APUri, 1. 1015 



263 



Beekeeping Among the Kockie: 



Lesley Foster, Boulder, Colorado. 



CAUSE OF AMERICAN FOUL BROOD, 

 Mr. J. D. Bixby has a rathei' 

 amusing and somewhat interesting 

 paragraph in the February West- 

 ern Honey Bee. He says lie does 

 not know what are the causes of 

 American foul brood. Then ho 

 proceeds to guess or presume that there are 

 two kinds of cases of American foul brood 

 — contagious cases and sporadic cases. He 

 saj'S (or I guess he does) that rotting drone 

 brood from a healthy hive will, if the bees 

 work over the stuff and take up the "foul 

 Juices," produce ''sporadically" American 

 foul brood. You are to understand that 

 this is not genuine contagious or infectious 

 American foul brood, but just sporadic 

 American foul brood which means that it 

 may be carried to other hives or it may not. 

 I'll bet the price of half a round-trip ticket 

 from Boulder to Covina, Calif., that Mr. 

 Bixby cannot produce a case of American 

 foul brood by using any such method. I 

 do not care whether it is " sporadic " or 

 ■* c()nta.i;ii)us " Am.erican foul brood. 



lit «- « 



The bill before the Colorado legislature, 

 Senate Bill Xo 77. introduced by Senator 

 Schermerhorn, is in the hands of the Fi- 

 nance Committee, of which Senator Hasty 

 is chairman. This bill is the one designed 

 to control the cutting of cover crops before 

 orchards are sprayed. There is some oppo- 

 sition to this bill among some of the fruit- 

 growers, but it is probable that the bill can 

 be passed if the fi'uit-growers understand it. 

 It is not designed to force the fruit-growers 

 to practice clean cultivation, as has been 

 claimed. The object of the bill is to prevent 

 the spraying of orchards when the cover 

 crops growing therein are in bloom. Cut- 

 ting the blooming clover, or turning it un- 

 der just before doing the spraying, will 

 solve the dilliculty. and this phase of the 

 situation is the only one touched. 



If the beekeepers in the frait districts are 

 not given ))rotection, such as is designed in 

 this bill, there is no use in trying to carry 

 on beekeping for honey production in the 

 same district with fruit-growing. 



If all Colorado beekeepers will write their 

 representatives in the legislature at once, 

 the probabilities are that the bill may be 

 passed. Write at once. and. keep on writing 

 until 3'ou get a definile pledge from your 

 representatives that they will support this 

 bill. If you can see your representatives 

 personally, so much the better. Telegrams 



also often have a very beneficial effect. We 

 have used them to good effect in the past, 

 and they will be used in this campaign. 



ji » * 



Frank Hill, in March Gth issue of The 

 Count rij Gentleman, has a very interesting 

 article on " A One-horse Farm." He is 

 apparently located near Kansas City, and 

 has a 5y2-i\cve place from which his income 

 is around $1400 a year. His bees bring 

 him in $500 a year on the average, wliich is 

 the largest single item of his diversified op- 

 erations. Strawberries come next on the 

 list. He says the bees are the most variable 

 in regard to annual production. One hun- 

 dred and twenty-five colonies are kejDt. His 

 " farm " has no chickens ; and his chicken 

 storj', comparing it with bees, is highly 

 interesting and humorously written. Here 

 it is: 



When I bought my farm I did not intend to raise 

 chickens. I liad been through the chicken-mill. 

 Upstairs somewhere there is a big box that contains 

 my chicken things. There are a good many dozen 

 ribbons — lots of them blue; several diplomas and 

 five silver cups, all won at the state poultry' shows 

 of Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska ; also in the 

 box are caponizers, leg-bands, lice-powder, many 

 dollars' worth of chicken medicine, and enough liter- 

 ature to instruct anybody how to get rich in the 

 chicken business. 



I had the chickens when I was in business. I 

 raised and showed them for fun — they paid me in 

 fun. The few hundred dollars I got in spring and 

 summer for hatching eggs, and in fall and winter for 

 exhibition and breeding birds, just about paid ex- 

 penses. , 



It pays the general farmer to raise chickens. He 

 has grain, and keeps stock. On such a place the 

 fowls have a wide range, and the waste grain goes 

 a long way toward keeping them, but nothing of the 

 kind on a small place. Try it. Buy your feed at 

 market prices. Sell your eggs and meat on the 

 market. Keep books. See how you come out. I 

 doubt if there will be enough left to buy the next 

 new brooder that comes out. 



But while I was in the business I had another 

 diversion that stuck, and stuck on its merits — bees. 

 Bees are the most interesting proposition I have 

 ever wrestled with, and for profit they have chickens 

 backed clear off the right of way. They don't need 

 incubators, brooders, chick feed, nor grit. They 

 don't have lice, mites, roup, limber neck, liver trou- 

 ble, nor cholera. You don't have to get up in the 

 middle of the night to see that a lot of little chicks 

 are not getting chilled, nor chase away some prowl- 

 ing cat or skunk. You don't have to hustle a lot 

 of one-pound birds into their coops before a big rain 

 for fear the lunatics will stand out in the storm and 

 get drowned. Bees know their business, and attend 

 to if. Bees can be kept anywhere in the United 

 States, and almost anywhere they will show a profit 

 if properly managed. A back yard big enough for 

 a coal-box is space enough for two or more colonies 

 of bees. They are kept in garrets and on roofs of 

 buildings in large cities. Almost any spot big 

 enough for tlie hive will do, and a mighty small 

 place will accommodate a hundred hives. 



