Fkreuary, 1918 



G li E A N T N O S IN BEE C U I- T U R E 



87 



FROM THE FIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



weak colonies and given to healthy blacks 

 and no sign of the distressful disease ap- 

 peared afterward. This proved to us that 

 the queens were not to blame. 



All things considered, I believe the whole 

 trouble points to the theory of infected food, 

 as the great losses were as rapid as poison- 

 ing, and so severe was the disease that so 

 far as I could discover, no cure of a single 

 bee was brought about after the bee once 

 was stricken. 



The remedy I suggest is feeding — not 

 medicated dope, but a good generous feed- 

 ing of thick syrup. Just how the bees may be 

 fed and how the young and hatching bees may 

 be made to eat this syrup in preference to 

 the thin neetar, will depend somewhat on 

 man 's ingenuity. 



In closing I want to add that the spring 

 of 1917 started much later than usual and 

 cold rains were frequent during apple-blos- 

 soming time — so much so that we all looked 

 for a reappearance of the trouble, but it did 

 not materialize. 



Portland, Ore. E. J. LADD. 



A LOT OF HONEY FROM A LITTLE 

 LOT 



For 17 years I have been keeping bees and 

 taking Gleanings. Last fall I wintered 44 

 eight-frame colonies in my cellar. On Apr. 

 10, I moved them out and found all, except 

 a queenless one, alive and in fine condition. 

 Tho all the beekeepers around here use 

 eight-frame hives, I have been thinking for 

 vears that these hives are too small. So last 



spring. I bought all 10-frame hives, and 

 fitted my frames with full sheetsi of founda- 

 tion. The first of May I transferred 20 colo- 

 nies to the new hives. 



This season I received 4,068 sections of 

 honey from the 43 colonies, spring count. 

 All but 200 of these sections were white 

 clover and all sold at 20 cents each. One 

 colony alone produced 324 sections of No. 1 

 honey. In addition to this surplus, I also 

 obtained an increase of 48 colonies. A light 

 fall flow gave us no surplus, but left a nice 

 lot of stores in the brood-frames. Next year 

 I intend to run half for extracted and half 

 for comb honey. 



As I have only a small lot, with my house 

 in front and the railroad at the back, it is 

 necessary to place my hives very close to 

 each other. Over each hive I have a metal- 

 top cover with an inside one which I use 

 for a Porter bee-escape board. Since using 

 these hives, T will not buy any other kind. 

 Several of the 10-frame colonies did not 

 swarm at all, and those that did swarmed 

 only once. 



The bees for 25 miles around me are all 

 blacks, so every year I buy 10 new queens, 

 hojjing some day to run those German bees 

 out, but up to the present I have never got 

 any further than putting a band now and 

 then on a few of the bees. An old friend of 

 mine, who has 12 colonies, harvested only 

 about 100 pounds frotn all 12. He said the 

 reason for his short crop was that my bees 

 took all the honey. I try to tell him what 

 to do and he gives me this old saying: " I 

 kept bees, my boy, before you were born. ' ' 

 But in spite of his reluctance to accepting 



W, W. 3outilier's back yard apiary that pays bi^ 



