516 



GLEANINGS IN- BEE CULTURE 



Aug. lo 



combs clear down to the bottom-bars just as 

 well with those two-inch entrances as they 

 ever did with the }i entrances. Perhaps 

 they do; but do queens lay as many eggs in 

 all? It seems to me they would be inclined 

 to lay down there, since the bees cluster 

 down there. The question is, "Can the 

 bees take care of as much brood, especially 

 here, where the range of temperature is so 

 great between day and night?" If they can 

 not, they will see to it that the queen does 

 not lay so much; and if she does not lay as 

 well w"ith a large entrance the result will be 

 fewer bees. This seemed to be the case 

 where I gave colonies excessive ventilation. 

 The strongest colony in our home yard to-day 

 is working in three extracting-supersthrough 

 a >i X 3-inch entrance without any ventila- 

 tion above. 



I believe that bees can keep their hives 

 right for brood-rearing and wax-working 

 better with a small entrance than with an 

 entrance as large as ^. I am watching very 

 closely, and I have never seen any evidence 

 that any colony of bees needs more than a 

 H entrance clear across the front of the hive 

 at any time. I thought at one time that a 

 big entrance stopped loafing; but later 1 no- 

 ticed that at least a great many of the loaf- 

 ers loafed just inside. Somebody help me. 

 I can't battle alone with Dr. Miller. I am 

 awfully afraid he will get the best of me, 

 and I am hollering for help. 



Mesilla Park, N. M. 



IS THERE A NEW BEE DISEASE? 



A Puzzling Set of Symptoms Resembling Both 

 Paralysis and Dysentery. 



BY E. F. ROBINSON. 



On page 377, .June 15, I notice Catharine 

 Beattie, describing the peculiar condition 

 of her bees, asks if it is bee paralysis. I have 

 seen four cases of bee disease just like this, 

 and am sure it is either a constit utional weak- 

 ness or an intestinal disease inherited from 

 the queen, and have proved most conclu- 

 sively that it can and must be cured by re- 

 queening. The sulphur treatment is entire- 

 ly wrong, without even a theory to support 

 ii. As the bees do not eat it, its action 

 must be by the fumes formed by the heat 

 of the bees in the hive. Sulphurous fumes 

 act principally on fungoid growth on minute 

 animal life, neither of which is supposed to 

 be present in bee paralysis, as paralysis is 

 understood to be an affection of the nervous 

 system. 



Two of the cases under my notice were 

 with bee-keeping friends in \'ictoria. Not 

 knowing any better remedy I advised trying 

 the sulphur treatment, but both colonies 

 dwindled away and died right out during 

 the winter. My third case was among my 

 own bees in \'ictoria. The queen was pur- 

 chased in the summer of either 1895 or '96 — 

 rather late in the season, I think. The col- 

 ony wintered well; but in the spring the 



trouble developed just as described by Miss 

 Beattie. The bees would crawl out of the 

 hive, and be dragged out by the healthy 

 bees in a listless, sluggisk manner, bodies 

 all swollen up as in dysentery, the wings 

 half extended. The bees would lie on the 

 ground close about the hive. If I attempt- 

 ed to pick one up it would make a feeble 

 movement with its wings, but show no 

 desire to move its body. On opening the 

 hive I found the rabbets under the ends of 

 top-bars full of these swollen, lethargic bees, 

 without strength or desire to move. I found 

 on pressing the bodies that a nasty, foul- 

 smelling, yellow mass would be expelled, 

 but not by the natural outlet, always by a 

 rupture on the bee's right side. 



The question is, "Why should this pecul- 

 iar condition prevail?" Does it not show" 

 that the intestines were blocked by consti- 

 pation? Again, we may ask if the bees were 

 not eating pollen (but there was no reason 

 to, as there was plenty of honey in the hive, 

 and dandelion and fruit bloom in plenty). 

 What produces this viscid mass of yellow 

 substance? Surely not honey — perhaps 

 some disease of the intestines. It could not 

 be what they had gathered, as other colonies 

 were quite healthy. I sent some of these 

 diseased bees to The A. I. Root Co. for ex- 

 planation, as they were from a queen of 

 their raising, and not twelve months old. 

 The suggestion of poison from tree-spraying 

 was offered; but that theory did not hold, as 

 other bees were not affected, and it contin- 

 ued to get worse with the mature bees, but 

 the brood was quite healthy and lasted long 

 — after fruit had all set, well into .July. 



I tried the sulphur, and fed a syrup with 

 formic acid added, but all to no use. As the 

 queen was very prolific, and the bees hand- 

 somely marked, I hesitated to break up the 

 colony. But I smothered the lot, burnt 

 combs of brood, and painted the inside of 

 the hive and bottom-board with strong car- 

 bolic acid. Twenty-eight miles from \Tcto- 

 ria I have my outyard. There is little or no 

 fruit grown there, and I am positive no 

 spraying is practiced, as I have failed to see 

 any fruit-tree pests around. 



In the spring of 1909 an Italian colony 

 showed the trouble just as described abo\ e 

 — the only one out of thirty colonies. I tried 

 the i)ressing of the bees' abdomens as be- 

 fore, witli the same results — bursting from 

 the right side. I had colonies each side of 

 the affected one, six feet apart, but all re- 

 mained healthy. As I was receiving some 

 imported queens in .June I killed the queens 

 in the affected colony and introduced one of 

 my new stock, left the bees, brood, and hon- 

 ey in the affected colony just as it was (and 

 it was very bad) to see what would become 

 of it. It gradually recovered. I never fed 

 or bothered with the colony at all — just let 

 it shift for itself as an experiment. As it 

 had stored very little honey I fed it up for 

 winter in September. It wintered well; and 

 to-day, .June 24, it had eight frames full 

 of beautiful brood, besides six frames in a 

 shallow extracting-super, equal to a total 



