April 5, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



2U 



nearly matured bees that are choked for want of air. Those 

 did not show the discoloration or shapeless mass which al- 

 ways obtains when Bacillus iitilii is found in the abdomen. 

 This latter germ, multiplying- rapidly in the rich nutrient 

 medium of the alimentary tract, may destroy younger blood 

 than the former. It is often found in other parts, and is 

 certainly the cause of the dark masses of rotten brood. 

 Both germs are found in the same comb, and often in the 

 same bee, thus insuring a mixt infection. 



REMEDIES. 



The best time to effect a cure is during a honey-flow. 



Adopting a modified McEvoy plan : 



Make your colonies strong by uniting ; place them upon 

 comb foundation starters, and cage the queen. After five 

 days remove the starters and make them into wax, and give 

 full sheets of foundation — keeping the queen caged five 

 days longer. This will give time for all infected mature 

 bees to have disappeared before any brood is reared. 



Don't try to save infected mature bees by drugs. They 

 are not worth the trouble ; yet salicylated syrups, [Sodium 

 salicylate one ounce, water S gallons, white sugar 40 

 pounds. Make syrup without heat.] during a dearth of 

 honey in the field, would in a measure prevent a recurrence, 

 but would not cure the disease. It would not destroy the 

 germs, but prevent their growth, by placing them in an an- 

 tiseptic [Antiseptics prevent germ growth. Disinfectants 

 destroy the life of germs, by actual contact only.] medium. 



If a cure is contemplated when little honey is coming 

 in, the above modified McEvoy plan should be observed in 

 every detail, and the bees fed with salicylated syrups until 

 the combs are well filled, so that all food may be rendered 

 antiseptic by the time brood-rearing begins. 



Great care should be taken to melt all old combs and re- 

 moved starters into wax at once. Do not use a solar ex- 

 tractor, but remove the material at once to hot water or a 

 steam extractor. Until further investigations shall reveal 

 the longevity of these germs in open air, I shall recommend 

 a thoro disinfection of the hives, frames, etc., by boiling in 

 linseed oil for half an hour. This would not injure hives 

 or fixtures ; besides, the high temperature reacht would in- 

 sure thoro disinfection. Careful, practical, and experimen- 

 tal work, coupled with microscopical investigations in the 

 presence of this disease when at its worst, will, I feel confi- 

 dent, discover some practical plan for its successful eradi- 

 cation. — Gleanings in Bee-Culture. 



Painting- Apiarian Tools, Etc., Red. 



BY GEO. G. SCOTT. 



TO " paint the town red " is of too frequent occurrence, 

 tho of doubtful utility. In my practice, however, I find 

 that to paint with red the small implements of the api- 

 ary in use out-doors during the summer months, is a re- 

 markable saver of both time and temper. This simple idea, 

 not even worthy of the name " device," will save the bee- 

 keeper who adopts it much fret, as it is a successful remedy 

 against ineffectual search. You bee-keeper, how often after 

 prying open a hive-cover, and in the great interest concen- 

 trated for the moment on the contents of the open hive, 

 have you hurriedly and without thought dropt anywhere 

 your chisel in the grass and weeds. 



On closing this hive you repair to another to repeat the 

 operation of opening, when you find you have forgotten to 

 bring with you the truant tool. A search is made, and not 

 infrequently you fail to find it at once. In the interval 

 time is pressing, and you rub your scalp with your finger- 

 tips, or with nervous, unemployed energy stroke your whis- 

 kers, wondering with bulging eyes where that " plague- 

 oned " thing can be. The writer many a time has had such 

 a trial, and as human nature is constituted very much 

 alike along some lines, he has a sneaking thought that this 

 experience has been yours also. 



I have lost tools that were not found the same season, 

 and when discovered during the following spring, rust and 

 rot had done their deteriorating work. But and if that 

 implement had been painted red, an ordinary discernment 

 would have quickly found it. Red being in brilliant con- 

 trast to the verdant surroundings of the bee-keeper (no in- 

 sinuation meant), it stands to reason that anything thus 

 daubed will be plainly recognized, not forgetting the 

 rouged cheek, or the nose it has cost so much to perma- 

 nently stain ! 



To paint red the screw-driver, grass-hook, grass-shears, 

 scraper, hammer, small blocks, the outside edges of bee- 

 escape boards, the woodwork of the smoker, or whatever 



other traps about the bee-yard that may not ordinarily be 

 easily recognized, will aid in a successful hunt, if lost. Any 

 implement painted with crimson and placed on top of a 

 hive will shine like a beacon light to the mariner ; or smeared 

 with scarlet and thrown in the grass will glow like a light- 

 ning-bug in the dark of the moon. Try it. 



Fayette Co., Iowa. 



Thirty Years' Experience in Marketing" Honey. 



I 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



N reply to the following enquiry, I think the best I can 

 do is to give our experience during a period of over 30 

 years in the matter of marketing honey : 



Mk. C. p. Dadant :— I am intending to run my apiary for extracted 

 honey, and try to work up a local trade for it, somethingr after the lines 

 laid down in your book ; that is, (fet the grocers to handle it. Now, if 

 you do not think me too impertinent, I would like you to (jive an arti- 

 cle in the American Bee Journal on marketing- extracted honey; or, in 

 other words, tell how you go to work in a new field, where people are not 

 used to it, to work up a trade with the dealers ; what size or sizes of pack- 

 age, what price you would allow dealers to sell for compared with the 

 price of granulated sugars and other sweets ; what percentage would be 

 fair to allow the dealer ; and whether you would put it in stores to be sold 

 on commission, or insist on selling to dealers for cash. 



I am fully aware that these questions are quite fully answered in Lang- 

 stroth Revised, but that has been written some time, and you have no 

 doubt had lots of experience along these lines since the book was written. 

 It is very probable that you can give a beginner advice which it would 

 take him years to dig out alone. — Pennsylvania. 



It must be remembered that we began the production 

 and sale of extracted honey very shortly after the inven- 

 tion of the honey-extractor. This invention is due, as is 

 well known, to De Hruschka, an Austrian, and dates back 

 to 1865. Very shortly after, Samuel Wagner gave a de- 

 scription of the invention in the American Bee Journal, 

 which he then publisht in Washington, and in 1867 we were 

 working an extractor made at home, a very bulky and un- 

 handy machine. We began the production on a comparar 

 tively large scale in 1868, and I well remember my first at- 

 tempt at selling extracted clover honey. The druggist to 

 whom I brought my sample flatly refused to touch it, be- 

 cause it was too nice. Druggists alone at that time handled 

 honey, and outside of a few " caps," or a few broken combs 

 of honey, there was nothing to be found but a thick, opaque, 

 and brownish-looking liquid — strained honey — obtained by 

 crushing the combs and pressing them to squeeze the honey 

 out, or, worse yet, by melting comb and all in a pan in the 

 oven. The honey that was obtained was very little better 

 than molasses. 



For the first two or three years we had a great deal of 

 trouble in getting rid of our crop of extracted honey, even 

 tho we had comparatively little of it to sell, as we then 

 produced more comb honey. But the price was high. I re- 

 member that in 1871, the year of the Chicago fire, we sold 

 extracted honey to a Chicago firm at 18 cents per pound, in 

 barrels. On the second day of the fire we were about to 

 make another shipment, when we were informed that the 

 city was in flames, and that it was quite likely that our man 

 was burnt out. So we withheld the goods, and lucky that 

 we did so, for the man was " broke," and could not pay for 

 what he had bought. 



Within a very short time the markets became glutted 

 with extracted honey, because not only were people unac- 

 quainted with it, but many dealers put a spurious article on 

 the market which did great damage to the true honey. In 

 addition to this the honey granulated, and most consumers 

 thought that it was only sugar, and would not buy it when 

 in that condition. We still find an occasional person who 

 does not know that granulated honey is good, but they are 

 quite scarce. 



Our first attempt at retailing honey was in glass jars, 

 but the great cost of the jars at that time, and the fact that 

 the granulated honey did not appear at its best in them led 

 us to try tin packages. So we had a lot of cans made hold- 

 ing 10 pounds each, and the first season we put up honey in 

 this shape we succeeded, by much drumming, in selling 

 some six or eight thousand pounds in that one size of pack- 

 age, which we sold at wholesale at 12>2 cents per pound. 

 We found our first ready sales thru a Mississippi steamboat 

 agent, who managed to place for us over a hundred 10-pound 

 cans during the course of a few weeks, in the river traffic. 



We then began a systematic drumming of our honey 

 put up in this shape, among all the-grocersof our neighbor- 

 ing towns, and very soon found that we could not command 

 a retail business unless we put up the goods in smaller 

 packages. Thus we got to selling 5-pound cans, then 2^, 

 then IX- 



