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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov, 1 



of the bees from the infected district would 

 also do away with the spread of the blight, 

 for he says: 



It ouly remains to be said that the moving of bees 

 from any section, while it will work terrible mischief 

 in preventing pollination, will probably avail not at 

 all to lessen the pear-blight. We must rememlaer 

 while it takes thousands of visits of insects to polli- 

 nate the flowers of a single tree properly, less than a 

 score are necessary to inoculate a tree thoroughly with 

 this blight virus. There are always enough insects 

 other than bees, not to speak of the unowned bees in 

 rock, crevice, hollow trees, walls of houses, or even in 

 holes in the ground, to spread the virus of the blight 

 so abundantly that we can never hope to prevent the 

 spread of disease by keeping the insect away. On the 

 other hand, in case of a large orchard, where thou- 

 sands of trees are often gathered in one block, it is 

 utterly impossible to secure thorough pollination ex- 

 cept we have apiaries in the near vicinity. I have 

 known several cases of bees working in holes in the 

 ground the present year. .Such would seem very poor 

 hives. Have others noticed this ? 



The question naturally arises, then, "If 

 the local bee-keepers of Hanford and other 

 infected districts can not by any procedure 

 abate the nuisance, what is there to be 

 done?" If the pear-blig-ht would come any- 

 how without the bees, if it would spread from 

 tree to tree by the agency of other insects, 

 although not nearly so numerous, what pos- 

 sible good can come from persecuting the 

 bee-keeper? Even if it be admitted that 

 the bees themselves are almost the sole 

 means for the transmission of the disease, 

 then there is the stubborn fact that there 

 are many colonies of bees in the rocks and 

 caves that are what would be called in law 

 fercr naturo', or animals out of the juris- 

 diction of man, and therefore man can not 

 be held responsible for the depredations 

 that they may commit. 



Prof. Cook, in the first quotation above 

 given, suggests or points out a reason why 

 young nursery stock that has never bloomed 

 should be blighted. The virus found in the 

 semi-liquid resinous secretion, he says, 

 would be visited by the bees, and therefore 

 the bees wotild help spread the disease. 

 Right here, it seems to me, we lack proof. 

 I carefully qtiestioned the bee-keepers and 

 pear-men in the vicinitj'; and so far as I 

 can remember no one was prepared to say 

 that bees were ever found on these young 

 shoots — that they never saw them, in fact, 

 except when the trees were in bloom. It 

 was admitted, however, that ants and other 

 insects would crawl all over them. For 

 that reason I can not think that the bees 

 are proven guilty as charged by Professor 

 Cook. If it be true that other insects spread 

 the blight on young nursery stock, it only 

 goes to prove Prof. Cook's other statement, 

 that the removal of the bees controlled by 

 man would not abate the nuisance. If bees 

 do not visit the small trees, and such young 

 stock is blighted just as badly as the old 

 trees, it goes to show very clearly that the 

 same agency that scatters the disease on 

 young trees (insects, not bees) can and 

 does scatter it on the old trees. 



Prof. Cook offers several remedies for the 

 cure of pear-blight. He says further: 



The most potent fungicide, or bacteriacide, yet dis- 

 covered is the Bordeaux mixture, which consists of 

 water holding in solution lime and copper sulphate. 



The formula I usually give is one easy to remember: 

 4-4-15. This is easily made as follows: 



Four pounds of fresh quick-lime are slaked, put in a 

 bag, and hung in enough water to dissolve it. The 

 copper sulphate is dissolved in the same way in oth- 

 er water. When dissolved they are placed together 

 and enough water added to make forty-five gallons. 

 This is a quick cure for manv blights. It does not, 

 however, prove effective against pear-blight. We can 

 easily see why. The germs remain inside, almost en- 

 tireU', and so are not reached by the liquid. 



The second remedy for blight is the only one, which, 

 so far as we now know, will aid us in combating this 

 terrible disease of the pear and loquat. It is to prune 

 and pull and burn. In ca,se of pear and loquat blight 

 we watch for the withered leaves, which are apt to 

 appear soon after the resinous buds attract the bees 

 or the flowers open their showy petals, and cut them 

 off a generous distance below the blight as toon as 

 they appear— the sooner the better. If we have been 

 so vigilant as to discover the trouble at the first onset, 

 before the microbes are carried far from the bloom, 

 we shall have stopped the blight entirely. It is safe, 

 in case we use our pruning-knife or shears, more than 

 once, to disinfect them before each successive cut, bv 

 dipping in a dilute solution of carbolic acid. I hope 

 and expect to save my pear and loquat trees by care- 

 ful attention to this method. The tomato of Califor- 

 nia suffers severely from a blight. Great watchful- 

 ness and careful pulling of any vine as soon as the 

 blighted leaves make any show, will frequently stop 

 the blight at once, and save nearly all our vines. 



Another method that is sometimes very successful 

 in treating blight is to change the locality of the 

 plant. The melons in some parts of California are 

 grievously injured by bacteria that work in the crown 

 and upper roots, causing them to rot. If we go but a 

 short distance from where the blight destroyed the 

 previous year and plant our vines we often will es- 

 cape entirely; whereas, if we had planted on the old 

 ground we might have lost all our plants. 



We know the second remedy is good. In- 

 deed, the largest pear-grower in the region 

 of Hanford told me he did not believe in at- 

 tributing all the mischief to the bees. He 

 was fair enough to say that, in his opinion, 

 the pear-growers themselves were very 

 much to blame. They had allowed the 

 blight to remain on the infected trees with- 

 out taking any care of it. If all the grow- 

 ers had been careful to prune it out at the 

 very start, he believed it might have been 

 held in check. 



And this reminds me that the large pear- 

 growers are not the fellows who are howl- 

 ing " blood and thunder," "poison," and 

 "suits for damages." It is the little fel- 

 lows who have been making the noise. 



ORGANIZATION AND CO-OPERATION. 



Much is being said on this most impor- 

 tant subject, especially in the Atnerican 

 Bee-keeper and the Bee-keeper'' s Review. 

 The editors of those papers, while admit- 

 ting that perfection has nearly been reach- 

 ed in bee-keeping appliances and methods 

 for producing honey, very properly ask, 

 What are all these with a poor market, or, 

 what is still worse, bee-keepers with all 

 their knowledge of how to get the honey 

 competing against each other and slaugh- 

 tering prices? It has been suggested that 

 this is a matter that the National Bee- 

 keepers' Association should take up, locate 

 warehouses, with permanent officers, in va- 

 rious parts of the country, so that the mem- 

 bers could ship their product to such ware- 

 houses with a reasonable assurance that it 

 could be held till sold at the best price ob- 

 tainable. Much has been accomplished by 



