518 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Aug-. 13, 1903. 



nies, and they carry the disease just in proportion to the 

 amount of diseased honey they convey to their own hives. 



Every diseased apiary should be treated according to 

 the exact condition in which it is found, so as not only to 

 drive out the disease, but to taake considerable increase in 

 colonies, and end by having every colony in first-class con- 

 dition. In the honey season, when the bees are gathering 

 freely, is the only safe time to make increase in a diseased 

 apiary, and I make this increase by tiering up two hives 

 full of the best brood with about a quart of bees until the 

 most of the brood is hatched. By that time I will have a 

 very large colony of young bees just in the prime of life, 

 and when these bees are all shaken into a single hive and 

 treated I will have a first-class colony made out of them. In 

 every apiary that I had treated in the honey season I always 

 had increase made by having the best brood tiered up with 

 about a quart of bees, and left until most of the brood was 

 hatched, and then had these bees treated just the same as 

 the old bees that I shook off the brood and treated first. 



HOW TO CURB THE APIARIES OF FOUL BROOD. 



In the honey season, when the bees are gathering freely, 

 retnove the combs in the evening and shake the bees into 

 their own hives ; give them frames with comb foundation 

 starters on and let them build for four days, and store the 

 diseased honey in them which they took with them from the 

 old comb. Then, in the eveni?ig of the fourth day, i^L^e out 

 the new combs and give them comb foundation to work out, 

 and then the cure will be complete. By this method of 

 treatment all the diseased honey is removed from the bees 

 before the full sheet of foundation is worked out. Where 

 you find a large quantity of nice brood with only a few cells 

 of foul brood in the most of your colonies, and have shaken 

 the bees off for treatment, fill two hives full with these 

 combs of brood, and then place one hive of brood on the 

 other, and shade this tiered-up brood from the sun untU the 

 most of it is hatched. Then, in the evening, shake these 

 bees into a single hive and then give them frames with 

 comb-foundation starters, and let them build comb for four 

 days. Then, in the evening of the fourth day, take out the 

 new comb and give them comb foundation to work out to 

 complete the cure. After the brood is hatched out of the old 

 combs they must be made into beeswax or burned, and all 

 the new combs made out of the starters during the four days 

 must be burned or made into beeswax, on account of the 

 diseased honey that would be stored in them. 



Where the diseased colonies are weak in bees, put the 

 bees of two, three or four together, so as to get a good-sized 

 colony to start the cure with, as it does not pay to spend 

 time fussing with little weak colonies. All the curing or 

 treating of diseased colonies should be done in the evening, 

 so as not to have any robbing done, or cause any of the bees 

 from the diseased colonies to mix and go in with the bees of 

 sound colonies. By doing all the work in the evening it 

 gives the bees a chance to settle down very nicely before 

 morning, and then there is no confusion or trouble. When 

 the bees are not gathjring honey, any apiary can be cured 

 of foul brood by removing the diseased combs in the even- 

 ings and giving the bees frames with comb-foundation 

 starters. Then, also in the evenings feed the bees plenty 

 of sugar syrup, and they will draw out the foundation and 

 store the diseased honey which they took with them from 

 the old combs. In the fourth evening remove the new 

 combs made out of the starters, and give the bees full sheets 

 of comb foundation, and feed plenty of sugar syrup each 

 evening until every colony is in first-class order every way. 

 Make the syrup out of granulated sugar, and put one pound 

 of water to every two pounds of sugar, and then bring it to 

 a boil. 



Where you find the disease in a few good colonies after 

 all honey-gathering is over, do not tinker or fuss with these 

 in any way just then, but carefully leave them alone until 

 an evening in October, and then go to the diseased colonies 

 and take every comb out of these colonies and put six combs 

 of all sealed or capped stores in their place, taken from 

 sound colonies, and on each side of these all-capped combs 

 place a division-board. This will put these colonies in first- 

 class order for winter with little or no bother at all, and 

 the disease crowded clean out at the same time. 



But some may say that the disease cannot be driven out 

 so simply in the fall by taking away the diseased combs 

 and giving the bees six combs that are capped all over right 

 down to the bottom of the frames. It can and does cure 

 every time when properly done, and if you stop to think you 

 will see quite plainly that the bees must keep the diseased 

 honey they took out of the old combs until they consume it. 



as they cannot find any place in all-capped combs to put it, 

 and that will end the disease at once. 



Many bee-keepers will no doubt say that this fall 

 method of treatment will not work in their apiaries at all, 

 because they would not have enough of the all-capped combs 

 to spare from the sound colonies, even if they could find 

 some all-sealed. Very true ; but you can very easily secure 

 abundance of all-capped combs by putting Miller feeders 

 on your sound colonies in the evenings in September, and 

 feeding these colonies all the sugar syrup you can get them 

 to take ; and then in October each of these fed colonies can 

 spare the two outside combs, which will be nicely capped 

 all over right down to the bottom of the frames, and with 

 these all-capped combs you will be provided with plenty of 

 good stores to carry out my fall method of treatment. I 

 finished the curing of my own apiary in the fall of 187S by 

 this sealed-comb treatment, when I had foul brood in my 

 own apiary. All of my methods of treatment are of my 

 own working out, and none of them ever fail when properly 

 carried out. 



Empty hives that had foul brood in do not need any dis- 

 infecting in anyway. 



In treating diseased colonies never starve any bees, be- 

 cause it unfits them for business and makes them thin, lean 

 and poor, and is also hard on the queens. I never starved 

 any bees, but always tried to see how fat I could make them 

 while treating them by feeding plenty of sugar syrup when 

 the bees were not gathering honey. 



If you have nice, white combs that are clean and dry, 

 and that never had any brood in them, do not destroy one 

 of these, as they are perfectly safe to use On any colony of 

 bees just as they are, and are very valuable to any bee- 

 keeper. I once got a bee-keeper in the State of Vermont to 

 save over 2000 nice, white combs, when he wrote to me for 

 advice, and the saving of this class of combs must have 

 been worth fully $300 to him. But I have always advised 

 bee-keepers to convert into wax all old combs that ever had 

 one cell of foul brood in them, and the only article that will 

 take all the wax out of the old combs is a good wax-press ; 

 and as this will pay for itself many times over its cost, I 

 urge the bee-keepers everywhere to buy one. 



Note. — Any bee-keeper desiring to know whether his 

 bees are affected with foul brood may send by mail a sam- 

 ple of the diseased comb, enclosed in a pasteboard box, to 

 Wm. McEvoy, Woodburn, Ont., Canada. Please see that 

 the sample is free from honey so that other mail matter 

 will not be injured. 



Spring Feeding— Habits of Bees. 



BY C. P. D.\DANT. 



I BEG the reader to forgive me for referring to this sub- 

 ject once more, but I cannot leave Mr. A. C. Miller's 

 criticisms unanswered. This will be my last article on 

 this subject, for 1 realize that long controversies are tire- 

 some to the readers. 



Mr. Miller (page 454) accuses me of taking his remarks 

 as a personal attack. I cannot see where he received this 

 impression. I aimed to answer nothing but his arguments 

 and assertions. But it is quite difficult, I will agree, for one 

 to keep his temper when another asserts that the facts you 

 advance are not true. 



Mr. Miller takes me to task and criticises my arithmetic 

 and my ignorance of the length of time it takes for a bee to 

 hatch, because I said that the colony that had been self- 

 feeding by slow robbing had almost doubled in a month or 

 so. Mr. Miller, of course, takes the month from the first 

 day of the feeding instead of from the last, as it serves his 

 purpose better, leaving out two weeks of the increase caused 

 by continued feeding. At the end of a month from the first 

 day the increase caused would show but the result of nine 

 days of feeding instead of two weeks. I am so well aware 

 of the necessity of a lapse of time between the laying of the 

 eggs and the harvest, that it is on that point that all my 

 efforts are directed. I want my bees to rear their young at 

 the time when they are likely to be useful for the harvest. 

 If I induce breeding early I do like the poultry-raiser who 

 induces his hens to lay eggs early, when they are valuable. 

 If the harvest begins June 1st and lasts 4 weeks, the bulk of 

 the breeding must be done early in May, and the bees that 

 will hatch from eggs laid June 10th will help consume the 

 honey instead of helping to harvest it. So I insisted, and 

 still insist, on the necessity of encouratring breeding early 

 before the honey crop. 



