July. iQir. 



American l^ee Jonrnal j 



209 



with bees at night shows us that al- 

 though they can see at very short 

 range, they are unable to see in the 

 dark a foot or two away. For that rea- 

 son it is unadvisable to handle bees at 

 night. 



Hamilton, 111. 



A National Foul Brood Law 



BV \V. C. MORRIS. 



Foul brood is on the increase, and is 

 about as bad in States where there are 

 rigid laws, and inspectors paid to in- 

 spect, as in States where there are no 

 such laws. Certain portions of New 

 York State, with a supposedly perfect 

 law, and enough inspectors to do the 

 work, are in a rotten condition. Mr. 

 W. L. Coggshall, of Groton, X. Y., with 

 his out-apiaries in all directions for 20 

 miles or more, is fighting the disease 

 all the time; and bee-keepers near him 

 are allowed to keep bees in box-hives. 

 The man with one or two hives doesn't 

 care if he has foul brood or not. The 

 bee-keeper with 2iMi colonies or more 

 near by must suffer for his negligence. 

 There should be a National law passed 

 doing away with the box-hive. 1 know 

 this will be said by some to be in the 

 interest of the bee-supply men. A man 

 can use a soap-box if he desires, but he 

 would have to make frames to go in 

 that box — a few cents would buy 

 enough Wx-'A inch strips to make these 

 frames. 



No bees should be allowed to be 

 moved from one State to another with- 

 out inspection. I know of one in- 

 stance where a colony of bees shipped 

 from New Jersey to Long Island were 

 diseased with "foul brood," and al- 

 though this man had other bees, he dis- 

 covered something was wrong, sent for 

 one of the New York State inspectors 

 who treated (?) the colony, and told 

 him it was all right; but shortly after 

 he noticed it was not all right. He dug 

 a large hole, and after dark closed the 

 entrance and buried the hive. If he 

 hadn't done this probably the whole of 

 Long Island would now be diseased. 



All f|ueen-breeders should have a 

 clean bill of health from the State or 

 National government. There is no law 

 preventing a queen-breeder from sell- 

 ing queens from diseased colonies. 

 Bee-keepers should always change any 

 queens, from the cages they come in, to 

 new cages. If you desire to use the 

 cage again, boil it, and be sure your 

 bees do not get at the candy in the 

 cage. 



No honey from a diseased colony 

 should be allowed to be sold. You 

 couldn't pay me to eat it, and I doubt 

 if the Editor would care to eat honey 

 from a stinking, rotten colony in the 

 advanced stages of foul brood. Where 

 does the delicate aroma fit here ? 



No Cuban honey should be allowed 

 to come to this country; as the whole 

 of Cuba is rotten with foul brood. This 

 also applies to any other foreign coun- 

 try where there is foul brood. Lven 

 bees come in from Cuba without ex- 

 amination as to whether they are dis- 

 eased or not. 



In Jamaica, B. W. I., you can not 

 bring a bee into the island ; and queens 

 are changed to new cages by the bee- 

 inspector, and the bees and cage 



burned in the furnace of the ship they 

 came over in. 



Some will say, Why not allow dis- 

 eased honey to be sold ? First, foul 

 brood is a filthy disease, and filth and 

 clean honey are not possible. Second, 

 my neighbor, Mrs. Smith, goes to her 

 grocer and buys a bottle of honey; put 

 up by Solomon Isaacs, of New York 

 city, who has bought some diseased 

 New Jersey honey, or some cheap dis- 

 eased Cuban honey at 5 cents a pound. 

 Mrs. Smith uses all the honey that will 

 run out of the bottle, then throws the 

 unwashed bottle in the ash-barrel. Five 

 minutes later my bees afe cleaning the 

 bottle out. Result, foul brood. 



It is time we get down to business 

 on this foul-brood proposition. I have 

 never had a diseased colony, but I am 

 anxious and willing to do everything 

 in my power to help those who have, 

 and also to protect myself. If every 

 bee-keeper would examine the bees in 

 his neighborhood, and report sus- 

 picious cases to the inspectors, it 

 would help. Look at Jamaica, B. W. 

 I., a hot country conducive to disease, 

 and only one inspector, and not a dis- 

 eased colony there ! 



Yonkers, N. Y. 



Breeding Out the Swarming 

 Impulse 



BY' DR. A. F. BONNEV. 



The sooner bee-keepers quit thinking 

 of getting a non-swarming strain of 

 bees, and devote their time and energy 

 to learning to control the impulse to 

 swarm, or to devising appliances to aid 

 in this control, the more money they 

 will make out of apiculture. This is a 

 blunt proposition, but the logic of 

 events is proving my contentions, for 

 we seem to be no nearer to a non- 

 swarming strain of Ijees than we were 

 •50 years ago, while discussions in the 

 bee-papers have brought out statements 

 from some of the oldest men in the 

 profession, showing that but few be- 

 lieve such a sort of bee possible. More- 

 over, the editors of the bee-papers gen- 

 erally hesitate to endorse the non- 

 swarming idea. 



This article is inspired by frequent 

 allusions to the 31st chapter of Genesis 

 (.'Wth in the Dcjuay edition), and while 

 1 do not like to drag the Good Book 

 into discussions of this kind, on ac- 

 count of the impression that may get 

 out regarding my soundness in the 

 faith, I leel that a reply should be made, 

 and as not one reader in a hundred has 

 the least idea in the world what said 

 chapter says, and would probably have 

 to borrow a Bible to read it, I shall 

 state briefly that Jacob was to have all 

 the sheep which were spotted, and to 

 get the advantage of his father-in-law 

 he peeled sticks of wood and placed 

 them before the animals during the 

 breeding season, liy which means "he 

 was enriched exceedingly." This story 

 has nothing to do with anything but 

 the color of hair on a lot of quadru- 

 peds. 



Inasmuch as there are several mil- 

 lions of people in the world who do 

 not even know of the Bible, but do 

 keep bees, this testimony should never 

 have been intro<luced, but so long as it 



has, let me suggest that those who be- 

 lieve — because the story is in the Bible 

 — that animals can or ever could be 

 marked by putting striped sticks before 

 them, that they try it. Sheep and goats 

 have not changed one whit since those 

 days, and I assert that limbs or logs 

 of trees peeled and placed before the 

 animals will not make them spotted. If 

 you think it will, try it. Mind you, 

 he/ief is not evidence. The spotting of 

 animals comes from a different cause — 

 the crossing of two animals of the 

 same breed but of different colors, as 

 a black horse and a white one, and 

 when such an animal is bred again to 

 a brown we get what the Mexicans 

 call a "pinto" or "calico," and I have 

 seen them with spots of white, brown, 

 black, and gray thrown in for good 

 measure. Breeding " calicoes " one to 

 another, one frequently gets plain col- 

 ors, for there is always a strong ten- 

 dency to revert to the original type. 



People who write about breeding tails 

 off of sheep and cats, and horns off of 

 cattle, merely advertise their ignorance 

 of natural history, for the memory of 

 man does not go back to the time 

 when there were not hornless cattle, 

 " nnile-toed " hogs and tailless cats, for 

 man did not breed the tail oft' the Manx 

 cat any more than he did of the bob or 

 wild cat. The cat found in the Isle of 

 Man is a distinct species or variety of 

 the cat, and found nowhere else on 

 earth. Regarding niuley, or polled cat- 

 tle, the Century Dictionary, quoting the 

 .Jimerican National XXtl, 802, says: 

 " Muley cattle have been in Virginia a 

 great many years, and //lei'r descendants 

 /niTe been uniformly polled." 



The italics in the quotation are mine, 

 for in them is the gist of the argument, 

 for the muley is a distinct breed of cat- 

 tle just as was the long-horn of Texas — 

 cattle with liorns which would measure 

 (i feet and more from tip to tip. The 

 muley is not from a "sport," nor were 

 the horns bred off by man. If any one 

 doubts this, let him read further: 



"The Drumlanrig and Ardrossan 

 herds are extinct. These herds were 

 horned, the latter having latterly be- 

 come polled on lite introduction of 

 foiled bulls from I[amilton." 



Again the Italics are mine. Now any 

 one with the slightest knowledge of 

 natural history must know tliat the An- 

 drnssan Iturned cattle could never have 

 been extinguished by anything but an 

 established blood, aided by selection, for 

 Nature is ever trying to revert to the 

 original type, and had the muley been 

 from a "sport," the horned blood would 

 have prevailed and the polled sport 

 would have been extinguished, just as 

 a white rat, or other albino, bred to an- 

 other of natural color will be first spot- 

 tod, then in a few generations be wiped 

 out. It may be as well to tell the unin- 

 formed that albinos all have pink eyes. 

 They are not a white breed. 



The finest breed of chickens in the 

 world would soon run out if not fos- 

 tered by man, for they are originally 

 from "sports" and selection," and if 

 the muley cow was not as old in the 

 history of the world as is the porcu- 

 pine, the mule-eared deer, and the razor- 

 back hog, we should soon know it, but 

 " their descendants are uniformly 

 polled." The tailless cats of the Isle of 

 Man have always been tailless, so far as 



