402 



GLEAKINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Ava. 



STETHOSCOPK FOR FINDING BEE-TREES, ETC. 



Last fall I went into winter quarters with 16 colo- 

 nies of bees; came out in spring without any loss 

 up to the 10th of May last. I increased to 34 colonies; 

 they are now prospering, gathering honey from 

 white clover, which is in abundance. Would uot 

 the stethoscope be a useful thing to the bee-hunter, 

 to be used as follows? If a tree is suspected to con- 

 tain a swarm, chip off the bark and a little of the 

 sap, to get a solid surface upon which to rest the in- 

 strument; give the tree a few good raps with the ax, 

 then apply the stethoscope. Will not some of your 

 many readers try the utility of the above? 



H.J.Peters, M.D. 



Kogersville, Tuscarawas Co., O., June 14, 1882. 



I do not know where we bee - keepers 

 would find a stethoscope, friend P., unless 

 we borrow it of some of j'ou doctors ; and as 

 you know best how to use it, I would sug- 

 gest that 3'ou give it a trial. 



COMBS BUILT CROSSWISE. 



A swarm settled in one of our peach-trees May 1", 

 about noon; we were all afraid of them, as we had 

 never handled bees before. We left them hanging 

 until the next day at noon, when a bee-keeper here 

 hived them for us. I have a Langstroth hive; the 

 bottom is full of comb now, but it runs crosswise of 

 the frames. What shall I do with it? I got fdn. for 

 the top story, so I will have that straight. Which is 

 the best way to swarm artiflcially? 



Louis T. ROSSBACH. 



Jeffersonville, Clark Co., Ind., June 1.5, 1883. 



The old way of doing, friend R., would be 

 to cut the combs out and put them in as 

 they should be, as we do in transferring; 

 the way we should do nowadays would be 

 to melt them all up and put in wired frames 

 of fdn. 



MOVING BEES IN APRIL, NEGLECTING TO FEED, ETC. 



On the 1.5th of April it came off warm, and I had to 

 move my apiary about one mile. I moved them and 

 set them out ; 49 all seemed strong for the time of 

 year, and now my troubles begin. It came off cold 

 in a couple of days, and during April there were on- 

 ly two days the bees could fly. May was no better, 

 but worse; for it was warm, then cold ; and how the 

 bees did die off ! June so far has been no good. On 

 the 22d I opened a large swarm of blacks in a ten- 

 frame Langstroth hive; found 5 frames of brood in 

 all stages, and not ten drops of honey in the hive. 

 1 then looked them all over, and found 13 in almost 

 the same condition. I gave each one a frame of 

 honey left from those that died off, and they are all 

 right now. I have lost and doubled down until I 

 have now :34 good stands left to begin with. Am not 

 discouraged yet. R. P. Love.Ioy. 



Greig, Lewis Co., N. Y., June 26, 1883. 



Moving bees short distances, say a mile or 

 less, in the spring months, is almost always 

 a serious damage ; but letting your bees go 

 until there are not ten drops of honey in the 

 hive, when the combs are fullof brood, is a 

 still more serious matter. Here were 1-5 

 good colonies, worth in the spring something 

 like ^75.00, allowed to die just for want of a 

 few pounds of sugar ! Some of them did not 

 need the expenditure of a single copper for 

 sugar, but only needed exchanging combs, 

 or combs being brought from those that had 



died. Is it any wonder that bee-keepers 

 fail V There is not a month in the year when 

 there is not a liability of your stocks, some 

 of them, needing feed ; and the bee-keeper 

 who has not his eye (and his mind) on his 

 bees enough to know just how they stand, 

 ought to have them taken away from him ; 

 and when God takes them away, you have no 

 right to complain. Brother L., I will stand 

 by your side and take this little sermon, for 

 I remember the time when I starved a strong 

 colony, right in July, by extracting the hon- 

 ey too closely. 



BEE PARALYSIS — THE NEW DISEASE, AND THE 

 REMEDY. 



There, I have named that disease which our friend 

 writes about from Indiana, and which you describe 

 on page 63 of the ABC book. The symptoms are a 

 sure indication that it is an ailment of the nervous 

 system. The oscillating nervous movement of the 

 mass, the severe emaciation, the beating the air in 

 the feeble manner you describe, seems to me is sat- 

 isfactory evidence of the above statement. My api- 

 ary of CO colonies has been severely visited, fully 80 

 per cent more or less affected. The disease may be 

 and is often produced by eating poisonous honey. 

 In my case, I am sure it was, from the following ob- 

 servations. It first appeared in the colonies whose 

 stores were short, and such colonies suflfered most 

 severely. Those having plenty of sealed honey were 

 not affected. And further, on opening the hives 

 there was that rank, unpleasant, unmistakable odor 

 of the buckeye - blossom. Yes, sir, (would you be- 

 lieve it?) my bees were '* buckeyed." Don't smile 

 now, if you never heard of the like before. It may 

 be well to say here that the sick bees acted precisely 

 like cattle that arc suffering from buckeye poison. 

 After all that I could find out, I wanted a remedy, 

 and did not know of any; and I believe you gave 

 none in the ABC; but bee-keepers would like to 

 have one. Well, I can give them mine. I found it 

 out by pure accident. At first glance I thought 

 they were starving, and commenced feeding sugar 

 syrup; and not having any feeders, I opened the 

 hives at sundown, and p„ured the syrup in right on 

 to the frames and bees, daubing them all over. The 

 result was, they filled themselves with the thick 

 syrup, and I could see that a single application was 

 beneficial, and 3 or 4 dcscs cured the worst cases. 

 This treatment did not fail in one single instance. I 

 saved 25 or 30 colonies in this way. G. A. Beard. 



Winchester, Clark Co., Mo., June 8, 1883. 



I agree with you, friend B., that pure su- 

 gar feed is pretty good medicine, and it 

 works well in almost all diseases ; but I can 

 not agree that the disease you describe is al- 

 ways caused by buckeye honey. In our api- 

 ary it made its appearance, and did most 

 harm, before buckeyes were out. I can 

 hardly agree, either, that food was the cause 

 of it, for it kept right on clear Ihrougli clo- 

 ver and basswood bloom. Destroying the 

 queen, and giving them another, cured it, 

 and I presume the same means will cure any 

 disease of bees, not directly contagious. If 

 a good feed of pure sugar helps matters, by 

 all means persist in it ; but when it doesn't, 

 give new queens from some fresh strain of 

 bees, and, if you like, keep up the sugar feed 

 also, until healthy bees make their appear- 

 ance. 



