272 



American ^ac Jonrnalj 



September, lyii. 



years, with the result achieved. This 

 is not idle talk; it is my own experi- 

 ence, acquired from a practice of 

 considerably over 40 years. 

 Hamilton, 111. 



Bee-Paralysis— A Queer Disease 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



"I see by reading the columns of the 

 .American Bee Journal that you some- 

 times answer questions for those who ao 

 not know very much about bees. Now 

 I want some light regarding what ails 

 my bees. During the early part of the 

 season they were prosperous, but as the 

 harvest of nectar arrived a part of the 

 colonies seemed to be ailing from some- 

 thing which I have never seen before. 

 At some of the hives many bees seemed 

 to be bloated, and would shake as if 

 they had the ague, while quite a few 

 of them seemed to be devoid of any hair, 

 being smooth and shiny. Then other 

 bees seemed to be pulling at them, and 

 would drag them to the edge of the 

 alighting-board and dump them off, un- 

 til in front of some of the hives the bees 

 lie dead in heaps. There seems to be 

 the usual quantity of brood in these 

 hives, but the bees are apparently dying 

 off faster than they are supplanted by 

 the emerging brood. The colonies thus 

 affected have not given half the crop 

 of honey that have those not showing 

 these symptoms. Can you tell the read- 

 ers of the American Bee Journal what 

 the trouble is, and what to do for it?" — 

 Correspondent. 



From the description given, I think 

 there is little doubt but what these 

 bees have what was termed 30 to 35 

 years ago "The Nameless Bee-Dis- 

 ease," but what has been known since 

 then as "Bee-Paralysis." 



This disease was quite common in 

 the latter eighties, and for a time it 

 made rapid strides till there were 

 very few apiarists who were not fa- 

 miliar with it, either in their own 

 apiary or in that of some one near 

 them; during the nineties very 

 many apiaries were nearly destroyed 

 through so many bees dying off thai 

 there were not enough bees left for 

 winter, it being much more prevalent 

 and disastrous in the South than 

 here at the North. What caused this 

 trouble was the great question in the 

 minds of all who had it in their 

 apiaries, for where the cause of any 

 disease can be fully understood, a 

 remedy is generally soon found. But 

 unless I have been careless in my 

 reading, no one seems to be sure 

 that he knows what the cause is. 

 Some were quite positive for a while 

 that they had the secret, but as the 

 years rolled by, time proved that such 

 were only ideas or guesses in the 

 matter, and I doubt whether there is 

 any more known to-day as to the 

 cause of this plague of the bees than 

 was known when it was first called 

 the "Nameless Bee-Disease." 



But I am pleased to record that, 

 since the ushering in of the Twen- 

 tieth Century, the disease has been 

 on the wane, not only as to the num- 

 ber of colonies having it, but those 

 affected by it have it so lightly that 

 we hear very little of the matter at 

 this time. As to what to do for it 

 is a matter very largely of guess- 



work. When the disease first made 

 its appearance, some of the "know- 

 ing ones" told us the whole trouble 

 came from not letting the bees have 

 access to salt, and from this it was 

 said that, if a strong brine was made 

 and sprinkled over the bees and 

 combs, it was a certain cure. I 

 jotted this down in my reference 

 book, and. when, in the early nine- 

 ties, I had 2 colonies that were af- 

 fected by it, I tried this remedy. 

 Meantime others had been trying it. 

 but it was soon apparent that it was 

 of no use as a general remedy. As 

 occasionally a colony would quite 

 suddenly get well of itself, it so came 

 about that one which would naturally 

 do so when treated with the brine, 

 became free from the disease a little 

 later, when, of course, it was rushed 

 into print, or told "on the housetop," 

 about the wonderful cure with a sim- 

 ple brine, like that used for preserv- 

 ing meat! 



Soon after the brine cure, came 

 that of giving such diseased colonies 

 a young prolific queen. The argu- 

 ment along this line was, that from 

 some reason the mother queen had 

 contracted the disease, and therefore 

 the eggs which she laid contained 

 germs, which later on developed suf- 

 ficiently in her progeny to cause the 

 trouble. Therefore, if the old queen 

 was killed and a young, vigorous one 

 given in her place, then, as soon as 

 the bees emerging from the eggs of 

 the new queen came on the stage of 

 action, the disease would begin to 

 grow less and less; and when all the 

 bees from the original queen had 

 died, the colony would be free from 

 the disease. As this looked reason- 

 able, it was tried more largely than 

 any other remedy; but after a thor- 

 ough trial of the same by hundreds, 

 if not by thousands, it was found 

 that, in the majority of cases, such 

 change had no effect whatever. 



One year, in July, I found 8 or 10 

 of my colonies in quite a similar con- 

 dition to those described by our cor- 

 respondent, although only one colony 

 was extremely bad. I gave this col- 

 ony a new queen, after killing the old 

 one, and as fall drew on, it got bet- 

 ter, and I was quite enthusiastic in 

 the matter, although I had noticed 

 that diseased colonies which lived 

 through till fall, generally got better 

 at that time. 



The next year I had a colony come 

 down with this disease still earlier 

 in the season I in June, I think). This 

 colony was the worst of any I had 

 ever known, and to test the matter 

 fully, I took their queen away and 

 gave her to a healthy colony, giv- 

 ing the one from the healthy colony 

 to the diseased one. The result this 

 time was that the colony to which I 

 gave the diseased queen went right 

 on in a prosperous condition, with no 

 signs of the disease, while the dis- 

 eased colony showed no abatement 

 of the disease, becoming so weak- 

 ened in the late summer that it was 

 united with another colony, the 

 united colony never showing any 

 signs of the disease afterward. 



The next year, when the bees were 



put from the cellar, another colony 

 was set on the stand where this worst 

 one I ever had, had been the year 

 before, and, to my surprise, this col- 

 ony took the disease in early July, 

 and, for a time, every colony placed 

 on this stand took the disease during 

 the summer. This led me to believe 

 that location had something to do 

 with the matter, or that the trouble 

 came from some infection that arose 

 from the ground in certain places. 

 But, after a few years the colonies 

 put on this stand were all right, and 

 one near the opposite side of the 

 apiary contracted the disease. 



From all of these different experi- 

 ences I was forced to the conclusion 

 that nothing definite is known about 

 this trouble. Threfore, so far as I 

 know, the "what to do for it" still 

 remains an unanswered problem. 



I have seen very little of this trou- 

 ble since the nineties went out. One 

 colony had a few bees diseased, with 

 swollen, shiny abdomens, and shak- 

 ing motions, in igoo, and that is the 

 last I have seen anything of it in my 

 apiaries. There was a time when bee- 

 keepers quite generally believed that 

 this disease would ruin our pursuit; 

 but as I have heard of, or seen, very 

 little in print regarding the matter 

 for some years now, I think we have 

 little need to worry. It is well, how- 

 ever, to bear in mind that such a dis- 

 ease e.xists, so that we will not be 

 taken unawares should it visit our 

 apiary. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



Bee-Keeping in Jamaica 



BY W. C. .MORRIS. 



Apiculture is carried on in an exten- 

 sive scale in Jamaica. D. Foster, at Old 

 Harbor, has some 2000 colonies, and 

 F. A. Hooper has over 1000 in 5 yards, 

 and the American Bee-Products Co., a 

 corporation of New York City, has 

 started their first yard, and expect to 

 increase to 50,000 colonies. Most of 

 the bee-keepers of the Island carry on 

 the business in a careless way, using 

 kerosene cases for hives, supers, covers 

 and bottoms. Tliese cases are the same 

 as our two 5-gallon-can boxes, made of 

 ,'4 -inch stuff', and the rains and exces- 

 sive heat of the sun warp and twist 

 them until there is little or no protec- 

 tion for the bees; and if they get a 50- 

 pound average, they consider they are 

 doing well. They receive about 4 cents 

 a pound for their honey. 



With bees properly housed and 

 looked after as they are in Canada and 

 the United States, there is no reason 

 wliy an average of 200 pounds or more 

 can not be had. 



The bee-supply business in Jamaica 

 consists chiefly of selling frames. 



There are several up-to-date apiarists 

 in the Island, and while I was there 

 one of them was on a pleasure trip to 

 Europe, which proves there is big 

 money in bees in Jamaica, if properly 

 taken care of. 



Mr. Hooper is one of the oldest bee- 

 keepers on the Island, and claims to be 

 the one who introduced Italians into 



