Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1898 — INSECTS IN HIVES. [ARTICLE]

INSECTS IN HIVES.

A Remedy for Anta and Green File* That Sometimes Make Life a Burden to the Beea. There can be no harm done by the flies and ants, providing your bees are in good condition and fairly strong. Otherwise, the ants will work on the combs and honey and become much of an annoyance to the bees. The flies also will thus annoy them and eat their honey. Flies are frequently seen about the entrances of hives in this climate, attracted by the odoi from the bees, but are seldom seen abu t the hives that are strong in bees. When the flies are thus very numerous it is evidence that the colonies are not in good condition. They are much worse about colonies that have been or are being robbed. They are more troublesome also about weak colonies. The proper thing to do is to examine your bees and ascertain if they have a queen, aud have young brood in the combs, and that they have plenty of honey to live on. If the queens are all right it will pay well to feed them a little sirup made from granulated sugar to the amount of a gill or half a pint a day, according to the strength of the colony. This will start them to breeding rapidly, and if continued they’ will soon become strong, which is the remedy for all bee ills. If they are gathering honey it is not necessary to feed them, but if not, it is of much importance. If it is the large ants —those that make the ant-hills—l should judge they’ were very annoying to the bees, and I should destroy their nestingplace. You can readily “bottle them up.” Make a hole in the center of the ant-hill, and as deep as your bottle is long, or a little deeper, so when the bottle is set in the hole the mouth of it will be about an inch below the surface of the ground. Arrange the earth around the mouth of the bottle funnel shape and the ants will do the rest. They wilMall go into the bottle, and the’ inmates of an ordinary ant-hill may be thus bottled in half au hour.—Kansas Farmer.