156 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Mav 



The Necessity for Increasing 

 the Honey Crop 



BY DR. E. F. PHILLIPS. 



THE present necessity of increas- 

 ing and conserving the food re- 

 sources of the country, advocated 

 by the Secretary of Agriculture in re- 

 cent statements, should be realized by 

 every beekeeper, chiefly from patriotic 

 motives, but also from his own interest. 

 The rapidity with which the unusually 

 large honey crop of last year was sold 

 does not indicate danger from over- 

 production, even in times of peace, and 

 there is every reason to expect that 1917 

 will see a good honey market. 



There need be no fear of overpro- 

 duction in the face of a probable short- 

 age of sugar. On this latter point the 

 Secretary of Agriculture says in his 

 statement of April 7, " Only about 20 

 percent of the supply of sugar normally 

 consumed in the United States is pro- 

 duced domestically, and this amount 

 cannot be increased appreciably during 

 the coming season. Unless normal 

 imports of sugar reach our shores, 

 therefore, a shortage of this food is in- 

 evitable." After mentioning other 

 forms of sugars, the Secretary says: 

 "In many parts of the country honey 

 production may be increased by closer 

 attention to bee-culture." 



Beekeepers should do their utmost 

 this year to increase production, not 

 only by increasing the number of colo- 

 nies in so far as it can be done without 

 decreasing the crop, but especially by 

 giving their bees the best of attention. 

 Those who have their bees in box-hives 

 are being urged, so far as they can be 

 reached, to adopt the modern equip- 

 ment, but this will be valueless unless 

 they at the same time adopt modern 

 practices. Natural swarming should be 

 curbed as much as possible, and in- 

 crease should usually be made by arti- 

 ficial division. The crop may often be 

 materially increased by giving the bees 

 plenty of room for storage, for gather- 

 ing often, ceases when bees are over- 

 crowded. 



In this regard many commercial bee- 

 keepers are not doing their best. Those 

 owning only a few colonies may profit- 

 ably increase the number of their colo- 

 nies, but they should remember that 

 without intelligent care bees will not 

 be profitable, except in rare seasons. 

 The tendency at present is rightly to 

 encourage the professional beekeeper, 

 who knows how to get the most from 

 his bees. The professional beekeeper, 

 and those who wish to enter this class, 

 should at once consider the establish- 

 ment of additional apiaries, care being 

 exercised not to overstock any one 

 locality. To those who have not begun 

 outapiary management, this year promi- 

 ses to be a good time to make the start. 

 Nobody can tell now what the crop 

 of 1917 will be, but the prospects over 

 most of the country seem good. Prices 

 promise to be as high as those obtained 

 for most of the 1916 crop, and possibly 

 higher. Not more than one-tenth of 

 the available nectar in the United 

 States is gathered at any time, so bee- 

 keepers can do a patriotic service and 

 can at the same time bring profit to 

 themselves by saving some of the 

 wasted nectar. 



In order that the beekeeper may ob- 



tain a fair price for his honey and that 

 at the same time the consumer may 

 obtain it at a reasonable price, the bulk 

 of the honey crop should as usual be 

 sold on the home markets. This will 

 do much to prevent a glut on the mar- 

 ket in the fall. Before sending honey 

 to wholesale markets, the beekeeper 

 should get all the information available 

 concerning the crop and should also 

 have definite knowledge of the de- 

 mands of the market. 



The Department of Agriculture, 

 through the Bureau of Crop Estimates, 

 will issue the usual honey crop reports 

 in May, July, September and November. 

 The Office of Markets proposes to 

 make available the data of crop move- 

 ments at intervals during the shipping 

 season. No beekeeper should send 

 honey to wholesale markets before 

 consulting these reports. The Bureau 

 of Entomology will, of course, continue 

 to assist beekeepers with the various 

 problems of production. All of these 

 offices will gladly assist beekeepers in 

 their respective fields. 



The beekeeper's part in the present 

 campaign of food preparedness is first 

 to produce all he possibly can, and sec- 

 ondly, to market it wisely and only after 

 he has full information concerning 

 the markets. Beekeepers will do much 

 toward correcting bad market condi- 

 tions by distributing their sales over a 

 longer period, for honey is no longer a 

 seasonal food, and to dump all the sea- 

 son's crop on the market at once has 

 so far invariably led to lower returns 

 to the producer, but has not corres- 

 pondingly decreased the price to the 

 consumer. When honey is produced 

 in large quantities, the market facilities 

 will doubtless be increased so as to 

 take care of the honey as soon as it is 

 removed from the bees, but at present 

 it is often better for the beekeeper to 

 hold it. 



This brief note will serve to indicate 

 wherein the beekeeper can " do his bit " 

 in this emergency. He should realize 

 that to assist in producing an impor- 

 tant food is a patriotic act. 

 Washington, D. C. 



Burning Hives Affected With 

 Foulbrood 



BY F. DUNDAS TODD. 



SOME months ago I noticed that 

 Dr. Miller thought the wisest way 

 to handle a few cases of Ameri- 

 can foulbrood in his apiary was to 

 wipe out the whole thing, lock, stock, 

 and barrel. If his example is to be 

 followed to any extent by others it may 

 be worth while for me to set down 

 briefly the way I handle such cases, 

 for I fancy I have had about as much 

 experience in burning affected colonies 

 as any man on this continent. I frankly 

 own I made rather a mess of things to 

 begin with, but now I can enter an 

 apiary in the evening when flight has 

 stopped, smother the bees and have 

 three or four hives a glowing mass of 

 cinders in about half an hour. The 

 biggest job I ever tackled was to clean 

 up an apiary of 10 colonies and four 

 bo.x-hives, most of the hives being 

 three stories high. The owner refused 

 to assist in any way whatsoever, so I 

 went at the affair single-handed, and in 



two hours and a half there was nothing 

 left to indicate that an apiary had ever 

 existed, beyond a big mass of glowing 

 embers. 



When I find foulbrood in any apiary 

 and have shown it to the owner, I 

 arrange with him to dig a hole three 

 feet square and at least a foot deep, 

 choosing the spot where there is little 

 likelihood of damage resulting from 

 the heat of the fire. In an ordinary 

 case a matter of 20 feet from the nearest 

 tree is generally enough, but due 

 allowance is made for the direction of 

 the wind. The nearer the hole is to the 

 apiary the better, but I have had in the 

 city to wheel heavy hives along rough 

 alleys to a vacant lot covered with huge 

 stumps and underbrush. 



Then I want him to have on hand at 

 least 30 pieces of first-class stove wood. 

 We need a fire, a real fire, the kind a 

 boy makes for a camp fire without 

 worrying about the cost of fuel. In a 

 beehive there is a most amazing 

 amount of water that must be evapor- 

 ated before combustion can take place. 

 I plan to let nothing escape me, not 

 even one bee, and it rather surprises a 

 novice to see how quickly a roaring 

 fire will dampen down the moment 

 several thousand dead bees are dumped 

 on it. The same is true when the 

 combs are placed on the fire, for in a 

 few minutes the water from the brood 

 and honey will drown it out unless the 

 heat be very great. 



When, therefore, I reach the apiary 

 my first task is to kindle the fire, so 

 arranging the wood that the whole 

 will be a mass of hot coals when I 

 want to use it.. I want the earth in the 

 bottom and sides of the cavity to be 

 very hot, so that all water will be 

 quickly evaporated. 



The fire burning freely I attend to 

 the smoker. In my first adventures I 

 tried the smothering system of our 

 forefathers, digging a hole, starting a 

 small fire and adding sulphur, then 

 straddling the fire with the hive with- 

 out a bottom-board. The first down- 

 pour of bees simply drowned out the 

 fire, and maimed bees were crawling 

 everywhere. Then I turned to the 

 smoker. I had often heard that just a 

 whift' of burning sulphur would almost 

 instantly smother every bee of the col- 

 ony, but I want to assure my readers 

 that is far from being the truth, for 

 even with a powerful blast of sulphur 

 fumes one cannot kill all the bees in 

 less than three minutes. When I have 

 to kill bees I try to do the job as 

 speedily as I know how. A weak col- 

 ony can be wiped out in a minute, but a 

 hive of 20 frames covered with bees is 

 another story, for the instant they fall 

 off the combs they choke the air pas- 

 sages, cover up each other, and so pre- 

 vent the fumes reaching every cranny 

 of the hive. 



It is the first few blasts that count 

 above all things, consequently the prob- 

 lem is to have plenty of burning sulphur 

 in the smoker, burning so freely that it 

 is simply a molten, blazing mass. To 

 attain this, start the smoker with just a 

 little rags and work the bellows until 

 the fire is burning freely, then drop in 

 several small pieces of rock sulphur 

 and get them burning just as well, then 

 add more until you have about a quar- 

 ter of a pound in all. In a little while 

 smoke will cease to issue from the noz- 

 zle, blue flames will be common, and 



