1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



453 



AN EVERY-DAY AFFAIR AT MEDINA. 



weather or temperature night or day during 

 the summer time. Experience also shows 

 that they are better for a temperate cUmate 

 than the Eastern races. On the other hand 

 we find a tendency on the part of bee-keep- 

 ers in our tropical climates to favor the ex- 

 tra-yellow bees, or bees with a sprinkling of 

 Eastern blood. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF A NORINIAI. COMB. 



A further examination of. this comb will 

 show that every capping to each cell of 

 brood is convex. While not so much so as 

 we find in the case of drone brood, yet in 

 every case of normal-worker brood there is a 

 fullness about the cappings that sliows a 

 normal condition. Now let us look for a 

 moment at a comb that has, perhaps, one 

 or two cells of foul brood, or at least that is 

 all we can find. You will discover that 

 many cells are slightly flattened. On look- 

 ing into them we fliad nothing specially 

 wrong. Possibly a little later these same 

 cells will develop real foul brood, either the 

 American or European. 



In a word, there is a sort of something in 

 the appearance of a normal frame of brood 

 that shows that there is no trace of disease 

 in it. An experienced foul-brood inspector, 

 as he glances over a frame of brood, knows 

 whether that colony is probably healthy or 

 has a stray cell of dead matter sometvhere 

 nn one of the combs. It is impossible to de- 

 scribe just the exact difference between a 

 normal frame of brood and one that has a 

 large amount of healthy brood and some 

 brood that is liable to show, later on, infec- 

 tion. 



QUEEN-CELL WORK AT MEDINA. 



The next engraving shows what we see 

 every day in one of our queen-rearing yards 

 where we are raising cells off from the wood- 

 en cell-bases. These cells are raised in ex- 

 tra-powerful colonies; indeed, our cell-build- 

 ers are the ones that give us the most trou- 



ble from swarming. We are obliged to keep 

 them up to the swarming-pitch; and if no 

 honey is coming in they are fed daily a lit- 

 tle. This is absolutely necessary in order 

 to get the larvse in the cells lavishly fed; for 

 it is very important that these baby queens 

 have the very best care and attention in the 

 early stages "of their growth. The average 

 visitor can go through any of our queen- 

 rearing yards, and at almost any time an 

 attendant in charge will pick up, quite at 

 random, out of one of these hives a cell- 

 building bar and find cells built out as nice- 

 ly and evenly as this. Occasionally there 

 will be a miss, but those misses are rather 

 the exception than the rule now. 



THE DISEASE SITUATION IN CALIFORNIA. 



No One Race Immune. 



BY J. T. DUNN. 



The condition of the bees in the San 

 .Toaquin Valley is not as we would like to 

 have it. P'urbpean foul brood has done 

 much damage in some apiaries; three- 

 fourths of the colonies have had the dis- 

 ease; but the actual loss of colonies is very 

 small, as many of them are now in condi- 

 tion for the alfalfa flow, which has just be- 

 gun. Requeening has done much to check 

 this disease in this county, but under cer- 

 tain conditions colonies with young queens 

 develop the disease. 



So far as I have experimented with the 

 disease, race has very little to do with it. 

 I have used all imported queens to breed 

 from, of the following races: Three-band 

 Italians, Caucasians, and Carniolans. If 

 the colonies are strong in young bees, and 

 if virgins are used, I have never had a case 

 develop. On the other hand, if colonies are 

 weak in bees I find it better to unite enough 



