THE ENEMIES AND DISEASES OF BEES. 65 



want of attending to this circumstance, hives have been lost even 

 so late in the season as the month of May. 



About the beginning of the month of March, is the proper 

 time for transferring stocks from hives to boxes ; the latter should 

 be previously well cleaned out, their interior smeared, and sup- 

 plied with a portion of honey, in a proper feeder. 



As the warm weather approaches, shade your hives from the 

 sun. If the bees be induced by the heat to attempt injudicious 

 or ill-timed swarming, and hang in clusters about the entrance of 

 the hive, you can check it by sprinkling them with some water 

 from the nose of a watering pot or syringe ; they will mistake 

 this for rain, and retire within the hive to resume their work. 



CHAPTER XL 



THE DISEASES AND ENEMIES OF BEES. 



Bees, when properly attended to, and managed on the im- 

 proved modern system, are neither very subject to disease, nor 

 very liable to suffer from the attacks of enemies ; still, however, 

 accidents of these kinds will occur, once in a while, despite of 

 our most anxious care. 



The diseases of bees are not numerous, so that a lengthened 

 detail will be unnecessary. 



DISEASES OF BEES. 



These are Diarrhoea and Dysentery. The latter is probably 

 only produced by neglect of the former : at all events, we may 

 regard these two affections as springing from the one cause, and 

 certainly they can only be combated by the same remedies. 



Columella speaks of diarrhoea as a purging which seizes bees 

 annually, in the spring ; and conceives it to be occasioned by the 

 bees surfeiting themselves on the young flowers in their first re- 

 past. He recommends a remedy, still earlier proposed by Hygi- 

 nus, viz., covering the bees with the warm ashes of the fig-tree. 

 On his own part, Columella recommends giving them rosemary 

 and honey diluted with Water. 



In my opinion this looseness is occasioned by the bees feeding 

 on what is called " candied honey" — a substance, the deleterious 

 effects of which were well known to Aristotle, and subsequently 



