The Honey Bee: a Manual of Instruction in Apiculture

Chapter Xii.--Diseases and Enemies of Bees 112

Diarrhea and dysentery 112 Foul brood 112 The wax moth 113 Braula or bee louse 115 Other enemies 115 Robber flies, dragon flies, etc. 115 Ants and wasps 115 Spiders 116 Toads and lizards 116 Birds 116 Mammals 116 Robber bees 116 Laying workers 117

Brief list of books and journals relating to apiculture 118

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PLATES.

Page. An apiary in Maryland Frontispiece.

Plate I. Honey bees 16 II. Digestive system of bee 22 III. Alfalfa (Medicago saliva) 64 IV. Esparcet or sainfoin (Onobrychis sativa) 64 V. Sweet clover or melilot (Melilotus alba) 64 VI. Acacia (Acacia constricta) 64 VII. Mesquite (Prosopis juliflora) 64 VIII. Blue weed or viper's bugloss (Echium vulgare) 64 IX. Crimson clover (Trifolium incarnatum) 64 X. Alsike clover (Trifolium hybridum) 64 XI. Bacillus alvei 112

TEXT FIGURES.

Fig. 1. Worker cells of common East Indian honey bee (Apis indica) 12 2. Worker cells of tiny East Indian honey bee (Apis florea) 13 3. Comb of tiny East Indian honeybee (Apis florea) 14 4. Worker cells of common honey bee (Apis mellifera) 15 5. Ovaries of queen and workers 19 6. Heads of queen and drone 20 7. Modifications of the legs of different bees 21 8. Head and tongue of Apis mellifera worker 22 9. Wax disks of social bees 26 10. Comb building, side of hive removed 27 11. Cross section of brood apartment 29 12. Use of veil and bee smoker 31 13. Manipulation removing comb from hive 32 14. Manipulation tilting to bring reverse side of comb to view 33 15. Manipulation reverse side of comb brought to view 33 16. Manipulation examining reverse side of comb 33 17. Quinby closed-end frames 34 18. Box hive prepared for transportation 37 19. Frame hive prepared for transportation 37 20. An apiary in Florida 38 21. An apiary in California 39 22. Ancient Greek movable comb hive 41 23. Dadant-Quinby form of Langstroth hive with cap and gable roof 41 24. Langstroth frame showing construction 42 25. Form in which to nail frames 42 26. Lock-joint chaff hive 43 27. Manner of nailing hives 43 28. Section of improved tin frame-rest 44 29. The Langstroth hive (Dadant-Quinby form), cross section showing construction 45 30. The Nonpareil hive 46 31. Dadant-Quinby form of Langstroth hive open 46 32. The Bingham bee smoker 48 33. Automatic reversible honey extractor 49 34. Quinby uncapping knife 49 35. Bingham & Hetherington uncapping knife 49 36. Excelsior wax extractor 50 37. Simplicity feeder 51 38. Fruit-jar bee feeder, bottom of feeding stage and perforated cap shown separately 51 39. The Porter spring bee escape 52 40. Daisy foundation fastener 53 41. Fastening starter of comb foundation in frame 53 42. Spur wire-embedder 54 43. Comb-foundation machine 55 44. Willow herb (Epilobium angustifolium) 57 45. Wagner's flat pea (Lathyrus sylvestris wagneri) 59 46. Dwarf Essex or winter rape (Brassica napus) 60 47. Summer or bird rape (Brassica napus) 60 48. Sacaline or giant knotweed (Polygonum sachalinense) 61 49. Russian or hairy vetch (Vicia villosa) 61 50. Mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) 63 51. Apple (Pyrus malus) 63 52. Heath-like wild aster (Aster ericoides) 64 53. Transferring drumming the bees from a box hive into a frame hive 71 54. Transferred comb and inserted queen cell 73 55. Uncapping and extracting honey 77 56. One-piece "V"-grooved sections 80 57. Super with section holders and sections in place 80 58. Dadant-Quinby form of Langstroth hive, elevated from bottom board and slid back for ventilation in summer 82 59. Langstroth hive with combined surplus case and shipping crate 83 60. Honey shipping cases 83 61. Boardman solar wax extractor 85 62. Comb showing worker brood and queen cells 88 63. Queen cells and worker brood in various stages 89 64. The Benton queen cage fur transporting a queen and attendants by mail 92 65. Caging a queen for mailing 92 66. Queen introducing-cage 94 67. Hiving a swarm of bees 96 68. The Simmins non-swarming system, single-story hive with supers 103 69. The Simmins non-swarming system, double-story hive with supers 103 70. Beehives with Langdon non-swarmer attached 104 71. Percolator for preparation of winter food 107 72. The American straw hive of Hayek Bros 108 73. Davis hive with newspapers packed between inner and outer cases and brood frames on end for winter 108 74. Double-walled hive adapted to outdoor wintering as well as summer use below 40 C north latitude in United States 109 75. An apiary in Vermont winter view 110 76. Cheshire anti-robbing entrance 117

MANUAL OF APICULTURE.

CHAPTER I.. =classification of the Honey Bee=

=CLASSIFICATION OF THE HONEY BEE=

THE DIFFERENT SPECIES AND RACES.

A knowledge of the structural peculiarities and the life history of bees will aid anyone who essays to manage them for profit in determining more accurately what conditions are necessary to their greatest welfare. It is not to be understood that such knowledge will take the place of an acquaintance with those conditions under which actual practice has shown that bees thrive, but that it forms a good basis for an understanding of whatever practice has found best in the management of these industrious and profitable insects. It will also assist in pointing out in what way practice can be improved.

In a small treatise like the present one, the object of which is to give in plain language the information needed by one who engages in bee keeping primarily for profit, it is not possible to do more than present a mere outline of classification and a few general facts regarding structure. The reader who finds them interesting and valuable in his work is reminded that the treatment of these matters in more extended volumes, such as Langstroth's, Cheshire's, etc., will be found far more so.

Singling out from the order Hymenoptera, or membranous-winged insects, the family Apidæ, or bee family, several marked types called genera are seen to compose it, such as Apis (the hive bee), Bombus (the bumble bee), Xylocopa (the carpenter bee), Megachile (the leaf-cutter), Melipona (the stingless honey bee of the American tropics), etc. All of these are very interesting to study, and each fulfills a purpose in the economy of nature; but the plan of these pages can only be to consider the first genus, Apis, or the hive bee. Incidentally it may be mentioned that the plan of introducing the stingless bees (Melipona) from tropical America has frequently been brought up with the expectation of realizing important practical results from it. These bees might possibly be kept in the warmer portions of our country, but their honey yield is small, not well ripened, and not easily harvested in good shape, since the honey cells are of dark wax, like that made by our bumble bees, and they are not arranged in regular order, but in irregular clumps like those of bumble bees. The writer had a colony under observation last year, and experiments have been made with them in their native lands as well as in European countries. Of the genus Apis the only representative in this country is mellifera, although several others are natives of Asia and Africa.

THE COMMON EAST INDIAN HONEY BEE.

(Apis indica Fab.)

The common bee of southern Asia is kept in very limited numbers and with a small degree of profit in earthen jars and sections of hollow trees in portions of the British and Dutch East Indies. They are also found wild, and build when in this state in hollow trees and in rock clefts. Their combs, composed of hexagonal wax cells, are ranged parallel to each other like those of A. mellifera, but the worker brood cells are smaller than those of our ordinary bees, showing 36 to the square inch of surface instead of 29, while the comb where worker brood is reared, instead of having, like that of A. mellifera, a thickness of seven-eighths inch, is but five-eighths inch thick. (Fig. 1.)

The workers.--The bodies of these, three-eighths inch long when empty, measure about one-half inch when dilated with honey. The thorax is covered with brownish hair and the shield or crescent between the wings is large and yellow. The abdomen is yellow underneath. Above it presents a ringed appearance, the anterior part of each segment being orange yellow, while the posterior part shows bands of brown of greater or less width and covered with whitish-brown hairs; tip black. They are nimble on foot and on the wing, and active gatherers.

The queens.--The queens are large in proportion to their workers and are quite prolific; color, leather or dark coppery.

The drones.--These are only slightly larger than the workers; color, jet-like blue black, with no yellow, their strong wings showing changing hues like those of wasps.

Manipulations with colonies of these bees are easy to perform if smoke be used, and though they are more excitable than our common hive bees, this peculiarity does not lead them to sting more, but seems rather to proceed from fear. The sting is also less severe.

Under the rude methods thus far employed in the management of this bee no great yields of honey are obtained, some 10 or 12 pounds having been the most reported from a single hive. It is quite probable that if imported into this country it would do more. These bees would no doubt visit many small flowers not frequented by the hive bees we now have, and whose nectar is therefore wasted, but very likely they might not withstand the severe winters of the North unless furnished with such extra protection as would be afforded by quite warm cellars or special repositories.

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