GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



brother secured 72 swarms by putting out 

 75 boxes. There must have been a terrible 

 stampede of runaway swarms just then in 

 that section. — A. I. R. 



HAVE THE QUEEN-BREEDERS OP THE COUN- 

 TRY BEEN DEFYING THE LAWS IN REF- 

 ERENCE TO MAILING QUEENS'? 



Referring to the recent ruling of the 

 Postoffiee Department (see page 492), that 

 all queen-bees sent through the mails shall 

 have a certificate from the State inspector 

 showing a clean bill of health, Mr. J. F. 

 Crowder, of Pasadena, Cal., has this to say 

 in the California Cultivator of July 4: 



Until the postal department came to our relief, 

 the queen-breeders paid no heed to the laws of the 

 various States, many of which had very good ones; 

 but owing to the leniency of the mails they had 

 never taken the trouble to look them up, nor to see 

 whether they were carrying on a legal business. 

 They had been defying the law of this State for 

 eleven years, as the law was amended in 1901, and 

 in the editor of Gleanings' own State for eight 

 years. Shipments of full hives or colonies could be 

 made in conformity with the laws, but shipments 

 where made through the mails were difficult to reg- 

 ulate until the department came to the relief. 



Italics ours. A little further on, Mr. 

 Crowder quotes Avhat he supposes to be a 

 copy of the Ohio foul-brood law, which the 

 queen-breeders, including ourselves, he 

 says, "defied." This law was repealed two 

 years ago. It had always been a dead letter, 

 for the reason that it did not make a proper 

 provision for the payment of the salary and 

 expenses of an inspector ; and even if it had 

 been operative it made no requirement that 

 queen-bees sent by mail should have a cer- 

 tificate, or a copy of one, from the State in- 

 spector. But just as soon as an effective 

 foul-brood law was passed in Oluo (and we 

 believe the beekeepers of the State will ac- 

 knowledge we had as much to do in getting 

 it passed as any one), our apiary or api- 

 aries where queens were reared were regu- 

 larly inspected and a certificate granted. 

 But the new law does not require a copy of 

 the certificate to be sent out with every 

 package of queens sent by mail, neither did 

 the old one. We were not aware of the 

 provision in the California law. We, there- 

 fore, do not understand why Mr. Crowder 

 should make the charge that the queen- 

 breeders of the country have been "defy- 

 ing" the laws of his State and of Ohio. The 

 word defy means a willful act. If they or 

 we were ignorant of the special provision 

 of the California law, Mr. Crowder is 

 grossly ignorant of the provisions of the 

 Ohio law. Before he makes the serious 

 charge he does, he should make sure he is 

 quoting from the right law. It has been 

 published in Gleanings as it now stands, 

 pages 171 and 306, for 1910, and has been 

 sent broadcast over the State. 



Section 1155-7 of the new law referring 

 to queen-breeders reads: 



Section 1155-7. It shall be the duty of »ny per- 

 son in the State of Ohio, who is engaged in the rear- 

 ing of queen-bees for sale, to use honey in the mak- 

 ing of candy for use in mailing-cages which has 

 been boiled for at least thirty minutes. Any such 

 person engaged in the rearing of queen-bees shall 

 have his queen-rearing apiary or apiaries inspected 

 at least twice each summer season; and on the dis- 

 covery of the existence of any disease which is infec- 

 tious or contagious in its nature, and injurious to 

 bees in their egg, larval, pupal, or adult stages, said 

 person shall at once cease to ship queen-bees from 

 such diseased apiary until the inspector of apiaries 

 shall declare the said apiary free from all disease. 

 Any person engaged in the rearing of queens who 

 violates the provisions of this section shall, on con- 

 viction thereof, be fined not less than one hundred 

 dollars nor more than two hundred dollars. 



We have always complied with the spirit 

 and letter of both the old law and the new 

 one, and yet Mr. Crowder says in closing: 



Mr. Queenbreeder, have you been living up to the 

 laws of these two States I I for one say no. Get 



right. 



We join hands with Mr. Crowder in the 

 desire to protect the industry, not only in 

 his State, but in every State in the Union; 

 but we think he is a little rough in his im- 

 plied references, especially when he quotes 

 the wrong law, and one that was always a 

 dead letter. 



EDUCATING BEEKEEPERS WHO DO NOT TAKE 



BEE JOURNALS ALONG THE LINE OF 



FOUL BROOD AND FOUL-BROOD 



INSPECTION. 



Realizing that comparatively few bee- 

 keepers see the discussions on diseases of 

 bees in the various bee journals, and at the 

 same time appreciating the need of educa- 

 tion, especially in case of slipshod beekeep- 

 ers, Mr. Norman Gute, of Owosso, Michi- 

 igan, has had published in a local paper a 

 series of five articles on foul brood, the 

 titles of which are as follows: 



1. — Contagiousness of the disease; its 

 spread over Michigan and the United 

 States; its ravages to bees and honey crop. 



2. — Symptoms of the disease, and how 

 to detect it. 



3. — Cause of infection; precautionary 

 measures to prevent spreading. 



4. — Foul-brood laws of Michigan. 



5. — The cure of foul brood. 



We regard tliis as a step in advance, for 

 the old-fashioned beekeepers are unques- 

 tionably the ones who spread the disease 

 through carelessness, and it is just this 

 class that it is hard to reach through the 

 channel of the ordinaiy bee journal. We 

 think it would be well for beekeepers in 

 other localities to adopt this plan, where 

 disease is spreading rapidly. The material 

 for the articles can be taken from the vari- 

 ous text books if necessary, or some local 

 well-known beeman can write the articles 

 in an interesting way. Mr. Gute is himself 



