ENEMIES OF BEES.
Among the enemies of bees are enumerated various kinds of birds, poultry,
mice, wax-moths, slugs, hornets, wasps, woodlice, ants, and spiders.
The most destructive enemies of the bee, in this country, are _wasps_,
whose superior strength, boldness and number, enable them to commit great
ravages in a hive. One wasp is supposed to be a match for three bees,
and, to filch a belly-full of honey, will oppose a host of bees in a very
daring manner.
The _wax-moth_ (_Tinea mellonella_) is also a dangerous enemy. +Mr.
Espinasse+ says that this is the smallest of the genus, and it is of a
whitish brown colour. The butterfly usually appears about weak hives in
April, and may be seen till the end of October. This insect is remarkably
active in its movements; and if the approach to the hives be observed of
a moonlight evening, the moths will be found flying, or running round
the hives, watching an opportunity to enter; whilst the bees that have
to guard the entrances against their intrusion, will be seen acting as
vigilant sentinels, performing continual rounds near this important
post, extending their antennæ to the utmost, and moving them to the
right and to the left alternately. Woe to the unfortunate moth that
comes within their reach! "It is curious," says +Huber+, "to observe how
artfully the moth knows to profit, to the disadvantage of the bees, which
require much light for seeing objects; and the precautions taken by the
latter in reconnoitring, and expelling so dangerous an enemy." Adroitly
gliding between the guards, the moths will often contrive to insinuate
themselves, unperceived, into the hives, and riot upon the honey. When
they have obtained possession, they deposit their eggs upon the sides
of the combs; the caterpillar is formed and inclosed in a case of white
silk; at first, it is like a mere thread, but gradually increases to the
size of a quill, and during its growth feeds upon the wax around it. It
seems very extraordinary, and would be almost incredible if the fact were
not well attested, that such tiny creatures should live in the midst, and
at the expense of myriads of such formidable insects as bees, protected
as they are by coats of mail, armed with weapons of offence, and ever
watchful of their treasure. Such, however, is the havoc sometimes made by
these apparently insignificant, but active enemies, as now and then to
compel a colony of bees to emigrate, and seek another habitation.
In this country, where the apiary is generally situated near the
dwelling, _birds_ do not commit any great ravages. +Mr. Espinasse+ thinks
that in general they come only for _dead bees_ and _larvæ_, which may
have been thrown out of the hives. But in America, according to +Mr.
Hector St. John+, _the king bird_, the protector of corn-fields from
the depredation of crows, is a great destroyer of bees. After shooting
these birds, Mr. St. John has found bees in their craws, from one of
which he took as many as a hundred-and-seventy-one: on laying them all
on a blanket in the sun, fifty-four of them returned to life, licked
themselves clean, and joyfully went back to their hives. Many wonderful
tales of this kind have been told,--such as the recovery of flies that
had been inclosed for a considerable time in bottles of liquor (madeira).
An instance of this is related by Wildman, who says his informant was
a very ingenious and accurate gentleman:--that the madeira had been
brought, in bottle, from Virginia to London, and that the flies when
exposed to a warm sun for an hour or two, were so completely reanimated,
as to take wing; thus putting to the test, as Wildman's friend observed,
the truth of the opinion, that a fly cannot be drowned.--A very
marvellous tale was related last year in the newspapers, of the recovery
of some apparently dead bees after the substance containing them had
been submitted to a considerable heat or to a chemical process. Mr. St.
John's statement is within the bounds of credibility: it seems to have
been a case of suspended animation of short continuance, not produced by
exposure to gas or to any liquid likely to prove deleterious to them;
and it is well known that bees often recover even after suffocation with
sulphurous gas. Bees may be immersed in water for a long time, without
loss of life. Reaumur saw them recover after nine hours immersion. Dr.
Evans accidentally left some eighteen hours in water; when laded out
with a spoon and placed in the sunshine the majority of them recovered.
Other animals, of analogous species, exhibit still more wonderful
resurrections. De Geer has observed one species of mite to live for some
time in spirit of wine; and Mr. Kirby states that being desirous of
preserving a very pretty lady-bird, and not knowing how to accomplish it,
he immersed it in geneva. "After leaving it," says he, "in this situation
a day and a night, and seeing it without motion, I concluded it was dead,
and laid it in the sun to dry. It no sooner, however, felt the warmth
than it began to move, and afterwards flew away." This circumstance laid
the foundation of Mr. K.'s study of entomology.
Of this adherence to life, advantage has been taken at the time of
deprivation,--recourse having been had to immersion for removing a
portion of the combs, the bees were afterwards spread on a cloth in the
sun, and became reanimated. Dr. Derham says that he has known bees revive
after remaining twenty-four hours under an exhausted air-pump. After long
submersion the proboscis of the bee is generally unfolded, and stretched
to its full length. The first symptom of returning animation, is a motion
at its extremity, succeeded by a similar motion at the extremities of
the legs. Having so far progressed towards recovery, the tongue is soon
folded up again, and the bee prepared to resume its customary occupations.
_Moths_ and _spiders_ should be watched and destroyed in an evening, as
at that time the former are hovering about, and the latter laying their
snares; at that time too there would be less danger of annoying the bees,
or of being annoyed by them. Wherever moths have gained possession of a
hive, it is always necessary to destroy the bees, or to drive them into
another hive.
Attention to the following particulars may guard the bees from many of
their enemies. A frequent cleaning of the hive floors; the use of new or
well cleaned hives; the timely renewal of the coverings, and keeping the
ground bare around the apiary, particularly in front of it. This last
precaution may also prevent the entanglement of the bees in rubbish or
long straggling vegetables, should they on their return home fall down
through fatigue or the weight of their loads.
From _rats_ and _mice_ the surest safeguard is an appropriate position
of the hives; traps may also be laid, and in winter the entrances into
the hives contracted. It will be prudent likewise to case the legs
of the bee-benches with tin. Bees in a healthy vigorous state will
attack and kill an intruding mouse; but in winter it might commit great
depredations, and cause the emigration of the bees on the return of warm
weather. (Mr. Espinasse says that he has known a mouse take up his winter
quarters in a hive, without destroying the bees.)
For protection against _ants_, which sometimes enter the hives and eat
the honey, +Mr. Cobbett+, in his _Cottage Economy_, recommends that
the pedestals or legs of the benches supporting the hives should be
surrounded by a green stick, twisted into a circular form and covered
with _tar_; and if the ant nest can be traced, that _boiling water_
should be poured into the centre of it, at night, when all the family are
at home. The tarring of the stick should be repeated every two or three
days: the legs of the stool, or the posts on which the shed stands, may
also be tarred. Some bees may be lost by sticking in the tar, but this
disadvantage will be more than counter-balanced by the destruction of
the ants. _Slaked lime_ may be beneficially spread about a foot wide
round the apiary. The usual custom has been to renew this sprinkling of
lime every two or three days: but the _experiments of_ +Mr. Coleridge+
(Southey's Brazil, i. 645) show that this step is unnecessary: by
exposure to the air, lime is converted into chalk; and according to Mr.
C, (who states that the formic acid transpires from the bodies of ants so
as to leave its traces upon the substances which they traverse,) if ants
attempt to pass over chalk, the effervescence produced between the chalk
and the acid will be so considerable as to burn their legs. It has been
said that a bee cannot kill an ant, when bitten; but that the bee instead
of making resistance, flies away and carries the ant with it.
+M. Reaumur+ was of opinion that ants were not to be reckoned among the
enemies of bees; and he relates an instance of their living as very close
neighbours, yet in perfect harmony. The ants established themselves
between the glass panes of his bee-box and the wooden shutters which
covered them; and as a similar circumstance occurred to +Bonnet+, and in
other of Reaumur's hives also, it seems probable that the ants took up
their quarters in this situation for the sake of the equable warmth that
the bees would impart to their eggs. "Ants were without the hive," says
Reaumur, "and bees within; a single glass only separating two nations, so
different in manners, in customs, and genius. The bees were abundantly
provided with a dainty of which ants are exceedingly fond, I mean honey.
The ants had just reason to be apprehensive that the bees would be
uneasy, and jealous to preserve so precious a treasure. Nevertheless
the utmost harmony and concord prevailed between the two nations. Not a
single ant was tempted to enter the hive, how strongly soever she might
be invited by the fragrance of the honey; nor did any bee disturb the
ants, though superior to them in power; the several individuals, on each
side, went in and out peaceably; they would meet in the way without
teazing or molesting one another: respect on one side, and complacency on
the other, were the foundation of this peace."--Nat. History of Bees, p.
352.
The destruction of _queen wasps_ and _queen hornets_ in the spring, and
of wasps' and hornets' nests in the summer, will prove the best security
against those formidable enemies. None but queen wasps and queen hornets
appear in the spring. Everyone which is then annihilated would probably
have been the founder of a kindred colony, and every colony of wasps
at a moderate computation may be calculated to produce at least 30,000
in a season. These destroyers may often be watched to their homes and
exterminated in the night, by brimstone, gunpowder, or boiling water.
The wooden guards invented by Espinasse, or the tin guards of Huish, will
be very useful in case of a formidable attack, and had better be made use
of if an assault be apprehended from these predatory insects.
Powder and shot are the only protectors from the visits of _birds_.
The exclusion of _poultry_ must be left to the ingenuity of the apiarian.
In an ungenial autumn, it is not uncommon for _bees that are ill-managed
and not properly fed, to plunder the hoards of their own species_, and
bees that have thus acquired predatory habits, become great annoyers of
industrious and well-fed colonies; they are known by the name of corsair
bees. On these occasions spies are said to be sent our to ascertain the
respective strengths of neighbouring colonies, and to select the weakest
for attack. _They make similar attacks upon the nests of humble-bees,
as well as upon the bees themselves_; in the former case they will
carry off almost the whole of the stores that have been collected,
unrepulsed by its proprietors; and in the latter case, says +Huber+,
"the humble-bee, accustomed to such exactions, yields up its honey, and
resumes its flight." In both cases it renews its labour in the fields,
and repairs with its surplus treasure to its usual asylum, and that even
after repeated robberies. +Mr. Hubbard+ says that he has known repeated
instances of weak stocks being expelled from their hives by strong ones.
_The best remedies_ for this evil are _the contraction of the entrances_,
as for guarding against wasps, _or a change in the situation of the
hives._
+Dr. Darwin+ in his _Phytologia_ has related an instance of a besieged
hive being removed to a distant and more easterly part of the same
garden: the assailants in this case did not follow, and the bees resumed
their usual occupations. Removal to a still greater distance would seem
to promise more certain relief. In order to raise their courage above
its natural height when thus attacked, +Schirach+ _recommends mixing a
little wine or brandy with honey, and presenting it to the bees that are
besieged_.
+Huber+ has called the attention of Naturalists to what he designated _as
a new enemy of bees_, the _Sphinx Atropos_ or _Death's-head Hawk-moth_,
to which his attention seems to have been first directed in 1804. This
gigantic moth, which derives its name from having upon its back a mark
somewhat resembling a death's head, has, from this cause together with
its size, (which at first caused it to be mistaken for a bat,) produced
great alarm amongst the people of some countries, being regarded by
them as the harbinger of some calamity. +Kuhn+ speaks of its having
been noticed in the apiaries of some monks at the close of the last
century, as well as in the bee-houses of other persons: and +Campbell+,
in his _Travels_, mentions it as plundering the wild bees in _Africa_
of their honey. This moth makes its appearance towards the close of
summer: it has the faculty of emitting a shrill mournful cry, which,
when threatened by the vengeance of the bees, has the power of disarming
their fury. It operates upon them like the voice of their queen, and
thus enables the moth to commit the greatest ravages in the hives, with
perfect impunity. Huber ascertained that it could not produce the same
effect upon humble-bees; for whenever _their_ nests are entered by one
of these insects, it is immediately attacked and driven out. One that
Huber introduced into a nest of humble-bees was actually stung to death
by them, but not till many wounds had been inflicted upon its most
sensible part, the belly. On dissecting one of these moths, he found a
table-spoonful of pure honey in its abdomen. The proceedings of bees,
when attacked by the _Sphinx Atropos_, as detailed in the Chapter on
Instincts, will suggest to the apiarian the best plan to be adopted,
whenever this formidable insect shall invade their territories.