^Entered as second-class matter at the Post-Olfice at Hamilton, 111., under Act of Marcli 3, 1879.) 



Published Monthly at $1.00 a Year, by American Bee Journal, First National Bank Building 



C. p. DAD.\NT. Editor. 



DR. C. C. MILLER. Associate Editor. 



HAMILTON, ILL., FEBRUARY, 1913 



Vol. Llll.— No. 2 



Editorial 



Comments 



Bees in Switzerland 



In an article in this issue, Mr. Adrian 

 Getaz shows his usual good sense of 

 observation and deduction. Without 

 taking sides entirely with hira on this 

 subject, we feel that we must corrob- 

 orate his statements and those that he 

 quotes of Doolittle and Benton con- 

 cerning the remarkable influence of 

 the drone upon the progeny's charac- 

 teristics. Italian queens mated with 

 common drones, under our observation, 

 have invariably produced cross-tem- 

 pered bees, while the reverse was the 

 case in the mating of Italian drones 

 with queens of common stock. 



That the Europeans in general pre- 

 fer the production of extracted honey 

 is true. A less value is put upon the 

 fancy comb honey than in the United 

 States. Extracted honey is the honey 

 for the masses, for it can be produced 

 much more cheaply and in greater 

 quantities, other conditions being 

 equal. With its production, the bees 

 are less inclined to swarm, for they 

 may be supplied with empty combs, 

 ad libiliim, and the hives may be made 

 spacious enough to accommodate the 

 most prolific queens. 



The Swiss prefer their own bees to 

 other races. We read somewhere, not 

 long ago, thatthis was due to the pecu- 

 liar climate and altitude of Switzerland 

 Moist, cool weather prevails, and the 

 climatic conditions are very different 

 from what they are on the south of the 

 Alps, in what is called Italian Switzer- 

 land, where the summer climate is 



much more similar to that of the 

 United States. 



Dead Larvae Among Live Brood 



E. D. Townsend, in the Bee-Keepers' 

 Review, page 124 (1912), urges the 

 breeding of a strain of bees which 

 shall be immune to bee-diseases. As 

 an argument in favor thereof he offers 

 that some colonies are more prone to 

 disease than others, and in that con- 

 nection has the following which will 

 especially arrest attention : 



" It is nothing strange to open a col- 

 ony of bees in summer and find a hun- 

 dred or more dead larvse in the combs, 

 and this neither of the two diseases 

 known as foul brood. It will be later 

 removed by the bees and disappear. 

 Perhaps the next colony opened will 

 show no signs of dead brood in their 

 combs, and would be a more desirable 

 colony to breed from, from a brood 

 disease standpoint." 



The first thought upon reading that 

 paragraph, if one knew nothing about 

 the writer, might be, "Whoever wrote 

 that knows very little about bees, and 

 has made a general conclusion upon 

 very small premises," But E. D. Town- 

 send is not that kind of a man. He is 

 a man of long experience, whose word 

 passes current for its face value. There 

 is no room to question that in his ex- 

 perience it is a common thing to find a 

 colony free from foul brood, and yet 

 with 100 or more dead larvae scattered 

 among the living ones. Has anything 

 of the kind been published before ? If 

 so, it has escaped our observation. 



The question arises, whether the 



same thing has occurred to others 

 who are less careful observers than 

 Mr. Townsend, or whether it is some- 

 thing peculiar to Mr. Townsend's 

 bees. The fact that only part of Mr. 

 Townsend's bees are affected leaves it 

 possible that elsewhere none are af- 

 fected. In any case the matter is of so 

 much importance that we should have 

 as much light upon it as possible. 

 Have others had a like experience ? If 

 so, may we know something of the 

 cause and remedy ? 



Wintering on Summer Stands 



Many bee-keepers are adopting the 

 method of moving from four to six 

 hives close together and sheltering 

 them in a rough outer-case, filling the 

 space with forest leaves, chaff, straw, 

 or other material. A very cheap outer 

 enclosure can be made of wire-netting 

 surrounding the hives, the space filled 

 with warm, dry material, with a broad 

 roof of coarse lumber covering the 

 whole. The wire-netting, such as is 

 used for chicken fences, does not need 

 to be more than 30 to 36 inches in 

 height. It has the advantage of occu- 

 pying but little space when piled away 

 for summer. 



Cause of Many Egg.'s in a Cell 



An Idaho friend sends a clipping 

 from the Gem State Rural, which con- 

 tains the following inquiry: 



" Please tell me what was wrong 

 with a swarm of bees I lost this sum- 

 mer. The first I noticed wrong, the 

 queen was laying from one to as high 

 as 100 eggs in one cell. She filled 

 every empty cell in the hive the same 

 way. Only a few eggs seemed to be 

 fertile; those were drones. In about 

 three weeks I looked into the hive 

 only to find a handful of bees and no 

 queen." 



In reply, the Editor quotes a corres- 



