854 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 



sometimes hold together to be picked out in a 

 chunk, with a dissecting instrument. The con- 

 tagious type is more firm than the other; and if a 

 quantity is put into a cultivating-glass, and soaked 

 up, it will grow into a thick leathery mold at about 

 80°. The other seems to be a dust. The contagious 

 type is the longest iu its transformations, and in 

 many cases the larvtt are capped, but the pupte 

 never develop. They never have with me, and I 

 have one case of it now, if it has not been found by 

 other parties and destroyed, though I think there 

 is no possibility for that. 



I think that thorough investigation will show as 

 many as six describable diseases of the brood, and 

 that the most virulent type will yet be more man- 

 ageable than a sitting hen, and less to be dreaded 

 than either the lead-colored or red-lice-like insects 

 that I have tried for three years to bottle for Prof. 

 Cook, but [ can not succeed, though I find plenty of 

 them. Who else has seen the •' varmints " ? 



South Kent, Ct., Dec. il, 1885. H. L. Jeffrey. 



Friend J., if there are really six different 

 kinds of diseases of the brood, I sincerely 

 trust that the most of them are not very 

 common. I do hope that foul brood may be- 

 come as "■ manageable as a sitting hen," but 

 I confess to a good deal of anxiety on the 

 subject. I have recently learned from dif- 

 ferent sources that foul brood is raging bad- 

 ly in the vicinity of Toledo, O., and that 

 large honey -producers are selling the honey 

 from foul-broody colonies, to be scattered 

 here and there. Now, then, friends, this is 

 indeed a serious matter. If a single package 

 of that honey should be thrown out in the 

 yard, after the contents have been tised for 

 food, and bees from anywhere get access to 

 it, foul brood will be "introduced, and I do 

 not know why we should not soon have it 

 everywhere. From your description, I do 

 not see why you should say the disease you 

 have is not foid brood. Is it not near 

 enough like it so it will come under most of 

 the rules to be observed in ordinary foul 

 brood'!' 



ABSORBENTS IN WINTEK. 



SHIPPlNG-CU-iTES. 



@N page 824, Mr. Robbins solicits some "reasons 

 for the faith that is in me " regarding the 

 above subject. On these pages he correctly 

 quotes one of my statements regarding my 

 opinion of the value of absorbents. Without 

 consuming space in detailing the many examples 

 that have forced me to regard moisture, of itself, 

 not unfavorable to the health of our bees during 

 winter confinement, I will say that numerous have 

 been the cases coming under my observation, both 

 in outdoor and cellar wintering, that force me to 

 such conclusions. 



The great factor for consideration, 1 believe to be 

 temperature; and danger comes from the falling of 

 the same. Humidity demands a higher tempera- 

 ture, which, if supplied, renders it harmless, its 

 only ill efl'eets being secondary, at the most. Prof. 

 Cook's allusions to this question in his Bulletin 

 No. 8, are statements that accord with my observa- 

 tions and experiments. 



The best report of outdoor, or, 1 might almost 

 say, of any kind of wintering during the past se- 



vere winter, we receive from Drs. Southard and 

 Ranny, of Kalamazoo, Mich. Their apiary of over 

 100 colonies was all outdoors, all packed with chaff, 

 not extraordinarily thick, all with covers tightly 

 glued on the hives, and suffered no loss. If Bro. 

 Robbins could hear these clear, practical apiarists 

 detail their continued experiments with absorbents 

 I'S. no absorbents, stating results, he would see just 

 why they have discarded all of their costly 

 cushions. 



I trust that the readers of Gleanings have not 

 forgotten that Mr. R. I. Barber and many others of 

 our most successful " winterers " consider moisture 

 either no detriment or a benefit. The reason why I 

 said I believed upper absorbents were ofttimes 

 "worse than useless," was because their adjust- 

 ment is usually, or always, such as allows of 

 greater radiation of heat than takes place where 

 the packing is placed directly upon the tightly 

 sealed board cover, and the consequent lowering of 

 temperature is dangerous. 



HUTCHINSON S SIX-CENT SH IPPING-CR.\TE TO HOED 

 U SEVEN-T()-THE-FO()T SECTIONS. 



1 am pleased to note that Bro. Hutchinson can 

 and will sell our shipping-crates at so low a price 

 as 6 cents each. Here they cost more than that, 

 and we are obliged to ask 10 cents each for them in 

 any quantity. Even at that 7)rice we did not oare 

 to, and did not, supply them last season. In one 

 sense you are quite correct in saying they are noth- 

 ing particularly new. I have used them some five 

 or six years, and will tell you how much I devised 

 their construction. The first section-crate I ever 

 saw came from New York and from Bro. Doolittle, 

 if I mistake not. The glass ran the long (wrong) 

 way of the crate. This glass was necessarily nearly 

 as wide as the crate was high, and was held in place 

 by sliding into grooves cut into the corners of the 

 solid end-pieces. This crate held 13 two-pound 

 sections. The two lights of glass cost more than 

 Bro. H. charges for our little crate. This crate had 

 to be handled wrong way to you, or have hand-holds 

 cut in its solid ends. The latter course was chosen. 

 The first change I made was to cut the notches for 

 the glass in the side cleats, rather than the solid 

 ends, and the need for only one-half as much 

 glass was the result. I next applied the same 

 principle to a two-story crate for V.^ sections, and 

 this crate was illustrated in the A. B. J. early in 

 1878. In all these crates the combs ran the long 

 way. When 1 began to confine the widths of my 

 sections to a certain number to the foot, I saw that 

 if I made a crate just a i)lump foot long, making 

 the Sides solid and the ends cloated for the glass, 

 such a crate would embrace the following advan- 

 tages : 



1. It would hold just two of the four tiers held In 

 our storing-case, and take them just as they came 

 from the cases, if desired. 



'Z. It would take three sizes of 1-lb. and two sizes 

 of [o-lb. sections, fitting all perfectly. 



3. While it shows the honey sufficiently to in- 

 sure due respect from the carriers and satisfy the 

 buyer, its construction is such as to cut the cost for 

 glass down to a minimum. 



