202 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



June 



ture. So important did the Russians 

 consider the bees that when Count 

 Etholin, in 1819, reported on the condi- 

 tion of the colony to St. Petersburg, he 

 mentioned that in the course, a study 

 of the colonial school apiculture was 

 given a prominent place. 



The Russians in seeking an outlet for 

 their produce, skirted the west coast of 

 America as far south as California, 

 where they traded fur, bells, iron work 

 and oil for wheat. Jt is a notable fact 

 that notwithstanding the stories of the 

 keepers of the old Spanish Missions as 

 to the origin of their wonderful chimes, 

 the most of the bells bear the double 

 headed eagle of the Russian-American 

 Fur Company, and were cast at Sitka. 



In order to carry on this trade, Fort 

 Ross was established in 1811 by the 

 Russians about 200 miles north of San 

 Francisco. Here bees were brought 

 from Sitka, so that in California today 

 may be found the descendants of bees 

 from Russia, Mexico, and Spain, to- 

 gether with the modern importations. 



It is a fact of interest that the Rus- 

 sians sold their domain in California 

 in 1841 to Thomas A. Sutter. He gave 

 a promissory note for $30,000 for the 

 land claimed, the town, the fort, the 

 right to rule and acknowledgement of 

 his government, for he intended to rule 

 as a dictator. Sutter today is known 

 only as the discoverer of gold, and the 

 Russian-American Fur Company still 

 holds the unpaid note. 



Albany, Mo. 



Guide Marks for Returning 

 Bees 



BY FRANK F. ROJINA. 



IN the article on " House Apiaries " 

 in the March number, Mr. Pellett 

 does not mention the most serious 

 defect on all bee houses mentioned 

 therein, the lack of proper identifica- 

 tion marks to prevent mixing the bees 

 and loss of queens. 



In Carniola, bees have been kept in 

 our family (Roj-ina in the Slavic lan- 

 guage means "Swarm-man") in house 

 apiaries for several hundred years, and 

 we have gone through all these experi- 

 ences. 



We solve this difficulty by carving 

 pictures in green, red, blue, yellow, etc. 

 Some of these fronts are quite artistic, 

 representing scriptural and national 

 folklore legends. I often watched re- 

 turning bees, at times marking them on 

 the thorax with paint and found that 

 they always landed on their return 

 home on the identical spot which im- 

 pressed itself on them on their first 

 bee-play flight. This mark was the hand, 

 or the head of some carved figure or a 

 spot of paint, sometimes several inches 

 away from the entrance. 



On coming home the bee always 

 landed on this spot, whence it quickly 

 marched down to the entrance. In 

 American bee houses we fail to provide 

 such guiding marks for returning bees, 

 hence our losses. 



In Carniola we are never bothered 

 with the mixing of bees or loss of 

 queens. 

 University Farm, St. Paul, Minn. 



[If our readers will turn to the front 

 page of the cover of this number, they 

 will npti?e that the hives in the Kanar' 



off apiary are painted in the manner 

 described by our youthful correspon- 

 dent, Mr. Rojina. So this method of 

 marking the hive front with distin- 

 guishing designs is followed in Cau- 

 casus as well as in Carniola, and prob- 

 ably in many places where bee owners 

 arc supposed to know very little about 

 the requirements of beekeeping. There 

 is some doubt in our mind as to 

 whether these marks are sufficient to 

 prevent entirely the mixing of bees in 

 hives so closely located. But it must 

 certainly help. 



We offer these suggestions to owners 



of house-apiaries.] 



-^♦^ 



No. 5.— Seventy Years of Bee- 

 keeping 



THE later improvements and dis- 

 coveries in beekeeping have been 

 less marked than those mentioned 



previously. Many things which we 

 think we discover are but repetitions 

 of former deeds. It is true that, 

 within the past few years, foulbrood 

 has been better described and better 

 treated. Cheshire and Cheyne, both 

 English, first discovered a bacillus 

 which they named "bacillus alvei" 

 (188S). But our own Dr. White, of 

 Washington, D . C, determined a 

 more precise discovery in "bacillus 

 larvae (1903), with which he could 

 reproduce what is now called "Ameri- 

 can foulbrood." Later he has de- 

 scribed another form which he called 

 "bacillus pluton," which he believes 

 to be the cause of "European foul- 

 brood." But if we look back nearly 

 SO years, we find, in the third volume 

 of the American Bee Journal, Feb- 

 ruary, 1868, a translation from the 

 Bienenzeitung, in which Dzierzon de- 

 scribes the symptoms of these dis- 

 eases very accurately, though he had 

 no knowledge of the bacilli. His 

 methods of cure are also very similar 

 to those in present use. But even 

 Dzierzon was not the first to use 

 "fasting" to free the bees of the 

 germs of the so-called American foul- 

 brood. In 1761, Schirach used the 

 starvation method. We have already 

 mentioned this in our May issue. 



We may, however, take pride in the 

 regulations which are becoming an- 

 nually more universal, brought about 

 by inspection laws and quarantine. 

 Within a few years, brood diseases 

 will be well under control, not only 

 in the United States but throughout 

 the civilized world. In this country 

 and Canada, four men may be cred- 

 ited with the early work in this line. 

 They are D. A. Jones and Wm. Mc- 

 Evoy, already mentioned, both Cana- 

 dians; N. E. France, of Wisconsin, 

 whose father, Edwin France, was a 

 noted beekeeper as early as 1879, and 

 E. W. Alexander, of New York State. 

 .\ few months ago Dr. White again 

 distinguished himself by a descrip- 

 tion of a minor disease of similar na- 

 ture under the name of "sacbrood." 

 Diseases of the adult bee, May dis- 

 ease, paralysis, Isle-of-Wight dis- 

 ease, Still belong to the unknown, as 



far as cure and exact knowledge of 

 causes are concerned. 



However, at a comparatively mod- 

 ern date, 1909, Dr. Zander, of Bavaria, 

 discovered a parasite of the stomach 

 of the bee, which is suspected of be- 

 ing the cause of some of these dis- 

 eases. It is also called "microspori- 

 diosis." As early as 1857 and 1858, 

 spores which were probably the 

 germs of Nosema were observed by 

 Donhoff, Leuckart and Higgins (See 

 Graham-Smith's report on Isle-of- 

 Wight disease). The exact diagnosis 

 and cure of the adult bee diseases be- 

 long to "tomorrow." 



There remains for us only to re- 

 view briefly the literature of the 

 modern bee world. This must neces- 

 sarily cover only the United States, 

 for if we were to try and give a list 

 of the modern foreign and Canadian 

 works and journals on apiarian 

 science of the past 40 years, the 

 enumeration would become tedious. 

 We will make an exception only by 

 mentioning the most important: 



Cowan, Cheshire, Bertrand, DeLay- 

 ens, all but the last published since 

 1883. Cowan and Bertrand have had 

 the honor of seven or eight transla- 

 tions each, in difl^erent languages. 



In our own country, the revision of 

 the "Hive and Honey Bee" was en- 

 trusted by Mr. Langstroth to Charles 

 Dadant and the writer, Mr. Lang- 

 stroth's health being too poor for a 

 revision of this "classic." The work 

 of revision, begun in 1885, was com- 

 pleted only in 1888. Translations 

 were made into French, Russian and 

 Spanish. Meanwhile, the work of A 

 I. Root, the A B C of Bee Culture, 

 has been enlarged and entitled "The 

 ABC and X Y Z." It is the largest 

 book and has had more editions than 

 any other book on bees ever pub- 

 lished. It is a very complete encyclo- 

 pedia and really not an A B C, which 

 would indicate an elementary work. 

 It has also been translated into 

 French, Spanish and German. 

 _^ In 1886 Dr. C. C. Miller published 

 "A Year Among the Bees,", later re- 

 published (1902) with additions as 

 "Forty Years Among the Bees," and 

 recently (1911) as "Fifty Years Among 

 the Bees." Its experience is indi- 

 cated by its title. Few men have had 

 as thorough practice as Dr. Miller. 



Quinb}''s "New Bee Keeping," Al- 

 ley's "Handy Book," Cook's "Manual" 

 have already been mentioned, as well 

 as Hutchinson's "Advanced Bee Cul- 

 ture," and Doolittle's "Scientific 

 Queen-Rearing." 



W'e could not here mention all the 

 pamphlets, State Reports and Bulle- 

 tins of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, treating of bees, published since 

 1883, one of the early ones of which 

 was Benton's "The Honey-Bee," 1899. 

 We cannot fail to name, however, 

 some of the different studies by E. F. 

 Phillips, in charge of bee culture at 

 the Bureau of Entomology at Wash- 

 ington, "The Treatment of Bee Dis- 

 eases," "The Temperature of the 

 Honey Cluster in W'int,'-," by himself 

 and Geo. Demuth ; "Bees," "Outdoor 

 Wintering," also some of the works 

 of his associates, "White's Bacteria 

 of the Apiary," "Snograss' Anatomy 



