March, igio. 



American Hee Journal 



Sale of Bulk Comb Compared 

 With Section Comb Honey 



BV L. R. DOCKERY. 



My experience in the production of 

 junk, chunk, canned or bulk comb honey 

 covers a period of the last 3 of ii years 

 which I have devoted to bee-keeping. 

 From this experience, I, like most others 

 who have marketed this kind of honey, 

 learn that it pays best. The task of put- 

 ting up bulk-comb honey is a very dis- 

 agreeable one. It is a task I look for- 

 ward to as drudgery, and look back on 

 with relief. Also the method most gen- 

 erally used in packing is another dis- 

 agreeable feature, and it seems that a 

 more attractive method should be the 

 rule. 



I am making a specialty of bee-keep- 

 ing, hovifever, and have gained my liveli- 

 hood in this way for the past several 

 3'ears, and expect to continue to do so 

 in the years to come. However, in all 

 vocations, as well as all lives, we have 

 the thorns as well as the roses, and a 

 great success is always attended with 

 obstacles almost innumerable. 



In the year 1907, I bought 200 colon- 

 ies of bees at Socorro, N. M., which 

 were in a miscellaneous lot of hives. 

 Standard hives and supers were ordered 

 in which to transfer them, but owing to 

 the delay in delivering the goods, the 

 honey-flow had been on some time before 

 transferring was begun, and during this 

 time the stronger colonies were build- 

 ing up rapidly. It was plainly apparent 

 that they would be able to store a sur- 

 plus, if the room was provided, and for 

 this reason, the supers belongin.g to the 

 original lot, which were not provided 

 with frames, were put on, and the combs 

 were built to the cover. This was done 

 with the idea in mind that the honey 

 thus secured could be sold as "strained," 

 and the wax sold separately. 



Out of this lot of hives something like 

 2,000 pounds of bulk comb-honey was ob- 

 tained. After being cut out, this honey 

 showed such fine color, and looked so 

 well, that I decided to sell the whole lot 

 as bulk-comb instead of "strained." But 

 as all readers of the bee-papers know. 

 New Mexico is a country where section 

 comb-honey is produced almost exclus- 

 ively, and the offering of this for sale 

 seemed rather an uncertain undertaking. 

 I was expecting to make a cross-country 

 trip, however, and decided to take 

 samples of this honey with me. This I 

 did, and met with immediate success, 

 for every merchant approached gave me 

 his order, and almost all of them mailed 

 second and third orders for this kind 

 of honey. These orders continued to 

 come in long after the 2,000 pounds had 

 been disposed of. Some of the mer- 

 chants that had sent in orders and failed 

 to get them filled, asked for quotations 

 when the next season opened. This I 

 did, stating that I had no bulk-comb 

 honey but could fdl their orders with 

 section comb; but strange as it may 

 seem, not one order did I receive ! 



There was a slight difference in the 

 price of the bulk comb and the section 

 comb honey, on account of the fact that 

 the section is a more expensive way of 

 producing it. Until this time I did not 



realize that the ready sale for the bulk 

 comb honey was accounted for by reas- 

 on of its being put up this way, and I do 

 not think the slight difference made in 

 the price of the two kinds had anything 

 to do with the slow sale of the section 

 comb honey. I have seen many people, 

 who, on seeing a section of comb honey 

 the first time, declared it to be artificial, 

 while no one seeing the comb in bulk 

 will be suspicious of its purity. This 

 may be one reason for the popularity of 

 the bulk comb as compared with the sec- 

 tion honey. 



At the close of 1908, I sold out in New 

 Mexico, and came to Texas. The man 

 who purchased my interests there tells 

 me, in a recent communication, that on 

 account of the bungling work of an in- 

 experienced bee-keeper .in putting in 

 foundation in frames, about 2,000 

 pounds of honey had to be sold as bulk 

 comb, and that he found a very ready 

 sale for it. Encouraged by this, he ex- 

 pects to abandon the use of sections, and 

 devote all his time to the production of 

 bulk-comb honey. 



With these seeming successes of the 

 sale of bulk-comb honey in a country 

 where section comb is the rule, I am led 

 to believe, that anywhere it is produced 

 and offered for sale, a like success 

 would be realized. 



Goliad, Tex. 



Black or European Foul Brood 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



It is with interest that I always read 

 anything from the pen of Dr. C. C. Mil- 

 ler, but it was more than usual interest 

 that held me while I read what he had 

 to say on pages 394-5 of the December 

 number of the American Bee Journal 

 for 1909, regarding his experience with 

 "European Foul Brood." The w-ay he 

 spread the disease by changing frames, 

 took me back to the year 1872, when, 

 during January of that year, I purchased 

 some empty combs of a man whose bees 

 had died over "the brimstone pit" the 

 fall before, because he thought the col- 

 onies too weak in bees to winter. I no- 

 ticed a few cells of capped brood scat- 

 tered here and there in some of the 

 combs, but then being a novice in bee- 

 keeping, and not having known or heard 

 anything of American foul brood, I fit- 

 ted these combs into frames, and so dur- 

 ing the summer, like Dr. Aliller, "did my 

 level best" to scatter and spread it 

 throughout the whole apiary, by setting 

 in those frames filled with combs one or 

 two in different hives throughout the 

 bee-yard. Before I got through with 

 the job of curing a whole apiary during 

 that fall and the next year, I became 

 fully aware of what American foul 

 brood is; and from the fall of 1873 to 

 the present time I have not had a single 

 cell containing that dreaded disease in 

 either of my apiaries. 



Time went on and as the year 1900 

 drew on apace I heard of a disease 

 called "Black Brood" as being in the 

 eastern part of tliis State, but from real, 

 practical experience I knew notliing of 

 what it was till about four years ago. 

 However, away back in the latter eight- 

 ies I ran across some brood in one of my 



hives that set me to trembling lest I had 

 a case of the old trouble, yet it was not 

 the old disease of 1872-3. I shut the 

 hive and let the colony entirely alone for 

 4 weeks, as the colony was strong 

 enough to defend itself from robber- 

 bees. At the end of that time, just at 

 night, I again opened this hive, and 

 found no trace of anything wrong, the 

 same as Dr. Miller tells of his No. 13. 



For a whole year I kept everything 

 about that colony separate from any- 

 thing else in the apiary, for fear of some | 

 contagion, but as nothing more was seen 

 of it this colony was used with the rest 

 for any and all purposes. Time passed, 

 and in the latter nineties I found one 

 day, about the first of June, two colonies 

 which had the same thing, only to a still 

 worse extent. These colonies were closed 

 for a month, the same as the one was 

 ten years before, and on opening again, 

 not a single cell was found that showed 

 aught but perfect brood. Having the 

 experience of the other before me, I 

 paid no further attention to the matter. 

 About two weeks later foul brood in- 

 spectors Stevens and Stewart, of this 

 State, called on me, and examined sev- 

 eral of my colonies. I took them pur- 

 posely to these two colonies, although T 

 told them nothing regarding what I 

 knew of their past, only requesting them 

 to be very particular in their examina- 

 tion, because if there was any disease 

 amongst my bees I desired to know it. 



They both pronounced all the colon- 

 ies they had looked at as perfect, and on 

 their going away, I asked them to de- 

 scribe black brood for me. As soon as 

 they did this I knew that those two col- 

 onies, had (the first of June) what was 

 known as black brood, and so I kept all 

 that belonged to them separate for two 

 years. At the end of two years, as noth- 

 ing further came of the matter, I paid 

 no more attention to these two hives, es- 

 pecially, as they, like Dr. Miller's No. 13, 

 gave about the best results of any of my 

 colonies. 



Four years ago last spring, my part- 

 ner, Mr. Clark, established a small out- 

 apiary near the one I had, and, when 

 winter approached, he put 11 of his col- 

 onies in the farmer's cellar with my 30, 

 and moved 9 of his 20 colonies near a 

 piece of woodland, where we had de- 

 cided to locate all of the out-apiary bees 

 the next spring. In this cellar, with our 

 41 colonies of bees, was stored about 5 

 tons of cabbage, which, owing to low 

 prices, were allowed to remain all the 

 time the bees were in the cellar, and 

 when the bees were taken out, the stench 

 from the cabbage was anything but 

 pleasant to our nostrils, although the 

 bees had apparently wintered perfectly. j 

 The latter part of May every one of ' 

 Mr. Clark's 11 colonies wintered in this 

 cellar, and 19 of out of my 30, had 

 black brood, some of them being so bad 

 that fully half of the brood was dead in 

 the cells, while not one of the 9 colonies 

 wintered outside showed any signs of 

 the disease, nor did they that summer. 

 At the time, we thought the cabbage 

 had much to do with the matter, but 

 at "this distance" I think it very doubtful. 



Mr. Clark shook all of his diseased 

 colonics on foundation, the same as Dr. 

 Miller tells of doing, and as far as was 

 seen that year, all thus shaken were 



