July, 1919 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



showing no disoaso, and using them again. 

 He reports, also, tliat two neighbors have 

 tried this with ''sometimes but little re- 

 currence of disease, and sometimes consider- 

 able." He brings up the question because 

 he understood Mr. Townsend had been suc- 

 cessful in cutting out foul-brood cells. 



E. D. Townsend replies that the cells he 

 cut out were in extracting-supers and not 

 in the brood-chamber, and that they were 

 not cells showing disease but simply cells 

 that had been bred in. Those combs above 

 an excluder that have never been bred in, 

 he extracts from and then returns to the 

 same colony to be cleaned, ' ' the theory be- 

 ing that any spores of American foul brood 

 not removed by the bees in this cleaning 

 process soon lose their vitality and are 

 harmless.'' [We wonder! — Editor.] 



Old brood-combs with several layers of 

 cocoons saturated with diseased honey he 

 believes to be a source of danger, and there- 

 fore renders them into wax. He does not 

 recommend cutting out foul-brood cells, but 

 only in removing cells with cocoon walls 

 from combs useil in supers. He says: "A 

 colony containing but a single diseased cell 

 is consigned to the wax barrel. It is the 

 cheaper way than to run any risk." 



[We ourselves have washed out super 

 combs from foul-brood colonies, and used 

 them again; Ijut we do not recommend it. 

 In fact, we do not advise temporizing with 

 ^'oul brood at all, but, rather, to get rid o+' 

 it as soon as jjossible. Our reason for quot- 

 ing from this article is because Mr. Town- 

 send makes a valuable point in saying that 

 if one uses extrac ting-combs from foul- 

 brood colonies, he should be certain that no 

 cell is left above that has ever contained 



brood. — Editor.] 



« * * 



HANDY DEVICE \VHEN MOVIXG BEES. 



Preparing bees for moving has always 

 been to me the bugbear of migratory bee-, 

 keeping. Andrews Brothers, who had an 

 apiary near Glendora last season, have sim- 

 plified this task very materially by using 

 clasps for fastening supers to hive bodies. 

 The screens are fastened on in the same 

 manner. These clasps are made of galvaniz- 

 ed iron. One end is fastened to the hive 

 body with a screw. The other end con- 

 tains a slot which hooks over a screw set in 

 the super. Four clasps are used on each 

 hive body. When hives are equipped with 

 these clasps, instead of spending a whole 

 day preparing a truck load for moving, the 

 job is finished in a few minutes. — Levi J. 

 Kay, Western Honeybee (May). 

 * * * 



PRICE OF HONEY. 



From the tone of reports, beekeepers are 

 going to insist that they get a good price 

 for their honey; and if they co-operate 

 properly, and do not throw large quantities 

 of honey upon the market regardless of 

 price, it is possible that the price can be 

 maintained at a fairly high level. With 

 sugar selling at from 11 to 13 cents a pound. 



there is no reason why honey should drop 

 very much. Other food commodities have 

 dropped very little, and in many instances 

 have advanced. * * * It is, however, a 

 peculiar condition just at present, and very 

 likely the beekeepers themselves will have 

 more to do with the honey prices during the 

 coming year than ever before. — M. G. Da- 

 dant, American Bee Journal (June). 



* * X 

 RKQIIEENING LA VING-WORKER COLONY. 



To requeen a laying-worker colony, H. D. 

 Murry, as stated in the May Beekeeper 's 

 Item, removes three frames from the side 

 of the hive and introduces in the vacant 

 space a two-frame nucleus with an empty 

 comb or sheet of foundation between the 

 nucleus and the laying workers. When re- 

 queening cross colonies he sometimes uses 

 a nucleus in this way, and sometimes places 

 the nucleus in a super above the colony to 

 be requeened, a newspaper intervening. 



* * * 



WHY NOT RAISE A LITTLE COMB HONEY? 



There will always be a certain demand 

 for comb honey on the part of a consuming 

 class that does not care for it in the ex- 

 tracted form. It is far wiser, therefore, to 

 meet this demand, thus lessening the quan- 

 tity of extracted honey matei'ially and pvo- 

 viding an opportunity for a better price for 

 a more limited supply of this form of honey. 

 Yes, we too believe it will be a good idea 

 to put on a few comb-honey supers. — Louis 

 H. Scholl, in May Beekeeper's Item. 



* * * 



SHIPPING HINTS. 



Some shipping hints are given by I. B. 

 Saunders in the May Beekeeper's Item. 11-^ 

 says 75 per cent of the 60-pound cans they 

 receive have only one handle. Much 

 stronger handles should be used. Also 

 greater care should be taken not to drive 

 nails into the cans nor use cases with pro- 

 jecting nails that might wear a hole in a 

 can. .In a dry year or in cool weather, the 

 extracted honey put with comb honey, he 

 says, should be heated. He also gives the 

 good advice that cans should not be left un- 

 covered, since foreign matter is certain to 

 get into the honey. 



* * * 



DECOV HIVES ILLEGAL. 



Riverside County, always in the front 

 where the interests of beekeepers are con- 

 cerned, has passed an ordinance forbidding 

 putting up decoy hives in trees along the 

 highways or on any public property. — West- 

 ern Honeybee (May). 



'* * * 



The California Exchange's purchases of 

 cans and cases for 1919, says the May West- 

 ern Honeybee, will make up two large train- 

 loads of cans and one trainload of cases, 

 worth about $180,000. 



* * -x- 



There is money in l>ees; Init to get it 

 out of them it often needs a skillful man." 

 — Apicultural Journal (April). 



