If natural swarming is allowed, after-swarms may be prevented from
issuing, by cutting out all the queen cells but one, soon after the
first swarm leaves the hive; or if it is desired to have as fast an
increase of stocks, as can possibly be obtained from natural swarming,
then instead of leaving the combs in the parent hive to be attacked by
the moth, a certain portion of them may be taken out, when swarming is
over, and given to the second and third swarms, so as to aid in building
them up into strong stocks.
But I have not yet spoken of the most fruitful cause of the desolating
ravages of the bee-moth. If a colony has _lost its queen_, and this loss
cannot be supplied, it must, as a matter of course, fall a sacrifice to
the bee-moth: and I do not hesitate to assert that by far the larger
proportion of colonies which are destroyed by it, are destroyed under
precisely such circumstances! Let this be remembered by all who have any
thing to do with bees, and let them understand that unless a remedy for
the loss of the queen, can be provided, they must constantly expect to
see some of their best colonies hopelessly ruined. The crafty moth,
after all, is not so much to blame, as we are apt to imagine; for a
colony, once deprived of its queen, and possessing no means of securing
another, would certainly perish, even if never attacked by so deadly an
enemy; just as the body of an animal, when deprived of life, will
speedily go to decay, even if it is not, at once, devoured by ravenous
swarms of filthy flies and worms.
In order to ascertain all the important points connected with the habits
of the bee-moth, I have purposely deprived colonies in some of my
observing hives, of their queen, and have thus reduced them to a state
of despair, that I might closely watch all their proceedings. I have
invariably found that in this state, they have made little or no
resistance to the entrance of the bee-moth, but have allowed her to
deposit her eggs, just where she pleased. The worms, after hatching,
have always appeared to be even more at home than the poor dispirited
bees themselves, and have grown and thrived, in the most luxurious
manner. In some instances, these colonies, so far from losing all spirit
to resent other intrusions, were positively the most vindictive set of
bees in my whole Apiary. One especially, assaulted every body that came
near it, and when reduced in numbers to a mere handful, seemed as ready
for fight as ever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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