1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



119 



Frank Benton, in a letter to Prof. Cook, as 

 given on page 425 of "The Bee-keeper's 

 Guide," says that the ^' Braula, or bee-louse, 

 is no serious pest if the bees are properly 

 cared for; although in old immovable-comb 

 hives, where the combs are very black and 

 thickened, and in case the queens are old, 

 or where, through some extraneous cause, 

 the colonies have become weak, these lice 

 may be found on queens and workers alike. 

 Mr. Benton thinks that, with the attention 

 given bees in America, the Braula would 

 never become a serious pest, even if intro- 

 duced here. — Ed.] 



A STRUGGLE WITH EUROPEAN FOUL 

 BROOD. 



The Removal of the Queen and the In- 

 troduction of a New Italian Queen Ef- 

 fected a Cure; G oldens Preferred to 

 Three-banded; the Alexander Method 

 Followed. 



BY EDGAR WILLIAMS. 



Continued from Feb. 1st issue. 



Arriving upon the scene I found smoke 

 pouring up from the floor and about the 

 windows; but there was no fire in sight. 

 We rushed from the attic, then to the kitch- 

 en, when, behold, early that morning I had 

 put the honey that I had extracted into a 

 large kettle and set it on the kitchen stove to 

 boil for a few hours in order that I might 

 feed it back to the bees Well, this honey 

 had gotten the swarmmg fever. It was try- 

 ing its best to swarm out of the keti le and 

 cluster on the stove, while the smoke was 

 making desperate efforts to pass through a 

 small register in the ceiling up into the attic. 

 The honey was taken off the stove, and the 

 windows and doors opened to let out the 

 smoke. But no sooner was this done than 

 clouds of bees hovered around the outside, 

 so that the doors and windows had to be 

 shut again. The bees smelled the honey, so 

 I left mother to suffocate with the smoke 

 while I returned to the wax. 



A few minutes had been spent with the 

 wax when I received word that the bees 

 were swarming. They had decided not to 

 stay on those empty frames. Fortunatelyall 

 my queens were clipped, and the bees were 

 never returned. The day was a warm one; 

 and by this time I was getting tired and some- 

 what nervous. I felt as though bees, wax, 

 and honey were things I would rather not 

 see during the rest of my life. Neverthe- 

 less, I wanted to finish the job that day and 

 be through with it; so the rest of the combs 

 were put in the kettle, allowed to steep 

 awhile, and then taken out and buiied in a 

 manure heap. I intended to press the wax 

 from the combs; but bees were flying around 

 some, and I was afraid they would get some 

 of the honey. "Haste makes waste," and 

 as a result I secured about 10 lbs. of wax 

 from 300 combs. The slumgum might have 

 bfieten. saved and the wax s^ecured at another 



melting: but just then it looked better to me 

 in the manure heap. The frames were car- 

 ried from the attic and dipped in the kettle 

 of boiling water. That done, it was quitting 

 time. 1 retired early that night very tired, 

 almost sick, and motner was sick. 



In the morning 1 was kept busy most of 

 the time taking care (if the swarms. Three- 

 fourths of those thirty colonies were deter- 

 mint d they would not stay on those empty 

 frames. They would swarm out, return, 

 and in a few minutes be in the air again. It 

 had been nearly three days since I had 

 shaken them. No honey was being gaiher- 

 ered, and 1 noticed that bees were diopping 

 from the cluster on to the bottom-boards. I 

 began feeding back the honey, medicated 

 with carbolic acid. 



The next day being Sunday, I went to 

 church. I returned to find that five or six 

 swarms had come out and returned, nearly 

 all the bees going into two or more of the 

 hives. One swarm had come out so often I 

 had caged the queen. The queen died, and 

 the swarm came out without any queen. 

 Entirely disgusted with the bees, the next 

 morning I shook them on two combs. Now, 

 these combs were perfectly free from dis- 

 ease, as they had been hanging in the top of 

 the woodshed by wires for over a year. 

 These were combs the bees had died on dur- 

 ing the severe winter of 1903 The bees had 

 shown no disease whatever the fall of that 

 winter. Combs were clean, and Iree from 

 honey. This was about six days after the 

 bees had been shaken th' first time. The 

 combs that the bees had built since I fed 

 them were melted, and this stopped the 

 swarming fever. A few days afterward I 

 noticed in front of one hive a drop of rotten 

 matter, like that in the combs. Where it 

 came from I can not say unless from the bees. 

 Did this matter, as large as two peas, contain 

 disease-germs? In a few more days I looked 

 at the brood and found six diseased cells in 

 four colonies. As the honey-flow came on 

 at this time, the diseased cells all disappear- 

 ed, and the bees built up rapidly; but during 

 the drouth between clover and buckwheat 

 the disease appeared again. Over half of 

 the colonies showed disease. 1 gave up all 

 hopes of getting rid of the disease by snak- 

 ing. 



I looked over my back numbers of Glean- 

 ings, and read in two instances of what was 

 supposed to be pickled brood being cured 

 by Italianizing. Like a drowning man grasp- 

 ing at the last straw, I immediately ordered 

 fifteen Italian queens. The buckwhat flow 

 came on, and the colonies all improved ex- 

 cept six, which remained rotten with the dis- 

 ease, all through the fall flow, and had to be 

 united when fall came. Two of these I sul- 

 phured. The following spring told the story. 

 The fifteen colonies headed by Italian queens 

 remained healthy, showing only a few dis- 

 eased cells. The other colonies, scattered 

 here and there among the Italians, were 

 nearly all badly affected with the disease the 

 same as the previous spring. This settled 

 the question with me. I Itahanizedmy bees, 



