GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



with bees and honey. The next spring I 

 had seven queens, some of which had only 

 a pint or so of bees. They had all starved. 

 1 put the seven queens and all the bees 

 there were into one hive and left them to 

 their fate. I had Caucasians, leather, and 

 golden-all-over Italians, Carniolans, Banats, 

 etc. Some time in July I examined them 

 to see what had happened. I found I liad 

 a hive full of leather-colored Italians. I 

 tiered it up one by one until it was seven 

 Danzenbaker stories high. In the fall I 

 took off three stories full of honey, leav- 

 ing the rest for winter. Mrs. S. is also 

 a beekeeper; and, thinking there was too 

 much honej^, she took off two more. I 

 fixed the bees on their summer stands, 

 a la Miller, and then built a second wall 

 of matched boards all around them, bank- 

 ing them with snow. The next spring the 

 winter broke early; and when I opened 

 them I had a colony full of bees. There 

 was a week of fine weather, then came a 

 heavy fall of snow. When I looked at 

 them again they were all dead — starved to 

 death with not a particle of honey left. 



I now had an equipment of over 50 

 Danzenbaker hives, sections, etc., with no 

 use for them. The next year a neighbor 

 had two colonies of black bees, and he did 

 not want them, so I took them. In the 

 fall I had five full colonies of Carniolans 

 and Italians. Not wanting to throw away 

 my Danzenbaker hives I doubled them \x\), 

 using two of them for winter quarters ; and 

 when I i^ut them in my cellar they weighed 

 100 pounds — all I could carry. The next 

 spring I put the five out. Two of them, 

 one Carniolan and one leather Italian, 

 were teeming with bees. Two of the oth- 

 ers were in fair shape, and the other was 

 queenless, but had a good colony of bees. 

 On the 29th of May the Carniolan swarmed 

 out. I was very much astonislied, as there 

 had been nothing excepting the willows for 

 them to work on. When I investigated I 

 found the two Danzenbaker hives full of 

 brood, with plenty of honey, and from ten 

 to fifteen queen-cells in each hive, some of 

 them sealed over. I now had two Danzen- 

 baker hives ready to divide, and a swarm. 

 I moved the two Danzenbaker hives to new 

 stands and put the swarm on the old stand. 

 To-day I took one Danzenbaker section full 

 of the whitest honey I ever saw, and one hive 

 full of the honey — 32 sections of 4x5 full, 

 and ten Danzenbaker frames full of the 

 same. There are still two hives with all I 

 can lift ready for winter quarters. That 

 makes three colonies from one, with six 

 hives left for winter, and over 50 pounds 

 of extracted and 32 pounds of sections. 



My Italians followed the Carniolans, and 

 1 did the same thing Avith them, making 

 three out of one; but they gave me but 

 little honey. 



Our foul-brood inspector was here to- 

 day — the first and only one I ever had 

 visit me in 30 years. I showed him what 

 I had. He said it was remarkable, from 

 the fact that there was but very little 

 lioney in Quebec this summer, and that 

 many of the beekeepers were feeding for 

 winter, and had had no surplus. He had 

 been all over the province ; had found 

 foul brood in many places, some of it 

 within two miles of me; but my bees have 

 never had it, and I don't know what it 

 looks like. Most of it (in fact all) is 

 where black bees are kept. I keep black 

 bees only long enough to get an Italian 

 queen in their place. 



The ideal hive for wintering in Quebec 

 would appear to be two Danzenbaker 

 brood-chambers, thus making a square 

 hive. Mr. Valiquet claims bees, if al- 

 loAved to cluster where they want to, will 

 be in the center of a hive. That's where 

 mine cluster in the two Danzenbaker bodies 

 — between the two, right in the middle. 



St. Lambert, Que., Oct. 1. 



BEE PARALYSIS A MOST SERIOUS DISEASE 

 IN AUSTRALIA 



Some Glimpses of its Ravages, Showing that it is 



Not a Simple Trouble to Deal with; Italians 



Not Immune 



BY MAJOR SHALLARD 



On p. 332, June 1, Mr-. Samuel Sim- 

 mins has something to say on the subject 

 of bee paralysis. There is only one pos- 

 sible crumb of comfort in the article, and 

 that is where he mentions "a warm cura- 

 tive solution." What is the solution f I 

 want it if it will cure bee paralysis, and 

 so does practically every beekeeper in Aus- 

 tralia ; but I "ha' me doots." He states 

 that N. S. Wales was visited by this trou- 

 ble in 1894, and other jDarts of Australia 

 in 1906. I should like to say that these 

 diseases, though perhaps the same, had 

 different symptoms. 



The first I knew of the trouble was when 

 it broke out in California. It was known 

 then as the California trembling disease. 



A little while after, it appeared on the 

 Hunter River, N. S. Wales, and afterward 

 spread all through the colony. The af- 

 fected bees used to come out of the hive, 

 spread their wings with a trembling mo- 

 tion, make short hoppy flights, and event- 

 ually give up the ghost. We always got the 



