7U 



GLEAJvflNGS IN ^EE CULTURE. 



Feb. 



afraid you won't like it. If it is too long-, throw it 

 away. Papa told me how to spell the big words. 

 Posey ville, Ind., Dec.2fi, 18«1. Vioi.a Right. 



Well, that is a real gooa let'er, Viola, and 

 I think more of your papa than I ever did 

 before, since I have found out he has a little 

 girl who tries to be good. I do love little 

 girls (and boys too) who go to Sunday-school. 

 1 am very glad indeed to know that your 

 papa won't have to have a smoker to get 

 him to stop using tobacco ; but I do wish he 

 Avould go to Sunday-school every Sabbath. I 

 know the bees would look prettier to him 

 after he got home. You tell him to try it, 

 and see if it is not so. It was very i ight and 

 honest of you, Viola, to tell us that you 

 could not spell all those l)ig words without 

 your papa's help. May God bless both you 

 and your pa ! 



ALSO SOME GOOD EARNEST WORDS ON VENTILA- 

 TION. 



^p^i LEANINGS and its able editor obtain, without 

 lfc» me, abundantly the well-merited praise; my 

 ^^-'-' tribute is to its contributors for their efforts 

 to promote the science and solve the mysteries of 

 bee-keeping-; and none, I believe, deserve more 

 credit for their work than Mr. Ileddon. His lessons, 

 based on practical experience, have been unexcep- 

 tionally good, and, I believe, correct, while his new 

 and sometimes surprising theories have at least 

 been productive of much investigation. Unwilling 

 though we may be to believe them, it is harder to 

 dii-prove them. His latest theory, that the consump- 

 tion of bee-bread will cause dysentery, I am inclined 

 to believe, but not without a qualification. For my 

 part, I think we commit au error when we seek for 

 anyone cause as the basis of this disease. Disease 

 in the human race does not in all cases necessarily 

 originate from the same source. If foul brood 

 among bees may result, and does result, from vari- 

 ous causes, may not dysentery? It may result from 

 the consumption of fermenting honey; it may re- 

 sult from the consumption of bee- bread, or it may 

 result from too long confinement, even though fed 

 on healthful honey alone. If, "in our common ignor- 

 ance, all have a right to guess," I shall guess that 

 dysentery results from these and other causes. 

 And it is more than a guess,— I believe it. Assume 

 any one, and there will be instances that it can not 

 cover. 



There is, however, one element of importance that 

 has generally been ovei'looked in the consideration 

 of this question. It is the condition of the air sur- 

 rounding the bees; and it is its effect on the food of 

 the bees, be that honey or bee-bread, or on the bees 

 themselves, or both, that most frequently leads to 

 the disease. If bacteria are the result of the de- 

 composition or fermentation of the honey or honey- 

 moistened bee-bread, and if the bacteria theory is 

 that dj'sentery is caused by the consumption of this 

 decomposed or fermented matter containing bac- 

 teria, then I am a "bacteriaite." It is settled to the 

 satisfaction of many, that the consumption of fer- 

 menting honey during long confinement will cause 

 dysentery, and in the same way decomposing bee- 

 bread may cause it. Wintering bees in a damp, 

 poorly ventilated cellar, unless every other condi- 

 tion was very favorable, has always produced the 

 disease, especially durmg long conflnement; while 



in well-ventilated cellars, where the temperature, 

 and even the atmosphere, is partly under control, 

 bees in the poorest condition as to honey have win- 

 tered well, and when in good condition never failed 

 to. In the fall of 1880, my bees had probably as poor 

 honey to winter on as bees ever had. Four large 

 cider-mills, within a radius of one mile, supplied 

 them with juice till late in the fall. I had witnessed 

 the result of cider diet some half-dozen years ago, 

 the loss of the greater part of an apiary, and my 

 forebodings were not of the pleasantest kind. Still, 

 my loss was small for that winter — less than 10 per 

 cent. The reason was that my cellar was at all 

 times supplied with pure air. Even in the coldest 

 weather, when nil ventilators except the chimney 

 had to be closed, I would let in pure air from a 

 heated room adjoining. Thus the thin unsealed 

 honey would thicken and ripen rather by evapora- 

 tion, than sour. This year again I feared, but for the 

 last time, and never again will I trouble to remove 

 unsealed honey by extracting, or fear late feeding. 

 I fed to the very day when they were removed from 

 the ccUa'-, and the weather had been damp and 

 rainy for six weeks; still to-day, January 19tb, every 

 one of my 610 colonies is in nice condition, and the 

 air in the cellar apparently pure enough for a sleep- 

 ing room. Yesterday it was two months since they 

 were put in. The temperature has ranged from 43 

 to 46 in one cellar, and from 47 to 50 in another. Of 

 the third I kept ni> record. And as to outdoor win- 

 tering, the theory of the influence of the atmos- 

 phere on the food holds equally good. It is the 

 moisture generated by the bees by invisible perspi- 

 ration, as well as the natural moisture contained in 

 the air, that often causes visible fermentation of 

 the honey. If it is not true that the condition of 

 the atmosphere cuts a figure as a cause of dysen- 

 tery, then let us discard our moisture absorbents in 

 the shape of chaff cushions, and do away with up- 

 ward ventilation and cellar ventilation. 



Pure air ns necessary to sustain life. Why not 

 that of bees as well as that of man and beast? Pure, 

 healthful food is also necessary to sustain life,but im- 

 pure air will corrupt the best food, and unhealthful 

 food will destroy, not nourish, life. Now, I do not 

 know whether bee-bread is the natural food of a 

 mature bee or not, nor do I know whether they 

 ever taste it except to feed the larvas; but I do 

 know that good honey is its natural food; and feed- 

 ing on impure or fermenting honey will, in my 

 opinion, as surely cause disease and death to the 

 bee, unless counteracted, as unwholesome food will 

 to man. 



Though I am convinced that I am right in this, I 

 can not deny that I think it more than likely that 

 the manipulation, and consumption, it such there 

 be, of bee-bread in breeding durmg conflnement, 

 will also cause the dysentery; and again, I am con- 

 vinced that healthful honey under other adverse 

 circumstances will do the same. A variable tem- 

 perature and long conflnement is all that is neces- 

 sary. 



I may bo wrong -~ bee-bread may be the only cause, 

 or something else may be; but while we are in ig- 

 norance of the cause, and can not remove it, let us 

 do as prudence dictates — use such means to prevent 

 its appearance as have so far proved most effectual: 

 Good colonies, good honey, good air, and an even 

 temperature, trusting meanwhile that some one 

 will soon win fame by unraveling the mystery. 

 Jefferson, Wis., Jan. 19, 1883. Geo. Grimm. 



