NOVKMni:U 1, 1915 



891 



contents. As soon as we entered the barn 

 I noticed a strong scent, and 1 almost knew 

 before opening a bive tbat liis bees had foul 

 brood. 



We looked tbrongb the hives, and all 

 were in about the same condition. The in- 

 vestigation showed (liat his colonies liad had 

 American foul brood, the worst kind, and 

 he did not know it. I began to question 

 him, and was astonished to learn that he 



never lifted a frame out of a hive to inspect 

 il, and liad never seen any disease. I found 

 it bard to convince him that his bees had 

 died from foul brood. 



I had never seen a worse case. I photo- 

 gTaphed the contents of a hive. What im- 

 pressed me more than anything else was lo 

 think that a man could keep bees all liis life 

 and yet know so little about them. 



Hiawatha, Kan. 



ACHORDS SUCCESS IN SHIPPING BEES IN POUND PACKAGES 



BY E. R. ROOT 



On page 744 of Gleanings for Sept. 15 I 

 refen-ed to the success of W. D. Achord, of 

 Fit/patrick, Ala., in shipping bees in pound 

 packages to points in Canada. He has 

 apparently been more successful than most 

 of us, from the fact that he used a larger 

 cage with more wire cloth. In fact, his cage 

 has two or three times the ventilation of the 

 regailar standard cages 

 for holding the same 

 number of bees. This 

 extra ventilation and 

 larger cubic capacity 

 has enabled M r . 

 Achord during all 

 kinds of weather, hot 

 and cold, to achieve 

 almost perfect success. 



As stated in our 

 issue mentioned above, 

 one beekeeper in Can- 

 ada has come to be- 

 lie\e he can buy pound 

 packages of bees from 

 the South as cheaply 

 as he can winter over 

 colonies in the rigor- 

 ous climate of Canada. 



Mr. Aehord's pound 

 packages of bees are 

 made up of young bees 

 ready for business. 

 while the wintered- 

 v e r colonies, even 

 though of two or three 

 times the numerical 

 strength, are made up 



«i!" 1 1:1 bres; and it would not be very long 

 after the first Hight for pollen and water 

 before the wialered-over colony would be 

 but little stronger than the pound of bees, 

 with the disadvantage that most of their 

 ninnbers would be bees of the previous 

 fall. 



To test out the Achord plan of shipping 

 bees we sent an order to the Fitzpatriek 



man for two one-pound packages of bees. 

 Tliese were shipped on Sept. 20. They ar- 

 riAed promptly at IMedina, and we kept 

 Ihem for a day. There was scarcely a doz- 

 en dead bees in the two packages. We then 

 sent them to Dr. E. F. Phillips, of Wash- 

 ington, with instructions to return them to 

 Medina. He reported that they arrived in 



W. r-. Acl;oid's 

 resjular cages for holdi 



.tages have two or three titiii 

 ng the same number of bees. 



ililalio;i of lui: 



fine condition, with scarcely any more dead 

 bees than when they reached Medina. They 

 were so fresh and nice that we first thought 

 Mr. Achord had sent us a duplicate ship- 

 ment, because it did not seem possible that 

 those same bees could make three trips and 

 look as nice ;\s these did; but as events 

 showed they were the same bees that left 

 Alabama on the 20th. We kept them for 



