DISEASES OF BEES.
I suspect that much which has been written upon this subject is fanciful,
and that most of the ailments of bees originate from want of cleanliness
or want of food; for if bees be not kept clean, and be not supplied
with food in backward springs, particularly in those which succeed mild
winters, a mortality among them is usually experienced; and it is in
spring that their alleged maladies prevail.
"For late the lynx-ey'd scout, in nice survey,
Had mark'd the ravage of ungenial May,
Where the lorn bee-herd wail'd his empty shed,
Its stores exhausted, and its tenants dead."
"So mourn'd Arcadia's swain[H] his honey'd host,
By keen disease or keener famine lost.
Till his fond mother, on her glassy throne,
Heard through deep Peneus'[I] wave the filial moan."
+Evans.+
[Footnote H: Aristæus, the son of Apollo and the nymph Cyrene, to whom
mankind were said to be indebted for the art of curdling milk, _managing
bees_, _making hives_, and cultivating olives; on which account he was
worshipped as a God by the Greeks. He was the father of the unfortunate
Actæon.]
[Footnote I: A river of Thessaly.]
During a mild winter the stock of honey is often exhausted, such a season
encouraging the bees to be active, without affording any resources
beyond their own domicile; yet it is not uncommon to hear the keepers
of bees speak of a mild winter as favourable for the bees. It is most
unfavourable to them; and if feeding be not duly attended to, frequently
fatal. Hence _a northern aspect_ has been _recommended_ for hives _during
winter_; and if guarded by proper coverings, and contrivances against
snow and other bad weather, such an aspect is highly proper. The +Rev.
Stephen White+ observes, that if hives be placed on the northern side of
a building, the bees will seldom be induced to come out, and will eat
much less than if exposed to the winter's sun. +Mr. Gedde+ _recommends_
keeping them during winter, _not only_ in _a cold, but_ in _a dark
situation_, in order to lessen the consumption of honey. He even suggests
the use of an ice-house, having found that bees survive the cold in
Siberia, and render Russia somewhat remarkable for its productiveness of
honey. "A very observing gentleman," says +Dr. Darwin+, "at my request,
put two hives for many weeks into a dry cellar, and observed, during
all that time, that they did not consume any of their provision, for
their weight did not decrease, as it had done when they were kept in
the open air." The same observation is made in the Annual Register for
1768, p. 113. The sudden transitions from heat to cold, and from cold to
heat, experienced in this country, are detrimental to bees; but these
vicissitudes would not alarm me, if the bees were well sheltered, and had
a convenient supply of water, salt and sugar, in the early part of the
spring.
Keys thought they were not fond of salt: from my own experience as well
as from that of my apiarian friends, I am satisfied that he was mistaken,
and my opinion is confirmed by the following observation in Crevecœur's
Travels. "One day, having remarked that my bees frequently settled on
spots, where brine had been spilt, I placed some grains of salt before
their hives. What was my astonishment, when I saw them repeatedly
tasting it with eagerness, and carrying it away with them! Before this
experiment, I could not have believed that the manufacturers of honey
could taste with pleasure, a substance so different from the nectar of
flowers."
_In the winter of 1782-3, a general mortality_ took place _among the
bees_ in this country, which was attributed to various causes: want of
honey was not one of them; for in some hives considerable store was
found, after the bees were gone. Some were of opinion that it arose from
the preceding being a bad breeding year, and thought the bees died of
old age. Others attributed it to the moistness of the spring of 1783,
which rendered the providing of pollen difficult, for without pollen no
brood can be raised. The difficulty of collecting pollen was ascribed to
the continual closing of the flowers over the anthers, the want of sun
to burst the anthers, and the washing away of the pollen by the frequent
showers after they did burst. The fatal influence ascribed to the wetness
of the spring of 1782 seems to be improbable; though the wet might have
affected the quantity of bees bred, it was not likely to put a stop to
their breeding altogether, and the young bees ought at any rate to have
escaped the desolating evil, if it were old age alone; yet wherever the
mortality once made its appearance, every bee became its victim.
_A similar incident occurred among the wasps in the year_ 1824. The
queen wasps were unusually numerous in the spring of that year, and
yet scarcely a wasp could be seen of any sort in the ensuing summer
and autumn, though there was a great deal of fine weather and plenty
of sunshine, the fruits having ripened remarkably well. In both cases,
it seems probable that the mortality arose from some unfavourable
circumstance at the breeding season, with which we are unacquainted. I
am not aware that it has been attributed to any specific distemper of
an epidemical nature. +Mr. Knight+ _noticed a similar occurrence, as to
wasps, in the year_ 1806 (Philosophical Transactions 1807, p. 243); and
_in_ 1815, +Messrs. Kirby+ _and_ +Spence+ _made the same observation_.
Mr. Knight supposed the scarcity to arise from a want of males to
impregnate the queens.
I shall now proceed to notice the maladies of bees; and state their
causes, symptoms and remedies, as I have collected them from ancient and
modern authors.
+Dysentery.+
This malady was attributed by +Columella+ to the bees extracting and
feeding upon honey collected from the blossoms of elms and spurge; he
regarded it as an annual distemper. By others it has been ascribed to
their feeding too freely upon the vernal honey, from whatever source
derived; or from their being obliged to eat wax, through want of other
food, in the early part of the spring. +Madame Vicat+ supposed it to
arise from the feeding upon honey that had been candied, in consequence
of the hive being exposed to a severe winter. +Reaumur+ instituted some
experiments to ascertain the cause of dysentery, but they were not
satisfactory.
The presence of this disorder is indicated by the appearance of the
excrement, which, instead of a reddish yellow, exhibits a muddy black
colour, and has an intolerably offensive smell. Also by its being voided
upon the floors, and at the entrance of the hives, which bees, in a
healthy State, are particularly careful to preserve clean. +Huish+
compares the morbid excrement to linseed.
+Vertigo.+
_Vertige_, as +Du Carne de Blangy+ calls it, is supposed to arise from
the bees extracting the honey of deleterious plants. I have treated fully
upon this subject under the head of Pasturage. In addition to what has
been there stated I will give an extract from +Dr. Barton's+ _Paper_,
who after observing that there is more poetry than philosophy in the
following lines of Pope--
"In the nice bee what sense so subtly true
From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew?"
says: "It is however much to be questioned whether this noxious honey
proves so to the bees themselves." Sir J. E. Smith asserts that "the
nectar of plants is not poisonous to bees." _Syllabus to Botan. Lect._
And Dr. Barton, though disposed to adopt the contrary opinion, gives
instances to the same effect. Thus a party of young men, induced by
the prospect of gain, having removed their hives from _Pennsylvania_
to _the Jerseys_, whose vast savannahs were finely painted with the
flowers of the _Kalmia angustifolia_, could not use or dispose of their
honey, on account of its intoxicating quality; yet, "the bees increased
prodigiously," an increase only to be explained by their being well and
_harmlessly_ fed.
This disorder is marked, we are told, by a dizzy manner of flying, and by
irregular motions, such as starting, falling down, &c. when the bees are
pursuing their usual occupations. To these symptoms succeed lassitude and
death. No remedy has hitherto been discovered for this malady.
+Huber+ _says that vertigo attacks ants_, and causes them to lose the
power of moving in a straight line, and occasions the performance of
rapid gyrations always in the same direction: he observed one insect make
about 1000 turns in an hour, describing a circle of about an inch in
diameter; this continued for seven days: he does not say whether he ever
knew any instance of a recovery.
In Dr. Barton's ingenious paper, to which I have already referred in
the chapter on Pasturage, the plants enumerated as yielding poisonous
honey are _Kalmia angustifolia, latifolia_, and _hirsuta_; _Rhododendron
maximum_, _Azalea nudiflora_, and _Andromeda mariana_. The honey of these
is stated to have proved injurious both to dogs and the human species.
_The symptoms_ it usually produces _are dimness of sight or vertigo,
delirium, ebriety, pain in the stomach and bowels, convulsions, profuse
perspiration, foaming at the mouth, vomiting and purging_; in some
instances, _temporary palsy of the limbs_, but very _seldom death_. The
best mode of treatment is not yet ascertained; though the similarity
of the symptoms, the Doctor says, would induce us to pursue the same
plan as in counteracting other narcotic poisons. In those cases, _early
vomiting_, whether spontaneous or induced by art, removes the disease
at once; and _cold bathing_, so useful in other spasmodic or convulsive
affections, is employed with considerable advantage by both Natives
and Europeans. This should seem to be one of those cases in which the
_stomach-pump_ would be peculiarly beneficial, from the promptness and
certainty of its action.
To the credit of the genus of plants last named, it should be mentioned
that one species (_Andromeda nitida_ or _lucida_ of +Bartram+) affords
abundance of excellent honey; hence the name of _honey-flower_ is given
to it, by the country people in _Georgia_ and _Carolina_, not however
merely from the circumstance just mentioned, but from the regular
position of the flowers on the peduncle, which open like the cells of a
honey-comb, and from the odour of these flowers, which greatly resembles
that of honey."--_Barton_.
"As most of the plants enumerated in the above list are now introduced
into our gardens, and the _Datura_ (_common Thorn Apple_) has long
become perfectly naturalized, they might be supposed to injure the
British honey. Most probably, however, their proportion to the whole of
the flowers in bloom, is too small to produce any such inconvenience;
whereas on their native continent they exclusively cover whole tracts of
country, as instanced above in the Jerseys." _Evans_, B. ii. p. 95.
+Tumefaction of the Antennæ.+
The antennæ, in this disorder, become swelled at their extremities,
which resemble the bud of a flower ready to open, and they assume a
yellow colour, of which the forepart of the head shortly partakes; the
bees becoming gradually languid and dying, if they have not timely
assistance.--This malady occurs about the month of May.
+Pestilence+, or +Faux Couvain+ (_as Schirach calls it_).
Pestilence has been reckoned among bee-maladies, and attributed to the
residence of dead larvæ in the cells, from a careless deposition of ova
by the queen, (the head of the grub not being placed in a proper position
for exclusion, when that period has arrived,) it has also been ascribed
to cold, and to bad nursing, that is, feeding with unwholesome food.
+Treatment.+
The remedies which have been found most successful in all these maladies,
excepting vertigo, are _cordials_, namely _wine_ and _sugar_. This
circumstance, taken in conjunction with their occurring at the spring of
the year, tends to confirm my opinion that the ailments of bees arise
from hunger and filth.
_Cleanliness_ and _timely supplies of sugared ale_, particularly _during
the months of February and March_, are the preventive remedies which have
hitherto preserved my bees in a state of healthful activity. In ungenial
springs, feeding should be continued even _through a considerable part
of May_, if the preceding autumn have been unfavourable, or if a cold
May have succeeded to warm weather in early spring,--the earliest vernal
flowers affording but a scanty supply of honey. The apiarian is sometimes
astonished that he should lose his bees at this advanced season of the
year, when but a short time before he had seen them in full health and
activity. Had he afforded that food which his bees could not obtain from
a comparatively immature and honeyless vegetation, their hives would
still have gladdened him with the spectacle of a thriving population.
"If e'er dank autumn, with untimely storm,
The honey'd harvest of the year deform,
Or the chill blast, from Eurus' mildew wing,
Blight the fair promise of returning spring,
Full many a hive but late alert and gay,
Droops in the lap of all-inspiring May."
+Evans.+
The reader must now perceive the importance of feeding, and that the
transition from health to languor and death is less frequently to be
ascribed to disease, than to the want of the necessary means to continue
the vital energy. The suddenness of the unhappy change may reasonably
lead the uninformed or improvident to suppose that an incurable malady
has visited their hives:--so long as the store of honey lasted, there
were health and prosperity; but that gone, famine commenced its ravages,
and an extinction of the bees of course followed. A little foresight
and a little trouble would have kept off the calamity. I am perhaps
tediously particular in this notice. I wish to impress my noviciate
bee-friends with the necessity of thus providing for their hives, that
the most frequent agent of mischief,--hunger,--may be kept out of
them. Still further let me also recommend to them, on the approach of
winter to have the floors of their hives or boxes well cleaned from
insects and their eggs, and from all heterogeneous matter. This is a
business which the bees themselves, when the weather admits of it, are
particularly attentive to; indeed they refrain, as much as possible,
from dropping their excrement upon the floors, taking advantage of every
fine day in winter to sally forth and get rid of it. This was proved by
the experiments of Mr. Hunter: indeed they sometimes fall a sacrifice
to their personal neatness in this respect, their bodies becoming so
swelled, from the accumulation of fæces, as completely to disable them
from flying, when the weather is sufficiently favourable to admit of
their going out; in consequence of which, they fall to the ground and
perish.
+Schirach+ and others recommend, in cases of _Faux Couvain_, to cut
out the infected combs, and to clean and fumigate the hive by burning
aromatics under it.
In +Butler's+ _Feminine Monarchie_, we are gravely told of a certain
bee-mistress, who, finding her hives fruitless, and their tenants pining
away with sickness, by the advice of another female, went to receive the
eucharist, and having kept it in her mouth, placed it, on her return
home, in one of the diseased hives. The plague ceased; honey accumulated;
and, on examining the inside, she found a waxen chapel and altar, of
wondrous architecture, and even bells of the same materials.--Gent. Mag.
1809. p. 316.
To prove that there is much of fancy in the traditional accounts
respecting bee-maladies, I will mention _the various hypotheses
concerning dysentery_. +Columella+ speaks of its arising from the bees
feeding upon honey collected from elm and spurge blossoms; my own
neighbourhood abounds with both; but I never met with nor scarcely heard
of dysentery among the bees here. +Evelyn+ in his _Sylva_ expresses
doubts upon the subject; and +Dr. Evans+ says he made particular
inquiries of some friends in Worcestershire, which (like this
county--Herefordshire) abounds with elms, without obtaining satisfactory
information.
Dysentery has also been said to be produced by a surfeit of vernal honey,
simply as such, from whatever flowers derived: were this true it would
occur in all neighbourhoods. With respect to its proceeding from their
eating wax, I am decidedly of opinion that wax never constitutes any part
of their food, under any circumstances; not a tittle of evidence can
be adduced in support of such an assertion. Wax is an excrementitious
matter, secreted among the abdominal folds of the bees for the sole
purpose of constructing the honey and brood-combs: the scraps of wax that
are observed in winter and spring upon the hive floors, and which, to the
minds of common observers, convey the idea that they are crumbs caused by
the bees consuming the wax for food, are produced by their nibbling the
lids of the cells to uncover the honey. If +Madame Vicat's+ _theory_ were
correct, what would become of all the bees in Siberia and other northern
regions? Huish says he never found honey in this country to candy in the
combs, but adds that Bonner assured him that _he_ had experienced it.
_Vide_ chapter on Honey.
+Kirby+ and +Spence+ have given it as their opinion, that dysentery
arises from the bees having an insufficiency of pollen or bee-bread to
eat with their honey. We have no evidence that pollen constitutes any
part of the food of _adult_ bees; and if it did, they have generally
opportunities of storing it very abundantly, in the autumn, as well
as in the spring: and such is the provident industry of bees, that a
considerable surplus is always found in every stock-hive.
+Wildman+ and +Huish+ recommend salt for preserving the health of bees;
and their frequenting stable drains and other receptacles of urine gives
countenance to this recommendation, as it seems probable that the saline
matter contained in those fluids attracts the bees, their desire for it
overcoming that repugnance to offensive odours which would otherwise
occasion them to avoid such places. Even fresh urine has been recommended
by +Ranconi+, an _Italian_ author, in case the bees should be attacked
by dysentery;--in all probability a weak solution of salt would be more
acceptable and equally efficacious. I always introduce a small portion of
it into the syrup with which I feed my bees. +Keys+ says that they are
not fond of salt. _Vide_ Page 186.
I will close this chapter on the Diseases of Bees with an extract from
Nicholson's Journal, vol. xxiii. p. 234: Scientific Intelligence.
"A large swarm of bees having settled on a branch of _the poison ash_,
(_Rhus Vernix_,) in the county of West Chester in America, was taken
into a hive of fir at three o'clock in the afternoon, and removed to the
place where it was to remain, at nine. About five the next morning the
bees were found dead, swelled to double their natural size, and black,
except a few, which appeared torpid and feeble, and soon died on exposure
to the air." This was attributed to their being poisoned by the effluvia
of the _Rhus Vernix_.