November, igii. 



American ^ae 'Journal 



then it is the duty of the inspector to 

 see that instructions are followed. 



Are some of our inspectors too len- 

 ient with old offenders ? It is not for 

 me to judge, but I have read in the 

 bee-papers that foul brood is on the 

 increase in some of their districts. 

 There is such a thing as being over- 

 zealous to do justice to a few that in- 

 justice may be done to others. 



The year 1904 was the poorest sea- 

 son I have ever known. I fed my bees 

 from May, 1904, to May, 1905. Honey 

 being the natural food for bees, and 

 never having heard of foul brood in 

 this section, I bought honey to feed 

 them. I afterwards learned that the 

 honey I had fed was taken from an 

 apiary that had foul brood, and had 

 been broken up, the honey e.xtracted 

 and sold to the merchant from whom I 

 bought. Imagine the condition the 

 bees were in by 1905! Several told me 

 it was impossible ever to cure such a 

 mess, but I produced 17 tons of honey 

 that year, and nearly all the bees that I 

 put on foundation that year were 

 cured, and the next year I cleaned it 

 out. 



The first year I tried to save the 

 brood by piling up hives tilled with 

 brood and a few bees to protect it, but 

 I think this a great mistake. It seems 

 like a great sacrifice to cut out those 

 solid sheets of hatching brood with but 

 a few cells showing any disease, but 

 when one stops to consider that by 

 keeping them other colonies maybe 

 infected, and the same process gone 

 over again, it seems to me to be 

 penny-wise and pound-foolish. Des- 

 perate cases need desperate remedies, 

 and the sooner we get rid of every 

 vestige of the foul stuff the sooner will 

 we be rid of the disease. One can not 

 be too careful while doing the work. 



I was told many times that the dis- 

 ease would show up again as bad as 

 ever in a year or two. and I have re- 

 frained from writing, thinking I might 

 laugh too soon ; but 6 years is long 

 enough, and I am sure if the disease 

 reappears it will be from outside causes. 



Another reason for not writing on 

 this subject sooner is, that I thought 

 possibly the disease might be more 

 easily gotten rid of in this dry and 

 mild climate, or perhaps it might be in 

 a milder form, but I know of those 

 whose bees contracted the disease the 

 same year that mine did, and from the 

 same cause, and their bees have it to- 

 day as bad as ever. 



If each one did his duty, foul brood 

 would be wiped out, and we would 

 hear but little about it. It is unrea- 

 sonable to suppose every one will try, 

 and this is the time for the inspector 

 to do /its duty ; he, being armed with 

 authority, should see to it that all de- 

 linquents did their part. It seems to 

 me it's up to the inspectors, whether 

 we keep on threshing old straw through 

 the medium of the bee-papers, or 

 whether they get at it and clean the 

 country up. 



Gettixg Queens Fertilized. 



On page 168 (June issue) J. E. Crane 

 is quoted as saying : 



"I made a large number of new swarms 

 with laying queens, but I found it very diffi- 

 cult to get those young queens fertilized." 



If he is quoted correctly, I do not 



know what he means. I suppose he 

 has reference to my apiary, a picture 

 of which was shown in Gleanings in 

 Bee Culture, and I wanted to call his 

 attention to what J. F. JMunday says on 

 the same page, iii the column to the 

 left. " about "Spreading Hives in the 

 Center of the Apiary." I have an api- 

 ary on level ground, and have the same 

 trouble as Mr. Crane and Mr. Munday, 

 and I am at a loss to know what to do. 

 There are too many bees in the apiary 

 to scatter them as Mr. Munday does, 

 for they would cover too much ground 

 to get over when extracting, and it 

 would be a big expense to move the 

 honey-house, for the cellar under it is 

 walled and cemented. Can some one 

 help us out? 



I do not have a particle of trouble 

 with the other two apiaries which set 

 on slightly sloping ground. The bees 

 do not drift, and the queens get ferti- 

 lized as readily as in nuclei, which are 

 some distance apart. 



Jamul, Calif. 



Non-Sitters vs. Non-S warmers 



BY C. P. DAD.ANT. 



I believe that the editorial with this 

 title in the September number of the 

 American Bee Journal, in which the 

 editor criticises my criticism, is in- 

 tended to draw me out with a fuller ex- 

 planation. The subject of this discus- 

 sion, which the reader may not recall, 

 is the possibility of breeding non- 

 swarming bees as non-sitting chickens 

 have been bred. 



I can see a very positive difference 

 between the two as to results. I tried 

 to e.xplain it by saying that a non-sit- 

 ting hen does not suffer any inconven- 

 ience, while a non-swarming colony 

 might suffer from overcrowding. The 

 editor asks whether a hen, which is put 

 into a cold-water bath, or tied to a 

 post, does not suffer inconvenience. 

 Certainly; but that is not a non-sitting 

 hen; on the contrary — and the incon- 

 venience we put her to comes from our 

 desire to stop her sitting, so she may 

 resume laying. 



Races of chickens in which the de- 

 sire to sit has been greatly eliminated, 

 have been secured by constantly select- 

 ing to breed from such birds as pro- 

 duced the largest number of eggs be- 

 tween sittings. For this purpose, either 

 artificial incubators or more regular 

 sitting races had to be employed in the 

 hatching of the eggs. Thus races have 

 been propagated in which the propen- 

 sity to lay is out of proportion with 

 their sitting. No inconvenience is 

 created to those hens by their abnor- 

 mally large laying. They produce more 

 eggs tlian they would if left to natural 

 conditions — more than they could pos- 

 sibly hatch, four times over, perhaps — 

 when came their time to sit. 



This is artificial evolution, created 

 by man's desire to consume eggs. But 

 if we were to abstain from using other 

 sitters or artificial incubators, and left 

 the chickens to their own resources, 

 the loss of eggs resulting from the in- 

 ability of the hen to cover all of them 

 when she did sit, and from the age of 

 some of the eggs which would be no 

 longer fresh, would soon breed out 

 this artificially-bred propensity. Most 



of our domestic chickens, even the sit 

 ting races, lay more eggs before sitting 

 than they can well cover, and our rural 

 housekeepers know how much waste 

 there is usually in a stray hatch of 

 chicks. 



But even in chickens, in order to se- 

 cure non-sittters to the greatest possi- 

 ble extent, it is necessary, according 

 to authorities, to keep them in favor- 

 able condition. In a little work, en- 

 titled " The Business Hen," after de- 

 scribing the non-sitting strains — Hou- 

 dans, Black Spanish, Minorcas, Leg- 

 horns — the author warns us against the 

 danger of over-feeding or under-feed- 

 ing, both of which have influence upon 

 the results. As hens that never sit are 

 as yet unknown, the only point secured 

 is a very protracted laying previous to 

 sitting. 



With our bees we reduce the desire 

 to swarm, of course, when we give 

 them ample room both to breed and to 

 store honey. We also keep the swarm- 

 ing down to the lowest limit by having 

 young queens, for much of the queen- 

 cell rearing at swarming-time comes 

 from a desire on the part of the bees 

 to supersede their queen. If the queen 

 is still vigorous and the colony strong, 

 swarming results. We will secure non- 

 swarming bees by breeding as much as 

 possible from such races as are slow in 

 rearing queen-cells. Will this be pos- 

 sible without at the same time securing 

 colonies in which the danger of extinc- 

 tion is great .^ Ample room in both 

 lower and upper story is certainly the 

 main desideratum. But although we 

 have practised here the giving of a sup- 

 ply of ample room in empty combs tor 

 years, and have secured perhaps the 

 minimum of swarming, I have never 

 hinted or thought that we had bred out 

 the swarming instinct in our bees, for 

 just as often as we neglect to furnish 

 both breeding and storing-room in 

 time, at the beginning of the harvest, 

 we are sure to have natural swarms as 

 positively as do the producers of comb 

 honey in small hives. 



But let us suppose for a minute that 

 we had succeeded in producing a non- 

 swarming race of bees. Unless those 

 bees were wanting in prolificness and 

 honey-gathering qualities (in which 

 case we should discard them), they 

 would be put to great inconvenience at 

 harvest time, if they were at all neg- 

 lected, for their ordinary relief for lack 

 of room or ventilation would be absent. 

 There is not much danger of this. The 

 swarming instinct has been bred in 

 them by evolution, so that they may 

 simultaneously propagate their kind 

 and relieve the crowded condition of 

 their home, and this instinct — the first 

 symptom of which is the rearing of 

 young queens — will be difficult to 

 eradicate. 



However, we may greatly help to 

 lessen swarming by fulfilling a few re- 

 quirements within our reach as fol- 

 lows : 



1. Have ample breeding room for 

 the queen in the lower story. 



2. Give sufficient room in the supers 

 to keep the bees busy. 



3. Have the hive well shaded from 

 the direct rays of the sun. 



4. Give ample space for ventilation, 

 so the bees may, without too great ef- 

 fort, send a current of air through the 



