American l^ee Journal 



February, 191 1. 



1 take it, regardless of whether they 

 contain honey or not). 



There is only the short step of leav- 

 ing off the disinfectant and our results 

 are identical, as my bees remove the 

 ropy matter as well as the scales, and 

 seldom if ever tear the cell-walls down 

 to accomplish it. 



Mr. Dadant says it is not to be 

 doubted that bees do clean out some 

 foul brood. If they can, and do, clean 

 out some, it should not be a great 

 stretch of the imagination to believe 

 that they can, and will, clean out all 

 foul brood if the proper conditions are 

 met with. 



He quotes Fred A. Parker as au- 

 thority for one case where the disease 

 disappeared of its own accord. This is 

 a very frequent occurrence. During 

 the fall flow of August and September 

 I inspect all my bees, and mark each 

 colony where foul brood exists, and 

 unless the conditions are favorable for 

 immediate treatment, these cases go 

 over until all brood-rearing ceases, 

 about Nov. 1, when the marked colo- 

 nies are shaken on to clean combs of 

 honey, and it frequently occurs that in 

 several of these marked colonies no 

 trace of the disease can be found. 



For years we have heard of those 

 who by the use of formaldehyde and 

 other disinfectants have succeeded in 

 getting foul-broody combs cleaned up, 

 while other good authorities claim that 

 no disinfectant practical to use can be 

 relied upon to kill the germs of foul 

 brood. Who knows but what the dis- 

 infectant has been merely a stepping 

 stone to give the bees a chance, and 

 those who met the natural require- 

 ments succeeded, and those who did 

 not failed ? This looks like a very 

 natural solution, which I believe to be 

 true. 



I believe Mr. Dadant's position is 

 faulty, and is condemned by his own 

 arguments. 



Good judgment is a very large fea- 

 ture with any method, but in this it is 

 not the expert, but the bees, that do the 

 work. There is a very large percen- 

 tage of bee-keepers who are not a suc- 

 cess with curing the disease by any 

 method, but any one who can acquire 

 success with the McEvoy treatment 

 should succeed with mine. 



Now, to illustrate my confidence in 

 the permanent cure, and my lack of 

 dread of the disease, I will state that at 

 the last extracting last fall, the extract- 

 ing combs of 3 yards (something like 

 3000 in number, several hundred of 

 which have at some time in the last 5 

 years contained foul brood) were placed 

 out-of-doors, and the bees held high 

 carnival in cleaning them up. 



Now I am perfectly willing that bee- 

 keepers shall take Mr. Dadant's advice, 

 and go slow, but before consigning my 

 method to the junk-pile, just do a little 

 experimenting on your own account, 

 and see if there isn't something in it 

 for you, and I am sure that the wheels 

 of progress will neither be stopped nor 

 checked thereby, but ere long will as- 

 sume a whirr of success not to be at- 

 tained by the method of destruction so 

 gallantly defended by Mr. Dadant. 

 Prophetstown, Hi. 



T. S. Hall, a well-known queen- 

 breeder, has moved from Jasper, Ga., 

 to Talking Rock, Ga. 



Feeding Bees in the Spring 



BY LOUIS M.\CEY. 



With all that has been said against 

 spring feeding of bees, I have had some 

 experience that clea'-ly points out some 

 facts on the other side of the question, 

 and facts are stubborn things to deal 

 with. I think there are some who, on 

 the strength of the way //ny can fall 

 feed in ike/')- localily, enough to last till 

 the abundant fruit-bloom, they have 

 come on to stimulate brood-rearing. I 

 say I tliink some of these men make a 

 mistake in trying to lay it down as a 

 general rule that spring feeding should 

 be avoided. 



Now, in my location, we have a honey 

 (sweet clover) that is very bad to gran- 

 ulate, and one of the first things you 

 will see the bees doing in the spring is 

 just to roll out lots and lots of this 

 hard, granulated honey. I have always 

 read that if they have access to plenty 

 of water they will dissolve and use this, 

 but the fact in my case is, that my bees 

 are abundantly supplied with water, and 

 yet they carry out the solid granules 

 right along. 



Some one will say : " Extract your 

 sweet clover honey and feed sugar 

 syrup." I am not sure that would be 

 any better; sugar inclines to granulate, 

 too, and the honey is not all. Our win- 

 ters here are generally very dry, and 

 the changes of temperature are rapid, 

 frequent, and often very considerable. 

 The bright sunny days often run the 

 mercury up to 80 or 90 degrees about 2 

 p.m., yet it alzvay.'; freezes cijery night, 

 so this dryness of the atmosphere and 

 great change from day to night tem- 

 perature is enough to granulate any 

 honey; and not only does it granulate, 

 but granulates hard. 



And now as to the danger of rob- 

 bing : 1 know a careless person spilling 

 syrup around can soon start an awful 

 uproar in the spring, but let it come a 

 heavy dew or light sprinkle of rain on 

 this granulated honey the bees have 

 scattered, and there is sometimes an 

 even"wusser" one. The worst case 

 of robbing I ever had was started in 

 just this way; so if the wind doesn't 

 blow it off the alighting-board, I brush 

 it off^ myself. 



Of course, the honey does not all 

 granulate, and the bees can live off the 

 liquid part, but by May what is left of 

 it seems to be rather poor stuff to 

 "stimulate " on. 



I notice a good many now are pro- 

 claiming that sugar syrup (being des- 

 titute of pollen-grains) is poor stuff 

 for brood-rearing, and I rather believe 

 that myself, but is it any better from 

 having- been in the hive all it'inter ? And 

 as sugar is surely safe to winter on, 

 does it not follow that when we so use 

 it we must spring feed if we don't rear 

 brood on sugar ? For my part, I would 

 rather stimulate brood-rearing with 

 fresh syrup in the spring than to take 

 chances on solid granulated sugar 

 from the fall before, and so far I have 

 fed some every spring, and have let 

 some colonies (and the ones having 

 the most old stores) go without feed- 

 ing, and in every instance the spring- 

 fed colonies boomed ahead and did the 

 best. Did I uncap some of the old 

 stores in the unfed colonies? I did, 

 and generally had to brush off a table- 



spoonful of granulated honey from th 

 alighting-board after each time I did so • 

 Often in the spring clean-up (which 

 I do after Dr. Miller's plan) I find a 

 pound or so of hard honey-granules 

 on the bottom-board, and before I 

 learned to look out for it, I had 2 colo- 

 nies die in April, and on opening the 

 hive I found as much as 8 or 10 pounds 

 of very dry appearing granulated honey 

 still in the hive. Some of the cells (a 

 good many of them) were uncapped 

 and partly emptied — sometimes just a 

 start made — and I could hold up such a 

 comb and Just shake out the sugar. 

 Did the bees starve .' Does any one 

 else have such an experience? Is it 

 common to this Great Plain Region, 

 where climatic conditions are similar, 

 and sweet clover abundant? It seems 

 to me it would be so, but I have never 

 heard of any one saying so. 



One thing, dandelion and willow 

 generally help us out some, and as I 

 said before, where fruit-bloom is abun- 

 dant they can make it through to that 

 on the old stores, even if they are gran- 

 ulated; but where there is no fruit- 

 bloom, or the early flowers fail to 

 yield, or feeeze back as they sometimes 

 do, there is only one thing to do (no 

 matter how heavy the hives are), and 

 that is to feed. As the weather gets 

 warmer the bees are probably able to 

 liquefy and use the granulated honey — 

 all of it — instead of being forced to 

 kick out all the solid parts to get a lit- 

 tle liquid early in the season. 



I may be wrong in some of my con- 

 clusions, but I think I have the main 

 facts " on straight "for my locality. 



This year my hives are full of Span- 

 ish-needle honey. As the bees have 

 been getting frequent flights, I am not 

 much afraid of dysentery, and I don't 

 think it will granulate so badly. If it 

 does, I have quite a lot saved up in a 

 warm room to stimulate with in the 

 spring. Cellar-wintering would prob- 

 ably solve the problem (or would it?), 

 but very few bees are cellared here. 

 The sunny warm days, giving a chance 

 for frequent flights, are very favorable 

 for outdoor wintering even if the bees 

 do eat more. 



I have fed under the cluster, at one 

 side (division-board feeder), and above, 

 and I find they will take it from a "pep- 

 per-box" over the cluster when it is so 

 cool they wouldn't touch the division- 

 board feeder. 



I used something in this connection 

 I have never seen described anywhere, 

 or as used by any one else. With a 

 division-board feeder I spread a news- 

 paper, 4 or 5 thicknesses, over the top 

 of the hive to hold all the heat down 

 where it is needed in the brood-cham- 

 ber, and it also holds the bees down 

 when I go to fill the feeder. I press 

 down on the paper with my fingers till 

 I locate the "feel" of the feeder, then 

 with my knife I cut an X right over it, 

 then put on a super to hold the p|apers 

 down, then stick a small funnel in the 

 X in the paper and pour in a pint every 

 day. No trouble at all. With the pep- 

 per-box feeder I use the paper just the 

 same, only I cut a hole so as to come 

 just over the cluster, and make it a 

 trifle smaller than the feeder— 4 short 

 pieces of lath are placed next to the 

 edges of this hole on the underside of 

 the paper, and the paper tacked fast to 



