, therefore, be employed in their nutrition.
NECTAR OF PLANTS INTENDED TO ATTRACT INSECTS.
The secretion of saccharine matter in the nectaries of flowers is shown to be one of the normal functions of the plant, taking place at the season when it is desirable to attract the visits of insects for the purposes of its fertilisation. It may, then, be fairly asserted that the insect, when it carries off the honey from any blossom it has visited, is merely taking with it the fee or reward provided by nature for that special service.
There are, however, occasions when considerable quantities of such matter are thrown off or exuded by the leaves, which effect is taken to indicate an abnormal or unhealthy condition of the plant. At pages 106 and 107 of Liebig's book (speaking of an experiment made to induce the rising sap of a maple-tree to dissolve raw sugar applied through a hole cut in the bark) he shows that,--
When a sufficient quantity of nitrogen is not present to aid in the assimilation of the substances destitute of it, these substances will be separated as excrements from the bark, roots, leaves, and branches.
In a note to this last paragraph we are told that--
And further on, at page 141, he says,--