68 
THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEKERS’ JOURNAL. 
If the locality is not rich, and honey comes 
in slowly but regularly, it will often suffice to 
remove centre sections as fast as they are 
sealed over, replacing them by new boxes with 
starters. 
Keep a few queens in small hives or nuclei 
always ready to replace any that are lost, or 
that it is desirable to supersede for want of 
prolificness, or from old age. Queens that are 
getting old often produce a very large propor- 
tion of drones, and stocks with such a queen 
produce but little honey, and dwindle dread- 
fully by end of season. A young- queen should 
be given immediately such a case is observed. 
A STS IS THE APIARY. 
Divers opinions have been expressed as to the 
damage or annoyance caused to bees by the 
numerous species of ants, and some "declaring 
they are harmless, and others that they ai-e dan- 
gerous enemies to the genus apis ; the fact re- 
mains, however, that in Australia at least they 
are frequently a serious pest in the apiary, and 
difficult to be got rid of. 
The little black ant not infrequently in- 
vades hives, being first attracted by sweets 
or the dust thrown out by the bees, and 
sometimes collect and domicile themselves in 
large numbers, especially in the early spring 
or late summer, in all probability tempted by 
the warmth. Sometimes they appear to be 
tolerated by the bees, but oftener the bees 
appear excited and annoyed at their preseuce. 
Wherever the black ants get into weak hives 
in numbers, their presence appears to prevent 
any improvement in the stock, the queen is 
sometimes found dead, perhaps killed by the 
tiny intruders, and not unfrequently the bees 
annoyed beyond endurance, swarm out. Re- 
garded in any light whatever, black ants are 
most undesirable neighbors to allow about 
the apiary, and more especially near nuclei or 
other weak stocks. 
The most troublesome and a somewhat for- 
midable ant in the apiary is what is known as 
the sugar ant, a most intrepid and persistent 
robber of sweets, which it has the power of 
scenting from afar. This species travel long- 
distances in search of food, and when a source 
is once found, immense numbers travel rapidly 
to and fro between it and their nest Sugar, 
syrup, honey, treacle are their great delicacies, 
and once they find either of these it will re- 
quire all the skill of man to keep them away, 
beekeepers who are careless about spilling- 
honey or syrup, or in dropping fragments of 
conjb about the apiary are soon acquainted 
with these marauders. There are other varie- 
ties of ants which are troublesome in the apiary 
in different parts of Australia, hut as the I 
modes of preventing mischief by these two 
kinds of ants will generally be found effective 
for the others no special distinction need be 
made. It. would be a matter of great interest ; 
| to apiculture generally, however, if beekeepers 
in various parts of the Australian group would 
report to us what kinds of ants are found to be 
troublesome or inimical to bees, and the 
methods, if any, found effective in preventing 
the mischief they do in the apiary, giving the 
name by which the ant is known, and if pos- 
sible its scientific name also. 
The sugar ants as soon as the warm weather 
commences go out hunting, and soon find out 
! beehives, which they usually reconnoitre to- 
wards evening. As a rule the bees soon find 
them out, and drive them away from anywhere 
near the entrance, and have been sometimes 
seen to attack and carry them away. It is not 
often then that these ants are seen about 
healthy strong hives, although they will hang 
about and enter weak or dis tased ones close at 
hand. IVe have frequently found them in 
considerable numbers sharing- the food given 
to bees in the super, and if not stopped 
come in great strength and fight for the honey 
in the combs, and ultimately drive the bees 
out by force of immense numbers. They are 
very apt to do this with nuclei or the small 
hives used for queen rearing and fertilising, 
and we have frequently found the queens dead 
(evidently killed) and the bees all away. 
Nearly all bee books place ants among the 
enemies of bees, hut none appear to consider 
them in any way a serious enemy, and pass 
over the matter with a few general directions. 
Some of the American apieulturists are now' 
finding how mischievous ants may become in 
an apiary, and lately some of the bee journals 
have given every known method of destroying 
them or preventing them from troubling the 
bees, and as very few Australian beekeepers 
can entirely escape the ant pest, we pi'opose in 
our next number to give some of the various 
plans that have been found successful. First 
we will speak of the best modes of preventing 
ants getting- at beehives, and second the modes 
of destroying ants and their nests, or of driving 
them away- from the apiary. 
(To be continued.) 
* 
FOUL BROOD. 
(CONTLNtTKD PROM I’AQE 52.) 
We see from Root’s Gleanings in Bee Culture 
that in the recent unfortunate experience of 
this pest in his apiary in Midina, Ohio, he 
comes to the same conclusion as we do as 
regards the danger of transferring or shifting- 
diseased bees from one hive to another, and be- 
lieves that the plague is spread by bees from 
a.n infected hive getting into healthy stocks, 
which is almost sure to happen, no matter 
what precautions are taken, when a stock is 
disturbed and demoralised by shaking or 
brushing them from the diseased combs into 
a box or another hive either for starving them 
or to put them to comb building. 
In Root’s Gleanings for August lie says 
(page 635) , after descri bing t he mode of making 
