546 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1 



"a case in point." 



There has from time to time been a considerable 

 amount of what maybe called "expressions of opin- 

 ion " regarding the value, or otherwise, of bee-keep- 

 ers' associations to bee-keepers themselves. 



As is well known, there are in various counties 

 throughout the Kingdom a number of associated soci- 

 eties, the members of which are bee-keepers whose 

 object is to work unitedly for the common good of the 

 craft. But it is less well known— save to the hard- 

 worked secretaries — how much of the difficulty there 

 is at times in collecting the small annual subscriptions 

 that have so important a bearing on success or failure 

 — as the case may be — in promoting the objects for 

 which these associationsare established. 



It is no less regretable than true that there also ex- 

 ists a class of bee-keepers whose view of associated 

 effort is bounded by the limits of their own apiaries, 

 or by what affects their own actual profit from the 

 season's bee-work. To talk to them of laboring for 

 the greatest good to the greatest number is so much 

 time wasted. It is more after their manner, when ap- 

 plied to for an overdue subscription, to reply by the 

 oft-recurring question. " What do I get for my money? 

 You don't sell my honey for me." 'Well, there is no 

 need to go over well-trodden ground in tr^-ing to show- 

 such men how utterly one-sided and selfish is the view 

 that unless one " sees his own back and a bit over " he 

 gets no advantage over membership. Surely the ben- 

 efit to the industry, as a whole, which is bound to come 

 from well-directed effort on the part of bee-keepers' 

 associations should be acknowledged by any fair- 

 minded man. But to bring the matter home, let us 

 say a notable " case in point " has just come to our 

 knowledge which can hardly fail to prove an incon- 

 trovertible argument in our favor, unless those we 

 have in view are determined not to be convinced. 



We refer to a letter received a few days ago from a 

 bee-keeper in Wales, whose case is not only distress- 

 ing but instructive to a degree in pointing the moral 

 we desire to enforce. He writes as follows: "Will 

 you kindly inform me what is the matter with the 

 comb sent? I rather suspect it is affected with foul 

 brood, and so I ask. What is the best method of deal- 

 ing with it at this time of year? I have eighty hives, 

 most of them more or less affected in the same way. I 

 will gladly pay for your advice on the matter, which I 

 should like to have as soon as tune admits. I enclose 

 stamps for replj' by telegraph in the meantime." 



Beyond name and address (which are for obvious 

 reasons omitted), the above is all we know of the 

 writer or his bees. The eighty hives may be all skeps 

 or all frame hives, and the writer may be a farmer or 

 follow another occupation ; we do not even know how 

 long he has kept bees, or if a reader of our journal. 

 We do. however, know that our badly stricken bee- 

 friend knows nothing whatever about foul brood, for 

 the sample of comb sent was absolutely rotten with 

 disease — almost every cell reeking with it. Conse- 

 quently, there are at present some fourscore of hives 

 (for we can not suppose the exceptions will be other 

 than few in such a hot-bed of disease) standing in one 

 spot — enough to contaminate the whole of Wales in a 

 season or two, and there is, unfortunately, no associa- 

 tion, of which we have any knowledge, in the county. 



Of course, we did not intend our friend to go una.s- 

 sisted, so we at once wired reply, " Very bad case of 

 foul brood ; letter follows." In our letter we recom- 

 mended that no attempt whatever be made at dealing 

 with the hives himself or through correspondence 

 with any one, the only .safe course being either to en- 

 gage a competent expert to inspect the hives and ad- 

 vise further after doing so, or else to burn the lot ! 



Now, if the above simple statement of fact does not 

 form a case in point strong enough to prove the need 

 for a country bee-keepers' association, and for the as- 

 sociated effort which is so desirable, we should like to 

 know what will. And if these lines have any effect 

 in stirring np fresh energy on the part of a,ssociations, 

 and of infusing a sense of more generous and public- 

 spirited views from those whose failure to help is so 

 depressing to men who spare neither time nor money 

 in working for the good of the industry at large, we 

 shall be more than repaid for inviting the attention of 

 readers to the usefulness of the B. B. K. A. and its affil- 

 iated county associations. 



\b 



In the issue for June 12 Mr. P. W. L. 

 Sladen continues an account of his visit to 

 the United States last summer. He spent 

 about two weeks here in Medina. The fol- 



lowing- extracts may not be uninteresting- 

 to the reader: 



Mr. A. I. Root, the founder of the firm, was. unfor- 

 tunately, away when I called, and I was very sorry to 

 miss him. He has. however, ceased for some time to 

 take any active interest in the bees, and his mantle 

 has fallen upon his eldest son, Mr. Ernest R. Root, 

 who presides over the business and edits their well 

 known bee journal. Mr.E. R. Root was also the Pres- 

 ident of the United States National Bee-keepers' As- 

 sociation last year, and it was a very great pleasure to 

 me to meet him, for I have seldom conversed with a 

 man who is .so well up in the practical side of bee- 

 keeping as he. He was. of course, exceedingly busy, 

 and it was not often I could get a conversation with 

 him in business hours ; but when he could spare the 

 time I obtained more information from him in a few 

 minutes than I did in many days by other means. 



Our conversations often took turns which specially 

 interested me. One of these was when we chatted on 

 the different British and American names for the same 

 appliances and parts of hives. In America the roof of 

 a hive is called a "cover" and the floor a " bottom- 

 board." Mr. Root thought that the British terms for 

 these parts were good, and spoke of making an at- 

 tempt to adopt them in America. The photo which 

 accompanies this account was taken from the roof of 

 one of the factory buildings. It is of the Root Com- 

 pany's apiarj-. There are about 500 hives, which are 

 all kept for queen-raising. Each hive has a grapevine 

 trained to a post growing in front of it to shade the 

 bees from the hot sun, and when I was there (in Sep- 

 tember) the vines were laden with ripe grapes hang- 

 ing in large tempting-looking clusters. They were 

 small black grapes, and had a very nice but peculiar 

 flavor, something like that of an alpine strawberry, 

 and they were so abundant that the factory hands were 

 allowed to buy all they could eat at from 2 cents to 3 

 cents per pound. During my stay at Medina I spent a 

 great deal of my time in the apiary, and was aljle to 

 compare notes with Mr. Wardell, the apiarist, on many 

 little details in queen-raising. 



Mr. Sladen's visit will long- be remember- 

 ed by us with pleasure, and we heartily re- 

 ciprocate the kindly feeling- expressed in 

 his article. 



REARING QUEENS TO ITALIANIZE AX 



APIARY. 



"Good morning-. Is this Mr. Doolittle?" 

 ' ' That is what they call me around here. ' ' 

 "Mj^ name is Barber, and I have called 

 on you this morning- to see if you will tell 

 me something- about how I can Italianize 

 my apiarj' so as to have all pure Italian 

 bees." 



" How larg-e an apiary have you?" 

 " I have 125 colonies, all told, 10 of which 

 are pure Italians, while some 15 to 20 are 

 hybrids and the remainder blacks; but all 

 of my neig-hbors for miles around have ei- 

 ther blacks or hybrids, so that it seems al- 

 most impossible for me to get ahead at all." 

 "Could you not get these neig-hbors to al- 

 low you to Italianize their bees? I know 

 this would cost you quite a little; but after 

 it was once done j'ou would be master of 

 the situation." 



"I hardly think thej^ would all allow of 

 this, even could I do it; but what stands in 

 the way more than any thing- else is, that 

 nearly all of these black and hybrid bees 

 are in box hives, so that the undertaking- 



