BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
The repeated working in of sugar, as described above, is laborious and tiresome. A candy equally good can be made in much less time, and in a single operation, by working the honey into the sugar instead of the sugar into the honey. It is done in the following manner:--Some good-quality honey is heated till it is thin, but not above 160\({}^{\circ}\) Fahr. Into a pudding basin, put 2\({}^{\circ}\) ozs. icing sugar, and rub it evenly fine, using a round-bottom lenoinside bottle, or a delf door knob on a handle, as a pestle. Unless the icing sugar is very lumpy, this will only take a few seconds; then put 1 oz. of the hot honey into the sugar, stir till it becomes like catmeal, and then work it with the pestle till it forms one
Figure 2:Miller Introducing Cage.
homogeneous mass, when it is ready for use; the whole operation having taken but a few minutes. The proportion of honey to sugar is as 2 to 5, or, as given above, 1 oz. honey to 2\({}^{1}_{2}\); icing sugar. It will be found best not to make it in larger quantities in one operation.
Quite the opposite to the American recipe, there should be somewhat less sugar in proportion to honey in summer than in winter. This difference is probably accounted for by the fact that candy here absorbs moisture from the atmosphere in winter, and gives off moisture to the very dry air of our summer--apparently the reverse takes place in America.
## Xvi
Robber bees are not a different kind or strain of bees, as some bee-keepers assume; they are merely bees which have discovered that it is easier to carry home honey, the finished product, than to fly long distances to collect the raw material, the nectar of flowers, which, after it is taken into the hive, has to undergo a process of concentration and a chemical change, brought about by the addition of a nitrogenous secretion from the body of the bee. It is the presence in honey of this nitrogenous matter (albunnen) which causes the excitement and the inclination to sting when bees find honey somewhere instead of nectar. When the available supply is exhausted, the bees will search near and far for more, and as they are guided by the sense of smell the odour of honey attracts them to the entrances of other hives, or bees nests in trees, and finding some poorly defended stocks they enter and empty the combs of the last drop of honey. Becoming bolder, the robbers next attack stronger colonies, with the result that much fighting takes place, and many bees are lost by stinging. Robbing, as a rule, starts during a dearth of nectar, or a temporary break in the honey flow; but once bees have been robbing for some time they will continue, even when nectar is plentiful again, and it is about as difficult to cure them of the robbing habit as it is to break a dog of worrying sheep, or a ben of eating eggs.
Causes of Robbing.
There are quite a number of causes which develop the robbing habit in bees, the underlying factor in every instance, however, is that the bees find or scent honey instead of nectar. 1. Bees should on no account be allowed access to honey outside their own hive. The deeimation of box hive bees over the larger part of Australia during the past 30 years is almost entirely due to the practice of letting the bees clean up rejected combs, sticky boxes, and utensils after the hives have been robbed of their contents. If one of the robbed hives happened to be diseased, many, or all the colonies, would get a share of the infected honey, while bees from trees or neighbouring farms would also take part, with the result that foul brood almost annihilated bees in some districts. 2. Feeding bees outside the hives during a dearth of nectar, or, indeed, at any time, is a bad practice, and frequently causes robbing to start. If it is necessary to feed it should be done inside the hive, a proper feeder being used, and sugar syrup given, not honey; the former is just as good as honey, is cheaper, safer, owing to the absence of possible disease germs,and does not excite the bees so much, as it does not contain any nitrogen. Even then it is best to give the syrup towards evening, so that bees from other hives may not be attracted. 3. Combs in hives, the walls of which are too thin, sometimes melt down in hot weather, and the honey running out, attracts bees from other hives. 4. Weak colonies, which are unable to guard the hive entrance efficiently, or queenless colonies, wnic4 will admit strange bees, robbers included, without hindrance, may also, during a scarcity of nectar, cause an outbreak of robbing. 5. Unseasonable operations are frequently the cause of robbing. Shaking the bees off the combs in front of the hive instead of into the hive, and thus spilling thin honey on the ground, extracting honey in the open air, or in a non-bee proof room, and returning extracted combs to the hives, are all operations which are quite harmless during a honey flow, but which, after a change in the weather, may create quite an uproar in the apiary. The secretion of nectar by the blossoms sometimes suddenly ceases when extracting still has to be done, and it is, therefore, best to have a bee-proof place to extract in, to shake the bees off the combs into the hives, and not to put the extracted combs out till towards evening.
## Results of Robbing.
It has already been stated that robbing has caused, and, it may be added, is still causing the wholesale spread of the diseases of bees, and wlile the loss of many colonies from foul brood is the most deplorable of the results, there are others, some of which are annoying, while others add expense to the running of an apiary, or reduce the returns. Robbing is almost invariably accompanied by the singing of man and beast in the vicinity of the hives, while sometimes the actual loss of bees stung to death is considerable.
When an apiary has become demoralized through robbing, even bees, which, by mistake or on account of strong winds, enter the wrong hive are stung to death, when under ordinary conditions they would be accepted. It is stated in some bee books that every bee knows its hive, but every careful observer who has kept several distinct races of bees in the same apiary knows that there is considerable straying of bees from hive to hive. In a demoralized apiary, every strange bee entering a hive is stung, and large numbers of dead bees may be seen in front of every hive long after actual robbing has ceased. Further, when bees are in this state of irritation they will sometimes ball their own queen, or, if a virgin, cripple her so that she is unable to take her mating flight, or destroy her altogether, so that the colony becomes queenless, and a further inducement to create robbing. At such times attempts to introduce new queens are sure to result in failure, the owner of the bees being at a loss how to account for it.
## Prevention of Robbing.
In regard to robbing, as in other things, prevention is better than cure. If the extent to which bee-keeping is carried on does not justify the erection of a special bee-proof extracting house, at least a place should be set apart which can be made bee tight in which to carry out all the operations of uncapping, extracting, and timing of honey, and to store combs, wax, and appliances. Even a tent may, with little trouble, be made bee-proof. For the specialist bee-keeper, a properly constructed honey house is an absolute necessity, and a good investment, as it enables him to catch up with the work of extracting during short breaks in the honey flow, when otherwise he could not do so without demoralizing the bees. When more than twenty hives are kept, a wheel-barrow constructed on the lines of that shown in the illustration, carrying four supers of combs, will save much time and hard work, and at the same time exclude the bees from the conbs during the taking of the combs from the hives and on the way to the extractor. This is accomplished by having a board the size of the hive body, with a rim round the edge, on the barrow to catch any drips of honey, and a light cover on top, which is raised and dropped again every time a comb is inserted. If robbers are very persistent, and try to rush the combs every time the cover is raised, they may be circumvented by using two smokers, one
at the hive, while the other, with the top open, is placed on the ground inside a hive body, another body is placed on top, into which the combs are hung as they are taken off the hive; no cover is needed, as the smoke rising between the combs keeps the robbers away. When the box is full it is lifted on to the barrow and covered up. In this way honey may be taken off and extracted at times when it would be impossible to do it in the ordinary way without starting robbing, stinging, and general confusion amongst the bees.
Water in which sticky utensils have been washed, or the water used in boiling up old combs or beeswax, should be buried, while the refuse from the wax press, or the bag in which wax has been boiled under water, should be burned. The exercise of these precautions will keep the largest apiaries in a normal state, and enable all work to be done in peace and comfort.
cheaper than and just as good as honey of the same density, while all risk of infection is avoided.
Feeding for winter stores should be done rapidly, and while the weather is still fairly warm. The syrup (or thin honey) should be given blood-warm, and of the density given above (2 lbs. of best sugar to 1 lb. boiling water). All feeding should be done inside the live, with the twofold object of keeping the food warm as long as possible and of preventing the access of bees from other hives.
As feeding for winter stores is so seldom required, there are perhaps few apiaries in which the necessary feeders are on hand. To make
sufficient feeders for a fair-sized apiary would take some time and considerable material, and on this account the bees are sometimes left to take their chance. at times when prompt feeding at the right time would insure their safe wintering, and a vastly greater honey crop in the following season.
The Simplicity feeder, as sold by supply dealers (Fig. 1), while quite suitable for stimulative feeding, is altogether too small for feeding winter stores. The frame-feeder (Fig. 2), while still somewhat on the small side, is more suitable, but rather expensive. The writer,
when suddenly confronted with the problem of feeding a large number of colonies heavily in a short space of time, used 7-lb. honey tins for this purpose. All that is necessary is to have for each tin a piece of thin board 6 inches by 6 inches, to which is nailed a rim 3 inch thick and 1 inch deep, with hot wax run all over joints to make them watertight. The lever tops are removed from the tins: if the tins have wire handles, these are pulled out, and the clips holding them bent down so that the tin will stand level when upside down. A few holes are punched into the side of the tin with a 1-inch nail, as near the top edge as possible. The tin is then filled with syrup, the rimmed board
Figure 1: Simplicity Feeder.
Figure 2: Frame Feeder.
put on top (rim downward), and, while holding the tin from the bottom with one hand and pressing the board on tightly with the other, the tin is swiftly turned upside down and stood on a level surface. The little shallow trough formed by the board will be full of syrup up to the top of the holes punched into the tin. When placed on the top of the brood frames, as shown in the illustration (Fig. 3), as the bees slip up the syrup more will ooze out, till the tin is empty. Of course, the stop of the brood frames should be level in all directions, otherwise all the syrup will run out if the inverted tin stands very unevenly.
A super from which a sufficient number (or all) of the frames have been removed is put over the tin or tins, and the hive cover on top. Several tins, sufficient to supply the needs of the colony, can be put on at the one time, and any kind of round tin can be used, washed out afterwards, the fine holes closed with solder, and the tins used for packing honey. Square or flat tins are not suitable, as the sides give way inward, and allow too much syrup to escape.
**XVIII.--Wintering Bees.**
At the end of the honey season every bee-keeper should make a thorough examination of his stock to ascertain whether each colony has a fertile queen, a sufficient force of worker bees, and enough honey to carry him through till September or October. To get bees successfully through the winter months is a most difficult problem in North America and Northern Europe, especially where the rigour of the climate makes cellar-wintering almost a necessity.
Figure 3: Inverted Honey Tin Feeders on Hive.
In Australia, we have no such difficulties, and in consequence beekeepers pay too little attention to the subject of wintering so far as the condition of their colonies at the beginning of winter is concerned. Yet it is the condition of a colony, as to quantity and quality of stores, age and vigour of queen, and number of worker bees at the end of one season, which largely determines the prosperity of, and the yield of honey from, that colony in the season following.
The first consideration is the amount of honey required by each colony for its winter use. This varies according to the strength in bees, the conditions of weather during winter, and the earlier or later presence in spring of nectar and pollen-producing flowers. On an average each colony should have from 25 to 30 lhs. of sealed honey to winter normally. When, as sometimes happens, the brood combs contain considerably less than that quantity, it will have to be supplemented either by substituting combs of sealed honey for the outer empty combs of the brood chamber, or by feeding sufficient honey or sugar syrup to bring the total quantity up to requirements.
Giving combs of sealed honey, which have been put by for that purpose during the season, is the easiest way of supplementing winter stores, but it should not be practised unless the apiary is, and has been for some time, entirely free from foul-brood, as in this interchange of combs there is always a risk of spreading disease. When, owing to the absence of a stock of sealed honey, or on account of a suspicion of disease, it becomes necessary to feed, sugar syrup is much to be preferred to honey. Honey, although it is the natural food of bees, excites them much more than sugar syrup. There is also the risk of introducing the germs of brood diseases with honey of unkown origin, while its stronger odour may attract bees from other hives, and thus cause trouble by starting robbing.
Feeding should always be done inside the live in a properly constructed feeder. In the case of colonies which do not cover all the combs of the brood chamber, some of the outside combs may be removed before feeding is commenced, so that the whole of the syrup given will be stored in as few combs as possible, and where it will be covered by the cluster of bees, and thus prevented from souring.
Sugar syrup is made of two parts (by weight) of 1A sugar and one part water. The water is brought to boiling point and the sugar added, keeping the vessel on the fire and stirring continuously till the liquid is perfectly clear. On no account should the syrup be left on the stove or fire without stirring, as it burns very easily, and in that state is injurious to bees.
To supply this syrup to the bees without waste and drowning it is necessary to have a feeder. Fig. 1, known as the simplicity feeder, may be purchased of a supply dealer at 4d. It is a block of wood, grooved out so as to leave narrow divisions to prevent bees getting drowned. This is the most convenient form of feeder for box-hives. The box is raised at one end, the feeder placed on the floor board, and the syrup poured in while still warm; the box is then lowered again. If a stock of bees is quite out of stores, at least 5 lhs. of syrup should be given and more later on, if required. It will be better to give the syrup as fast as the bees will take it than to continue feeding for days; for the longer the excitement lasts the more food is consumed without purpose.
Colonies fed during winter cannot be given sufficient food for breeding up in spring, but only enough to carry them along till warmer weather. They should therefore be examined periodically whenever a fine day permits, and another dose of syrup given when needed. When pollen is being carried into the lives, a sign that brood-rearing has commenced, the stores of syrup will be consumed much faster, and care should be taken that after bringing the bees through the winter they do not succumb to starvation in early spring.
In Victoria, the necessity for winter feeding rarely occurs, unless hives have been robbed or extracted without regard to the winter requirements of the bees
Packing of hives, as practised in colder countries, is not necessary here, but upper stories of empty combs should be removed from the hives, taken indoors, and stacked up and secured against bee moths. The removal of all spare combs and boxes does not only prevent loss of animal heat by radiation, and the unnecessary consumption of stores to replace this loss, but it also compels the bees to store any thin honey, which they may still gather, into combs covered by bees; it will there ripen, instead of souring as it does when stored in combs outside the cluster of bees. Watery honey, when consumed during inactivity, is without doubt detrimental to bees, particularly when it contains such a high percentage of nitrogenous matter, as is present in the honey from our winter-flowering iron-bark trees. The consumption of watery food during winter causes ordinary dysentery, and probably also provides a suitable medium for the multiplication of the _Nosema apis_ parasite and the growth of fungi in the intestinal tract. At the same time, the more rapid accumulation of faecal matter in the intestine compels the bees to take cleansing flights during unsuitable temperatures, resulting in loss through chilling and failure to return to the hive.
Methods of wintering differ with bee-keepers, and also in localities. Some leave the supers on the hives whether full or empty, others put the empty stories underneath the brod chamber, while yet others remove the supers altogether and shut the bees down on the combs of the single brood chamber.
With a favorable winter and colonies strong, there is little, if any, difference between the three methods. But colonies are not always strong at the end of the honey season, and the character of the coming winter cannot be anticipated. It is therefore best to take no risks, but shut the bees down to a single story, which will give the best results under all the varying conditions of strength in bees and climatic influences. When colonies are left with one super full of ripe honey, in addition to the brood chamber, they winter well. But not many bee-keepers are prepared to leave so much honey in the hives, which is not needed by the bees and represents in a large apiary a considerable money value which cannot be realized till the following spring. At the same time, there is a risk of some of the honey granulating in the combs, and then it cannot be obtained except by the destruction of the combs.
When supers with empty combs are left on, the heat generated by the cluster of bees escapes upwards and the bees sometimes follow it and establish their seat between the empty combs. Some of the honey is carried up by this means and the operation causes unnatural activity, greater consumption of stores, and wearing out of bees.
With the empty combs put below the cluster of bees, the same advantages of conserving heat and ease of occasional examination are secured, as when bees are wintered in a single hive body. But combs below the brood are apt to become rather dirty, and sometimes mouldy.
Since it has become known that the _Nosema apis_ parasite is present in almost every apiary, there is an additional reason for the removal from the hives of all combs not required by the bees during winter. According to Dr. Zander, the discoverer of _Nosema apis_, the chief source of infection is the combs soiled with the feces of diseased bees. During the working season, bees void their excrements outside the hive; moreover, the life of the bee during active field work in summer is so short that infected bees wear out in the natural course of events before the disease has reached the final stage, as in the case of bees which came through the winter.
The removal of all surplus combs, at the end of the season, will therefore do much to keep them free from the infection, which undoubtedly would take place during winter should an outbreak of malignant dysentery occur. Thus, only one set of combs would have to be boiled down, instead of two or more. In the case of small colonies, the reduction can be carried still further. The writer has repeatedly successfully wintered bees on three or four combs by confining them to one side of the hive (the side facing the sun) by means of a division board, or by putting two small stocks into one hive, a thin tightly fitting board and a separate entrance for each, keeping them apart.
This crowding of bees on a limited number of combs has also the advantage of being a preventive of robbing. Robbing generally gets started, in the first instance, by bees prowling round and finding honey in the unguarded outside combs of a colony. Becoming bolder, by degrees, the robbers will attack any poorly defended hive. Bees from other lives, attracted by the common, join in and share in the plunder. As colonies affected with foul brood are poor defenders of their home, such a colony, if one is in the apiary, usually falls a victim to the robbers and the robbers in turn develop disease in their hives. Combs removed from the hives should be at once secured from access by bee moths, by tiering the cases and securely covering the top and bottom of each stack. It is during the autumn that the wax or bee moth deposits its eggs on the combs, although the grubs do not appear till spring. Often the beekeeper is unaware that the eggs were present when he carefully packed away his combs, after leaving them exposed to the moths for a little time.
## XIX.--Diseases of Bees.
The diseases affecting bees may be grouped under two headings, viz., diseases of the adult bee and diseases of the larvae, or brood. The latter diseases are the more generally distributed and serious, and the principal ones are known under the general term of foul-brood of bees.
### Foul-brood.
This is a contagious disease which kills the young larval bee in the cell. By contact with the remains of the dead grub the disease is transmitted by the adult bees to other cells, thus causing the death of the larvae from eggs deposited in such cells or the contamination of any honey stored in them.
As the average life of the worker bee during summer is only six weeks, it follows that the number of young bees hatching decreases as the disease advances, the colony soon dwindles in numbers until it finally dies right out or becomes so weakened as to be unable to defend itself against robber bees from other hives. The honey is carried away by bees from other colonies, which in turn become infected, thus propagating the disease indefinitely.
The methods of box-hive bee-keepers, however, have done more to spread disease than anything else. The usual way is to drum the bees out of the upturned hive into an empty box, to ent out the combs, and, after crushing them and straining the honey off, to throw out the residue, and any combs too black for straining, for the bees to clean up. If any of the hives were diseased, the germs are at once re-introduced into the newly-built combs of the robbed hives, while the contaminated honey, when marketed, carries infection to distant localities by means of bees getting access to retail packages after they have been emptied and thrown away.