78 



Bee-l;eeiiin<i in Victor'u, 



With the empty combs put below the cluster of bees, the same advan- 

 tages 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 infec- 

 tion is the coml:)s soiled with the ffeces 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 un- 



Apiary Showing Hives Shut Down for the Winter. 



doubtedly would take place during winter should an outbreak of malig- 

 nant dysentery occur. Thus, only one set of combs would have to be 

 boiled down, instead of two or mo're. In tlie case of small colonies, the 

 reduction can be carried still further. The writer has repeatedly' suc- 

 cessfully 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. Eobbing 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 



