BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
**S01.** These insects are seldom seen on the wing, unless started from their lurking places about the hives, until towards dark. On cloudy days, however, the female may be
Figure 215: male.
noticed endeavoring, before sunset, to gain entrance into the hives.
"If disturbed in the daytime," says Dr. Harris, "'they open their wings a little, and spring or glide swiftly away, so that it is very difficult to seize or hold them."
They are surprisingly agile, both on foot and on the wing, the motion of a bee being very slow, in comparison. "They are," says Reaumur, "the most nimble-footed creatures that I know."
In the evening, they take wing, when the bees are at rest, and hover around the hive till, having found the door, they go in and lay their eggs.
"It is curious," says Huber, "'to observe how artfully the moth knows how to profit by the disadvantage of the bees, which require much light for seeing objects, and the precautions taken by the latter in reconnoitering and expelling so dangerous an enemy.
"'Those that are prevented from getting within the hive, lay their eggs in the cracks on the outside; and the little worm-like caterpillars hatched therefrom, easily creep into the hive through the cracks, or gnaw a passage for themselves under the edges of it.'--Dr. Harris.
One afternoon, about twenty-five years ago, our Senior saw a female bee-moth on the front of an eke hive (**27S**), and noticed that she was laying in the crack, between two ekes, through which the propolis could be seen; the ekes being rabbeted to received the comb-bars, their thickness there was reduced to about three-eighths of an inch.
The moth laid about ten eggs, then walked about, seeming satisfied with her work, and came back to lay about the same number, repeating the maneuver several times.
This shows that moths may lay eggs in the hive from the outside, and that propolis is a food for their just-hatehed larvae. One of our objects, in preserving the strip around the hive to support the cap (fig. 72), and in in ineasing the bottom (3.12), was to hinder the moth.
**S05. ''As soon as hatched, the worm encloses itself in a case of white silk, which it spins around its body; at first it is like a mere thread, but gradually increases in size, and, during its growth, feeds upon the cells around it, for which purpose it has only to put forth its head, and find its wants supplied. It de
**S06**. The worm is here given of full size, and with all its peculiarities. The sealy head is shown in one of the worms; while the three pairs of claw-like fore legs, and the five pairs of hind ones, are delineated. The tail is also furnished with two of these legs. The breathing holes are seen on the back.
**S07**. Wax is the chief food of these worms, but as Dr. Donhoff says: "Larvae fed exclusively on _pure_ wax will die, wax being a non-nitrogenous (**221**) substance, and not furnishing the aliment required for their perfect development"; and his statement agrees with the faet that their larvae prefer the brood-combs, which are lined with the skins east away by the bee-larvae (**167**), and which, in consequence, are more liable to be devoured than the new ones. In faet, they eat pollen and propolis, and while making their* 434 enemies of bees.
* 505cooons, they even seem to relish woody fibre, for they often eat into the wood of the frames or of the hives in which they are allowed to propagate, while eomb-foundation remains almost untouched by them.
**S08**. When obliged to steal their living among a strong colony of bees, they seldom fare well enough to reach the size which they attain when rioting at pleasure among the full combs of a discouraged population. In about three weeks, the larvae stop eating, and seek a suitable place for eneasing themselves in their silky shroud. In hives where they reign unmolested, almost any place will answer their purpose, and they often pile their ecoous upon one another, or join them together in long rows. They sometimes oecupy the empty combs, so that their ceoeoons resemble the capping of the honey-cells. In Fig. 219, Mr. Tidd has given a drawing, aeeurate in size and form, of a curious instance of this kind. The black spots, resembling grains of gunpowder, are the excrements of the worms.
If the colony is strong, the worm runs a dangerous gauntlet, as it passes, in search of some eervice, through the ranks of its enranged foes. Its motions, however, are exceedingly quick, and it is full of cunning devices, being able to crawl baekwards, to twist round on itself, to curl up almost into a knot, and to flatten itself out like a pancake. If obliged to leave the hive, it gets under some board or concealed crack, spins its eocoon, and patiently awaits its transformation.
**S09.** The time required for the larvae to break forth into winged insects, varies with the temperature to which they are exposed, and the season of the year when they spin their ecooons. We have known them to spin and hateh in ten or eleven days; and they often spin so late in the Fall, as not to emerge until the ensuing Spring.
**S10.** In Northern latitudes where the thermometer ranges for days and weeks below 10 degrees the bee-moth-worm can winter only in the hive near the bee-cluster. It is a fact worthy of notice that apiaries that are wintered _in the cellar_ are morc annoyed by the moth during the following Summer than those that are wintered out of doors, because none of the larvae of the moth perish.
Dr. Donhoff says that the larvae become motionless at a temperature of 38 to 40 degrees, and entireiy torpid at a lower temperature. A number, which he left al] Winter in his summer-house, revived in the Spring, and passed through their natural changes. This was in Germany, where the Winters are milder than in our Northern and Middle States.
"If, when the thermometer stood at 10 degrees, I dissected a chrysalis, it was not frozen, but congealci immediately afterwards. This shows that, at so low a temperature, the vital force is sufficient to resist frost. In the hive, the chrysalids and larvae, in various stages of development, pass the Winter in a state of torpor, in corners and crevices, and among the waste on the bottom-boards. In Mareh or April, they revive, and the bees of strong colonies commence operations for dislodging them."--Donhoff.
Some larvae which Mr. Langstroth exposed to a temperature of 6 degrees below zero, froze solid, and never revived. Others, after remaining for eight hours in a temperature of about 12 degrees, seemed, after reviving, to remain for weeks in a crippled condition.
"The eggs of the bee-moth are perfectly round, and very small, being only about one-eighth of a line in diameter. In the ducts of the ovarian, they are ranged together in the form of a rosary. They are not developed consecutively, like those of the queen bee, but are found in the ducts, fully and perfectly formed, a few days after the female moth emerges from the cocoon. She deposits them, usually, in little clusters on the ccmbs. If we wish to witness the discharge of the eggs, it is only necessary to seize a female moth, two or three days old, with finger and thumb, 1,y the heal--she will instantly protrude her ovipsitor, and the eggs may then be distinctly seen passing along through the semi-transparent duct.
"Last Summer I reared a bee-moth larva in a small box. It spun a cocoon, from which issued a female moth. Holding her by the head, I allowed her to deposit eggs on a piece of honeycomb. Three weeks afterwards, I examined the comb, and found on it some web and two larvae. The eggs were all shriveled and dried up, except a few which were perforated, and from which, I suppose, the larvae emerged. This appears to be a case of true parthenogenesis in the bee-moth."--Translated from Dr. Donhoff by S. Wagner.
**S11**. In Fig. 220, Mr. Tidd has faithfully delineated, and Mr. Smith skillfully engraved, the black mass of tangled webs, coeoons, excrements, and perforated eombs, which may be found in a hive where the worms have completed their work of destruction.
The entrance of a moth into a hive and the ravages conmitted by her progeny, forcibly illustrate the havoc whichvice often makes when admitted to prey unheeked on the precious treasures of the human heart. Only some tiny eggs are deposited by the insidious moth, which give birth to very innocent-looking worms; but let them once get the control, and the fragranee" of the honied dome is soon corrupted, the hum of happy industry stilled, and everything useful and beautiful ruthlessly destroyed.
As a feeble colony is often unable to cover all its combs, the outside ones may become filled with the eggs of the moth. The discouraged aspect of the bees soon indicates that there is trouble of some kind within, and the bottom-board will be covered with pieees of bee-bread mixed with the _excrement_ of the worms.
_If a feeble colony cannot be strengthened so as to protect its empty combs, the careful bee-keeper will take them away until the bees are numerous enough to need them._
**S12**. _C_onbs having no brood, from dead colonies, or surplus combs, with or without honey, should be smoked with the funes of burning sulphur, to kill the eggs or worms of the moth, when kept from the bees in the months of June, July, August, and September. The box, hive, or room in which they are kept should be tightly closed to prevent the gas from escaping till it has done its work. In smoking combinoney in a room, the suiphur may be placed on hot coals in a dish, and eare should be taken not to use too much of it, as the gas has the effect of turning the propolis to a greenish eolor, quite damaging to the looks of the beautiful sections. Enough smoke to kill the flies, in a room, will be found sufficient. Dry combs kept over Winter in a well-closed room without a fire, are not in danger of the moth the following Summer, unless they are in some manner exposed. Combs, in which there have been moths, should be examined occasionally, to be smoked again if any worms are found.
_Bee-keepers also use bi-sulphide of carbon, poured on a rag or in a saucer and enclosed within the biv or box, but sulphur fumes is a less expensive remedy, though a little more troublesome. Bi-sulphide of carbon is an evaporating explosive substance, which must be handled with eare, but its evaporation within a closed box is sufficient to destroy all living insects; a tablespoonful is enough for the combs of a bive. Sulphur or brinstone may be used by first making it into wicks; it is melted over a slow fire and strips or rags dipped into the liquid. These strips, when coated with brimstone, may be used by cutting them into pieces of the required size for each operation.
A bee-keeper of Switzerland, Mr. Casteliaz, keeps his combs in a closed box, in which he places some lumps of camphor. He says that bees aecept these combs, even when impregnated with the odor of camphor.
**S13**. Italian bees, unless exceedingly weak and queenless, will defend a large number of combs against moths. One of our neighbors, who had, occasionally, helped us in the apiary, after witnessing our suecess in bee culture, bought a colony of Italian bees and divided it into three swarms, without regard to the seantiness of the crop. His swarms having dwindled to naught, he returned their combs to the impoverished colony, whose population was unable to cover more than two or three combs. But the returned combs had not been protected against moths, which hatched so numerous that our neighbor, surprised to see about as many moths as bees going out of the hive, came to us for advice. On opening the hive, we found three combs of brood crowded with bees, and seven others that were a perfect mass of webs, spotted with exrements. The bees were all on their combs and the moths on theirs; not one worm could be found on either of the three combs, protected by the Italians. Both populations, the one of bees, the other of moths, seemed to dwell harmoniously near each other.
**S14**. The most fruitful cause of the raages of the moth still remains to be described. _If a colony becomes hopelessly queenless_ (**499**)_, it must, unless otherwise destroyed, in
Let any fatal aeeident befall an animal, and how soon will you see them,--
"First a speck and the" a Vulture,"
speeding, from all quarters of the heavens, on their eager flight to their destined prey, when only a short time before not one could be perceived.
When a colony becomes hopelessly queenless, even should the bees retain their wonted zeal in gathering stores and defending themselves against the moth, they must as certainly perish as a carcass must decay, even if it is not assailed by filthy tiles and ravenous worms. Occasionally, after the death of the bees, large stores of honey are found in their hives. Sueh instances, however, are rare, for a motherless hive is almost always assaulted by stronger colonies, which, seeming to have an instentive knowledge of its orphanage, hasten to take possession of its spoils; or, if it escape the Scylla of these pitiless plunderers, it is dashed upon a more merciness. Charybdis, when the misereant moths find out its destution.
**S15**. The introduction of movable-frame hives and Italian bees, with the new system of management, has done away with the fear of the moth. It is no longer common to hear bee-keepers speak of having "good luck" or "bad luck" with their bees; as bees are now managed, success or failure never depends on what is called "luck."
_To one acquainted with the habits of the moth, the beekeeper who is constantly learning its ravages, seems almost as much deluded as a farmer would be, who, after searching diligently for his cow, and finding her nearly decoured by carrion worms, should denounce these worthy scavengers as the primary cause of her untimely end._
The bee-moth has, for thousands of years, supported itself on the labors of the bee, and there is no reason to suppose that it will ever become exterminated. In a state of nature, a queenless hive, or one whose inmates have died, being of no further account, the mission of the moth is to gather up its fragments, that nothing may be lost.
From these remarks, the bee-keeper will see the means on which he must rely, to protect his hives from the moth. Knowing that strong colonies which have a fertile queen, can take care of themselves in almost any kind of hive, he should do all he can to keep them in this condition. They will thus do more to defend themselves than if he devoted the whole of his time to fighting the moth. Inexperienced bee-keepers, who imagine that a ecology is nearly ruined when they find a few worms, should remember that almost every colony (especially black bees) however strong or healthy, has some of these enemies lurking about its premises.
It is hardly neecessary, after the preceding remarks, to say much upon the various contrivances to which some resorted as a safeguard against the bee-moth. The idea that gauze-wire doors, to be shut at dusk and opened again at morning, can exclude the moth, will not weigh much with those who have seen them on the wing\({}_{\blacksquare}\) in dull weather, long before the bees have ceased their work. Even if they could be excluded by such a contrivance, it would require, on the part of those using it, a regularity almost akin to that of the heavenly bodies.
An ingenious device was invented for dispensing with such close supervision, by governing the entrances of all the hives by a long lever-like ben-roost, so that they might be regularly closed by the crowing and caichling tribe when they go to rest at night, and opened again when they fly from their perech to street the ncrry norm. Alas! that so much skill should have been all in vain! Some chickens are sleepy, and wish to retire before the bees have completed their work, while others, from ill-health or laziness, have no taste for early rising, and sit moping on their roost, long after the cheerful run has purpled the glowing East. Even if this device could entirely exclude the moth, it could not save a colony which has lost its queen. The truth is, that such contrivances are equivalent to the look put upon the stable door after the horse has been stolen; or, to attempts to banish the ehill of death by warm covering, or artificial heat.
The prudent bee-keeper, remembering that "prevention is better than eure," will take pains to destroy the larvae of the moth as \(earl_{y}\) in the season as he can, while swarming bis bees. The destruction of a single female worm may thus be more effeetual than the slaughter of hundreds at a later period.
**S16. Mice.** It seems almost incredible that such puny animals as mice should venture to invade a hive of bees; and they often slip in when cold compels the bees to retreat from the entrance. Having once gained admission, they build a warm nest in their comfortable abode, eat up the honey and such bees as are too much ehilled to offer resistance,* and fill the premises with such a steneh, that the bees, on the arrival of warm weather, often abandon their polluted home. The entrance should never be made deep enough to allow mice to pass (**348**).
**S17. Birds.** Very few birds are fond of bees. The King-bird (_Tytranus Carolinensis_) which devours them by seores, is said--when he can have his choice--to eat only the drones; but as he catches bees on the blossoms--which are never frequented by these fat and lazy gentlemen--the indonstrious workers must often fall a prey to his fatal snap. There is good reason to suspect that this gourmand can distinguish between an empty bee in search of food, and one which, returning laden to its fragrant home, is in excellent condition to glide--already sweetened--down his voraeious maw.
**S18.** The bee-keepers of England complain of the sparrows, which they aeeuse of eating bees. If these birds add this mischief to so many others of which they are guilty, the bee-keepers should find some means of getting rid of them.
In the Vosges (France) most of the farmers suspend earthen spots to the walls of their barns in which the sparrows make their nests. These jug-shape pots are examined every week and the young birds are killed as soon as they are ready to fly out, and are put into the frying-pan. We have seen as many as five or six dozen pots on the same wall, nearly all filled with nests, for sparrows raise many broods every year.
If\(-\)as in the olden time of fables\(-\)birds could be moved by human language, it would be worth while to post up, in the vicinity of our apiaries, the old Greek poet's address to the swallow:
''Attie maiden, honey fed,
Thout the busy buzzing bee,
Warbler, thou a warbler seize?
Guest thyself by Sunmer brought,
Yellow guests whom Summer brings?
'Tis not fair; indeed, 'tis wrong,
Die by mouth of ceaseless song.''
**S19**. \(N_{i}\) Apiarist ought ever to encourage the destruction of any birds, except the too-pleentiful sparrows, because of their fondness for bees. Unless we can check the custom of destroying, on any pretense, our insecurity birds, we shall soon, not only be deprived of their serial melody among the leafy branches, but shall lament, more and more, the increase of insects from whose ravages nothing but these birds can protect us. Let these who can enjoy no music made by these winged choristers of the skies, except that of their agonizing screams as they fall before their well-aimed weapons, and flutter out their innocent lives before their heartless gaze, drive away, as far as they please from their cruel premises, all the little birds that they cannot destroy, and they will,eventually, reap the fruits of their folly, when the caterpillars weave their destroying webs over their leafless trees, and insects of all kinds riot in glee on their blasted harvests.
**S20.** Tame ebiekens eat drones, but not workers. Once we noticed a rooster seemingly eating bees at the entrance of a bive. The bees were then killing their drones (**192**). On approaching the hive, we saw him carefully piek out a drone from among the bees, shake off a worker-bee which had elung to him, and swallow the drone. Young drones can be fed to ehiekens, who soon learn to eat them greedily, but if a worker-bee is found among them they will shake their heads at her, with a knowing look of disgust. Young dueks, if insufficiently fed, will eat bees, and are often killed by being stung while swallowing them.
**S21.** Other enemies. The toad is a well-known de-vomer of bees. Sitting, towards evening, under a hive, he will sweep into his mouth, with his swiftly-darting tongue, many a late-returning bee, as it falls, heavily laden, to the ground; but as he is also a diligent consumer of various injurious insects, he can plead equal immunity with the inseetivorous birds.
It may seem amazing that birds and toads can swallow bees without being stung to death. They seldom, however, meddle with any, except those returning fully laden to their hives, or such as, being away from home, are indisposed to resent an injury. As they are usually swallowed without being crushed, they do not instinctively thrust out their stings, and before they can recover from their surprise, they are safely entonbed.
**S22.** Bears are exceedingiy fond of honey; and in countries where they abound, great precautions are needed to prevent them from destroying the hives.
In that quaint but admirably common-sense work, entitled, _"The Feminine Monarchie, written out of Experience, by Charles Butler; printed in the year 1609,"_ we have an amusing adventure, related by a Museovite ambassador to Rome:* [506] enemies of bees.
"A neighbor of mine,"' saith he, "in searching in the woods for honey, slipped down into a great hollow tree, and there sunk into a lake of honey up to the breast; where--when he had stuck fast two days calling and crying out in vain for help, because nobody in the meanwhile came night that solitary place--at length, when he was out of all hope of life, he was strangely delivered by the means of a great bear, which, coming hither about the same business that he did, and smelling the honey, stirred with his striving, clambered up to the top of the tree, and then began to lower himself down, backwards, into it. The man bethinking himself, and knowing that the worst was but death, which in that place he was sure of, belipt the bear fast with both hands about the loins, and, withal, made an outery as long as he could. The bear being thus suddenly affrighted, what with the handling and what with the noise, made up again with all speed possible. The man held, and the bear pulled, until, with main force, he had drswn him out of the mire; and then, being let go, away he trots, more afrail than hart, leaving the smeared swain in a joyful fear."
**S23**. The _braula ocean_, improperly called bee-lonse, exists in Italy, Southern France and other mild climates. Dr. Dubini has seen queens so completely covered with them, that only their legs could be seen. These lice, whose second name, _ccea_, means _blind_, have been often found by us on imported queens on their arrival. They are so large that they can easily be taken off the queen and killed. It appears that they can only propagate in warm countries, for they exist in the South of Europe and are unknown either in Russia, or in North America.
**S21**. Small ants often make their nests about hives, to have the benefit of their warmth. They are annoying to the Apiarist, but neither molest the bees nor are molested by them.
A sheet of tarred paper in the hive cover or cap where they usually congregate will drive them away, as the smell is unpleasant to them. Salt, ashes, or powdered sulphur will also keep them away.
Our limits forbid us to speak of wasps, hornets, millipedes (or wood-liee), spiders, libellulas and other enemies of bees. These lesser enemies are detailed at length and in a scientific manner, with engravings, in the work of Prof. Cook, "The Bee-Keeper"s Guide," to which we refer the lovers of entomological study. If the Apiarist keeps his colonies strong, they will usually be their own best protectors, for, unless they are guarded by thousands ready to die in their defense, they are ever liable to fall a prey to some of their many enemies, who are all agreed on this one point, at least--that stolen honey is much sweeter than the slow ace-evaluations of patient industry.**
## Chapter XX.
Honey Handling.