156 



May. 1914. 



American Hee Jonrnal 



a good citizen and a man whose life 

 has been the soul of honor. He was 

 given a large funeral, the services be- 

 ing conducted by the G. A. R. and 

 Woman's Relief Corps, both in uni- 



form, and were very impressive. The 

 remains were cremated, and will be 

 sent to the officers' quarter in Arling- 

 ton cemetery at Washington, D. C. 



Harry S. Merriam. 



Conducted by Wesley Foster. Boulder. Colo. 



Wintering Conditions and Prospects 



The excellent fall flow of honey and 

 the high quality of winter stores have 

 given us excellent wintering, and the 

 losses throughout tlie West are small. 

 A few colonies were lost from smoth- 

 ering under the big snow, but //u- sno:v 

 did not smother the bees. The snow 

 melting into a slush ran into and filled 

 the entrances of about 20 of the writer's 

 colonies in one out-yard, and the bees 

 were smothered. If the apiary had 

 been easily accessible this would not 

 have occurred. The snow was shov- 

 eled away from the front of the en- 

 trances about 10 days after it fell, and 

 the colonies were then all right, but the 

 damage was done when it began melt- 

 ing rapidly. 



Breeding has been going on at a 

 rapid rate all through March, and one 

 of my colonies had brood in si.x coinbs 

 on March 15. If things keep up at 

 this rate we will have swarming during 

 fruit bloom. This year, I believe, will 

 prove to be a good " Alexander plan of 

 increase year," at any rate I am going 

 to use it some. 



Dr. Carton on Foulbrood 



I plead guilty to being one who does 

 not agree with all of the opinions and 

 scientific deductions of Dr. Carton, 

 because some of them are directly con- 

 trary to my experience with American 

 foulbrood. There is no evidence that 

 I know of to prove that the bacillus 

 larv;e causing American foulbrood 

 affects honey-bees at all detrimentally, 

 except indirectly. American foulbrood 

 is not a bee disease, but a brood dis- 

 ease, and there is not much evidence 

 to show that strength, vigor and dis- 

 ease resistance of adult bees have any 

 effect upon the disease resistance of 

 the Iarv:e. If there is any race or 

 strain of bees or any individual queen 

 whose egg will hatch larv;c, resistant 

 to bacillus larva;, the owner of such 

 a breed or strain of bees has a for 

 tune awaiting him. I would gladly 

 pay $100 for such a queen, and then 

 wouldn't I sell queens ? 



Dr. Carton seems to hold that clean- 

 liness of the hive affects the infection 

 of foulbrood. This is one of the most 

 prevalent opinions among our farmer 

 beekeepers, and I know of several who 

 put themselves out of the bee-business 

 entirely by going on the principle of 

 melting up the old black combs, while 

 American foulbrood was present in 

 their whitest, nicest newly-built combs. 



My experience has been that the 

 strongest colonies on the whitest, 

 newest combs contract American foul- 

 brood just as quickly as a colony that 

 has combs 40 years old. I do not know 

 of any evidence to show that it is the 

 weak colonies in an apiary that con- 

 tract foulbrood first, it is generally the 

 strongest and best ones, because they 

 are more apt to find the unguarded 

 honey of the infected hives in the com- 



munity. Of course, the strong colony 

 soon becomes weak. 



As to foul brood being a disease of 

 natural selection, it certainly works 

 natural selection among the beekeep- 

 ers — the incompetent are soon weeded 

 out of the business. I recently had 

 letters from beekeepers in the East 

 who say that foulbrood has destroyed 

 all their bees and that they contem- 

 plate coming West. I do not know 

 whether these men have lost their bees 

 from European or American foulbrood, 

 as they did not mention it. Perhaps 

 they didn't know. At any rate, I could 

 give such men little encouragement, as 

 we have foulbrood (American) in Col- 

 orado, and the man who cannot suc- 

 cessfully combat American foulbrood 

 will not make a very successful bee- 

 keeper. 



About every month some beekeeper 

 tells me that he has had a few cases of 

 European foulbrood, but I have never 

 seen a case of it in Colorado, and no 

 sample from Colorado has ever been 

 so declared by the Bureau of Ento- 

 mology at Washington. 



Bee-Keeping 



In Dixie^ 



Conducted by J. J. Wilder. Cordele. Ga. 



Editor Root in Dixie 



Editor E. R. Root, of Gleanings in 

 Bee Culture, paid Dixie a 30-day visit 

 during a part of February and March. 

 He touched many points along the 

 east and west coast of Florida, visiting 

 beekeepers. 



Mr. Root combined pleasure and 

 business in the trip. His company has 

 a carload of bees on the west coast, 

 which was sent down from the North 

 in time for the spring flow. Their idea 

 is to increase during the early flows 

 here, then move the bees North in 

 time for the clover flow in Ohio. 



They will give us results in due time, 

 but in my opinion it will be a success. 

 We have the climate and the honey 

 flows early in spring, during which 

 great progress could be made. We 

 hope that it will " pan out " well at the 

 other end of the line. 



slate. Then cypress does not warp or 

 split as does other lumber, and it never 

 rots. 

 If our bee-supply manufacturers 



Cypress Lumber for Bee-Hives 



The average beekeeper does not 

 paint his hives or protect them in any 

 way, and in this damp changeable cli- 

 mate the life of a white pine bottom or 

 cover is less than six seasons. They 

 either rot, split, warp or twist beyond 

 usage. Paint does not add much to 

 their life. This could be overcome if 

 a good grade of cypress lumber were 

 used. They would give good service 

 for over a half century, and no paint- 

 ing is required. This lumber is very 

 oily, and when exposed to the direct 

 rays of the sun a certain amount of 

 this oil collects about the surface of 

 the exposed board. It hardens there 

 so that it will turn water almost like 



Apiary of P. ,1. Tiiullen in .'Vlahama. 



would take hold of this idea and carry 

 it out it would mean much towards the 

 success of our bees. Such lumber is 

 obtainable on most any lumber market 

 at a reasonable price. 



Outlook Brigtil for a Bumper Honey Crop 



The outlook for a great honey har- 

 vest in Dixie is good. In fact, the liar- 



