130 



April, 1913 



American Tiee Journal 



will send you a tin box in which to 

 mail the sample, and it will cost you 

 nothing tor this, nor for what he does 

 for you afterward. After analysis he 

 will give you expert opinion as to 

 what is the matter, if anything, and 

 probablv add instructions on what to 

 do. 



SHALL THE COMBS BE SAVED ? 



Turning now especially to my corres- 

 pondent, I suspect the question you 

 want answered is whether it is advis- 

 able to use the same treatment for Eu- 

 ropean as for American foul brood, 

 destroying all combs, or whether it is 

 better to use the Alexander treatment, 

 or some modification of it, without de- 

 stroying any combs. Good authorities 

 have been very emphatic that the former 

 is the oilly course advisable, consider- 

 ing the danger that ignorant or care- 

 less bee-keepers might by the latter 

 course spread the disease rather than 

 stamp it out. I have no quarrel with 

 any one who thinks this the safer plan. 

 It certainly is sa/f?; at least in the 

 hands of the careless. And it would 

 be safer still not only to burn up all 

 brood and combs, but to burn as well 

 all the bees, hives — everything. 



Indeed the time was, when that was 

 the only treatment considered advis- 

 able for American foul brood, to burn 

 up the whole thing, lock, stock, and 

 barrel. Yet nowadays no one advises 

 to destroy, in all cases, hives and bees; 

 although it might be advisable if only 

 a colony or two in the neighborhood 

 were affected. But such localities are 

 getting to be more and more scarce all 

 the time, and the effort is made more 

 and more to control the disease rather 

 than to stamp it out entirely. So if it 

 be the right thing to save the hives 

 and bees, why not save the combs also 

 if we can ? 



When the combs are destroyed, it is 

 not the mere waste of so much valuable 

 material. The heavy set-back to the 

 colony from having to build up anew 

 is a matter of greater consideration. 

 Destroy the combs and you can count 

 on little from the colony for that sea- 

 son ; whereas if the combs be left, you 

 may have a fair surplus. 



ALE.XANDER TREATMENT. 



If you decide to save the combs, you 

 may adopt the Alexander plan of treat- 

 ment. Make the colony strong. Kill 

 the queen. In 10 days kill all queen- 

 cells. In 10 days more give a ripe 

 queen-cell of best Italian stock, or a 

 virgin just hatched of the same stock. 

 When brood from the new queen ap- 

 pears, it will be healthy. This makes 

 a break in brood-rearing of about a 

 month's duration. 



MODIFIED ALEXANDER TREATMENT. 



Good results have been obtained 

 without so long a break in brood-rear- 

 ing. Instead of a queen-cell or a virgin 

 just hatched, a laying young queen may 

 be given about 20 days after the removal 

 of the old queen. Another plan, greatly 

 shortening the period of queenlessness, 

 has proved well worth trying. At the 



time of removing the old queen, or as 

 soon thereafter as the bees will accept 

 it, let a queen-cell or a virgin just 

 hatched be given. This ought to 

 make a break in brood-rearing of not 

 more than 10 days. Besides the shorter 

 time of queenlessness, there is the ad- 

 vantage in this case that the bees do 

 not have the discouragement of being 

 hopelessly queenless, and there is rea- 

 son to believe that this discourage- 

 ment is no help to the colony in clean- 

 ing up the disease. 



CAGING THE QUEEN. 



The instruction has been to kill the 

 old queen. Instead of being killed 

 she might be used elsewhere, but for 

 the fact that generally a queen does not 

 do good work after she has been for 

 some time in a colony badly affected 

 with European foul brood. In a very 

 mild case, however, the queen is likely 

 to be still as good as ever, and as the 

 only object in removing the queen (un- 

 less she be replaced by a better one) is 

 to stop the rearing of brood, there is 

 no need to remove her at all. Simply 

 cage her in the hive for a week or 10 

 days, and then release her. Even if a 

 certain percent of cases thus treated 

 should be failures, the simplicity of 

 doing nothing more than to cage the 

 queen for a few days may be preferred 

 to a surer plan involving several times 

 as much trouble. 



RECURRENCE OF DISEASE. 



The question has been asked, " How 

 long does it take to get rid of the dis- 

 ease entirely ?" Perhaps no one can 

 answer that question with any degree 

 of positiveness. It has been said that 

 European foul brood is more persis- 

 tent, more difficult to eradicate entirely 

 than the American variety. Speaking 

 of foul brood and probably referring to 

 American, E. D. Townsend says in the 

 Bee-Keepers' Review, page 45 : " Once 

 in a locality, always in that locality. 

 One can free a hive of the disease, very 

 probably a yard, but not a locality of 

 any considerable area." If that be true 

 of American, it is more emphatically 



true of European. Xo matter whether 

 the combs are all destroyed in the 

 treatment of the disease, it is likely to 

 appear again. Yet with proper watch- 

 fulness there need never be any bad 

 case, and good crops of honey may be 

 obtained in spite of it. In the apiary 

 of the writer a single diseased cell is 

 considered warrant for treatment, so 

 there can never be any very bad case. 



It should be mentioned, however, 

 that a very little of the disease is bad 

 in its effects, for a colony very lightly 

 affected seems to fall behind another 

 entirel)' healthy colony to a larger ex- 

 tent than one would suppose possible 

 from so small an amount of the dis- 

 ease. 



Marengo, 111. 



Color of Queens 



BV C. P. DADA.NT. 



DR. KRAMER holds that the color 

 of queens is lighter when they are 

 reared from a young mother; 

 that the queen gets darker in 

 color as she grows older, and 

 that her progeny is therefore also 

 darker. 



He holds that the soil of a country 

 has an influence upon the amount of 

 mineral contained in the honey, and 

 that it thereby influences the color of 

 the bees. A soil rich in potash will 

 produce lighter. colored bees (accord- 

 ing to one of his commentators, E. 

 Van Hay). What do our queen-breed- 

 ers have to say about this? Some of 

 them who have reared queens largely 

 both in the North and the South ought 

 to have an opinion based upon experi- 

 ence. 



Is it a fact that a queen reared in 

 a very dark cell will be in general 

 darker than one reared in a lighter 

 colored cell ? Or is this because the 

 light-colored cells are built at the time 

 of the greatest crop and in a favorable 

 season ? 



The above enquiry was put in type 

 and a proof-sheet sent to a number of 

 queen-breeders with a request to give 



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