546 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 



der it worthless. Would not some kind of cement, 

 molded in the form of a board, make good T-super 

 covers, or plaster of Paris, if covered in cold weath- 

 er? My board covers, with a shade-board over 

 them, have to be loaded with stone to prevent 

 twisting and curling up eadwise. 

 Vienna, N. Y., May 25, 1889. V. W. Tremain. 



The account of your experiment is valua- 

 ble, inasmuch as it may save others, who 

 had strawboard in mind, both time and 

 money. 



SUGAR SYRUP NEVER HONEY. 



I will ask a question, and should like to see it an- 

 swered in Gleanings by the veterans. One year 

 ago last fall a friend fed two fcwaims with white su- 

 gar, after bee-pasture was killed, and the bees filled 

 a great many sections of the whitest and most beau- 

 tiful honey to look at I ever saw. He asked me to 

 taste it. I did so, and I certainly would have taken 

 it for honey; at least, there was quite a flavor of 

 honey mixed with it. From what source came that 

 flavor of honey? Can the most skillful chemist 

 take the clover blossom and extract from it honey 

 that will have the flavor bees give it? Bees will 

 take the most bitter and ugly flowers, and extract 

 from them a fair article of honey. You probably 

 will say you can detect a flavor of the blossom ; but 

 how do the bees give it the flavor of honey? 



La Otto, Ind , May 30, 1889. E. S. Hanson. 



Friend II., you are making a mistake. 

 Bees might sometimes make a fair article 

 of honey from bitter flowers ; but, as a rule, 

 the honey is but slightly changed by being 

 carried into the hive, except in the ripening 

 process; and sugar syrup does not make 

 honey. You made some mistake, or your 

 people were careless in tasting. It has been 

 tried by bee-keepers hundreds of times ; and 

 any one accustomed to the taste of sugar 

 and honey will detect the sugar syrup at 

 once. Even if it could not be noticed, it 

 would not be profitable to feed the bees 

 with it to get them to store it for honey. 



papier-mache for combs ; LEMONADE sweeten- 

 ed WITH HONEY, GOOD. 



Why couldn't the combs be made of papier- 

 mache instead of wood? They could not absorb 

 any more wax, and it certainly would not take 

 any more wax per hive than foundation does. 

 Did you ever sweeten lemonade with honey? We 

 think it is nicer than sugar. Several who can not 

 eat honey have drank the lemonade at our house, 

 and felt no trouble from the honey sweetening. 



Los Alamos, Gal. Mrs. J. Hilton. 



The objections to papier-mache instead of 

 wood for honey-combs, is that the bees will 

 everv now and then, especially during a 

 dearth of honey, go to work and tear the 

 paper all to pieces ; in fact, I have never 

 seen any paper they would not tear up soon- 

 er or later iii this way. They seem to im- 

 agine that any thing like paper has some- 

 thing to do with the bee-moth, and so they 

 clean it out. 



DISINFECTING chaff hives of foul-brood 



GERMS. 



I made my first chaff hive when 12 years old; but 

 that horrible scourge, foul brood, got into our apia- 

 ry. I say ours, for my brothers had bees as well as 

 myself; and before we knew what wag wrong, they 



were in the last stages of foul brood, and nearly all 

 died. We melted the combs, but the hives are all 

 chaff hives, and it seems too bad to burn them. 

 Now, will the hives need to be pulled to pieces and 

 scalded inside and out, or will it do to scald the in- 

 side? Would not boiling water do as well as steam? 

 Is there any danger in leaving the empty hives 

 standing close to the apiary before they are scalded? 

 Oscar Trussler. 

 Strasburg, Ont., April 30, 1889. 



It will not do to leave those infected chaff 

 hives near the apiary for any great length 

 of time. We suppose, of course, the en- 

 trances have been closed in the mean time. 

 It is a very difficult matter to disinfect 

 chaff hives. If you can get a kettle large 

 enough, and can make sure that the water 

 is brought to the boiling-point, you can dis- 

 infect the hive by removing the bottom and 

 taking out the chaff, after which immerse 

 them for about a full minute in the boiling 

 water. I would keep them in the water as 

 long as this, or longer, if you can conven- 

 iently, because the water is liable not to 

 reach all the inside portions of the hive. 

 We send you the latest edition of the ABC 

 book. We advise you to read carefully the 

 instructions on this point. We would say, 

 in regard to chaff hives, that we have had 

 very poor success in disinfecting them. We 

 disinfected our last lot of hives by knocking 

 them to pieces and burning them up, for we 

 can make new ones about as cheaply as we 

 can fuss with old ones, and then hot have 

 something as good, in the bargain. 



CHILLED AND FOUL BROOD. 



1. Is it a common occurrence in spring for a few 

 scattered dead larvae to be found here and there 

 through a number of hives in the apiary, death be- 

 ing caused presumably either by neglect of the 

 nurses or some disease, the larvas flattening out 

 and seeming watery and grayish? 3. If so, is it usu- 

 al that, on arrival of the honey season, this condi- 

 tion ceases to exist, or will it, in a poor season, or 

 with a weak colony, still continue, and probably 

 develop into disease involving the ultimate destruc- 

 tion of the colony, with danger of infection to oth- 

 ers? K. W. McDonnell. 



Gait, Ont., Can., June 4, 1889. 



1. The dead larvre you describe are evi- 

 dently chilled brood. The heads of the 

 grubs first turn black, the larva shrinks, and 

 finally settles into a pulpy gray or a gray- 

 ish-yellow mass. If it turned to a coffee 

 brown, and the maturated matter were 

 ropy — that is, tenacious, like spittle, it 

 would have all the appearance of foul brood. 

 While chilled brood resembles foul brood, it 

 lacks the important symptoms; viz., ropi- 

 ness and color. 2. Chilled brood can never 

 develop into foul brood, which is always 

 propagated by germs. Corn never grows 

 where corn was never planted. Foul brood 

 can never start without the existence of 

 microscopic germs, called, technically, ba- 

 cillus alvei. Chilled brood might be a better 

 medium for the reception of these germs 

 than ordinary living brood, providing that 

 the spores were in the air. A weak consti- 

 tution in the human family is more sus- 

 ceptible to the germs of smallpox or yellow 

 fever thai} a healthy vigorous person. 



