1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



145 



to take care of the rest of the brood if it were 

 tiered up. 



I intended to shake again on to founda- 

 tion, giving a queen at the opening of the 

 buckwheat season. This I did, but there 

 were too many combs from the six hives to 

 put over one hive; and as it was nearly dark, 

 and as there were the two other hives which 

 I had not shaken, the queens of which were 

 old and not laying, I decided to give a part 

 of the combs to these two hives, and, after 

 the buckwheat flow was over, to kill the 

 bees, extract the honey, melt up the combs, 

 etc. I used the hive illustrated in ''Quin- 

 by's New Bee-keeping," called the new 

 Quinby hive. It has 16 closed-end frames. 

 In each of these two hives I filled the lower 

 part and then put 16 more frames on top, 

 making 32 in all. I did not open these colo- 

 nies until the season was over, and all the 

 colonies were nearly out of brood; and then 

 I found plenty of honey in the hives, and in 

 each were fine young queens. After some 

 consideration I decided not to destroy the 

 colonies, but to pack them for winter. They 

 wintered well, and were the first to swarm 

 the following season, and they did not show 

 a sign of disease, nor have they done so 

 since. 



Unconsciously in the above I had done 

 what Mr. Alexander had advised; that is, 

 had made the colonies strong. The natural 

 instinct of the bees to supersede a failing 

 queen caused them to take advantage of the 

 condition, and do it at the time, malcing the 

 cure complete. 



Cooperstown, N. Y. 



EUROPEAN FOUL BROOD. 



Golden Italians More Immune to it Than 

 the Leather-colored Strains. 



BY EDGAR WILLIAMS. 



I have read with interest Dr. Miller's ac- 

 count of his experience with foul brood. 

 He said the disease was very mild, most of 

 the cases showing only a few diseased cells. 

 If the colonies had been badly affected I do 

 not believe he would have been as success- 

 ful. 



A few years ago I had thirty colonies, all 

 badly diseased; in most of them over half 

 the brood was affected, and in some of them 

 there was very little healthy brood. I gave 

 all the colonies the McEvoy treatment, and 

 a few days afterward noticed a quantity of 

 matter as large as a bean in front of one of 

 the entrances. Whether this was diseased 

 I can not say; but anyway a good many of 

 the colonies showed signs of trouble shortly 

 after the treatment was given, and by fall all 

 were slightly affected, a few of them being 

 simply rotten with it. The following spring 

 all were badly diseased again. I sent a sam- 

 ple of the brood to Washington, and it was 

 pronounced European foul brood. I tried 

 nearly all the remedies then known — drugs, 

 etc., but nothing gave any help. 



I had heard of the Italians being able to 



resist disease, so I sent for a dozen queens. 

 The following spring he colonies to which 

 I had introduced these queens were healthy, 

 although there were diseased colonies all 

 around them. Since then, with the pure It- 

 alians I have had scarcely any trouble. Some 

 of the leather colored strains showed the 

 disease quite badly. The goldens are the 

 ones that resist the trouble best, very few of 

 them showing any bad symptoms; and when 

 they do there are never many cells affected, 

 and these are always cleaned up when the 

 honev-flow opens. 



In the spring, during the breeding months 

 I look over each colony every week or ten 

 days; and if a few cells of disease are found, 

 that colony is marked; and at the next week's 

 examination, if the trouble is still growing I 

 kill the queen at once. Then in about ten 

 days I give a cell from my select golden 

 stock and the job is done. If the queen is 

 purely mated, such colony is cured; but if 

 she is mated with a black or hybrid drone I 

 generally have my work to do over another 

 year. I have had extra good hybrids, nearly 

 all yellow, that showed the disease as badly 

 as the blacks. It is necessary for the colo- 

 nies to be pure. As my bees are now near- 

 ly all immune to the disease I handle them 

 just as if there were none among them. I 

 once took some combs, nearly half of the 

 brood in which was affected, and gave them 

 to a colony of goldens. In two or three 

 weeks' time these combs were healthy. 

 One fall I had four or five colonies that were 

 so weak with the disease that I knew they 

 would not winter. I sulphured them, and 

 the next spring hived golden swarms on 

 the combs, and the bees remained perfectly 

 healthy. 



TWO QUESTIONS. 



If cappings are rendered in the solar wax- 

 extractor, is the flavor of the honey injured 

 so much that it would be unsalable? The 

 temperature of my bee cellar this winter has 

 not been above 40 much of the time, and it 

 has been down to freezing once or twice, the 

 general average being about 38 degrees. 

 The bees seem to be wintering well, f have 

 had a fire in the cellar occasionally. Would 

 it do any harm to start the fire with kerosene 

 if 1 used wood afterward? There is some 

 smell from the burning oil at first. 



Pierpont, Ohio. 



[Most authorities would consider it very 

 risky to exchange combs promiscuously in a 

 yard where European foul brood existed; 

 but more than one bee-keeper has reported 

 doing this very thing with no apparent bad 

 results, provided the apiary is stocked with 

 golden Italians. Who else can add testimony 

 on this question? 



The honey from a solar wax-extractor, un- 

 less great care is used, is quite likely to be 

 injured. Most producers drain as much of 

 the honey out of the cappings as possible 

 before putting them into the solar extractor, 

 and in this way the loss is not very great. 



We do not believe that there would be 

 any danger of losing bees if kerosene is 



