134 EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



to talk to bee-keepers, on our favorite hobby, we have to call it by 

 some other name or be barred from the program. So that the thing I 

 really want to talk about this afternoon is the subject of wintering bees. 



Now, I told you a while ago that we have overlooked one point in 

 European foul brood control, and that is that the first bees of the year 

 usually escape with a little loss. Consequently, the method of attack 

 for European foul brood must be to make the first brood just as big as 

 we can possibly make it, in order that the nucleus may get so strong 

 early, quickly, that European foul brood can never show its face, and 

 that is what the winter packing case has been doing for us. . 



Now, it is very hard to talk definiteh^ on the subject of bees with- 

 out bragging a little, because in order to give anything definite in 

 regard to what a certain, apparatus will do or what a certain system 

 will do, the bee-keeper says: "Well, you will have to show me," and 

 in showing it is necessary to draw on the experience which one has 

 most intimateh' before him. Consequently with your permission I 

 would like to tell you something about the Bureau of Entomolog}" at 

 Washington, or near Washington. ' 



On April 23, 1917, we had a number of distinguished men visit 

 us at the apiary. Professor Jager was one of them, and he recalled at 

 noon the fact that on April 23,- 1917, two swarms of bees came out of 

 the yard. Now they were not hunger swarms, they were not handsful 

 of bees, they were big, full-grown swarms that came out of the apiary, 

 and it was not j^et unpacked. When these swarms came out it was a 

 beautiful warm day. These colonies were all packed up in winter 

 cases, so we hastily unpacked them and gave them remedial measures 

 for any further swarming, and we did not have any further swarming 

 that year. We found large quantities of brood in the hives, but that 

 was in April, 1917, and war had only been declared a little while, and 

 we did not have the opportunity to make the examination of the yard 

 which we would like to have made. But in 1918 we did have that 

 opportunity. 



In discussing what happened in 1918 it would be necessary for 

 me to go back just a little bit. The season of 1917 was a very poor one 

 in the vicinity of AVashington, in that we had almost no honey, but 

 we had a large quantity of honey dew, which as every bee-keeper 

 knows is an abominable thing to winter bees on. But there was a 

 sugar shortage in the country, and we had large .quantities of honey 

 dew, so that Ave thought we would not draw on the sugar supply, we 

 would not use any honey or any sugar, but we would attempt to winter 

 the bees on the stores that we had on hand. 



You remember that last winter was one of the worst ones- we ever 

 had — I guess the worst. The result was, we had a long period of con- 

 finement, with an enormous death rate of adult bees, and an actual 

 loss in the apiary of three colonies. Three colonies had been re-queened 

 in the first part of August, and had for some reason rejected those queens. 

 A second queen was introduced to each colony — we re-queened every 

 year. A second queen was introduced to each of these three colonies, 

 and they were also refused, and a third qu^en was given to each colony, 

 and those were accepted in all three cases. But as you will recognize, 

 that left a rather long period of queenles.sness at a very critical time 



