AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 569 



duce early honey. Bees and bee-keepers were discouraged, and many bees were 

 suffered to die, and those that survived lived from hand to mouth until the blooming 

 of basswood late in June. 



Since the blooming of basswood bees have never done better, and have never 

 been in better condition for winter, in my knowledge. Fully half of the season was 

 a complete failure, but the honey crop is an average. 



Is IT Bee-Paralysis ? — I have noted with interest the answer of Dr. Miller to 

 the question of R. T. S., on page 395. The Doctor thinks that the trouble with the 

 bees of R. T. S. is bee-paralysis. To this I do not dissent, but it is not what we 

 know as bee-paralysis in this section. Here we have this same trouble, every fall, 

 and consider it no serious matter, and so far as I am able to judge, it affects the 

 prosperity of the bees but little. 



The difference between bee-paralysis proper, as we understand it here, and the 

 trouble in question is this : In bee-paralysis the bees become hairless, slick and 

 shiny, and the other bees carry them out of the hive while alive, with as much vigor 

 as they do drones at the close of the season. In the beginning the diseased bees 

 seem to be unconscious of their affliction, and continue to work. I have seen hun- 

 dreds of them gathering nectar after they had become weak and tottery, and 

 so slick and shiny that persons unacquainted with bees would hardly believe them 

 to be bees. 



In the trouble spoken of by R. T. S., the bees seem to get smaller, and never 

 shed their hair, and the first indication of the disease, so far as my observations go, 

 is the carrying of them out by the other bees in a dead or unconscious state. 



Bee-paralysis proper, readily yields to the sulphur treatment, or at least that 

 has been my experience, and the other trouble will get well of itself ; but in cases 

 with me, where I have any fears as to the result, I stimulate the queen by feeding a 

 little sugar syrup until the disease disappears. Sneedville, Tenn. 



ISSUIXQ OF SW^ARMS-BEE-PARAI^YSIS. 



BY .1. A. GOLDEN. 



I want to. say to Dr. C. C. Miller that the first Italian queen I ever had was pur- 

 chased of A. I. Root in the fall, and the following season I watched them very 

 closely, for 1 was very anxious to have them swarm, and one morning they rushed 

 out and I sprayed them as they circled around, and then they all went back. So I 

 opened the hive, took out a comb, hung it on the comb-rack, and took out the second 

 with the old queen thereon. I thought I would see how many queen-cells there 

 were, and the third frame had a large cell with the cap cut off, and to my surprise 

 a young queen came walking up the comb from the direction of the uncapped cell. 

 There were but two cells ; I cut the other out and introduced it into a nucleus, put 

 back the combs with the queens, shut up the hive, and on the third day the old 

 queen came out with a rousing big swarm. You see, Doctor, I was a novice, and 

 thought that was the way bees did. Yes, Doctor, the young queen remained, and 

 the old queen went out. 



The other case occurred with a colony of Mr. Adam Smith, who is a bee-keeper, 

 and 85 years of age, quite nervous, and lives on the second lot from me. I handle 

 his bees for him mostly. Two years ago a swarm issued, and I was going to remove 

 the old brood-frames to another hive, and hive the swarm back in the parent hive. 

 You see it's a house-apiary, with stationary hives, and about the third frame I saw 

 a queen and thought she hadn't gone out, and said, "Why, Mr. Smith, here's the 



