August, 1915. 



269 



American '^ee Journal 



ing Parisian ladies. 



Although our visits to the apiaries 

 of Europe were at an end, we still had 

 occasion to meet beekeepers. Mr. 

 Etienne Giraud. of Le Landreau, who, 

 with his father, wrote a small book 

 describing the Doolittle queen-rearing 

 method, and who made a great success 

 of the artificial cell-cup system as far 

 back as the year 189!), did us the honor 

 to come to Paris, purposely to meet us. 

 We spent a couple of days together 

 and visited several persons of note in 

 the bee world. 



We made a visit to the Pasteur Insti- 

 tute, the greatest bacteriological sta- 

 tion in the world. The reader will re- 

 member that we had been invited to 

 come there, by Dr. Melikoff, whom we 

 met at the Bertrand home, in Switzer- 

 land. He had begun studies of foul- 

 brood, but having no fresh samples 

 from which to work, his experiments 

 were hampered. 



The cultures shown to me under the 

 microscope resembled exactly those 

 of Barbo. made in the seventies. They 

 had not yet isolated the bacilli. The 

 Pasteur Institute has such a variety of 

 subjects on its hands that the study of 

 bee diseases can only be a side issue. 

 Their original work was the study and 

 inoculation of hydrophobia ; from that 

 they have branched to most of the dis- 

 eases of the human race and of the 

 domestic animals. We cannot expect 

 from them as much attention to bee 

 diseases as our own government is giv- 

 ing to this branch of agriculture. Our 

 Dr. White, who has so clearly demon- 

 strated the differences existing between 

 the two foulbroods, American and Eu- 

 ropean, will probably remain the head 

 scientist on bee diseases, for years to 

 come. 



We called upon Mr. .Min Caillas, the 

 honey analyst who is now serving his 

 country as lieutenant. His father, who 

 was still living at the time of our visit, 

 was secretary of the International Con- 

 gress of beekeepers in 1900. 



We called upon Mr. Bondonneau, the 

 former editor of " L'.\piculture Nou- 

 velle," and were also invited for an 

 evening by its present editor, Mr. Con- 

 damin. By the way, this magazine has 

 suspended its publication since July, 

 1914; its publisher is an officer at the 

 front, in the terrible war now raging. 

 We had the great pleasure of meet- 

 ing the Foloppe brothers, two young 

 men, whose interesting studies of 

 combs built on different weights of 

 foundation were published in the 

 American Bee Journal in May and 

 June, 1911. By coloring a lot of bees- 

 wax and afterwards making it into 

 comb foundation they ascertained that 

 when the bees manipulate the founda- 

 tion they carry a part of the wax out- 

 ward, using new wax as needed, so that 

 the coloring matter contained in the 

 foundation was carried out even to the 

 cappings. They also experimented 

 upon large worker cells, about which 

 so much was said in the European 

 bee journals some years ago. It has 

 been held that by making foundation 

 with larger cells — 764 cells instead of 

 838 to the square decimeter, larger bees 

 could be secured. 



This assertion, made by the irate 

 Abbe Pincot, in " L'Apiculteur," has 

 not been sustained, and the general 



consensus of opinion, as well as the 

 conclusion of the Foloppe brothers, is 

 that it is best to follow nature as 

 closely as possible. 



Before leaving the field of European 

 bee culture, I should not fail to men- 

 tion also meeting, at the olTice of Mr. 

 Condamin, the former president of the 

 Algerian Beekeepers' Association, the 

 enthusiastic Mr. Bernard. This gen- 

 tleman, whose occupation is that of an 

 inspector on the Algerian national 

 railroads, was an acquaintance of long 

 standing, although I had never met 

 him. He is a fervent admirer of the 

 American methods of beekeeping and 

 has done a great deal of pioneer work 

 in the uncultured villages of the Arabs 

 of North Africa. Needless to say 

 that our meeting was pleasant. 



My reader, by this time, must wonder 

 whether there was no unpleasant fea- 

 ture to our visits, whether we found 

 everything agreeable and cheerful 

 everywhere. I believe I have mentioned 

 everything that happened I recall 

 only one instance when I had occasion 

 to mistrust a brother beekeeper during 

 the entire four months. It was when I 

 received a letter from a beekeeper on 

 the Spanish border, in southern France, 

 offering me "an important apiarian 

 transaction " to the amount of 100,000 

 francs, or $20,000. The party in ques- 

 tion had read of my travels and thought 

 to lure me with the possible sale of 500 

 colonies of bees to be shipped by me 

 from America to a friend of his. I was 

 to come and see him and make the 

 arrangements for this sale. A transac- 

 tion of this kind looked very suspicious 

 to me, and instead of getting warmed 

 up and losing my head over the pros- 

 pect of making a profit that would 

 more than cover my expenses for the 

 European trip, I wrote to one of the 

 most active dealers in bee supplies in 



Europe, enquiring whether he knew 

 anything about this party. The reply 

 was overwhelming. The same parties 

 had made purchases from him to the 

 amount of several hundred dollars 

 which had never been paid. Difficult 

 as it may have been, they had managed 

 to keep out of the claws of justice. So 

 he did not appear to have any recourse 

 for his losses. He called them "a 

 black gang." 



So you see, dear readers, that the 

 swindlers are not all in America, there 

 are some on the other side of the 

 ocean, who perhaps will read these 

 lines and see their picture in them just 

 as clearly as in a photograph. Luckily 

 they are scarce. 



And now.that we have left the shores 

 of Europe, at the end of this long trip, 

 and look back, we can hear the roar of 

 cannon, see the smoke of burning 

 homes, watch the endless string of 

 homeless widows and orphans, all this 

 within a year. Unsuspicious Belgium 

 is a ruin, owing to too much confidence 

 in the honesty of neighbors. Dozens 

 of our friends have seen their sons 

 depart, never to return. Pretty, de- 

 lightful Grandpre, described, with pho- 

 tos, in our Journal of January, 1914, is 

 a ruin, and my wife's cousins have 

 been driven away from their birthplace. 

 Even peace-loving Switzerland has 

 had to arm and watch the frontier at 

 great expense. Every one of those 

 nations is a vast hospital. Glory! did 

 you say ? No, Shame, Shame upon you 

 emperors who attempt to make for 

 yourselves a name, written in oceans 

 of blood! Hail Columbia! Happy land 

 where no conqueror can dictate to the 

 nation what course it shall pursue! 



Let us hope that war in the end will 

 conquer militarism and establish a 

 PEACE era, with universal disarma- 

 ment! 



Contributed 



Articles^ 



Bee Hunting— Saving the Bees 



BY L. B. SMITH. 



I HAVE seen some discussions in the 

 journals and several farm papers 

 about hunting wild bees, cutting 

 the trees, saving the bees, etc. I believe 

 the writers, with the exception of Elias 

 Fox, of Union Center, Wis. (see Glean- 

 ings in Bee Culture for Jan. 1, 1915, 

 page 32), agree that such work is not 

 profitable. .\s I have had perhaps as 

 much experience along that line as 

 any living man of my age, I should like 

 to count trees with the veteran bee 

 hunter, Mr. Fox. I have found as 

 many as 30 and 40 bee-trees in a single 

 season. I do not hunt them for profit, 

 but for pastime, as a sportsman would 

 hunt wild game, for after the tree is 

 found, bees captured, etc., we consider 

 the " fun " over, for in many cases we 

 give the bees and contents of the tree 

 to the owner of the land or some near- 

 by neighbor, after hiving the beesvfor 

 thern. Like our brother bee-hunter. 



Mr. Fox, we always save the bees when 

 possible. 



We have often walked and carried 

 the bees 4 and 5 miles on our shoulders 

 in the mountains or other inaccessible 

 places to horse and buggy. We always 

 save all the brood and straight worker 

 comb, and believe it pays us to do so. 

 We have many hundreds of nice worker 

 combs in our bee-yards, some of which 

 have been in constant use for over 26 

 years, that were taken from bee-trees, 

 and we still add to them each season. 



My two sons and I own upwards 

 of 500 colonies of bees, and more than 

 two-thirds of these have been taken 

 from bee-trees, caves, etc., in the 

 woods. We do most of our bee hunt- 

 ing in late fall and winter. We select 

 this time because we have more lei- 

 sure and the hees are more easily 

 "baited" when there is nothing in the 

 fields and pastures for them to gather. 

 We cut the tree and hive the bees at 

 any season of the year, preferring a 

 warm day in the winter months, as 

 they have little or no brood then, and 



