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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Oct. 15 



on the same day as giving the virgin and 

 the bees and brood from the other colony. 



In general I have much faith in this 

 treatment: Make the diseased colony strong 

 by adding brood or youny bees; kill the 

 queen; give a virgin or a queen-cell, and 

 then trust the bees to do the rest. I know 

 that cuts twenty days off the regular Alex- 

 ander treatment, but I believe it will work, 

 because it did work in nearly all — and I 

 think in all — the cases in which it was fair- 

 ly tried. 



Marengo, 111. 



[As the Alexander plan has been spoken 

 of considerably of late it seems pertinent to 

 republish it just as Mr. Alexander gave it 

 to our readers in 1905, after he had cured 

 his entire apiary of 700 colonies withovit so 

 much as destroying a comb, and here it is: 



This cure is on the line of introducing new blood 

 into the apiary, which will necessitate getting a 

 choice Italian breeding-queen, one of the best hon- 

 ey-gathering strains that can be procured. For 

 this special purpose I prefer quite yellow Italians. 

 Now for the cure. 



Go to every diseased colony you have and build 

 it up either by giving frames of maturing brood or 

 uniting two or more until you have them fairly 

 strong. After this, go over every one and remove 

 the queen; then in nine days go over them ?gain, 

 and be sure to destroy every maturing queen-cell, 

 or virgin if any have hatched. Then go to your 

 breeding-queen and take enough of her newly 

 hatched larvse to rear enough queen-cells from to 

 supply each one of your diseased queenless colonies 

 with a ripe queen-cell or virgin just hatclied. These 

 are to be introduced to your diseased colonies on 

 the twentieth day after you have removed their old 

 queen, and not one hour .sooner, for upon this very 

 point your whole success depends; for your young 

 queen must not commence to lay until three or 

 four days after the last of the old brood is hatched, 

 or 27 days from the time you remove the old queen. 

 If' you are very careful about this matter of time 

 between the last of the old brood hatching and the 

 young queen commencing to lay, you will find the 

 bees will clean out their breeding-combs for this 

 young queen so that she will fill them with as fine 

 healthy brood as a hive ever contained. This I 

 have seen in several hundred hives, and have nev- 

 er seen a cell of the disease in a hive after being 

 treated as above described. 



It is not necessary to remove any of the combs or 

 honey from the diseased colony; neither is it neces- 

 sary to disinfect any thing about the hive. Simply 

 remove the old queen, and be sure the young 

 queen does not commence to lay until three or four 

 days after the old brood is all hatched. This treat- 

 ment with young Italian queens is a perfect cure 

 for black or European foul brood. 



In regard to those old queens that were formerly 

 in your old hives, I think it best to kill them when 

 you first take them from their colonies — not that 

 the queen is responsible for the disease, for I am 

 sure she is not; but a young Italian queen that has 

 been reared from a choice honey-gathering strain 

 is worth so much more to you that I can not advise 

 saving these old queens. 



I have experimented along this line considerably, 

 and found, after the colony has been without a 

 queen 27 days, as above directed, it will usually be 

 safe to give them one of these old queens, and the 

 cure will be the same. Still, there have been ex- 

 ceptions, so I advise killing them at once. 



Now a few words about your breeding-queen. Buy 

 one of the very best you can for this purpose; for 

 upon her real merits rests the true value of your 

 apiary hereafter. I would buy a three-comb nucle- 

 us with this valuable queen, so as to run no risk in 

 introducing her to a full colony. 



Api^arently Dr. Miller has been very 

 largely successful, even with his old strain 

 of hybrids; but we presume he would be 

 much more successful if he would eliminate 

 his black blood, which, apparently, he pro- 



poses to do. It would be a great thing if 

 we could save the old combs from colonies 

 affected with European (black) foul brood. 

 At other times we could readily see it would 

 be more profitable to apply the shake-out 

 or what is generally called the McEvoy 

 plan. 



We are beginning to feel (we can't arrive 

 at a positive conclusion yet) that European 

 foul brood in the hands of intelligent bee- 

 keepers who use exclusively Italian blood 

 of vigorous stock need not make very much 

 headway if any at all. If E. W. Alexander 

 originally, and later Mr. S. D. House and 

 Mr. Irving Kenyon, have no trouble from 

 the disease when the neighbors have it all 

 around them, we may reasonably suppose 

 that others can enjov the same immunity 

 providing they introduce Italian blood and 

 follow either the McEvoy or the Alexander 

 treatment according to conditions. Amer- 

 ican foul brood, on the other hand, will 

 continue to have its terrors, even to the up- 

 to-date bee-keeper; for this disease does not, 

 apparently, yield so readily to treatment as 

 the European type. — Ed.] 



ADVERTISING HONEY, 



How to Get it Before the Public in the Most Force- 

 ful Manner, 



BY E. G. HAND. 



That article on advertising honey, page 

 558, Sept. 1, brings up a phase of the honey 

 business that is entirely too much neglect- 

 ed. As one who for ten years has been in 

 the bee-keeping and honey business, and 

 who, during the same time, has been a stu- 

 dent of the science of advertising, I have 

 many times wondered that the advertising 

 of honey has been so almost (in fact, I might 

 safely say practically entirely) neglected. 



Here and there one may see, occasionally, 

 in a local paper, the announcement by a 

 merchant that he has received a consign- 

 ment of honey, and now and then the big 

 city stores mention it casually among their 

 wares; but as for any organized or earnest 

 effort on the part of the honey-producers, 

 either collectively or individually, to bring 

 their product to the attention of the public 

 through the medium of the press, I have 

 yet to see the first instance of it. 



Why is it that the various concoctions 

 masquerading under the name of "corn syr- 

 up " have such an enormous sale? Read 

 the papers and magazines, and you will 

 quickly find out; for you will see their names 

 and illustrations staring you in the face ev- 

 erywhere you turn, while it is rather the ex- 

 ception than the rule to see the word "hon- 

 ey " in print. As a consequence, the average 

 bee-keeper is probably more familiar with 

 the alleged merits of these products and 

 their ilk than he is with the real merits of 

 his own stock in trade. The same may be 

 said of the hundred and one cereal prepara- 

 tions which have invaded the market with- 



