!Angu»t 4, H63. 



JOITENAIj of HOETICtrLTXJEE AJSTD COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



97 



CHLOEOFOEII FOU BEES— THE SEASOJ^ IN 

 LINCOLJfSHIEE. 



"A Constant Subsceibek" is refen-ed by you to "Payne's 

 Bee-keeping " for directions to use chloroform for etvipifjang 

 bees. Perliaps you will permit me, as one who has several 

 times acted vipon those directions, to state what has been, 

 with me, the invai-iable resiolt — that of total subseguent 

 desertion of the hives. The quality of the honey is certainly 

 not aiiected by it ; but if preservation of the bees is also a 

 consideration, it is a total faUiU'C ; as, after tiying it six or 

 seven times some years ago, I always found them desert 

 within ii-om ten to fourteen days, and also carry with 

 them every particle of honey the operator had spared. 

 I would recommend your correspondent to endeavour to 

 acquii'e confidence in the manipidation of his bees — and 

 confidence is all that is required for any operation — and he 

 will then find that no stupifying agent at all is necessary. 

 I fiaid it practicable to get on without that universal re- 

 source of apiarians — the tobacco-piije, which constitutional 

 infirmity'' forbids me to use. 



It is pleasing to find that in .most parts of the kingdom 

 the season has this yeai- been so good. I can state that in 

 Ijincolnshire it is some time since it has been so good.; and 

 in spite of "foul brood," that has been such a plague to 

 cm- Devonshii'e friend, having been introduced into my 

 ag)iary, I have been able to confine it to the loss of three 

 Mves. The general result in swarms and honey is most 

 satisfactory. — G. F. B., Spalding. 



BEE-KEEPING IS DEVON.— ]S"o. XX. 



CONVALESCENT. 



As I am relating my own experience for the benefit of 

 others, and am therefore desirous that they should take 

 warning by my failiu'es and follow me only in my successes, 

 I may at once say that the disease has reappeared ,in the 

 colony whose original queen was stated in my last to have 

 been sent to St. Austell ; and I would record at the same 

 time my conviction, founded on experience, that whenever 

 fovil brood attacks a stock, partial excision or removal of 

 infected combs is of no avail i nothing less than entire 

 deprivation and transferring into a perfectly pure hive is 

 likely to eifect a cure. 



In the case also of one of the last two operations described 

 in page 79, I had the mortification a few days after my 

 article was written of finding that the disease had broken 

 out in the new combs, and I have therefore been compelled 

 to resort to an operation of a different, and, I trust, of a 

 more effectual character. The other colony treated in a pre- 

 cisely similar manner, remains, however, perfectly iealthy, 

 and was the strongest in my apiary. I say was the strong- 

 est, for I have this day (July 30th), desj^atched it to Ken- 

 frewshii-e, where, in the hands of the bee-keeper of that flk, 

 I trust it may flourish to his heai-t's content, and that we 

 shall leaa-n in due coiu-se that it has fully indemnified lum 

 for a certain amount of "hope deferred" which he has 

 suffered in the matter of Ligm-ians owing to the unfortunate 

 state of my apiary. One point it will undoubtedly enable 

 him to decide before long, and that is the longevity of 

 worker bees at this season. On the 4th of this month all 

 the combs were exchanged for those of a black stock con- 

 taining, therefore, black brood, and as the queen regnant is 

 a perfectly pure Italian, the period of the complete disappear- 

 ance of the ordinary English species will, of course, mark 

 the exact duration of the summer Ufe of the working bee. 



Thus far I had acted to some extent on the opinions of 

 English authors, none of whom appear to liave been per- 

 fectly cog-nisant of the extremely infectious character of 

 foul brood. Nor coidd I myself at first realise the virulence 

 of the contagion, being disposed to imagine that the removal 

 of the polluted brood-combs would alone be quite sufficient 

 to work a radical cure. In this idea I was confirmed by one 

 of the ablest of the apiarian correspondents of The Jouenai. 

 OF HoKTicULTUKE, who, hx VL letter with which he kindly 

 favoured me on the subject, attributed the whole of the 

 mischief to my exjiorimental opea-ations allowing the brood 

 in the iirst instance to get chilled, and, therefore, requiring 

 only the excision of the affected .parts to work a complete 



cure. Experience has, however, proved the eiToueousness 

 of these opinions. Few hives of any kind escape the loss of 

 some of their brood every spring from sudden changes of 

 temperature, and the embryos being removed by the bees 

 no fai'ther mischief ensues. In my own case I have often in 

 foi-mer years accidentally reduced the population of hives to 

 so low an ebb that more or less of then- brood has perished ; 

 but this has always been the extent of the injm-y sustained. 

 As it has been said, that when bees are left to themselves 

 and ai-e allowed to follow uni-estrained the impulses and 

 instincts of their natiu'e no such disorders arise, I may be 

 pemiitted to state that foul brood was unquestionably in- 

 troduced into my apiary by infected combs from common 

 cottage-hives iu which the bees had been managed in the 

 ordinaiy way. 



My next experiment was the mode of cure indicated by 

 Dzierzon, who nevertheless advises, as the best coxrrse, to 

 destroy immediately by means of sulphur every stock in 

 which foul brood is found to exist. Having deprived the 

 bees of all their combs and placed them in a clean hive, I 

 confined them (fii-st insuring perfect ventOation by remov- 

 ing the cro\vn-board and substituting perforated zinc), with- 

 out food for twenty-four hours, in order to be certain of their 

 consuming whatever of the infected honey they might have 

 taken fi-om then- original domicile. To my astonishment a 

 full thu-d of theu' munber perished during then- imprison- 

 ment from some cause wldcli I found myself unable to dis- 

 cover, but which appeared not to be accidental, as a similar 

 loss occiuTed in both of the only two cases in which confine- 

 ment was resorted to, and caused me on that account to 

 abandon it. Having been allowed to work thi'ee days in 

 theu' new habitation, they were once more unceremoniously 

 ejected, and placed in a hive with a few clean combs, in 

 which they w-ere suffered to remain ; all the beautifal combs 

 which they had made during their sojom-n in the interme- 

 diate habitation being at once consigned to the melting- 

 pot. This plan appeared to work an effectual cure ; but as 

 I have departed from it in the matter of imprison m ent, I 

 will give fidl particulars of my more recent mode of ope- 

 rating, which thus far promises the best residts. 



Fii-st, however, let me indorse the opinions both of Dzierzon 

 and Eothe, that except under very special ch'cunistauces it 

 is unadvisable to attempt the cure of a foul-breeding stock ; 

 better, far better, to consign its inhabitants to the brim- 

 stone-pit, the hive itself, if a straw one, to the flames, the 

 comb to the melting-pot, and appropriate the honey to any 

 purpose except that of feeding bees. 



Before starting it was requisite to insui-e the transfer of 

 the bees to vmpoUuted hives, and here I found that Dzierzon 

 declares that every hive that has contained a foul-breeding 

 colony should be exposed to the sun and an- for two years 

 before being re-stocked. In my own case tliis was simply 

 impossible, and I therefore adopted the practice of another 

 German writer on the subject — viz., to scrape out the hive 

 very careftiEy, wash it all over with a saturated solution of 

 chloride of lime, keeping it closely shut up for twenty -four 

 hours, and then, after thoroughly washing it in clean water, 

 exposing it to the sun and ah- until the smell of the disin- 

 fectant had passed off. This method has the advantage of 

 enabbng one to use a wooden hive again after the lapse of a 

 couple of days, and is, I believe, thoroughly effectual. 



Having in this manner obtained a supply of pure hives, 

 my first step in each ease is to capture the queen and secure 

 her in a cage. This is vei^y important, as insuring the safety 

 of the royal person dui-ing subsequent operations as well as 

 stopping breeding, and effectually preventing the bees fr-om 

 deserting the unfurnished donucUe to which they are tem- 

 porai'Uy consigned. One of my colonies did, in fact, attempt 

 to do this, but knowing that I held so important a hostage 

 I was enabled to view theu- proceedings with perfect equa- 

 nimity, feeUug myself to be the real master of the situation, 

 and was not a little amused to see the truants after filling 

 the ail- for a long time with all the noise and bustle mcident 

 to swai-ming, at last sink crest-fallen back to the unfui-nished 

 mansion in which their sovereign was held a prisoner, and, 

 confessing themselves beaten, commence comb-building 

 therem, a thing which they had hitherto resolutely abstamed 

 from doing. The queen being, therefore, confined and placed 

 in a clean and empty hive, all her bees are brushed from 

 then- combs into it as rapidly as possible iu order to prevent 



