Poisoning

Poisons which are very destructive to bees in the southwest readily classify under two heads, poisonous nectar plants and poisonous sprays and dusts.

There are only two poisonous nectar plants that I know of which are important. These are the California buckeye tree and the Astragalus plant commonly known as locoweed.

The buckeye tree abounds freely through out the west Sierra foothills of California and to a lesser degree in the coast range south of Santa Clara County. Nectar from the buckeye has been known to almost exterminate whole apiaries. However, its poisonous effects seem to vary with seasons. The claim is made that some of the darker races of bees are wholly or partially immune to it.

The loco weed is widely distributed throughout the Southwest. Beekepers located in the Yerrington district of Nevada periodically suffer heavy losses from loco poisoning. It occasionally becomes abundant enough in Southern California to do considerable damage. Poisonous insecticide sprays and dusts are much more disastrous and much harder to avoid than plant poisons. Large areas of truck crops are frequently dusted by airplanes. The dust settles for miles around and contaminates everything it settles upon. Dusts containing arsenic are the worst. Sprays applied to citrus trees during blooming time are disastrous to bees at times.

The symptoms of poisoning vary widely. Sometimes the brood is not affected, only a sudden loss of field bees being noticeable. Usually there will be an abnormal increase in dead bees about the hives but if they die in the field this evidence will be lacking. When the poison is carried into the hives the brood will soon begin to die and the adult bees become visibly affected. Dead brood will be seen in the combs and in severe cases the population of the colonies will dwindle to a small cluster leaving most of the brood dead and deserted. Plaint poisons are usually less virulent. Colonies suffering from buckeye and loco poisoning may usually be spotted by the presence of newly emerged workers with deformed wings and legs and many dead inmates which die in the comb just before emerging.

The symptoms of poisoning differ from those of American and European foulbrood in that the dead brood is neither putrid or ropy. Poisons affect both adults and the brood while the brood diseases affect the brood only.

Treatment for poisoning consists of first moving the bees away from the contaminated area, preferably to a fresh nectar flow, if one is available. If not they should be fed heavily with sugar syrup. In either case the poisonous honey should be extracted from the combs as soon as possible.

Feeding

It is often necessary to feed bees. The conditions under which they may require feed are mentioned elsewhere under various headings. I will also refer the reader to the remarks on "Feeders. "

Diluted honey may be fed if it is positively known to be free from disease germs. Never feed honey bought at large, the risk is too great. The safest feed for bees is syrup made from one part sugar and one part water, mixed cold.

The amount necessary to be fed must depend wholly on circumstances. It is inadvisable to give liquid feed in the winter. Bees become more or less dormant in winter and often refuse to take liquid feed. If they do take it, it is apt to kill them off in large numbers. Feeding for winter stores should be done in the fall not later than October. If there is a tendency to rob, feeding should be done late in the afternoon (see "Robbing"). Sugar syrup gives off very little odor and is therefore much less apt to excite robbing than diluted honey. Now it sometimes happens that due to some oversight or miscalculation some colonies are found to be without stores in midwinter and therefore must be supplied in some way. The best way in such a case is to give them several combs each of sealed honey from other hives which have it to spare.

Robbing

Bees naturally prefer to go to the fields for their honey. When a heavy flow is on they will not touch honey even if it is left near their hive. But when there is a dearth of nectar they become keen for any kind of sweet and do not hesitate to risk their lives to get it. At such times if honey is exposed about the yard they will become quite rampant in their scramble to get it. I have seen a bunch of bees half the size of a man's fist scrambling over each other to get at a single drop of honey. They do not hesitate to invade weak colonies and rob them of their stores if the weak one is for any reason unable to repel them. There are two kinds of robbing, the rough and tumble kind and the sneak thief or incipient kind. Both kinds are usually due to bad judgment or carelessness on the part of the beeman. If you will watch the behavior of the bees at the hive entrance you will notice that certain bees seem to act as sentinels. They do not hesitate to refuse admittance to any bee who fails to give the right password. Now if the hive is opened, smoked, and the combs allowed to stand about the hive during manipulation two things are bound to happen if robbing is prevalent. Bees from other hives will be attracted by the odor of honey and the guards at the entrance are apt to become demoralized. In spite of all this as soon as the hive is closed order will usually be quickly restored and the invaders quickly killed or expelled. If however the robbers get the upper hand they will soon be pouring in and out in an uproar while the bees of the invaded colony stand helplessly by apparently unable to distinguish friend from foe. In such a case the only remedy is to place a moving screen on the hive and close the entrance. Open it again at nightfall and watch it next morning. If the robbing is resumed next day the hive should again be closed and kept indoors for a day or two then placed on a different location in the yard. When robbing is imminent bees should not be handled unless it is absolutely necessary and then only a few colonies at a time or late in the day, robbing must cease at nightfall.

Colonies that have been queenless a long time are easily overcome by robbers. It is little use to try to protect such a colony. They should be united as described under "Spring Management. "

All hive entrances should be contracted to one inch wide in the fall. All hives should be made bee tight about the cover. Warped covers are bad. An experienced bee man can soon detect the presence of incipient robbing by the behavior of the bees. Certain bees will be seen hanging about the crevices on the outside of their neighbors hives. They have a guilty look and the entrance guards will be on the alert. This state of affairs is not necessarily serious and exists more or less in most large yards in the fall of the year. It simply amounts to a danger signal and warns the operator to be careful.