THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



109 



of a virgin Italian queen. My experience 

 would lead me to reverse the order of 

 essentials as given by our good friend. 

 The first essential (not always the first 

 in manipulation) is the giving of a virgin, 

 Italian queen. Next in importance is a 

 period of queenlessness — third, strength 

 of colony. It is possible to cure mild 

 cases simply by the introduction of a 

 virgin, Italian queen, but it is simply im- 

 possible to cure a colony of blacks and have 

 it stay cured, without the introduction of 

 an Italian queen. When the bees are not 

 Italians, and the combs well occupied 

 with dead brood, a period of queenless- 

 ness is quite essential. I have also found 

 that the bees will clean out their combs 

 much better when there is a virgin queen 

 in the hive. This period of anticipation 

 of egg-laying seems to inspire the bees 

 to greater activity. 



METHODS OF TREATMENT VARY WITH 

 THE SEASON. 



As to the most desirable treatment, 

 much depends upon the time of the year. 

 Those that show the disease in the spring, 

 I would dequeen at once. If the disease 

 does not show until just prior to the 

 honey harvest, then I would shake the 

 colony into a single section of a sectional 

 hive. By the way, the sectional hive 



plays a very important part in the 

 profitable management of a colony hav- 

 ing black brood, enabling the owner to 

 secure a crop of honey while getting rid 

 of the disease. I will have more to say 

 on this point in some future article. 

 I would dequeen colonies that are to be 

 treated after the white honey flow. 



1 have shaken colonies during the honey 

 flow, tiered up the brood, destroyed the 

 queen cells at the tenth day, given a ripe 

 cell from healthy, Italian stock, then, 

 later, selected the section that the bees 

 were occupying the strongest, placing it, 

 with the queen, at the bottom, with an 

 excluder over it, and the other chambers 

 above. The bees would clean out the 

 combs, and later use of the combs, both 

 as extracting combs and as brood combs, 

 failed to resurrect the disease. 



FORESTALLING THE DISEASE. 



My bees have now passed through one 

 season free from disease, and experience 

 leads me to say to bee keepers, thoroughly 

 Italianize your stock before the disease 

 appears in your territory; you then have 

 very little to fear from the disease. As 

 one of the inspectors puts it: "Black 

 brood is a blessing in disguise. It does 

 away with the careless bee keeper and 

 the old, box hive." 



Camillus, N. Y., Mar. 7, 1910. 



Keeping Bees at Arm's Length — Producing Ex- 

 tracted Honey 67 Miles from Home 



E. D. TOWNSEND. 



\T was on the 

 ->■ morning of the 

 1 3th of August, 

 1909, that Arthur, 

 ^^ my second son, 



.s.^^^K^^^ ' ^^'~^ myself, started 

 ■^^^Nh^^^^ for Perrinton 



^^^^■B^^l^^ bee 

 ^^^^^^fl^^B Gratiot to do 



^^^^^^^^^^^^ the extracting of 

 the year's crop of clover honey. Let it 

 be known that not a drop of honey had 



been taken from those bees up to that 

 date; for we began extracting at that 

 yard, the m.orning of August 14th, the 

 crop of honey gathered during a part of 

 the two previous months, and was all 

 that was taken from that yard during 

 1909, for there is no fall flow of honey 

 at this location. 



Arthur and a student, Mr. J. E. Smith 

 of Blanchard, Michigan, extracted this 

 crop of 9,500 pounds of honey in four 

 days, weighed it up in 60-pound cans. 



