BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
**Another form of foulbrood, called "BLACK BROOD" or "EUROPEAN FOULBROOD," in which the symptoms are slightly different, the ropiess less apparent, may be cured by removing the queen or caging her so as to allow the bees to clean out all dead brood. Shortly after the last bees have hatched, or in about thirty days, the queen may be released or a new queen given. By that time the disease is usually overcome. But this is impracticable in the true ropy foulbrood, because the bees can never clean out all the dead larvae. Even if they did, it is well proven that such combs perpetuate the disease, unless strong antiseptics are used, which the average operator cannot afford to bother with. In either of these diseases, the seals or caps of the cells containing dead larvae are punctured or sunken. A very mild form of disease of the brood is called PICKLED BROOD. Some larvae die, but usually dry out so that they may be shaken out by inverting the combs. It is unimportant. Unimportant also is chilled brood, that has been killed by accidental exposure to cold, or starved brood, which has died for lack of sufficient food.**
**The BEE-MOTH has been considered a very dangerous enemy of bees. But modern methods have proven that this insect cannot harm healthy, strong colonies of bees. Like the carrion flies that lay eggs in the body of dead or dying animals and produce maggots by the million, the bee-moth is a predatory insect which lays eggs in the combs of weak or queenless or dead colonies. Its larvae grow and feed upon the cocoons, wax, propolisis and detrins of old hives. If your colonies are strong, your bees have nothing to fear from the moth. If you wish to preserve empty combs or combs of honey, free from moths, keep them in a well closed box after having burned a little brimstone. in a dish or crock, within the box. Or use a few drops of bisulphide of carbon on a rag or in a saucer within the box. This drug is inflammable and should be used with care. The burning of brimstone within the honey-room in a dish, in quantity sufficient to kill the Bies, will destroy the moth. Neither their eggs, nor the winged insect can stand the winter in a room where the temperature gets down about zero. The only way in which the bee-moth perpetuates in this climate is by an occasional larva escaping the vigilance of the worker bees, in some warm nook of a populous hive, or by the apiarist keeping some combs over winter within the walls of a warm house.**
## 5 THE PROPER HANDLING OF HONEY
**both in removing it from the hives and preparing it for sale, is of great importance. Do not use smoke in large amount over the combs that are to be removed, for it taints the honey perceptibly, especially if strong, like tobacco smoke. Use just enough to handle the bees safely. A case of comb honey raised off the hive and laid carefully down upon a bottom board close at hand, may be covered with a sheet. The bees will leave it promptly and return to the hive, crawling out from under the sheet. No occasion should be given them to come back, however, as they would sooner or later carry all the honey back to the hive.**
**BEE-ESCAPES (Fig. 33) are very handy in removing bees from either extracting supers or section supers. They are placed in a special HONEY-BOARD (Fig. 33) which is inserted between the body and the super of the colony, in the evening preceding the intended removal of the honey. Care must be taken not to leave any crevices through which robber bees might pass in or out, since most of the inmates will have left the super without defense against intruders from without. The only possible danger in the use of bee-escapes is in very hot weather, in a hive exposed to the rays of the sun when the super, which has no room left for ventilation, except through the very small opening in the escape, may be subjected to a temperature high enough to break down the combs. Outside of this possibility, the bee-escape is highly commendable for the removal of honey.**
**SEPARATORS (Fig. 34) between the sections, whether of wood or metal, are necessary if you wish to produce fancy honey which may be handled or crated without danger of scratching the surface of the combs. When separators are not used, the sections must be placed within the SHIPPING
Figure 34: Separator.
CASES in the same position as they were built, so that inequalities in the com's may fit in their proper places. But in the production of extracted honey, or if you wish to raise comb honey only for your own consumption, separators are not desirable, for they are impediments to the free action and ventilation within the hive.
For the above reason, queen-excluders, to keep the queen out of the supers so that she may not lay eggs in those combs, bee-entrance guards and queen and drone-traps to keep the queen from leaving the hive and to destroy the drones as they emerge, are not to be recommended unconditionally. But, these contrivances are used by many people, nevertheless: if removed as soon as no longer needed, they prove useful in some cases.
**SECTION HONEY** is put up in SHIPPING CASES (Fig. 35) with glass on one side and paper at the bottom to keep dripping honey from running out. The sections along the glass should be a fair average sample of those within. It is neither profitable nor fair to misrepresent.
EXTRACTED HONEY is kept in tanks or barrels until the end of the warm season, when it should be put up for sale at retail before it GRANULATES. In JUNE HONEY, granulation takes place about the first of September, and in FALL HONEY by the end of November. This is the rule, but not without exception. Honey which has been harvested too soon, is sometimes watery. Some of its water may be evaporated during the summer by keeping it in a very warm, dry room, but it is far best to delay harvesting until it is fully ripe and thick.
Square cans, glass jars, tin friction top pails, are the most serviceable packages for extracted honey. No impurities should be allowed in the retail packages. Honey is very heavy, twelve pounds to the gallon, and all impurities, such as broken particles of comb, bees. etc., rise to the surface, and should be skimmed off previous to bottling.
Granulated honey may be liquefied by slow heat, but as this product contains very volatile essential oils, from the blossoms, which give it its fine flavor, and as it may be scorched readily, it should never be heated over a direct fire. Over water, or in a water bath with the temperature of the water BELOW THE BOILING POINT, honey will melt until it has regained its liquid form, and will after this be slower to granulate again. Very ripe and thick honey granulates in soft, butter-like grains. Honey that is more or less unripe, granulates in lumps like sugar, with watery particles about the lumps. Such honey will improve by being melted properly, as it will evaporate more or less of the watery particles.
There is no such thing (and there never was) as artificial comb honey. The making of comb foundation, the base of the honey-comb, from pure beeswax, used as guides in frames and sections, gave rise to the story of artificial comb honey, the making of which would be beyond the power of man. COMB FOUNDATION secures straight combs, worker combs, saves the bees immense labor, is made of their own product and has come to stay. It is used in full sheets: sometimes in the brood chamber it is strengthened with light wires imbedded in it. Care should be taken in giving it to natural swarms, as they may hang upon it and break it down with their weight before they have fastened it sufficiently. It is best to alternate it with built combs to lessen the load.
Narrow sheets of comb foundation, used to guide the bees, and hung to the ceiling of either sections or frames, are called STARTERS. They are indispensable to secure straight combs. In sections some apiarists use a triangular sheet hanging from the ceiling and a very narrow strip at the bottom. This causes the bees to fasten the comb at the bottom as well as at the top, and insures safer transportation, for a comb which is fastened only to the top is very easily broken out. Full sheets in sections are, of course, preferable.
To begin in bee-culture, it is not advisable to buy more than from two to five colonies of bees until you learn how to handle them and make sure that you will enjoy working with them, for a neglected apiary is worthless. Colonies or swarms may usually be bought cheaper near home than by sending away for them, owing to the expense of expresage. If you buy full colonies, try to make your purchase a little before fruit bloom, as at this time they are lightest and can be most easily transported.
Inspect the inside of the hives, selecting those that fly the strongest, and make sure that they have healthy brood in the combs. As a matter of course, you will buy bees in movable frame hives, for it is quite a task for a beginner to transfer bees, and bee-keeping is out of the question without movable frames at the present advanced stage of the pursuit.
If you have to move the bees but a short distance, you will have no difficulty, by simply nailing a wooden block before the entrance and making sure that the bottom board and cover are fastened down so they cannot be removed by jar. We usually tack a cleat over them. Move the hives during cool weather or at night. If you must wait till warm weather, then remove the cap and tack a sheet of wire cloth over the frames and keep the hive in the shade until they are released. When you place them on the spot which they are to occupy, release them, and at the same time blow a little smoke in at the entrance. This is necessary if they have traveled but a short distance. as they may be irritated. But if they have been confined and carried for quite a distance, they will be frightened so as to be harmless. Yet it is a good precaution to smoke them a little. Place some sort of obstruction across their flight, such as a slanting board leaning over the entrance, or anything which will not prevent them from going out, but will make a very plain impediment to their starting out--as they are accustomed to do--in a bee line from the entrance. By this means you compel them to take notice of the fact that their surroundings have been changed: each bee as it flies out will recognize the spot. Thus you will avoid the risk of losing a great many who would otherwise fly straight out and be unable to return.
## 5 The Aplary
Put your bees in a sheltered spot, as much as possible facing south, southeast or southwest. A northern exposure has always proved detrimental with us. If your bees can be sheltered by a board fence from the hard winds, so much the better. But the ideal location is on the south slope of a hill.
Bee-culture will succeed almost anywhere, but a country with plenty of white clover pasture and orchards, and with low, moist fields where the persicarias (commonly called heartsease), golden rod, spanish needles and asters are to be found in abundance during the fall months, will prove good for honey production. Sweet clover, alfalfa and many wild flowers are also good honey producers.
Place your bees in the shade of some shrubs, under apple trees or cherry trees. Tall shade trees will do if you are not afraid of climbing after swarms, or if you keep your bees in very large hives from which they will swarm but little. It is well to have a good foundation for each hive, by using either bricks or oak blocks. A few cinders will keep the weeds and grass from growing in front of the entrance.
## 6 Transferring
Bees from common to movable-frame hives. This process may be easily affected whenever the weather is warm enough for bees to fly. It has sometimes been done in winter for purposes of experiment, by removing the bees into a warm room, but the best time for it is when the bees have the least honey, at the beginning of the fruit bloom. If it can be done on a warm day, when they are at work, there will be but little danger from robbers.
It is conducted as follows: Have in readiness a box--which we shall call the forcing box--whose diameter is about the same as that of the hive from which you intend to drive the swarm, Smoke the hive, lift it from its bottom-board without the slightest jar, turn it over and carefully carry it off about a rod, as bees, if undisturbed, are much more inclined to be peaceable, when removed a short distance from their familiar stand. If the hive is gently placed upside down on the ground, scarcely a bee will fly out, and there will be little danger of being stung. The timid and inexperienced should protect themselves with a bee veil, and may blow more smoke among them, as soon as the hive is inverted. After placing it on the ground, the forcing-box must be put over it. If smooth inside it should have slats fastened one-third of the distance from the top, to aid bees in clustering. Some apiarists place the box slanting on the hive, so as to be able to see the bees climbing. This method, called open driving, is a little slower, but it may give the operator a chance of seeing the queen: when the driving can be considered as done.
As soon as the apiarist has confined the bees, he should place an empty hive--which we call the decoy-hive--upon their old stand, which those returning from the fields may enter, instead of dispersing to other hives, to meet, perhaps, with a most ungacious reception. As a general rule, however, a bee with a load of honey or bee-bread, after the extent of her resources is ascertained, is pretty sure to be welcomed by any hive to which she may carry her treasure: while a poverty-stricken unfortunate that presumes to claim their hospitality is, usually, at once destroyed. The one meets with as flattering a reception as a wealthy gentleman proposing to take up his abode in a country village, while the other is as much an object of dislike as a poor man, who bids fair to become a public charge.
If there are in the apiary several old colonies standing close together, it is desirable, in performing this operation, that the decoy-hive, and the forcing-box, should be of the same shape and even color with that of the parent hive. If they are very unlike, and the returning bees attempt to enter a neighboring hive, because it resembles their old home, the adjoining hives should have sheets thrown over them, to hide them from the bees, until the operation is completed.
To return to our imprisoned bees: their hive should beaten smartly with the palms of the hands, or two small rods, on the sides to which the combs are attached, so as to run no risk of loosening them. These "RAPPINGS." although not of a very "spiritual" character, produce, nevertheless, a decided effect upon the bees. Their first impulse, if no smoke were used. would be to sally out, and wreak their vengeance on those who thus rudely assail their honied dome: but as soon as they inhale its fumes, and feel the terrible concussion of their once stable abode, a sudden fear that they are to be driven from their treasure, takes possession of them. Determined to prepare for this uncemonious writ of ejection, by carrying off what they can, each bee begins to lay in a supply, and in about five minutes, all are filled to their utmost capacity. A prodigious humming is now heard, as they begin to mount into the upper box: and in about fifteen minutes from the time the ramping began--if it has been continued with but slight intermissions--the mass of bees, with their queen, will hang clustered in the forcing-box, like any natural swarm, and may, at the proper time, be readily shaken out on a sheet in front of their intended hive.
Now put the forcing-box on their old stand and carry the parent-hive to some place where you cannot be annoyed by other bees.
It is important to make sure that the queen is removed, as she might be injured in the transfer of comb. Her presence among the driven bees can be ascertained in a few minutes by the quietness of their behavior, or by the eggs which she drops on the bottom board, and which can easily be seen if a black cloth is spread under the forcing-box.
If the queen is not with the bees, a few will come out and run about, as if anxiously searching for something they have lost. The alarm is rapidly communicated to the whole colony: the explorers are reinforced, the ventilators suspend their operations, and soon the air is filled with bees. If they cannot find the queen, they return to their old stand, and if no hive is there, will soon enter one of the adjoining colonies. If their queen is restored to them soon after they miss her, those running out of the hive will make a half-circle and return: the joyful news is quickly communicated to those on the wing, who forthwith alight and enter the hive: all appearance of agitated running about on the outside of the hive ceases and ventilation, with its joyful hum, is again resumed.
If the queen has not left the old hive, it is safer to return the bees and to resume the driving at another time.
To transfer the comb, have on hand tools for trying off a side of the hive: a large knife for cutting out the combs: vessels for the honey: a table or board on which to lay the brood combs: and water for washing off, from time to time, the honey which will stick to your hands.
Have also a number of pieces of wire, No. 16, cut a little longer than the frame, and bent on the ends in this shape 1, to be driven into the wood of the frame and to hold the combs in place. Let a certain number of frames be in readiness, with three or four of these wires fastened on one side, and lay them on the table. WIRE-SIDE DOWN. You must also have your movable frame hive in readiness near the table, with an extracting pan under it instead of a bottom board, to receive what honey may drip. All this must be ready before disturbing the bees.
Having selected the WORKER-COMBS, carefully cut them rather large, so that they will just CROWD into the frames and retain their places in their natural position until the bees have time to fasten them.
Now tack as many wires over them as may be necessary to held them securely, and hang them in the hive, DRONE COMBS SHOUTED BE INVARIABLY MELTED INTO WAX. If drone-brood is found, it can be fed to young chickens, who are very fond of the larvae. The bottom board should be put under the hive just before carrying it out.
When the hive is thus prepared, the bees may be put into it and confined, water being given to them until they have time to make secure against robbers.
If there is danger of robbers, it is preferable not to put the bees into the hive till late in the aiternoon. They should be shaken in front of the new hive on a sheet like a natural swarm.
When the weather is cool, the transfer should be made in a warm room, to prevent the brood from being fatally chilled. An expert apiarist can complete the whole operation --from the driving of the bees to the returning of them to their new hive--in about an hour, and with the loss of very few bees, old or young.
When transferencing in early spring, it should be remembered that the worker-brood is of great value, and not the least bit of it should be neglected or wasted unnecessarily. After a week or more, according to the season, the hive may be opened and the fastenings removed.
Let not the novice, however, think that transferring bees is a task that requires but little skill. He who transfers successfully a large number of colonies may be called an expert in handling bees.
## Horticulture and Bee-Culture
Bees are beneficial to fruit blossoms, which they help to fertilize by going in them in search of pollen. It is by the agency of insects that fruits are often made most abundant. Spraying will not injure the fruit or poison the bees if it is done after the blossoms have fallen, and this is the only time when fruit trees should be sprayed to kill the injurious insects, such as the codling moth.
When you produce honey, do not rush it off to the large cities, but be sure and supply your home market first. The writer has known apiarists to ship their honey to a commission man who reshiped a part of it right back to the grocer in the immediate vicinity of the producer of that honey. Honey is good and wholesome. It is an already assimilated food, and for that reason is far superior to sugar or fruits for the invalid, but it should be used in reasonable quantities. Those whose stomachs will not accept honey may learn to use it by beginning with very diminutive doses. The slight amount of acid contained in the honey is the only cause for its rejection, but when once the stomach is accustomed to it, it will be found the most digestible food taken.
To change the breed of your bees you may buy some queens of such breed as you see fit to select. Upon receipt of the queen purchased, remove the queen of your colony and insert the new queen. A good method of introduction is usually printed on the mailing cage which contains the queen. If this is done in the early part of the season you will see the worker progeny entirely changed before fall, for in the busy season the worker bees do not live on an average over forty days. A good queen will last three years and sometimes four or five years, but the bees will usually rear a new one from her brood before she dies.
Beware of making inventions in bee-culture until you have mastered the subject.
## Melting Comb into Beeswar
If the combs are old and dark put them in a tub before melting, fill the tub with cistern or soft water, keep the combs for about twenty-four hours under water, by some boards loaded with stones or bricks. The water will dissolve the impurities and by moistening the cocoons left in the cells by the larvae, it will prevent them from absorbing wax. Then, after draining the water out, melt them slowly with clear water in a copper or tin boiler. This method will give you a larger quantity and a better quality of bees wax than any other.
We recommend the HERSHISER WAX PRESS for melting combs.
The melted wax should be poured into flaring vessels so as to be easily removed when cooled.
## instructions to beginners
1. To winter bees successfully out of doors, shelter them from north winds and keep them in a dry place, a little above ground.
2. To winter bees indoors, they should be kept at a temperature of 40 to 45 degrees, in quietude and darkness.
3. A room or garret, where the temperature varies, is a bad place to winter bees, in confinement.
4. Twenty-five pounds of honey is required to winter a colony of bees and help them to breed early in spring.
Do not keep your bees confined to the hive on warm winier days.
6. Prepare your hives in the winter and make them large. A large hive can be reduced in size by the help of a removable division-board, but a small hive cannot be enlarged and is not suitable for the use of a very prolific queen. Make all hives and frames of uniform size.
**SPRING**.
7. Spring is the season when the bees are most in danger of starvation and dwindling. Watch your colonies, feed the destitute till the honey crop opens, and lessen the room by means of a partition board, increasing the space as it is needed.
8. If you have to feed, do not feed at the entrance or out of doors, as it would teach bees to rob. Feed in the hive above the brood.
9. When you transport bees, do not hitch the horses until the bees are on the wagon. Unhitch before unloading.
10. When you see many bees hunting around neoks and corners, you may be sure there is some robbing going on somewhere.
11. One bee in March is worth ten bees in June, as it is the early bees that help to breed the large swarms. So make things convenient for your bees early in the season: supply them with water close at hand and flour in place of the pollen which they cannot get yet. The flour must be packed in a lump in an open box exposed to the sun. An old comb or a little honey is used for bait.
12. Two drones cost as much to raise as three working bees, and after they are raised they keep on eating, while the workers labor for you.
13. In the early spring remove the drone comb and replace it with worker comb or comb foundation, as much as in your power. You will always leave more drone comb than needed, and every square foot of drone comb replaced by worker comb is equal to a dollar saved.