After the site of the apiary is chosen, it Is neces sary for the cultivator frequently to inspect his hives, to ascertain whether they are in a flourishing state, or suffer from disease and the inroads of enemies. Bees, in common with other animals, are liable to various diseases. The Abbe della Rocca informs us, that almost the whole hives in the isle of Syra, in the Ar chipelago, were destroyed by an epidemic disease which prevailed from 17;7 to 1780. In this case, some vice or corruption seemed to originate among the young brood, which, infecting the bees, produ ced their death. A kind of dysentery or diarrhoea attacks bees at certain seasons, which is extremely injurious : the commencement is seen by the foul ness of the combs, which must be pared, and the tainted portion taken away. Some cultivators pre tend to cure this disease, which, they assert, arises from the nature of the honey collected, by sup plying the bees with rosemary and honey diluted with water : others recommend a syrup, prepared with equal quantities of sugar and wine and a little nutmeg, a singular remedy : and a third class con 3 ceive a mixture f two pounds of clarified and as much sugar, with a pound of white wine, beneficial. Bees are likewise subject to a disease of the antennae, which, though not dangerous, renders them dull and languid. It appears by discoloration like moulding, and is said to be curable by the preceding prepara tion. Toads, frogs, and mice, are reputed great ene mies to bees : but we doubt whether it be truly so with regard to the two former, in this country at least ; and the ravages of the latter are certainly not general. Perhaps, while the bees cluster together in rigorous winters, they may penetrate the hive and devour the combs, at other times it would be too dan gerous an attempt even for animals better protected. Birds of several species, particularly swallows, spar rows, and red-breasts, are also ranked among the ene mies of these insects : with respect to which, like wise, we should wish to see the facts better ascertain ed before giving them credit. Spiders and snails, which are considered noxious, can do little harm; for in this island there are very few, if any, of the former capable of contending with a bee, and the only da mage done by the latter is soiling the hive. More dan gerous are the lame of a small moth, hatching from eggs deposited within the hive, as they are destruc tive of the comb, and likewise the sphyns atropos in its perfect state ; but most formidable of all are wasps and hornets, and plunderers of their own species. The first two being strong and vivacious animals, are able to destroy living bees, and suck the honey from the abdomen ; or they may penetrate the hive, and consume the comb. When a wasp tries to enter, it is resisted, but having made good its way, we believe it is then little regarded, and may leisurely satiate itself with honey. fhe nests of wasps ought to be care fully traced out and destroyed ; if in the earth, by pouring boiling water down their hole, or kindling a quantity of straw where they are less accessible. Ob servers confidently affirm, that a whole swarm of bees, from defect of food and other causes, sometimes interrupt their natural collection, and becoming a band of plunderers, rob the stores of their neighbours. In this case, which will appear from the contests per petually taking place on the boards and about the en trances of other hives, it is necessary to ascertain whence the depredators come, whether from neigh. bouring hives or from those at a distance. If their plundering seems to arise from want of food, as those scanty provisioned are more apt to follow this me thod of supplying themselves, they must be fed at night when the sun is down, and while all the bees have returned. It is reported not to be an uncommon incident for a swarm to abandon their own hive, and take possession of another to relieve their necessities. Bees, on losing the queen, having no interest to pro secute their labours, if brood be wanting in their combs, sometimes begin to pillage the hives in the neighbourhood. The obvious remedy is here to pro vide them with a queen, whereby all their faculties being aroused, they will be reclaimed to their usual nature. Schirach warns us, on removing comb from a hive, to beware of scattering or dropping it, and to replace the hive exactly in the same position as before, otherwise the inhabitants of stronger colo nies will obtain more ready access to attack the honey in the combs, or to collect what has fallen from them. The weakness of a hive is one great inducement for its neighbours to pillage ; and as cleanliness, and be ing kept free of vermin, preserve the vigour and ac tivity of its inmates, due attention to them should not be neglected. Removing the hive, which is the ob ject of plunder, and covering it with branches, has been recommended ; and such an expedient will cer tainly present a good chance of escape.
But all the devices adopted by us are poor and in-, significant, when compared with those resorted to by the bees themselves to provide against danger. Here we have an opportunity of admiring that wonderful instinct, which animals, standing so low in the scale of creation, exhibit. Even suppo sing them to possess nothing analagous to reason ; that the regard for their queen, and the watchful care of their young, result from some pleasurable sensa tion ; that the massacre of the drones originates from some sudden principle of aversion,—we cannot refer their precautions to avoid danger to any relative, source. It is evident that they labour in concert ; that their operations tend to one general object ; and that they are aware of it being fulfilled. Surely all. this cannot be done without some mode of commu nication with each other : but considering that every, thing they perform is in the dark ; nay, that the per fection of their work is partly proportioned to the pri vation of light, the difficulty of conceiving how they can know each others proceedings is greatly increased, It has been warmly contested, whether bees are capa ble of imparting what we should call thought in beings higher in the chain of animated existence, and espe cially, whether there be any thing resembling voice among them ? We have already remarked, that the workers can retain young queens in their cells after at taining complete maturity, which they are capable of doing by strengthening the seal or covering with addi' tional wax : and that they regularly liberate the old est of those of different ages. A sound, which we cannot compare to the buzzing of insects, by the ba lancers beating on their wings, is heard from the young queens. No researches, however, have yet de tected the organ, if it is an external one, from which the sound proceeds. When a queen is hatched, she seeks the cells of those that will become her rivals, and uses every possible exertion to destroy them ; but the workers, to which other queens, even in their im perfect state, are precious, generally present the most decided opposition, and render her attempts abortive. Yet, from the property which the queen possesses of emitting that certain sound before heard from her cell, their resistance becomes vain ; it paralyses all their faculties ; and she proceeds to operate destruc tion. The following observations, by a distinguish ed naturalist, on this head, lead to an illustration of the peculiarities among bees when exposed to danger, though they more immediately relate to another branch of our subject. " The first of a number of cells containing females, opened on the ninth of June, and a young queen, lively, slender, and of a brown colour, escaped from it. Now we understood why bees retain the females captive in their cells so long after the period of transformation has elapsed ; it is that they may be able to fly the instant of being hatched. The new queen occupied all our attention.
When she approached the other cells, the bees on guard, pulled, bit her, and chased her away : they seemed to be greatly irritated against her, and she en joyed tranquillity only when at a considerable distance from the cells. This proceeding was frequently re peated through the day. She twice emitted the same distinct sound or clacking that had been heard in her prison, consisting of several monotonous notes, in rapid succession : and in doing so she stood with her thorax against a comb, and her wings crossed on her back : they were in motion, but without being un folded or opened. Whatever might be the cause of her assuming this attitude, the bees were affected by it : all hung down their heads, and remained motion less. The hive presented the same scenes next day. Twenty-three royal cells yet remained assiduously guarded by a great many bees : when the queen ap proached, all the guards became agitated, surrounded her on every side, bit her, and commonly drove her away. Sometimes, when in these circumstances, she emitted the sound, and assumed the posture just de scribed : from that moment the bees became motion less." Several queens were successively liberated, some of which had led out swarms ; but eighteen cells still remained to be guarded. " The fifth queen left her cell at ten at night ; and two'queens were now in the hive : they immediately began fighting, btu came to disengage themselves from each other. However, they again tought several times through the night, without any thing decisive. Next day, the thirteenth of June, we witnessed the death of one, which fell by the wounds of her enemy. The duel was quite similar to what occurs in the combats of queens. The victorious young queen now exhibited• a very singular spectacle : she approached a royal cell, and took this moment to utter that sound and to assume that posture which strike the bees motion less. For some minutes we conceived, that, taking advantage of the dread shewn by the workers on guard, she would open the cell and destroy the young female : and she in fact prepared to mount the cell ; but in doing so she ceased to emit the sound, and quitted the attitude which paralyses the workers : the guardians of the cell instantly resumed courage, and by means of tormenting and biting the queen, drove her away." These remarks are necessary to illustrate, how one of the principal enemies of bees can attain its ends with impunity. The sphinx atropos, which was long unsuspected, has recently been discovered to be a most formidable ravager of their stores. In years, when they had multiplied to an uncommon extent, whole districts of hives were plundered of all their honey : and it was not until after the injury had been done, that it was traced to its real source. Numbers of moths had made their way into the hives, and satiated them selves with honey so long as it remained in the cells : and possibly as it decreased, the season when these animals abounded came to a close. But it must ap pear very surprising how a moth, quite unprotected with external means of defence, and liable, at the mo ment of its entrance, to be pierced by a thousand stings, each of which inflicts a mortal wound, can venture on so hazardous a pursuit. We must here recollect, however, that this identical insect is one, perhaps almost the only one, supposed to possess something like voice : and, at the same time, that the sound emitted by it bears a narrow resemblance to the peculiar sound proceeding from the queen bee, which paralyses the workers. It is thence far from improbable, that the first resistance opposed to the entry of the moth may be productive of this sound, which, though arising from accident alone, may have the singular effect of depriving the bees of the power' of repulsion. If these facts be firmly established, and the conclusions just, it would be well worth the atten tion of cultivators to investigate whether any similar sound can be artificially produced, and whether it will have influence on the bees. They are perfectly aware of the presence of so redoubtable an enemy, and the danger resulting from it. In autumn 1804, the copious collections of honey which had been made during summer, had entirely disappeared, and the moths were uncommonly abundant. The owners• of a numher of hives resolving to protect them from further pillage, closed their entrances with tin gra tings, where the apertures were proportioned to the size of the bees, on the 17th of September : but not. having enough for the whole, two were left unsecu red. It was seen next morning on examination, that, during the night, the bees had themselves taken the necessary precautions, by contracting the entrances. of their hives, so as to make them quite safe against. invasion. Each was completely blockaded by a wall, composed of old wax and farina, in which the bees had taken care to leaveapertures corresponding to their own size : two, that would prevent above two bees passing at a time, were fashioned like inverted arches a third was broad enough in front to admit of the passage of several bees at once, but so low, that they were obliged to lean over on one side to get through. All the other hives proved, on inspection, to be con structed in the same way, even where provided with. the tin gratings. In other instances, the bees had constructed a double wall at the entrance of the hive, with covered galleries, so narrow, that no more than a single bee could pass : fifty-three swarms began. these operations in the course of the same night. Bees, when attacked by plunderers of their own spe cies, have been known to.adopt similar precautions. On the 9th of July 1804, an observer having found some of those, belonging to a neighbouring hive, ly ing dead on the board of a swarm that they had come to pillage, watched the proceedings of the lat ter. On the I I th of the month, they had built up their entrance, leaving only two apertures at the. part highest above the board, which would admit no more than one bee at a time : they were thus proportion ed to the size of their enemies, and. could be suffi• ciently guarded by two workers. But, in the sequel, they were enlarged, and on the 22d, they would have allowed two or three bees to pass at once. " Waa this," the observer asks, " because they were sensible of having drones among them, for which these open ings were too small ?" No farina being in the coun try. at that period, the bees had built their wall of pure wax taken from the edges of their combs.. in a subsequent fortification erected during September, they used farina along with the wax employed in it. It is important to attend to the circumstances which we have now exposed, for they demonstrate the pre cise plan that sho..-Id be followed by a cultivator in pro tecting his hives. As the seasons of danger approach, he ought himself to diminish their entrances, an expe dient which will prove the chief means of security. During the period of swarming, they should be left al together free, but after that time, they must be con tracted. When in danger of being pillaged by their neighbours, there may be only two apertures, each so large as to allow two or three bees to pass : and in countries where their great enemy, the sphynx atro pos, abounds, the apertures, when the chief collection of honey takes place, must be made very low, that this insect may be excluded. Some observers have used a longitudinal or triangular cover of the en trance, turning by one corner on a pivot ; by simply elevating or depressing which, the access was impe ded or facilitated. An intelligent naturalist recom mends adapting a slider, containing various aper tures, at the entrance of the hive : merely by shift ing it along, those suitable to the different seasons and conditions will be presented for the exit of the bees.