American Hee Journal 



March, 1916. 



tant treasurer. When about 75 years 

 old I became a chairman of Commit- 

 tees on Young People's Work in Free- 

 port Presbytery (consisting of nearly 

 30 churches), having to do with Sun- 

 day-schools and Young People's socie- 

 ties. I resigned several years ago, but 

 the resignation was not accepted, and 

 notwithstanding the incongruity of a 

 man of 84 in that position I am still 

 there. For several years I was chair- 

 man of the Synodical Committee, hav- 

 ing care of reports from all Illinois. 



Interest in fruits and flowers has 

 brightened my whole life. The 37% 

 acres we now occupy I bought as a 

 place for a fruit farm, and acres of it 

 were set in apples, cherries, pears, 

 raspberries, and strawberries. I was 

 the first secretary of the Northern 

 Illinois Horticultural Society, and one 

 year president. Roses have been for 

 years a specialty, and in 1915 there are 

 more than 150 plants, most of them the 

 choicest remontants or hybrid perpet- 

 uals. In 1913 I became aware of the 

 great strides made in the improvement 

 of the gladiolus, and in 1915 have 

 more than a thousand gladioli grow- 

 ing. I am trying to keep down the 

 numbers, preferring a smaller number 

 of the choicer kinds, although as yet I 

 have paid no more than $2.00 for a 

 single corm, and have only 40 varieties. 



About July 4, 1861, I was in Chicago, 

 and a swarm of bees came flying over 

 our home in Marengo. My wife got 

 the swarm in a sugar barrel, and that 

 started me into being a beekeeper. My 

 first writing about beekeeping soon 

 began, a number of articles over the 

 nom de flume of B. Lunderer being 

 published in the Prairie Farmer. 

 Hardly worth while to say more about 

 my career as a beekeeper, since it has 

 mostly been put in print in the bee- 

 journals and "Fifty Years Among the 

 Bees." The friendship of beekeepers, 

 some of whom I have never seen, has 

 been much to me. I take pride, par- 





&^i/TL 



DR. MILLERS APIARY IN MIDSUMMER 



donable, I hope, in having been one of 

 the many editors of the Standard Dic- 

 tionary, and in having held the record 

 for. the largest yield of section honey 

 from as many as 72 colonies. 



To get a goodly sum of money for a 

 crop of honey is a pleasure. But I 

 don't think that alone would have held 

 me to beekeeping. For every minute I 

 have ever spent thinking of the money 

 I'd get from ray bees, I've spent 20 

 minutes — more likely an hour — in 

 studying over plans and projects for 

 improvement in the management of 

 bees. And at 84 I think I have just as 

 many schemes cooking as I had at 30. 

 Most of them have turned out the 

 wrong way, but enough have succeeded 

 to be of some use. I never made any 

 great invention, never had the slightest 

 thought of inventing a hive, but some 

 little thing here and there, perhaps 

 making some slight change in the 

 plans and implements of others, en- 

 titles me to the credit of some things 



// 



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I may here mention. 



Bottom-board (the reversible bottom- 

 board has been called the Danzenbaker, 

 but I don't know of anything to entitle 

 it to that name); bottom-rack; Miller 

 frame; Miller queen-cage (3 kinds); 

 top ventilator in cover over sections; 

 cork-chips for drinking tubs; founda- 

 tion-splints; Miller feeder; bottom- 

 starters in sections ; newspaper plan of 

 uniting bees; robber-cloth; bee-escape 

 (in robber-cloth) ; short cut in curing 

 European foulbrood; super - filling- 

 board for filling sections in T-super; 

 pounding bees off combs with fist ; pen- 

 dulum plan of shaking bees off comb. 

 s [The end.] 



Immunity 



BY D. E. LHOMMEDIEU. 



IS it the bee-master or the bees that 

 are so-called immune ? I believe 

 anything that prevents the spread 

 of bee-diseases tends toward exemption 

 or immunity. There is no bee-yard 

 anywhere in the United States but may 

 at some time contract either of the 

 foulbrood diseases. The careless bee- 

 keeper should quit the pursuit. But if 

 you are in it for other than the dollar 

 entirely, you need not be afraid of the 

 foulbrood diseases. 



First, next spring when you set your 

 bees out for the summer, don't put 

 them in nice straight rows so they will 

 take a fine picture, don't set them in 

 two and two, or three and three sets, 

 but study the location of each individ- 

 ual hive, study the line of flight to the 

 open, so the bees of one hive do not 

 fly too closely in front of its neighbor, 

 as the hive nearest to the open will 

 get some stray bees, and the farther 

 hive might be the one to contract the 

 disease; as a result you would have 

 two diseased colonies in a little while. 

 Have some special mark, a stick, bush, 

 stone, or anything different from the 

 hives anywhere near by. Give plenty of 

 room where you can ; it pays. 



Second, if you are a careless bee- 

 keeper, you are far from being immune, 

 do not set your bees to robbing, do 

 not let the disease get a start. Lift a 

 brood-comb from the center of the 

 colony next May, in dandelion time, 

 looking carefully for even a diseased 



