Bee brood

“ Foul brood is the rotting of brood in a hive; the caps of the sealed brood appear indented and shriveled and the larvae and young bees in unsealed cells become putrid, emitting a disgusting stench or smell. When the disease has a firm hold, even though it may be possible to cure it, I would advise the total destruction by fire of the bees, combs, frames and hives, with everything which might harbor the disease. ”

“ A fourth method is to take two combs from each of several strong stocks, brushing off all bees with a feather or goose-wing. Then placing the hive thus filled with comb and brood, on the stand of a strong stock, the returning bees will take to the home thus presented to them, and will speedily raise a queen for themselves from one of the many eggs contained in the brood cells. ”

“ If he intends to say that they cluster at the bottom of the brood comb, so that the heat will ascend and warm up the upper part of the brood comb for the extension of brood, facts do not warrant the assertion; for it is well known that bees do not commence breeding at the lower end of the comb, except in a very rare case, when they have had the hive full of honey and have consumed none or only very little during the winter. As a general thing, they commence breeding near the centre, and frequently in the upper part of the hive. ”

“ The excessive rearing of brood at the wrong season or increase in the number of colonies greatly reduces the surplus honey crop by consumption. The ideal to which all progressive bee keepers work, when operating simply for honey, is to stimulate brood rearing to prepare bees for gathering, to retard breeding when it is less desirable, and to prevent swarming. ”

“ IX. to allow eight or ten pounds more to old hives than to new swarms.
- 74 -
The bee-bread being generally, when present, deposited in the centre of the combs, where the brood thrives best, of course the place which it takes up is so much lost. It is liable to mould in winter, and the working bees have a great deal of trouble in tearing it from the cells, and putting it out of their way. It spoils the honey, takes away its whiteness, and gives it an unpleasant taste; it destroys the wax even more, and forms that brown scum under the cakes, when great care is not taken to separate it. ”

“ The supers should be promptly removed at the close of the honey harvest, honey boards with bee escapes in them being used to free them from bees, as described under the head of "Extracting." If the gathering season for the year has also ended, an examination of the brood apartment should be made to determine whether feeding is necessary, either to prolong brood rearing or for winter stores. ”

“ If the queen is all right, there will be eggs and brood in the brood cells. Don't keep the hives open any longer than is necessary, as the cold air might chill the brood. At this time, if some stocks have a large amount of honey in the combs of the brood section, exchange such with some stock that has but little; as it is a disadvantage to have too much sealed honey in the brood combs in the spring. It sometimes happens that all the brood combs will be filled with sealed honey nearly down to the bottom, leaving but a very small place on two or three combs near the bottom for breeding purposes. ”

“ Instead of being nearly horizontal like the other brood-cells, those of the queens are perpendicular and considerably larger; in form they are oblong spheroids, tapering gradually downwards; their mouths being always at the bottom. Vide Part II. “Architecture of Bees.”
The male passes three days in the egg, six and a half as a worm, and metamorphoses into a fly on the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth day, after the egg is laid. The great epoch of laying the eggs of males may be accelerated or retarded by the state of the atmosphere promoting or impeding the collections of the bees. ”

“ Bees are exceedingly fond of their young, and are greatly dispirited when their hives are in this plight. In common with most pestilential disorders, no satisfactory cause is assigned for its first appearance. Some apiarians contend that "foul brood" is another name for chilled brood; others, that the queen, by a freak of nature, deposits some of her eggs the wrong way upwards, and that these putrefy in the cells, and contaminate the others. ”

“ This is composed of the pollen or dust of the anthers of flowers, which the workers are constantly employed in gathering. They fly from flower to flower, to collect it in the little baskets formed of hair, with which their hind legs are provided; and having deposited their booty in the hive, they return for a new load. This bee-bread, after it has been received into the bees’ second stomach, is brought up again, changed into a whitish jelly; and with that substance, the young brood are diligently fed by other bees, till they change into nymphs. ”

“ But with very large families, their proceedings are different: as any part of the cluster of bees is warm enough for breeding, there is less necessity for economizing heat, and having all the eggs confined to one small spot, some unoccupied cells will be found among the brood; a few will contain honey and bee-bread. ”

“ It is possible also that some of the eggs of the moth may be left where the bees crawling over them carry them into the hive by accident, the freshly laid egg adhering readily to any substance it touches. In the northern and middle sections of the United States two broods are reared, the first appearing in May, the second and larger brood in midsummer or even August. The eggs deposited by the last brood develop slowly in the cooler autumn weather, but usually reach the pupal stage, in which they normally pass the winter. ”

“ The combs must be crowded with bees; they must contain a numerous brood advancing from the egg to maturity; the bees must be obtaining honey either by being fed or from flowers. Being crowded with bees in a scarce time of honey is insufficient to bring out the swarm, neither is an abundance sufficient, without the bees and the brood. The period that all these requisites happen together, and remain long enough, will vary with different stocks, and many times do not happen at all through the season, with some. ”

“ On the Impregnation of the Queen-Bee.—In looking into a hive in spring or summer, the Queen will be seen laying eggs in the cells; in the smaller cells, those of workers, and in the larger those of males or drones. These eggs, if examined on the fourth day from their being deposited, will be found hatched, and a small worm produced, which is floating in a whitish liquid, ascertained to be food introduced for the nourishment of the infant brood; and in due time a perfect bee emerges from the cell. But how is this living animal generated? ”

“ When the weather has become sufficiently settled to render safe the inspection of the brood combs, or, in general, when the bees fly - 70 - the greater part of each clear day, the work of the queen may be inspected. Should the comb having the largest area of brood in it be toward one side of the hive it is best to locate it as near the center as may be, placing on either side successively those combs having smaller circles of brood and on each side of these the combs containing no brood, but well stored with pollen, while those having honey only will come still outside of these. ”

“ I have a case of dead brood on my hands, which I do not understand. The bees are in a 10-frame hive that I bought of a neighbor last June. At this time they have a hive full of honey and young bees; they are carrying out young brood that is just ready to cap over. ”

“ In all the processes of queen rearing described, we cannot but be struck with the inextinguishable love shown to the undeveloped young, and the passionate yearning for a mother-bee displayed by the workers. It matters not whether the brood presented to them be taken from their own stock or from another community; they will at once cluster upon the cells containing larvæ, and devotedly tend them till they come forth as perfect insects. The emerging progeny may even belong to another variety, Ligurian, Cyprian, or Carniolan ”

“ Speedily awakened to its responsibilities, the young bee assumes, as its earliest duties, the tending of the brood-cells, the feeding of the larvæ, and the various offices so recently performed for itself by its slightly older sisters. Then, as strength increases, the wings are tried in flight; the locality of its home is reconnoitred, and in two or three days after its emergence into its complete condition it issues forth on journeys, nearer or more remote, in search of stores for the perpetually recurring wants of the succession of children continually being reared in the hive. ”

“ In these the queen can immediately begin to deposit her eggs, and the workers to store their honey, without having to wait for the construction of combs, which is a laborious occupation for the bees.
In some cases, fine white combs of honey may be taken from the stock-hive; the end frames are always the most free from brood. Care must be exercised not to rob this part of the hive too much; one comb may, perhaps, be removed in the course of the season without impoverishing the bees, but it is not wise to take more. ”

“ That mother which has been picked out as breeding bee must be taken with part of her people and some brood-combs, honey-combs, and empty ones, until the little box is quite full, and is then placed on the stand where the Italian bees and drones are kept. After a few days, the queen is taken with a few combs of brood and their bees, and is put into a breeding-box. ”

“ Destroy their nests in breeding time, and shoot them in winter. Lapoutre, a French Naturalist, assures us, "that he saw under a tree in which there was a tom-tit's nest, a surprising quantity of the scaly parts of Bees, which this bird had dropped from its nest." Sparrows and swallows have both an ill name, but I could never observe any great hurt done by either of them. Poultry will occasionally destroy Bees, for I once recollect - 65 - seeing a hen and her brood pay dearly for their freedom with a hive, the chickens were all stung to death, and the hen escaped only with her life. ”

“ When gradually the number of bees has through the daily augmentation become perceptibly increased, when the pastures have more fully unfolded themselves, and the warmth in the hive has reached a higher degree, then, in the confidence of strength and of a sort of maturity, and having regard to the remoter object of increase through connubial relations, drone brood is also laid. Finally, although not in every case, in greater or less number queen cells are prepared. ”

“ An essential in honey production is to have the hive overflowing with bees at the beginning of the honey flow, so that the field force will be large enough to gather more honey than the bees need for their own use. To accomplish this, the bee keeper must see to it that brood rearing is heavy some time before the harvest, and he must know accurately when the honey flows come, so that he may time his manipulations properly. Brood rearing during the honey flow usually produces bees which consume stores, while brood reared before the flow furnishes the surplus gatherers. ”

“ As the young bees hatch, the queen proceeds with her duties of laying eggs, until every brood cell is occupied, and as fast as a bee matures and leaves its cell, she is on hand with an egg to occupy the vacant place. This is kept up without cessation till swarming time, when the hive becomes crowded with bees, then, as preparation for swarming, the queen deposits eggs, from which the bees by a special course of treatment, rear queens. When they are sealed over, as shown in the plate, the old queen leaves the hive with the first swarm to seek a new home. ”

“ Under these conditions, where there is a good queen, breeding will go ahead very rapidly, and in a short time there will be a big lot of brood to feed, and a large quantity of food needed. If at this time bad weather should set in and last for several days, preventing the bees gathering nectar, probably within a week pretty nearly all the reserve stores within the hive will be used up, and if the bees are not seen to before they arrive at this stage they will probably die of starvation. ”

“ P. asks if it is the fault of the hive that the old bees die off, or that bees are destroyed by cold winds? Of course it is not. But if a swarm is not breeding enough to make up that loss, there must be a fault somewhere. When we take bees from the cellar, we expect that they will have brood in all stages, from the egg just laid to young bees just gnawing out. We expect too that the queen will continue to deposit eggs, even more rapidly, because of the excitement produced by the bees flying, and especially if they are fed rye meal, as mine always are. ”

“ Should the main flow be preceded by a lighter one, especially if the latter comes some weeks before the chief harvest, it may be important to watch the brood nest closely lest it becomes clogged with honey to the exclusion of brood, inclining the bees not to enter surplus receptacles placed above and causing the colony to be weak in numbers later in the season. ”

“ Also, the fact of these eggs being at this season on the bottom-board. Now suppose you give such a stock two or three pounds of honey, and they are encouraged to feed a large brood, and your supply fails before they are half grown. What are they to do? destroy the brood and lose all they have fed, or draw on their old stores for a small quantity to help them in this emergency, and trust to chance for themselves? The latter alternative will probably be adopted, and then, without a timely intervention of favorable weather, the bees starve. ”