340 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 1 



seemed the bees found an opening in a chink un- 

 der th« eaves. Recently I saw this house, and 

 the rustic it not replaced any more, so the bees 

 could not find it a suitable quarter to nest in. 



For years a colony of bees held sway in one ©f 

 the fljing buttreises of old St. Joseph's Church, 

 Berkeley, near here. The bees iiad their entrance 

 within a yard or so of the church entrance, and I 

 never heard of the congregation being molested 

 by the busy honey-gatkerers. 



A little over a year ago one of my neighbors 

 in the Claremont district, just over the hill from 

 our place, asked me to come to his place and see 

 what he could do to banish a colony of bees that 

 had taken possession of his attic. I found that 

 f<^r years be had been the victim of the bees' in- 

 dustry. They got in between the shingles and 

 ihe plaster. The case was one of the most extra- 

 ordinary I ever heard of. Several years, during 

 hot weather, the honey melted and ran down even 

 into the rooms below. One year, a mass of comb, 

 honey, and bees was dislodged by the heat and 

 vient tobogging to the eaves. The plaster was 

 ruined. Buckets, pails, and tubs were set to 

 catch the dripping honey. When I visited the 

 place the ceiling where this colony was located 

 had been replastered. The swarm had been re- 

 moved, and its place of ingress on the outside 

 stopped. 



The pestiverous colony that I was called to ad- 

 vise about was lodged in the immense wooden 

 cornice, and was to be reached only from within 

 the attic. One of the owner's sons had made an 

 orening, and was trying to capture or dislodge 

 the bees He procured a smoker, and had tried 

 to drive the bees away or kill them with sulphur 

 fumes, but to no purpose. He was advised by 

 some one connected with the University of Cali- 

 fornia to give them their quietus by means of 

 carbon bisulphid. Liberal applications failed to 

 accomplish the desired result, owing, I suppose, 

 to the fumes too easily finding an outlet at the 

 bottom of the cornice. To ascertain the size of 

 the colony I took a hand-saw and used it as a 

 knife to cut the comb loose. Sheets of comb eight 

 inches wide and over twenty-seven inches long 

 were taken out. The honey was of the finest col- 

 or and flavor But it was impossible to get those 

 bees out — they crawled off into all sorts of cor- 

 ners. Every hole that could be found in the 

 shingles and in the cornice had been plugged, but 

 •still the bees found an entrance. 1 advised the 

 voung man to let the bees remain until late in 

 \vinter, when there would be fewer of them, and 

 but little honey to make a muss as in the spring 

 or summer, and then he could probably easily 

 tout them from their strongh jld. 



Oakland, Cal. 



FOUL BROOD AND BLACK BROOD. 



How to Know Them. 



BY E. R. ROOT. 



During the warm part of the j ear we receive 

 on the average from t^vo to three samples of sus- 

 pected brood a week from various parts of the 

 country. These we are always glad to examine 

 and render a report on, fiee of [charge, providing 

 that the specimens are sent in a stout wooden or 



tin box; but no ointment or cigar box must be 

 used as it destroys the odor of the comb. 



Last fall we receired a remarkably character- 

 istic sample — a whole comb, in fact, showing an 

 adTanced stage of the disease. So perfect was it 

 that we took a photo of it and here it is. But 

 no photograph or engraving can adequately rep- 

 resent the various shades of color, grading from 

 that of a brown coffee berry to a bright yellow; 

 so the reader will have to imagine this part from 

 description. 



The specimen here shown is typical of an ad- 

 Tanced stage of the disease, because it shows sunk- 

 en and perforated capped cells and those uncap- 

 ped with the dead larva: lying on one side. While 

 we usually expect the larvae to die in the case of 

 old-fashioned or American foul brood after seal- 

 ing, yet wh»n the disease is very bad in thecomb 

 we find dead larvas in almost all stages of growth, 

 showing all gradations of colors, from a bright 

 yellow to a deep dark brown. Just about as the 

 larva dies it takes on a bright yellow. This 

 turns darker and darker, showing next the color 

 of the coffee we drink with milk in it. The 

 shade deepens until it is of the color of strong 

 coffee without milk. At this stage the larva 

 loses its form, sinking down into a shapeless 

 mass; and if a toothpick be introduced into this 

 mass the dead matter will adhere to it, roping 

 out some two or three inches like spittle. This 

 has given rise to the term ropy foul brood, as 

 distinguished from the type known as black 

 brood, or, as the Bureau of Entomology has it, 

 European foul brood. 



The cappings of the cells of the old-fashioned 

 foul brood are very apt to be sunken. Some- 

 where over the surface there may be a small hole 

 as if it had been pricked with a pin. This hole 

 may be very minute; but as it enlarges it is apt 

 to be angular, with ragged edges. It would ap- 

 pear that the bees make an opening in the cells, 

 knowing that something is wrong, and the mess 

 within is so foul that they give it up in disgust. 

 It would appear, also, that some of the bees go 

 back, tear away the opening a little more, and 

 then quit the job. By examining the engraving 

 one may see the various sizes of openings in the 

 cappings. Among the sunken cells and perforat- 

 ed ones will be found others that are perfectly 

 normal. On opening up the same we find 

 healthy grubs within. 



It is very seldom that we find all the cells in a 

 comb affected, even in an advanced stage. In 

 the one before us, probably a tenth of them were 

 in a healthy condition, and from them would 

 emerge in the course of time healthy normal bees. 

 Foul brood, then, seems to attack a comb in spots. 

 This is due possibly to the fact that young larva? 

 are fed with the pap or honey containing the dis- 

 ease germs, and others may be accidentally fed by 

 other bees a food that is in no way affected, and 

 consequently they mature perfectly normal bees. 



When the combs are badly diseased, like the 

 one in the engraving, it will give off a strong 

 odor like that of a glue-pot, such as one gets 

 while the glue is boiling, excf pt that it is worse. 

 The stench is almost identical with that which 

 emanates from a lot of dead bees piled up in a 

 damp place in hot weather. Several times our 

 men have been led tosuppose there was foul brood 

 in the ytrd by the pe^yljgr odor, when examina- 



