1896. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



695 



that with large hives the trouble of swarming is avoided ; or 

 have I read your statement incorrectly? 



Yours truly, De. Peieo. 



Chicago, 111., Sept. 24. 



One swallow does not make a summer, and the experience 

 of one hive does not create a sufficient test to decide by. If 

 some one came to you, dear Doctor, and said that he had tried 

 sulphate of quinine for ague, and it had not cured him, I am 

 of opinion that you would still think that the medical frater- 

 nity is right in advising its use as a very certain cure for ague. 

 But in treating a patient for ague, you would not advise the 

 indiscriminate use of this drug, or in fact of any drug for auy 

 disease. It is quite possible that in your bee-case you have 

 not used the drug in the proper manner, or it is quite possible 

 that your patient — the colony of bees — is among the class of 

 patients whose system is rebellious to the very best treatment. 



In the first place, all does not depend upon having a 

 strong colony in a large hive ; the surplus room furnished to 

 that colony must be in proportion to its strength. When we 

 discussed the question of size of hives and stated that a 20- 

 frame hive was too large, for usual purposes, we meant that 

 it was too large for a breeding apartment, but we in no way 

 meant that the bees should be confined to that size when the 

 honey crop came. The statement that you makei that this 

 colony cast off five swarms, is a very good evidence that we 

 are right in wanting large hives for large crops, for it is a 

 very unusual thing for a colony to cast five swarms, and this 

 colony must have been of colossal strength — in fact, of such 

 strength as could not be expected of any ordinary 10 or even 

 12 frame hive. 



This fact being granted, the surplus apartment should 

 have been proportionately large. If the brood occupied, 

 say 1-t frames, it left only 6 frames for honey, or about room 

 for 3.5 or 45 pounds. A colony of such strength ought to be 

 furnished twice as much room as an ordinary colony. Judg- 

 ing from your report, and that of Dr. Miller, the crop in the 

 north of the State must have been tremendous, for awhile 

 at least. Your colony therefore should have been furnished 

 room for say 75 pounds or 100 pounds of honey. If we had 

 had that colony in our apiary, in such a season, we should 

 have put two tiers of boxes upon it. I believe Dr. Miller re- 

 ported several tiers of finished sections from a number of his 

 colonies. 



But room is not all that is needed — we want air, so the 

 bees may not suffer. The entrance must be made sufficiently 

 large that all the- workers may go in and out at ease. The 

 hot rays of the sun must be warded off. Too many drones are 

 also a cause of swarming. Perhaps in this instance they 

 helped to make the bees uncomfortable. 



In most instances, however, with the large hives, the 

 swarming is due to the delay in attending to the putting on of 

 the supers. Men in business, for whom bee-culture is only a 

 pastime, may often overlook the fact that their hives are get- 

 ting well filled, and that the crop is about to open. When it 

 has begun, and they discover it, it is often too late, for the 

 bees have already made their preparations for the exodus of 

 their surplus army, and no amount of manipulation will then 

 change their decision. 



It is true that it sometimes happens, with all these pre- 

 cautions carefully taken, that a colony will cast one or more 

 swarms. We do not know how this may be helped, but after 

 over 80 years of experience on this subject, we feel safe in 

 asserting that 9.') per cent, of the swarming may be prevented 

 in the manner indicated, especially if supers with empty combs 

 are furnished. Hamilton, III. 



Do Bees Gather Poisonous Honey ? 



BY I. W. BECKWITH. 



Perhaps there has been enough said on this subject, but it 

 seems to me there has been a tendency to look at only one side 

 of the question, fearing that the knowledge that bees gather 

 poisonous honey will injure the business, as the following 

 quotations show : 



"Will injure the sale of honey everywhere." " Such re- 

 ports heralded broadcast will greatly damage the pursuit of 

 bee-keeping." "Occasional reports of death from eating 

 poisonous honey is not calculated to advance the market 

 quotations." 



Novice reports two deaths from eating honey, but assumes 

 that it was the "bee-bread " and not the honey that killed 

 them. Several writers. Prof. Cook among them, affirm that 

 the great Creator, or " natural selection," produces only per- 

 fect harmony. If it would not take too much space, I might 



show so many instances where the rule is seemingly broken 

 that it almost ceases to be a rule. 



Now, if there is a possibility that bees do gather honey 

 that is unsafe for man to eat, I believe that an effort to dis- 

 guise the fact will injure our business more than a fair dis- 

 cussion of the facts, so that people may know how to avoid 

 being injured. 



I would rather suffer a pecuniary loss, or, I should say, I 

 would rather fail to make a profit at the expense of the health 

 and perhaps death of my neighbor. 



The evidence produced by most of those who take the 

 negative of this question is very much like the evidence that 

 a man proposed to offer when he was being tried for stealing 

 a pig. When the court asked him if he had no defense to 

 offer, he said : " Schurre, they brought in only two witnesses 

 that saw me stale the poig, but if y'r honor will be so koind as 

 to let me go out on the strrate a minute, I will bring in foive 

 witnesses who will swarre that they did not see me stale the 

 poig." These writers entirely ignore the statements of Geo. 

 B. Hurley, Dr. Elmer, Prof. Wormley, W. A. Thompson, and 

 others, their testimony being direct and positive, and con- 

 sider only five witnesses who did not- see Pat "stale the poig," 

 and have no desire to call on Mr. Thompson for a sample of 

 honey. 



Prof . Cook says : "It is an unquestioned fact that in 

 many regions along the Alleghany Mountains mountain laurel 

 is very abundant, and is visited profusely by the bees. Yet 

 there is never any trouble from poisonous honey." (Italics 

 mine.) In the face of such testimony as we have had, such a 

 statement by the Profeseor is rather dogmatical. 



Mr. Golden theorizes thus : " I cannot be persuaded that 

 the great Creator of all things, animate and inanimate, would 

 instill into plant-life a poisonous substance and cause it to be 

 accesible to any of his creatures through any natural source 

 in which created." The funny part of it is, that in the pre- 

 ceding paragraph he tells us that animals are killed by eating 

 the buckeye " in the natural source in which created." And 

 they all admit that mountain laurel does poison stock the 

 same way. 



Three years ago last spring I visited H. Rauchfuss' apiary, 

 when he told me his bees had been dying off in great numbers. 

 He thought he had lost half of his bees within a few days, and 

 I saw great numbers of dead about the hives. He showed me 

 a plant that he thought the bees gathered poisonous honey 

 from, which killed them. The plant was nearly through 

 blooming when I was there, and other flowers were abundant, 

 and his bees had ceased dying. I found the plant to belong 

 to the order Scrophulariacew, the same order to which fox- 

 glove (digitalis) belongs, the whole order being deleterious. 

 Mr. R. did not form his opinion from theory, for I think he 

 knew nothing of the poisonous nature of the plant. I wish 

 he would tell us what he now thinks of it. Perhaps this is 

 what killed J. S.'s bees (see page 409). Mr. Rauchfuss also 

 lives near Denver. 



Now that another season of those poisonous (?) flowers 

 has passed, and the attention of bee-keepers has been called 

 to this subject, I hope we may learn something more definite 

 regarding the nature of the honey. 



There are two varieties of kalmia, mountain laurel — K. 

 Latifolia and K. Angustifolia — which so closely resemble each 

 other that it may require a botanist to distinguish them to a 

 certainty, and this fact may have caused the difference in 

 opinion among the different writers. Grover, Colo. 



Only One Cent a Copy for copies of the American 

 Bee Journal before Jan. 1, 189(3. We have them running 

 back for about 10 years. But you must let us select them, as 

 we cannot furnish them in regular order, and probably not 

 any particular copies. Just send us as many one-cent stamps 

 as you may want old copies, and we will mail them to you. 



Tlie mcEyoy Foul Brood Treatment is 



given in Dr. Howard's pamphlet on " Foul Brood ; Its Natural 



History and Rational Treatment." It is the latest publication 



on the subject, and should be in the hands of every bee-keeper. 



Price, 25 cents ; or clubbed with the Bee Journal for one year 



— b6th for $1.10. 



^ • »- 



Tlie Great Campaig^n Book offered on page 

 666, ought to he in the hands of every voter. It shows all 

 sides of the political questions of the day. Better send for a 

 copy of it. Orders filled by return mail. 



JI^" See " Bee-Keeper's Guide " offer on page 701. 



