26 



January, 1914. 



American ^ee Journal 



more than he would of comb, and the 

 more honey that is produced the more 

 honey is eaten. 



The man who produces a crop of 

 comb honey is doing a good thing for 

 the public ; it is possible that the man 

 who produces a crop of extracted 

 honey is doing just a little better thing 

 for the public. 



Marengo, 111. 



-^* ^ 



The Life of a Bee Inspector 



BY F. DUNOAS TODD. 



FOUL Brood Inspector is my offi- 

 cial title, but although I have 

 been employed in the Govern- 

 ment service of British Columbia 

 for three successive years, I have 

 never had a chance to work at my 

 trade. I have opened up many thou- 

 sand hives in that time, but have never 

 found any foul brood to inspect. I am 

 always looking forthedisease, but con- 

 tinually hoping never to see it, and so 

 far I consider myself and the province 

 very lucky. 



Of course, I get a scare once in a 

 while. For instance, the past summer 

 one beekeeper, in the most casual way, 

 informed me that seven of his colonies 

 were infected in the spring, but that he 

 got rid of the trouble. He is a fine 

 beekeeper of the student type, so he 

 plays all kinds of "stunts" with his 

 hives to satisfy his craving for knowl- 

 edge ; too frequently to his hurt so far 

 ashoney crop counts. His knowledge 

 of the English language is far from 

 being good, and I have to patiently 

 catechise him, examine him, re-exam- 

 ine him, do it all over again, then some 

 more, before I begin to comprehend 

 what he is anxious to tell me. I feel I 

 need to take a pound of salt with some 

 of the statements he makes about bee 

 conduct; but I know he will patiently 

 lie in front of a hive for a day at a time, 

 keeping his eyes fixed on the bees, so 

 Icannot off hand say to him, " That can- 

 not be so." I tried it once, but the 

 chunks of broken English he hurled 

 at me almost scared me off. 



So, when, in telling me of some of 

 his recent observations, he lamented 

 the fact that they were interrupted by 

 the advent of foul brood, I naturally 

 upset the even tenor of his way by 

 wanting to know particulars, but he 

 hastily interjected, "That's all right; I 

 fix them," and then proceeded with the 

 main theme of his story. I heard him 

 out, and then got his interest centered 

 on the matter of chief interest to me. 

 How did the infection reach his bees ? 

 A neighbor, it seems, had a can of 

 honey sent to him from Ontario, and 

 after the contents were consumed the 

 empty receptacle was thrown into the 

 rubbish heap. One day the neighbor 

 invited Henry to come over and see 

 what a fine feed was being provided 

 for his bees, and he accepted the invi- 

 tation. The moment he saw the feed 

 he realized the risk, so he opened up 

 every hive afterwards and found affect- 

 ed brood in seven. Luckily, it was in 

 spring with little in the hives, so every 

 drop of the find had been fed to the 

 brood at once. The beekeeper never 

 hesitated a moment, but cut out the 

 affected combs and burned them in the 

 stove. 



I examined every colony very care- 

 fully, but could see nothing wrong. 

 The nearest apiaries were fully a mile 

 away, and they also appeared all right ; 

 but all of them will be closely watched 

 another season. So far as we know 

 we have a clean bill of health in British 

 Columbia, and we want to keep the 

 province in that condition. 



Now whether this was a real case of 

 foul brood I do not know, but the in- 

 cident is illustrative of how the dis- 

 ease may be spread. It is the third 

 case of introduction into the province 

 of which I have cognizance. One was 

 brought in by a settler from Ontario, 

 and luckily the suspicious case was re- 

 ported to the Department of Agricul- 

 ture before neighboring apiaries had 

 been affected. In another case a bee- 

 keeper who had been visiting his early 

 home in England, decided to bring 

 back with him some fine British stock, 

 but he brought more than he intended. 



No attemot was made to cure in 

 either of these cases ; they were wiped 

 out by fire. We bee inspectors of 

 British Columbia do not intend at 

 present to earn reputations as being 

 men who can cure the ailment. Since 

 we are free of it we deem it the higher 

 wisdom to ruthlessly destroy by fire 

 every case that comes under our notice. 



Need I say that I follow closely every 

 word in the bee journals that is written 

 on the subject of foul brood, and since 

 I have had no experience in treating it, 

 many readers may think it unwise, if 

 not worse, of me to express any opin- 

 ion on the subject; but. nevertheless, I 

 have had much experience with the 

 ordinary beekeeper; perhaps a closer 

 and more intimate relationship than 

 falls to the lot of the average inspec- 

 tor; for my real work is giving in- 

 struction in apiculture, so I have de- 

 veloped some notions that I want to 

 express. 



First, let me give an outline of our 

 conditions. The province of British 

 Columbia is a huge territory in which 

 are settled less than half a million peo- 

 ple, 7.5 percent of whom are located on 

 the lower reaches of the Eraser river. 

 Most of them are new to the work at 

 which they are laboring, so our Gov- 

 ernment, with great wisdom and fore- 

 thought, is working hard to educate 

 those on the land. The Department of 

 Agriculture has a force of about three 

 dozen experts at work; as fine a body 

 of men as one could wish to see, all 

 anxious to provide a full meal to any 

 one who hints he is mentally hungry. 



I can best illustrate from my own 

 work. While I am ready to jump at 

 the first call for help, ordinarily for five 

 months I plod steadily through a dis- 

 trict until I have visited every man, 

 woman and child that owns as much 

 as one colony of bees. My business is 

 to make the bees productive. I am 

 armed with all kinds of authority, such 

 as would arouse the ire of the average 

 American if they were even mentioned; 

 but I never show the club. Generally 

 speaking, I am as " welcome as the 

 flowers in May," but once in a while I 

 bump into a man who would probably 

 be willing to scrap on that particular' 

 day with even Dr. Miller. He is busy, 

 the bees are all right ; if examined they 

 would annoy everybody, and, besides, 

 they would be hindered at their work. 



Furthermore, he hates all kinds of in 

 spectors, and as for the Government, 

 well, he won't say what he thinks. Such 

 men are delightfully easy. 



The very worst I ever came across 

 had sworn by all the gods there are 

 and some more, that he would " fire over 

 the fence " the first Government m«n 

 that ever set foot on his premises, and 

 I was the unfortunate one. So inter- 

 ested were the neighbors in the ex- 

 pected fracas, that they all watched 

 from afar as I set foot on the sacred 

 ground. They were terribly disap- 

 pointed when I stayed two hours, even 

 more when I was accompanied to the 

 gate by the farmer, who was protesting 

 earnestly that I ought to give him more 

 time. 



With such a case the best policy is 

 to spar for time. Just assure him that 

 everything will be exactly as he wants 

 it. There is no disease in the locality 

 therefore there is no need to examine 

 his bees. Crack a joke or two, tell a 

 few funny stories, ask about the kind 

 of honey he gets, and such like. Then 

 meekly ask to be permitted to outline 

 the best way to handle bees to avoid 

 swarms. The most obstinate case will 

 permit that much, even for no other 

 reason than to give you a chance to 

 earn your pay. Before you have well 

 started, he interrupts by asking about 

 the one hive that has something wrong 

 about it, and wants to know what is 

 the matter. Well, that depends upon 

 so many things you could not express 

 an opinion unless you really examined 

 it. etc., and the next thing you know 

 you are along the hives and are busy. 



Meeting every beekeeper as I do, I 

 have come to learn how little the aver- 

 age man knows about apiculture. It 

 is just as well to be plain, he knows noth- 

 ing about bees, and has made no effort 

 to learn anything. The bees take care 

 of themselves, yet he wonders why he 

 gets no honey. About two beekeepers 

 in a hundred, in my territory, know 

 anything about bees, all the others 

 save swarms after a fashion, and that 

 is the limit of their acquirements. And 

 I suspect that they are not very differ- 

 ent from the average keeper of bees in 

 most parts of the world. In British 

 Columbia an honest effort is being 

 made to educate them. In a later arti- 

 cle I hope to show whether or not the 

 effort pays. 



When I started out as an inspector, 

 my mind was chiefly concerned with 

 bees and their ways, but I soon learned 

 that the beekeeper and his ways were 

 far more important; in the beginning 

 at least. So I am steadily trying to 

 understand men, and the system 1 am 

 working out in my territory is based 

 on the man more than on the bee. 

 Later when I describe it I will not be a 

 bit surprised if our leading authorities 

 knock big holes in it from their stand- 

 point, but I will have one good come- 

 ijack, it works fairly well in British 

 Columbia. 



I often wonder, as I read the instruc- 

 tions given by other inspectors for the 

 cure of foul brood, what will the farmer 

 do? Will he follow directions to the 

 letter? If I know anything, he will 

 not. And there you have the chief 

 reason why I decided for myself, and 

 recommended to my official head that 

 all undoubted cases of foul brood in 



