544 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



JULV 1 



little over, we had ideal honey weather. 

 There is still a chance for the bees to g-et a 

 crop providing we can only have warm 

 weather for a change. We have had rain 

 — too much of it — and weather so cold that 

 we have been obliged to start our furnace 

 fires at our homes; and even some of the 

 rooms in our factor}' have had to be warm- 

 ed, when a week ago the problem was how 

 to cool them off so the employees could work. 

 It is these rapid changes — fearful extremes 

 ■ — that is playing havoc with the honey bus- 

 iness this year; and the situation is the 

 more serious because these conditions have 

 prevailed over almost the entire clover and 

 basswood belt of the United States. — Ed.] 



The suggestion is made in Farmers' 

 Review that spraj'ing fruit-trees when in 

 bloom might be a desirable way to thin 

 fruit. It is to be hoped that better light 

 will come to the Farmers' Review. [It is 

 indeed an excellent way of thinning down 

 fruit; but that very fact, if admitted, ought 

 to convince the fruit-man that, for his own 

 interest, he should not spray during bloom. 

 The great problem is not how to thin out 

 the fruit, but how to get more fruit. 



There are facts on record to show that 

 sprajdng during bloom has so thinned out 

 the fruit that it cost the fruit-growers in 

 some cases thousands of dollars; and those 

 same men were forinerly the loudest in de- 

 manding the repeal of the New York spray- 

 ing law. The parties I refer to are not 

 many miles away from Geneva Experiment 

 Station, New York. — Ed.] 



Farmers' Bulletin No. 18 says of sweet 

 clover: "As a restorative crop for yellow 

 loam and white lime lands this plant has 

 no superior; and for black prairie soils it 

 has no equal." [In some parts of the great 

 West there are what are called "alkali 

 lands." Irrigation for a series of years 

 has forced the alkali out of the soil to the 

 surface,, with the result that it kills every 

 thing except pear-trees, salt-weeds, and 

 sweet clover. I know a spot in Western 

 Colorado — perhaps the finest location in the 

 world — where there are hundreds and per- 

 haps thousands of acres of alkali land cov- 

 ered with nothing but sweet clover, for 

 nothing else will grow. A bee-keeper whom 

 I know located in that vicinity struck a 

 bonanza, for no ranchman or farmer will 

 invade his territory' — at least not till all the 

 other available land is taken up. The 

 time may come, when land is scarce, when 

 the ranchman will be called on to use the 

 alkali land and grow sweet clover for a hay 

 crop. Then, perhaps, the world will wake 

 up and discover that it is not an enemy but 

 a friend. — Ed.] 



Speaking of bleaching combs, p. 520, the 

 editor says, "At one cent, on a basis of 

 10,000 lbs., he would make a clean profit of 

 $100." Did any man since Adam ever have 

 10,000 lbs. that needed bleaching? In this 

 locality, no combs need bleaching unless 

 they are left on too long, and what's the 

 use of leaving them on too long? [You for- 



get, doctor, that there are localities where 

 combs are stained more than around Ma- 

 rengo. Now, is it a very hard stretch of 

 the imagination, if J. E. Crane had 6500 

 combs to bleach, for one to suggest that, on 

 a basis of 10,000 lbs., one can make a clean 

 profit of $100? Mr. Crane did not say that 

 this 6500 lbs. was an abnormally large num- 

 ber; and when I spoke about 10,000 I used 

 an even figure to show how much could be 

 earned in the way of bleaching. A j'ear 

 or so ago I was talking with Mr. Hutchin- 

 son, and he said frankly he could not see 

 any reason wh}^ we should devote so much 

 thought and attention to the bleaching of 

 combs, showing that the staining is not 

 common in Michigan. But if one will go 

 over the country as I have done he will run 

 into localities where a large part of the 

 honey crop, even if taken off earljs is stain- 

 ed or discolored; and one who is in the 

 business of buying honey necessarily comes 

 in contact with a great deal of discolored 

 goods. If you were at Medina j-ou would 

 see the need of pounding into the heads of 

 bee-keepers, at least, the importance of 

 bleaching their combs before sending them 

 to market. It should be bleached before it 

 is graded, crated, and shipped to market. 

 —Ed.] 



Formalin as a cure for foul brood. Bie- 

 nemvirtschaftliches Ce?itralblatt directs as 

 follows : Fill a hive-body with infected 

 combs. Have the bottom enclosed all but a 

 small opening, and in the top have a hole a 

 half-inch in diameter. Beneath the hive have 

 a formalin apparatus, consisting of an al- 

 cohol-lamp and over it a dish c mtaining a 

 small quantit}' of formalin (a 40-per-cent 

 solution of formaldehyd in water), the ap- 

 paratus enclosed in such waj' that the gas 

 can escape only into the hive above. The 

 lamp is lighted, the vapor spreads through 

 the opening up into the hive; and when the 

 g-as can be smelled coming out of the upper 

 hole, this upper hole is closed, as also the 

 under hole, and not opened for four hours. 

 It is only fair to sa}^ that this was copied 

 by Centralblatt from Canadian Bee foiirnal, 

 although the cure was originally given in 

 Centralblatt. Bacilli and spores were in 

 the cells and in the honey; but after treat- 

 ment no foul brood resulted upon giving the 

 combs to a health}' colon}', and the same 

 thing resulted in two other cases. No doubt 

 the cure will be thoroughly tried in Cana- 

 da, and it deserves trial further south. 

 [Somehow I do not have much faith that a 

 colony treated as above described would be 

 entirely cured of foul brood. I have per- 

 sonally tried the use of carbolic acid so 

 strong that it would take the skin off my 

 fingers, and yet it did not kill the spores. 

 We haveusednaphtholbeta; and while I am 

 satisfied it is a splendid thing to use in 

 syrup to feed to bees, yet I am fully con- 

 vinced that neither naphthol beta nor any 

 thing else in the way of a drug, unless used 

 so strong as to be awfully corrosive, would 

 destroy the spores. Scientific men know 

 that the spores of disease — at least some 



