1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1495 



there are times in March— yes, oftentimes in 

 March — when to expose suddenly a queen to 

 the atmosphere may result in her catching 

 cold, or in a rheumatic condition when the 

 bees believe the massage treatment may cure 

 or kill, yet I have yet to learn from results 

 (for we mark the date) that there is not 

 weather in March when hives may be opened 

 and the queen clipped. When honey is not 

 coming in, care must be taken, and experi- 

 ence is necessary in opening hives, be it 

 March or any other time. It is a matter of 

 condition, not time. 



By the way, our good friend Byers does not 

 deny the gentle imputation that he does not 

 scrape the propolis from hives, frames, queen- 

 excluders, etc., every year. Since we have 

 the subject up, does any one who scrapes 

 these every season have much trouble with 

 propolis? I doubt it. 



ENEMIES OF BEES. 



It is strange how much strife and conten- 

 tion there is in the world. As we go down 

 into the realms of lower life it is not only "an 

 eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," but 

 we see the whole creation warring each 

 on the other, and this through necessity, as 

 the very principle of food-getting demands 

 that one should die that another may live. 

 I have wondered if, in the plan of " One too 

 wise to err and too good to be unkind," this 

 was to gender a spirit of strife and hate, bred 

 in the very bone, as it were — a temper of 

 mind as fixed as it is ugly, that the potency 

 of love might be revealed. We know that, 

 in the highest reaches of creation, love has 

 done just this. If love is the greatest thing 

 in the world, and its conquest of hate and 

 revenge the greatest of triumphs, then was 

 not any thing justified that brought it the 

 largest opportunity? 



BEES IN THE FIGHT. 



Bees are no exception to this rule of fight 

 or die They have a great multitude of ene- 

 mies which range all through the animal 

 kingdom, many of which are very interesting, 

 and some of them are formidable enemies of 

 our pets of the hive. The most to be dread- 

 ed are of the plant kingdom, and nearly ev- 

 ery branch of animals has a representative 

 among the great army that essay to make 

 the life of our bees miserable and their fate 

 uncertain. 



MICRO-ORGANISMS. 



The lowest of all the list of bee-enemies, 

 and at the same time the most harmful, are 

 the Bacteria, the two species of bacilli which 

 produce the American and European foul 



brood. We now know that all rot or decom- 

 position is the result of bacterial attack. All 

 vegetable and animal decomposition is sim- 

 ply the result of an attack of micro-organ- 

 isms. In this case the bacteria attack dead 

 organisms; but it is not unfrequently true 

 that related species attack living organisms, 

 and with fatal effect, as seen in typhoid and 

 diptheria. The bacilli of foul brook attack 

 larvas of the bees in much the same way, and 

 with fully as fatal results. These bacilli re- 

 produce by fission, or simple division, and 

 also by spores, and so multiply with enor- 

 mous rapidity; and it is this which makes 

 them able to victimize the largest and most 

 vigorous of animals. The spores are more 

 tenacious of life than are the bacilli, and it 

 is this which will permit boiling without 

 death, if very brief, while the bacilli will not 

 endure a heat considerably below boiling 

 without being killed. Fortunately, through 

 a sort of starvation and quarantine process 

 combined we have a fairly easy, safe, and 

 sure way to meet and down these enemies of 

 bees. As this is well known, I will not at- 

 tempt a description, except to urge all to re- 

 member that these bacilli increase so rapidly 

 that the least inoculation will soon bring dis- 

 aster, and so we can not be too careful in all 

 our work with colonies that have foul brood. 

 In case the bees are not gathering I would 

 always work under a bee-tent, and keep a 

 large oil-cloth beneath, so no honey could 

 possibly be taken by bees from other hives 

 not diseased. In fact, such caution is not 

 out of order at any time. 



The molds that we often see in the hives 

 when they get too damp, and the unpleasant 

 stench that comes with disaster in wintering, 

 are also the result of related forms that be- 

 long to the lowest realms of vegetable life. 

 It is not improbable that the latter do their 

 part in the frightful mortality that often at- 

 tends disastrous wintering in the more severe 

 winters of parts of the North and East of our 

 country. It is more than probable that the 

 drier atmosphere, that is thought to be con- 

 ducive to greater safety, comes from the fact 

 that these lower plants often must have 

 moisture to live and thrive, and in its ab- 

 sence they are not present to put in their 

 deadly work. 



INSECT ENEMIES OF BEES. 



There are numerous insects that prey upon 

 our pets of the hive. The bee-moth, the wee 

 bee-moth, the bee-louse, the wasps and ants, 

 the cow-killer, the mantis, the robber-fiies, 

 the stinging-bug, and the darning-needles, 

 or dragon-flies, are all sinners of this kind. 



THE OLD BEE-MOTH. 



This enemy was known, I dare say, before 

 America was discovered, and so, like our 

 bees, came from Europe. It does not kill 

 the bees, but works in the wax and feeds on 

 the pollen, and by its webs is as fatal to the 

 welfare of the bees as though it ate them. 

 The scientific name is suggestive of the work 

 of this pest— Galleria mellonella Its webbed 

 galleries and its disturbance of the bee are 

 well worth suggesting in the name. It seems 



