420 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



June 16, 1904. 



thorough methods with unsatisfactory results, he adopted with satis- 

 faction the following plan, which he gives in the Bee-Keepers' Review ; 



" I finally used one of my large honey-tanks, such as I use to keep 

 extracted honey in before I put it into barrels. These tanks are lined 

 with the heaviest kind of tin, and hold over 4000 pounds of honey. I 

 made a cover of matched lumber, and three sheets of tarred building 

 paper, putting them together with paint. This was clamped down to 

 the top of the tank by means of heavy rods, reaching down through 

 timbers under the bottom of the tank. Racks were made to fit the 

 inside of the tank, on which I could hang the combs of about 35 hives, 

 and not have the combs touch one another. I made a ff-inch hole in 

 each end of the cover ; one in which to insert the rubber hose which 

 conveyed the gas into the tank, the other to let the air escape as the 

 gas entered. Into my gas generator I then put two quarts of the best 

 formalin that I could buy, setting it upon an oil-stove, and lighting 

 the wicks. After it had boiled about half an hour the gas commenced 

 to escape from the hole in the other end of the cover, and I then 

 plugged up that hole and kept the lamps burning about five hours, or 

 until all the formalin in the generator had been turned into gas. I then 

 left it shut up air-tight until the next day, when I put in another 

 quart and turned that into gas. I then left it four or five days, after 

 which I opened the tank, but I had to leave it open a day or two be- 

 fore I could take the combs out, as tie gas was so very strong. In 

 this way I have, during the past summer, fumigated over a thousand 

 of the worst combs that I could find in an apiary of nearly a thousand 

 colonies ; and, although some of them contained a little honey and 

 brood, I have since seen no trace of the disease after putting bees 

 on them." 



But he has no faith in formaldehyde for foul brood— in which he 

 differs from some others— and in fighting black brood he thinks it of 

 first importance to have the best of Italian bees. 



Overstocking— Positive (?) Knowledge About It. 



H. C. Morehouse, in the Bee-Keepers' Review, after some sensible 

 remarks about overstocking, says: 



" I believe that overstocking is possible— there must somewhere 

 be a limit— but how many bee-keepers in the United States have rfully 

 tested, in a scientific manner, the nectar-producing capacity of their 

 fields? I venture to say the number is very few. I will give you a 

 genuine instance of overstocking. Some three or four years ago there 

 were kept within a radius of \}4 miles of Longmont, Colo., about 1500 

 colonies of bees. The yield dwindled to less than half that secured at 

 the yards tour or five miles away. More than half of these colonies 

 have been moved to other locations, and the surplus yield in that 

 vicinity now compares very favorably with the general average. But 

 this was an extreme case." 



Mr. Morehouse is quite safe, no doubt, in saying that very few 

 have really tested in a scientific manner the nectar-producing capacity 

 of their fields. He would run little risk in averring that no one has 

 ever done it. A very pertinent question in the easels the question, 

 " How can such a test be made?" Can Mr. Morehouse, or any one 

 else, give a reliable answer to this question? 



Mr. Morehouse doubts a case of overstocking cited by Mr. 

 Lathrop, saying that the overstocking is not 2>roiien, and then gives, as 

 above quoted, "a genuine instance of overstocking." But does he 

 really jJro«c the overstocking any more than does Mr. Lathrop? It is 

 well known that seasons and conditions vary, even in Colorado ; and 

 can he prove that if during that three or four years only half the 

 number of colonies had been present the yield per colony would have 

 been greatly increased? Very likely the ground was overstocked; 

 but how prove it? 





Contributed Articles 





Pickled Brood— Poisonous Honey, Etc. 



By PROF. A. J. COOK. 



I AM getting many samples of dead brood, with inquiries 

 what it is and as to the cure. I believe that these are what 

 are generally known as "pickled brood." They are 

 very different from foul brood, and its variety, black brood 

 or foul brood, in another form. In these latter, the larva 

 melts away into a mass of decay, a brown, coffee-colored, 

 salvy, unctuous mass, that we can pull out of the cell with 

 a tooth-pick or pin, and which usually flies back when it 

 lets go its hold. In some cases it does not have the elastic- 

 ity, and so does not spring back. 



This other is very different. The bees keep their form, 



but as they are dead the bacteria take hold of them and they, 

 as a result, decompose, or decay, as we say, and we smell 

 the sour odor which gives the name. We never get the rank 

 odor of foul brood. 



Is not pickled brood a generic name for brood that may 

 die from any cause, and then decay as a consequence of 

 death 7 If this is correct, the bacteria kill the bees in case 

 of the malignant foul brood, and in the other case — that of 

 pickled brood — they simply remove the carcass of the bee, 

 dead from some other cause ? The one bacterium is our 

 enemy, as it kills our bees ; the other is a friend, as it re- 

 moves the dead, and so cleans the hive. We have the same 

 difference in the bacillus of diphtheria, and the more com- 

 mon microbe of decay or putrefaction. The one attacks and 

 carries off our loved ones ; the other will decompose our 

 bodies and dissolve them, if we may so speak, or, perhaps 

 better, resolve them into the several elements of which they 

 are made up. 



The first year after I came to California was a very dry 

 year, with very little rainfall. There was much of this 

 dead and decaying brood. I noted that many of the bees 

 in colonies where it was most marked were very short of 

 stores, indeed nearly in a starving condition. I commenced 

 feeding them, and the disease at once disappeared. I seemed 

 to cure it in every case where I fed the bees, and in colonies 

 where there was plenty of stores the disease seems to be 

 absent. I believe in this case it was simply a case of starva- 

 tion, and the bees had not the food to enable them to feed 

 the larvee. We are now having in many sections of South- 

 ern California a condition similar to 189-1 — my first year 

 here — and many bees are starving, and others are on the 

 very verge of starvation. If the bee-keeper, in such case, 

 will feed his bees, he will not only save them, but he will, I 

 believe in many cases, remove this decaying brood. 



I do not wish to say that starvation is the only cause of 

 the brood dying. In case it die, then the removal will be 

 the same in every case, and the condition and appearance 

 will be nearly the same. Is it not possible that bees may, 

 with limited stores, become discouraged, and not properly 

 feed the brood, and so have the same effect ? I have seen 

 cases that looked as if this might be true. If the above be 

 true, then pickled brood is the result of brood dead of any 

 cause, except foul brood, and the remedy is to prevent con- 

 ditions of lack of stores, cold, or aught else that will cause 

 the death of the brood. 



POISONOUS HONEY. 



It will be remembered by the readers of the bee-papers 

 that I have often expressed that the honey from the kalmia, 

 or other reputed toxic flowers, was really poisonous. The 

 fact that the reported cases of poisoning only occur occa- 

 sionally, and that the flowers are always on hand, the fact 

 that honey is often a poison to many people, whatever the 

 source, and the fact that I have freely eaten of such honey 

 with no evil results, has made me skeptical as to this poison- 

 ous nectar. 



In California there is a similar belief regarding the nec- 

 tar of some species of eucalyptus. It is reported to kill 

 bees. Here, again, I have strong doubts. It is only occa- 

 sionally that the mortality is noticed. I should look very 

 carefully and see if I could not find other cause of the 

 bees dying. We know that when bees are gathering very 

 fast in the height of the season, very many die. They age 

 very fast, and the mortality is very great. We often notice 

 bees returning to the hives, especially near the close of the 

 day, so tired and worn that they fall near the entrance of 

 the hive and never gain it. I have wondered in case of 

 these eucalyptus trees, if the bees might not die of over- 

 work aud old age in the same way ? 



We know that the temperature changes very rapidly 

 here in California with the going down of the sun. It is 

 not more than possible that the cool atmosphere chills the 

 bees that are tempted to remain at work over-hours, and so 

 the bees are chilled and fall from the flowers never to rise ? 

 Some of the eucalypts seem to attract the bees in great 

 numbers, aud to furnish much and excellent honey. In 

 such cases it is easy to believe that the bees are lured on, 

 late in the day, and age, weariness, and the chill of night, 

 all together, were too much, and the bees simply died, pos- 

 sibly before their time. I really believe that such trees are 

 to be praised, rather than comdemned. 



I ask any who have opportunity to observe in this mat- 

 ter. I can not do so, as our eucalypts do not act that way. 

 I believe that these trees are valuable for the bee-keeper, 

 and I am inclined to the opinion that all are valuable. Mrs. 



