November, 191 1. 



American Vae Journal 



Miscellaneous ^ News Items 



Death of E. C. Porter. — Every well-in- 

 formed bee-keeper is familiar vifitli the 

 Porter bee-escape — that big little in- 

 strument that is such a help when tak- 

 ing honey off the hives. Its inventor 

 was E. C. Porter, of Lewistown, 111., 

 whose death last ,\ug;ist is recorded in 

 the following from Gleanings in Bee 

 Culture for Oct. 15, 1911: 



Edmond C. Porter was born June 10. 1857. 

 and died Aug. 6. i«ii. He was the only cliild 

 of Rufus and Mary E. Porter. He was a man 

 of excellent character and sterUng worth. 

 He was honorable, reticent, studious and 

 industrious, taking the utmost pains to per- 

 fect anything he undertook along any line of 

 work. He possessed a vast fund of knowl- 

 edge on various topics— very unusual in this 

 day of rush and hustle. Nothing but the 

 best satisfied him; and if any question 

 came up, he did not rest until he had an- 

 swered it, and was sure he was right. He 

 was an ardent lover of Nature, and it 

 was his pride to cultivate choice varieties 

 of fruit and plants. 



His father, Rufus Porter, was a rearer of 

 bees, and from his earliest childhood Ed- 

 niond, too, loved and worked with them. 



While Mr. Rufus Porter was the original 

 inventor of the Porter bee-escape, the son 

 improved upon it, and it was he who manu- 

 factured them and placed them on the mar- 

 ket. 



Just before his death he had been granted 

 a patent on the improvement. He had many 

 bees of his own, and made a specialty of ex- 

 tracted honey. 



He was a fine financier, and. in addition 

 to the bee-industry, he had a large farm, and 

 took charge of the tile-factory which be- 

 longed to his father. 



He was unmarried, and had always been 

 at home with his mother, to whom he was 

 devoted, especially since the father's death 

 7yearsapo. He has given her the most ten- 

 der love and care. She is now well advanced 

 in years, and feels his loss keenly. 



He was loyal to his friends, just and gener- 

 ous to all, and in his death we have lost a 

 really good man who will be greatly missed 

 in the community in which he lived. 



We understand that Mr. Porter's 

 business is to be continued at Lewis- 

 town, 111., under tke supervision of Mr, 

 H, D. Rogers, a cousin of Mr. Porter. 



The .'\merican Bee Journal desires 

 to unite with bee-keepers everywhere 

 in e.xtending sympathy to Mr. Porter's 

 mother, in her bereavement. 



What Nakes Low Prices lor Honey ? 



— lieplying to the claim that the price 

 of honey is simply a matter of supply 

 and demand, Editor Tyrrell says in the 

 Bee-Keepers' Review: 



Isn't it more of a question of proper dis- 

 tribution? Are all honey consumers prop- 

 erly suppbed ? And isn't it a fact that many 

 honey-producers do not get the market 

 price for their honey simply because they 

 don't ask enough ? 



A few days ago a iioney-buycr showed me 

 a nice lot of honey that he had bought at I2j4 

 cents per pounfi, from a bee-keeper who 

 couldn't afford to take a bee-paper. The 

 honey could have been sold in a wholesale 

 ■uray at i8 cents. What had supply and de- 

 mand to do with the sale ? 



Age ol Flight of Young Bees.— L. S. 



Crawshaw asks in the British Bee 

 Journal: 'Is it established beyond 

 doubt that no bee less than 14 days old 

 will join the swarm?" and speaks of 

 "the statement that a worker-bee leaves 

 the hive for flight on the 11th day," 



It is generally understood that a bee 

 becomes a fielder when 14 to 16 days 

 old. On each fine day bees will be 

 seen having a play-spell in front of the 

 hive. As the fielders have no need to 

 play for exercise, will not these play- 

 ing bees necessarily be younger than 

 14 to 16 days ? Some years ago the 

 writer put an imported queen in a hive 

 with sealed brood ; not a bee out of its 

 cell except the queen, the hive being 

 closed bee-tight. Five days later the 

 entrance was opened, and not only did 

 the bees fly on that day, but brought in 

 loads of pollen ! If, under stress, a 

 bee becomes a fielder when .5 days old, 

 is it not likely that it would normally 

 fly for exercise at that age or younger ? 

 Has Mr, Crawshaw never watched an 

 issuing swarm when baby bees would 

 come out and crawl on the ground, too 

 young to fly ? 



Nosema Apis Not a Menace. — At the 



annual conference of the Victorian 

 Apiarists' Association, Mr, 'W. Laid- 

 law. Biologist of the Department of 

 Agriculture, delivered an address in 

 which he said, as reported in the Aus- 

 tralasian Bee-Keeper: 



During the past year I haveexamined over 

 1500 bees from all parts of the Common- 

 wealth, chiefly for the purpose of settling 

 the vexed question, " Does Nosema apis do 

 any harm in the apiary ?" 



I find the number affected with Nosema 

 is a trifle over 17 percent, quite a respecta- 

 ble percentage, but one which is not suffi- 

 cient to account for the entire disappear- 

 ance of a colony. Then, again, in certain 

 districts Nosema is present to a very much 

 greater extent than in others, and there the 

 mortality is no larger. So far as our present 

 knowledge of Nosema apis goes, it does not 

 appear to be the cause of much, if any, 

 harm, though we will not be able to say 

 delinitely until the life history of the para- 

 site is fully known. 



Is Sugar Good tor Bees?— In the Brit- 

 ish Bee Journal " A Roman Bee- 

 Keeper " raises the question whether 

 the great mortality caused by disease 

 among the apiaries of British bee-keep- 

 ers may not arise from their feeding 

 sugar instead of honey. He says, among 

 other things: 



It is hardly likely that such an immemo- 

 rial adaptation as that of honey to bees, or 

 bees to honey, can be artificially set at 

 naught with impunity. And who shall say 

 what injurious effects all this artificial feed- 

 ing may have on oueens and their progeny, 

 especially when it is considered that in 

 place of their own highly-concentrated, 

 aromatic, directlyassimilable food, they are 

 expected to put up with an insipid, watery, 

 unpalatable, indigestible mess like sugar 

 syrup ? 



Here in Italy, where, owing to the ruinous 

 price of sugJir, bees are allowed to live al- 

 most entirely on their own honey, disease of 

 any kind is quite an exceptional condition, 

 though now and then one hears of cases of 

 foul brood. 



The editor replies that sugar syrup 

 is not a complete food for bees, but a 

 substitute when they have not sufficient 

 natural stores, and adds, "No doubt 

 some of the diseases, more particularly 

 dysentery, can be attributed to using 

 beet-sugar instead of cane." 



This idea of the harmfulness of beet- 

 sugar as compared with cane has been 

 held for years among British bee-keep- 

 ers, and for as many years has been 

 regarded on this side the water as er- 

 roneous. It does seem strange that 

 there can not be agreement as to this. 

 Certainly a large part of granulated 

 sugar is made from beets. Either it is 

 or it is not bad for bees. It is hardly 

 bad in England, and good here. It 

 would be a good thing if there could be 

 some authoritative statement based on 

 convincing proof that would settle the 

 question. 



In a succeeding number of the same 

 journal, Samuel Simmins comes vigor- 

 ously to the defense of sugar, and says : 



No statement could be more devoid of rea- 

 son nor more contrary to fact. We are 

 asked to believe that a food containing no 

 disease germs, or at least none that are in- 

 jurious to bees, is the cause of their suffer- 

 ing from an infectious malady that is only 

 to be transmitted from one colony to an- 

 other by the germ peculiar to that disease. 



Why should the feeding of a few pounds 

 of good sugar cause an outbreak of the mal- 

 ady in one apiary, when another, with ten 

 times the number of colonies, where in dull 

 seasons the autumn finds the owner feeding 

 something like a ton of loaf sugar, is found 

 to remain free from any infectious disease 

 whatever? Why are there hundreds of api- 

 aries where sugar-feeding is yearly resorted 

 to. still remaining free from infectious par- 

 alysis and other complaints ? 



Then he cites copious proofs that 

 disease has prevailed where little or no 

 sugar was fed, and has been absent 

 where sugar was used for a winter 

 food. 



It is not likely that tke mortality in 

 the Isle of Wight and contiguous re- 

 gions should be charged to the account 

 of sugar. Still it is well to heed the 

 warning of German writers, who say 

 that while sugar may be a good winter 

 food it is inadequate as a food when 

 the time comes for brood to be reared. 

 It lacks the necessary nitrogenous ele- 

 ments contained in honey, and must 

 tend toward deterioration of the nurse- 

 bees and brood. 



Bees as Fertilizers So many proofs 



have been given of the value of bees as 

 fertilizers of plants that it hardly seems 

 necessary to give more; yet a case is 

 reported in the British Bee Journal 

 that seems well worth recording be- 

 cause of its painstaking cliaracter and 

 exactness of details, Geo, Hayes, the 

 experimenter, thus reports: 



In igo8, after transplanting for experiment 

 some white clover into my garden, I came 

 across a sturdy self-sown plant; so I took 

 this rather than the transplanted root as 

 being the better off the two. When it began 

 to blossom I selected 3 of the most vigorous 

 heads just before the first flower was about 

 to open, and. after removing all small in- 

 sects, I supported each on small stakes, and 

 put a frame-work of specially-constructed 

 wire-work over each head to give it plenty 

 of room to develop. Over this I spread 

 some fine-woven gauze to exclude insects 

 from above and to admit light and air. Cot 

 ton-wool was tied around the stalk to pre 

 vent insects from ascending to the flower; 

 and so they grew, each flower having about 

 3 cubic inches of space. The plant had in 

 all 29 flower-heads, which will show that it 

 was very vigorous. 



rhe 3 protected heads flowered well to 

 the last floret, and were the first to ripen; 

 but there was a marked difference at this 

 stage in their peduncles compared with 

 those of the other flowers. 



When the majority of the flower-heads 

 were ripe, I cut off the 3 whi<:h had been 

 protected, and also 3 of those unprotected, 

 and after cutting their stalks to equal 

 lengths they were weighed, with the follow 



