GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



including sore throat, hoarseness, etc., to 

 make superfluous any attempt to prove it a 

 cure-all. 



Boiled Honey Not Suitable for a 



yueen-cage 



A YEAR or so ago the postal authorities 

 at Washington required a certificate of 

 inspection with every package of queens 

 that went out through the mails, or a copy 

 of an affidavit showing that the breeder 

 boiled thoroughly all the honey in the 

 queen-cage candy. To boil the honey was 

 a nice procedure, but it seemed like a wise 

 precaution, and we, like many other queen- 

 breeders, not only furnished a certificate of 

 inspection Avith every package of queens, 

 but boiled the honey also. 



We noticed that, for some reason, shortly 

 after, queens would not go as far in the 

 ordinary mailing-cages as they had done 

 formerly. We observed also that we had to 

 replace more shipments than formerly ; but 

 at the time we did not connect up cause and 

 effect. We discovered, also, that it was 

 practically impossible to send queens to 

 foreign countries where hitherto we had sent 

 them Avithout any great difficulty. We 

 changed the sugar; we altered the size of 

 the cage; we modified the form of the cage. 

 We put in water-bottles, thinking the bees 

 needed a drink on the way. We gave them 

 chunks of comb honey along witli the queen 

 candy; but, no matter what we did, the 

 results were almost the same. 



We discovered, also, that when we began 

 to ship bees in pound packages this spring 

 and summer they did not go through to 

 their destination as well as they formerly 

 did. We perfected the water-bottle, and 

 that helloed a great deal. We added a can 

 of sugar syrup in addition to the can of 

 water, and that helped, but continued to use 

 the old queen-cage candy as before ; but still 

 the bees did not travel through in pound 

 packages nor in mailing-cages as well as 

 formerly. We were at our wits' end. 



Finally we went back to the old style of 

 export mailing-cage we used years ago that 

 would deliver about 50 per cent of the 

 queens alive to Australia. This failed as 

 did the others. Then we began to think that 

 possibly in some of the foreign countries 

 the packages of mail, to prevent the spread 

 of disease, were fumigated. But this did 

 not explain the fact lliat in many cases the 

 bees on arrival at destination had died of 

 dysenterJ^ Then we began to think it might 

 be the wire cloth; but it could not be that, 

 because there were some cases where no wire 

 cloth was used, and yet the bees died just 

 the same. 



We began to get a clue to all our trouble 

 when our Mr. Brown reported that tliere 

 was one lot of bees that showed dysentery 

 very strongly in the last car that went to the 

 Dismal Swamp, Virginia, while other bees 

 from other yards of equal strength showed 

 no trouble. An examination of the record 

 showed that the stained hives came from 

 the Ault apiary. Now, the Ault bees had 

 been fed with boiled Porto Rican honey to 

 prevent any possible danger of disease. But 

 the bees, apparently, did not like boiled 

 honey, so we began to feed it later without 

 boiling. But a great deal of boiled honey* 

 had been fed just the same. The significant 

 fact was that the Ault bees in the second 

 car showed signs of dysentery at the end of 

 the journey, when all the others showed no 

 such symptoms. Finally it dawned upon us 

 that the dysentery in the Ault bees in the 

 carload and the dysentery in the pound 

 packages of bees and in the bees in the 

 mailing cages was due to a common cause, 

 viz., boiled honey. The fact that a number 

 of these shipments showed up dysentery, 

 and that many others died without showing 

 any symiDtoms, began to make us believe 

 that the postal regulations, requiring the 

 honey to be boiled, issued with benevolent 

 intentions toward the beekeeping industry, 

 were responsible for our trouble. Had not 

 those authorities granted us the alternative 

 of using an inspector's certificate in lieu of 

 a statement that the honey had been boiled, 

 the ruling would have come very near bar- 

 ring bees and queens from the mails. 



It is jDossible that invert sugar might be 

 used in place of honey in the making of a 

 Scholz or Good candy. As invert sugar is 

 similar to honey, there is no reason why it 

 could not be used, providing, of course, that 

 the substitute does not cause dysentery as 

 does boiled honey. Tt is possible, and prob- 

 able, on the other hand, that we may be able 

 to use the " fondant " (made of glucose and 

 cane sugar) praised so highly by our Massa- 

 chusetts friends. But if neither fondant 

 nor any other kind of sugar will answer, it 

 is still permissible to use the old bee-candy 

 such as we formerly used, made by mixing 

 powdered sugar and raw unboiled honey 

 into a stiff dough, jtrovided, of course, that 

 every package of bees is sent out with a 

 copy of a certificate of inspection from a 

 duly authorized inspector. 



It is too late now to try out the whole 

 proposition of mailing-cages and pound 



* In boiling honey to kill possible bee-disease 

 germs it is verj- easy to burn or scorch a little of 

 it if it is not kept thoroughly stirred. Years ago 

 A. I. Root found that a slightly scorched honey fed 

 to bees for a winter food was almost sure to bring 

 on dysentery, and \u practically all cases it killed the 

 bees outright befor.' the winter was half over. 



