March, 1911. 



American lee Journal 



best definition is '"Pertaining to or of 

 the nature of colic, as colicky pains." The 

 second definition is given as an example 

 of an American colloquialism: "Afflicted 

 with coHc : subject to colic, as a colicky 

 baby." 



According to this, "colicky" does not 

 mean having colic, but that the sufferer 

 has pains which resemble those of the 

 disease mentioned, which are dreadfully 

 severe pains, while 'colicky' pains are 

 slight and generally transcient in their 

 character, and medical men use the word 

 in that sense. When a person, old or 

 young, is doubled up and howling with 

 colic pains, we do not sa}" he has "colicky* 

 pains, but that he has colic. However 

 if a person complains of fleeting pains in 

 the abdomen we say he has "colicky" 

 pains. 



Now let us take up the word "brood." 

 In the case of bees it means only "oflf- 

 spring; progeny," and foul brood refers to 

 the condition of the brood after it has 

 become diseased. Like "hybrid" and 

 "shook-swarni," "foul-broody" is not a 

 good dictionary word, is not warranted by 

 good usage, is not good English, and 

 there is not the slightest excuse for its 

 use. Time is not so precious that we 

 bee-men must have a "light year*' sys- 

 tem of nomenclature for things apicul- 

 tural. 



To carry the argument a little furthr, 

 "croupy" does not mean afflicted with 

 croup, except to express a simulation or 

 a slight degree of the disease. I admit 

 that "headachy" is a dictionary word, 

 while not a "good" one, for it has never 

 been used since Shakespeare's time, ex- 

 cept poetically. It is not in common use, 

 unless as a Continental colloquialism simi- 

 lar to "homely," meaning home-like. 



There are but few words in the lan- 

 guage like colicky, as croupy, gouty, 

 rheumy, which last is used as is head- 

 achy, but where euphony will permit the 

 terminal "y" might be used ad lib., as it 

 is intended, as a rule, to express either 

 the diminutive or simulation. 



Like "New York," I should like to see 

 more care used in the use of words, but 

 what hope is there for those who write 

 only occasionally, and without much 

 thought, when editors will write about 

 glass being "one of the very best con- 

 ductors of heat ?" See encyclopedia Britan- 

 ica to the countrary ; "hybrid" when they 

 mean mixed ; "shook-swarm" for a trans- 

 ferred colony; and last, and worst of all, 

 "foul-broody" to tell us that a colony 01 

 bees has contracted and has the disease 

 known as foul brood ? 



Please do not come back at me with 

 examples of my bad English, for I learned 

 some of it reading bee-papers. 



Buck Grove, Iowa. A. F. Bo.sney. 



Experience with Foul Brood 



Some of my experience you will find in 

 the March figio) number of the Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal, page 100. In this, 1 

 will give a little experience with foul 

 brood. I had kept bees about 12 years 

 before I saw a case of foul brood, and 

 I had such a dread of it as a result of 

 the information gathered from text-books 

 and bee-papers, I supposed the best thing 

 to do when I found a case was, at that 

 time, to make a bonfire of the whole thing 

 In Eastern Kansas, in 1902, I had 20 

 colonies of bees, and when I opened the 

 first hive in the spring I found a bad 

 case of American foul brood. I regretted 

 to destroy the colony as it contained a 

 pure Italian queen, which I had reared 

 the summer before, but having such a 

 dread of foul brood, I applied the torch 

 to the hive and burned the whole mass. 

 Then I went through the remaining colo- 

 nies and found about two-thirds of them 



affected, but none so badly as the one I 

 had burned. 



After thinking the matter over, I de- 

 cided not to destroy the rest, and to get 

 a little experience with foul brood. I 

 looked up the remedy given in "Langs- 

 troth Revised," but I decided it was too 

 much trouble to apply the remedies given 

 there, so I carried out a plan of my own. 

 I put I ounce of crystallized salicylic acid 

 in 8 ounces of alcohol, as recommended in 

 "Langstroth Revised," and 60 drops of 

 this in 4 ounces of water. Then I tied 

 together two feathers with one quill above 

 the other, so I could run one quill into 

 the cells. I would run the quills into the 

 bottle and when drawn out, turn the quill 

 end down, and run the quill into any dis- 

 eased cell I could find. The medicine 

 would run down the quill into the cell. 

 and at the same time I would stir the 

 diseased mass with the end of the quill. 

 If I found a very bad patch I would take 

 the brush end of the feathers and brush 

 it over thoroughly with the medicine. 

 This will k-ill a few bees. Twice a week 

 I would run through them when they 

 were so bad. It takes careful looking and 

 a critical eye to see at a glance any cell 

 infected. 



Later I went over them once a week, 

 so I got through the summer without the 

 loss of a colony with a fair crop of honey, 

 and then regretted burning my nice queen. 

 My bees still had the disease in fall, but 

 I had it under control. The next spring 

 I kept up the same treatment, but the 

 great Kansas flood came, and took 12 

 of the ig remaining colonies, and 1 sup- 

 pose landed them in the Gulf of Mexico. 

 I fixed up the remaining 7 hives, caught 

 a stray swarm, and increased to 11 colo- 

 nies. I would not have increased any. 

 but I had to stack my bees on account ol^ 

 a flood, then when I put them on their 

 old stands so many field-bees returned to 

 where I had them stacked up. I put 

 a frame of brood in a decoy hive and by 

 this method made 3 colonies. 



After I got the bees in shape after thj 

 flood, I had my first and only experience 

 with the "swarming fever." The bees got 

 so anxious and determined to swarm that 

 they would swann without even starting 

 a quecn-cell. But I kept the queens 

 clipped, and by a good deal of trouble kept 

 them in the same number of hives, as 

 I had all the foul brood I cared for. 



I continued the treatment as I had op- 

 portunity, as I had to be away from 

 home a good deal of the time, but I came 

 out in the fall with still a trace of vlie 

 disease, but the biggest crop of honey I 

 ever got in my life, as high as 125 sec- 

 tions from I colony, and 2 supers filled 

 by the swarm I caught the ist of June. 

 Now I kept up this treatment until the 

 fall of 1908, when I left that part of the 

 country, and I took all the honey from 

 the bees and rendered the combs into wax. 

 and us-ed the hives for kindling. V/hen 

 I did this I only found a slight trace of 

 the disease in two hives, and the remain- 

 ing 9 seemed to be entirely free. 



I don't believe this method would be 

 practical for one who had a large number 

 of infected colonies, but to those who 

 have foul brood. I would say. don't des- 

 troy your bees 90 you will be the loser. 

 I believe if I had many colonies of bees, 

 I would treat them thus for one season, 

 and when they got through gathering I 

 would then take all their honey, render 

 the combs into wax. and disinfect the 

 hives and start anew. I would buy a new 

 start of bees from the sale of the honey 

 taken from them. 



In conclusion, I would say, 1910 was 

 a poor year here for bees, and our crop 

 of honey was light. In August I looked 

 into a swarm my wife saved one day 

 while I was in the field, and found what 

 I call a nice case of American foul brood, 

 but before I could get in touch with the 



Department of Agriculture at Washington, 

 to whom I sent a sample, the bees had >:o 

 nearly stopped brood-rearing that I could 

 not get a very good sample, and they re- 

 ported that they could not make a good 

 diagnosis of the case from the sample 

 sent. I am now awaiting spring develop- 

 ment of the case. It is exactly like I 

 had in Kansas. I will try and tell how it 

 comes out. next year. E. G. H.\nn.\. 



Atwood. 111., Dec. 8. 



Bee-Keeping in Missouri 



I have a communication from a sub- 

 scriber of the American Bee Journal who 

 lives in Michigan, who saw my article in 

 the December number. He wishes to know 

 something about Missouri and its re- 

 sources. He says he has been a reader 

 of the American Bee Journal for the past 

 15 years, and of other bee-papers, and has 

 been a bee-keeper for the past 30 years ; 

 he wants to come down this way to locate. 

 I could liardly give the resources of our 

 diversified pursuit in one short article, 

 but will endeavor to give some of them, 

 anyway. 



In regard to bee-keeping. I think Mis- 

 souri is like many other places — it has 

 good and not-so-good places, and also has 

 its failures as well as successes. Some 

 seasons many of our leading bee-keepers 

 get bountiful crops of honey; I know of 

 some that have secured over $iooo to 

 $1500 of honey in a season, and, a few. 

 more than that. I have also known many 

 to get from nothing to some just a little 

 almost every season ; it depends consider- 

 bly upon the bee-keeper, here as well as 

 elsewhere ; yet I have known a few sea- 

 sons that surplus honey was a complete 

 failure in many places, and, in some cases, 

 bees have staned ; yet with all this I 

 am of the opinion that Missouri is as 

 good a Sta:te in which to keep bees as w,; 

 have. 



According to the Labor Bureau, there 

 are over 50,000 bee-keepers in this State. 

 I do not have all the latest figures on 

 bee-keeping in Missouri, but some years 

 ago the products were given by the sta- 

 tistics thus: "Honey, 6,015,000 pounds 

 worth over $769,000 (a low estimate on 

 the honey). The value of the bees was 

 given as $391,000, making a total valua- 

 tion of $1,160,000, and nothing said about 

 beeswax, which would swell the figures 

 considerably more. I am sure that with 

 the special notice bees have had in our 

 State the past several years, bee-keeping 

 has advanced considerably more than 

 when these statistics were obtained, so 

 the industry, I should think, would amount 

 to nearly 2 million dollars at the present 

 time. I also think that this is a good 

 credit to Missouri when one considers 

 that the bee-industry in the United States 

 is said to be a little over 20 million dol- 

 lars per year. 



AH through the northern part of our 

 State a great many are keeping bees, 

 which shows that it is a good bee-coun- 

 try ; then in the southern part of the 

 State, where there are so very many or- 

 chards of a large acreage in many places, 

 I would think that such would be a good 

 place for the bee-industry. While we 

 have some large orchards in the northern 

 part of the Slate, in the south there are 

 many more; yet I think in this part, bee- 

 keeping, as a rule, is the best. Bees do 

 best an the older settlements where there 

 is plenty of white clover and Spanish- 

 needle, as these do not prevail to any 

 great extent in new or tindeveloped places, 

 yet the southern part of the State is now 

 very fast being occupied almost every- 

 where ; land is yet much cheaper, as a 

 rule, in the Oz.'irk country than in the 

 northern part of the State, though some 

 land is bringing nearly as much there as 

 here, in certain cases. 



