■\'lini;iry. igu. 



American liee Journal 



named Byer, fairly overuhelmod me 

 witli his criticisms: tlicn another and 

 another " sailed in," but when they 

 held up long enough for me to ask a 

 c|uestion. it developeil that not one of 

 them had given it a careful test. That 

 made me feel just a little better, and I 

 began to think that possibly some of 

 them might give my suggestion some 

 consideration, and some day try it. 

 when there slowly rose another man. 1 

 braced myself for another assault, and 

 this was what I heard : 



as advised, and sellirit; it ill and around To- 

 ronto for the same price tlie rest of yon 

 secure for sour wliite honey." 



The silence which followed was audi- 

 ble. Artiur C. Mu.i.er. 



f'Tovidence, K. 1. 



[The foregoing is given as a brief 

 reply to Mr. Byer's item on page 1.'5, 

 and as it came in late, we did not refer 

 it to Mr. B. for his approving comment. 

 But we'll risk his objection. The joke 

 seemed to be on some Canadians. — 



"I have for years been blending my honey G. W. i.] 



Contributed 



Articles^ 



"Is Sugar Good for Bees?" 



BY C. 1'. U.\D.\XT. 



The .American Bee Journal for No- 

 vember, n'll, contains a quotation 

 from the British Bee Journal with the 

 above title, in which " A Roman Bee- 

 Keeper " condemns the use of sugar in 

 feeding bees, and ascribes to this prac- 

 tice the diseases and mortality among 

 bees in Great Britain as compared with 

 Italy. The editor very properly con- 

 tradicts this statement, and cites Sam- 

 uel Simmins in the defense of sugar. 

 .\s the American Bee Journal editor 

 asks for statements giving convincing 

 proofs that good sugar is harmless, 1 

 wish to add my testimony on this sub- 

 ject. 



The elder Dadant was the first suc- 

 cessful importer Of queens from Italy 

 on a large scale. Before our importa- 

 tions of I87-I, there had been but very 

 few queens imported. Grimm alone 

 had made a large importation from 

 tiermany, but this was colonies of bees 

 and not tfiieens only. The successful 

 transportation of queens was much 

 more difficult than that of full colonies. 

 The previous importations of Wagner, 

 Colvin, Mahan, Langstroth and others, 

 were confined to a few queens, with 

 very irregular success, the bees in most 

 cases dying of diarrhea, or from an 

 overloaded abdomen. Xo one knew 

 exactly the conditions required. It 

 was not until my father's unsuccessful 

 trip to Italy, in l(<7j, which was almost 

 a disaster, that the conditions neces- 

 sary to succeed were ascertained. 



The main requirement to keep the 

 bees that escort the queen from dying 

 on the trip, is a food containing as 

 little nitrogenous substance as possible. 

 Pure white sugar was found the most 

 assimilable food, ne.xt in line being the 

 light-colored honeys similar to white 

 clover, containing a minimum of pol- 

 len. Thanks to the faithful efforts of 

 the Italian Giuseppe Fiorini. who fol- 

 lowed our instructions to the letter, we 

 secured hundreds of queens with less 

 than ■> percent of loss, even though 

 some of them were a month or more on 

 the way. From these beginnings came 

 the practise of putting up queens and 

 bees with sugar candy in lieu of honey. 

 It is now proven by daily practise the 

 world over, in the matter of mailing 



bees, that the food that contains the 

 least amount of water and nitrogen is 

 the best to keep them healthy in con- 

 finement. Dysentery or diarrhea ap- 

 pears when the bees have been long 

 confined upon water food or unhealthy 

 stores, such as fruit-juices harvested 

 late in the fall, honey-dew from aphides, 

 or fall honey containing a large amount 

 of pollen-grains floating in it. Good 

 sugar candy or thick sugar syrup 

 always carries bees through in good 

 shape. 



The trouble, if any, in England, has 

 perhaps been from the feeding of bees 

 for winter w'itli syrup w'hen they were 

 in bad condition and had a certain 

 amount of unhealthy food already 

 stored in the combs. No apiarist who 

 follows a line of economy will feed his 

 bees sugar syrup when they have an 

 abundance of good honey. It is un- 

 necessary and troublesome. But when 

 there has been a failure in the honey 

 harvest, the bees are more prone to 

 store fruit-juice in the last warm days 

 of fall. The apiarist then makes up the 

 shortage with sugar. He should pre- 

 viously remove all this unhealthy food. 

 If he has not already done so, he may 

 charge his failure to the sugar syrup, 

 when he should charge it to his own 

 ignorance of the conditions and re- 

 quirements. 



That there is but little feeding with 

 sugar syrup in Italy, as stated by " A 

 Roman Bee-Keeper," owing to the high 

 price of sugar there, is true. But that 

 there is less disease there than in coun- 

 tries where they feed sugar when needed 

 is incorrect. Foul brood is far from 

 being unknown in Italy, and the "May 

 disease." which is similar to, if not 

 identical with, the "Isle of Wight dis- 

 ease," has stricken entire districts 

 from time to time. To illustrate this, 

 I need only refer to the May, Ifln."), num- 

 ber of L'Apicoltore, of Milan, in which 

 the editor says : 



"One thing, however, we hold in apore- 

 hension— il is the fear of the 'mal di mas- 

 aio, which afflicted us last year, and not 

 ourselves alone. It is a grave malady 

 which causes the total loss of the spring 

 crop and lessens that of summer without 

 counting that the decimated colonies do not 

 succeed in recovering the needed strength. 

 and suffer thereby until the following year." 



In the January, liHKi. number a long 

 description is given of this disease as 

 it ran its course among the bees in the 



Marclie districts, especially in the 

 Province of Ancona. 



Those who are acquainted with bee- 

 culture, in our Western States, know 

 how much trouble bee-keepers have 

 had in a few of the best honey-produc- 

 ing irrigated valleys, with foul brood, 

 in spots where both the excellent 

 honey crops and the low prices of 

 honey on the local markets have made 

 the use of sugar syrup impracticable. 



I unhesitatingly assert not only that 

 1 positively know sugar to be harmless 

 to the bees, but also that the feeding of 

 good sugar syrup, where the bees are 

 short of stores, is immensely prefer- 

 able to the feeding of honey of un- 

 known origin. It took years and years 

 before the bee-keeping world became 

 willing to accept the assertion of 1). A. 

 Jones and others, who, after Schirach. 

 stated that foul brood was transmitted 

 mainly in the honey. Cheshire exam- 

 ined honey from diseased colonies, 

 and because he failed to find traces of 

 the bacillus there, condemned this as- 

 sertion. But it is no longer a theory, 

 and we have at last come to accept the 

 ideas of Schirach. published in 17t)!i. 

 which indicate the fasting of bees as 

 the only positive cure for foul brood. 

 Every day more proofs of the validity 

 of this claim come to the front. We 

 are slow to progress. It took centu- 

 ries before the rotundity of the earth 

 and its motion around the sun were 

 accepted otherwise than as being the 

 vagaries of cranks and sinners, and we 

 still have people who deny Haeckel's 

 and Darwin's "evolution" evidences. 

 But I am running away from my sub- 

 ject. 



Good sugar syrup, or properly made 

 sugar candy, is equal to the best honey 

 for bees that are to be confined a long 

 time, whether it is for transportation 

 or for winter. But for spring feed, for 

 breeding, the requirements are entirely 

 different. We then need watery food. 

 This will be clear to our mind if we 

 watch the adult bees in quest of water 

 at the risk of their life in cold, spring 

 days, when the breeding has begun. , It 

 is also clear that nitrogenous food is 

 needed — witness their search for pollen 

 at this time and in lieu of pollen, flour, 

 meal, etc., which they eagerly gather. 

 A friend suggested, years ago. that we 

 should make the syrup very thin when 

 to be used for breeding, and serve it 

 warm to the bees. This proved an ex- 

 cellent idea. If plenty of pollen is to 

 be had. at the same time, I do not see 

 why the bees would suffer. Such food 

 is certainly better than doubtful honey 

 or nothing. However, no one would 

 consider syrup as superior, or even 

 equal to wholesome honey at that 

 time. As long as there is no confine- 

 ment, honey loaded with nitrogenous 

 matter is harmless, and is probably 

 much the best for brood-rearing, ow- 

 ing to its well-known pre-digested 

 condition. 



But I would be tempted to consider 

 sugar syrup as best when the May dis- 

 ease is feared, were it not that some 

 experimenters have reported the dis- 

 ease to occur even in colonies that had 

 been fed with this substance. 



Paralysis, vertigo, the May disease, 

 the Isle of Wight disease, and consti- 

 pation, appear to be different names 

 applied to varied forms of the same 



