April 19, 1900. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



243 



preliminary stage, viz.: Patchy, irregular brood-nest. That 

 is, where a few of these yellow, restless larv:e have been 

 'turned out by energetic workers as soon as affected with the 

 disease, before the eye of the owner ever saw them ; this 

 leaving, of course, either empty cells among brood ; or cells 

 with different aged larva3 contiguous, supposing the queen 

 finds those empty cells and lays in them. I believe this to 

 be a perfectly correct symptom of the bee-keepers' pest — gen- 

 uine foul brood. 



Touching on remedies, izal has been praised of late. 

 Personally, I have found it of no manner of use. Mr. Sim- 

 mins tells me it is because mj' bees were blacks. Carnio- 

 lans and Italians he considers much more immune. After 

 fighting the disease two seasons I finally had to destroy my 

 whole apiary of about 60 colonies to get rid of it. 



Some time since there was a case recorded, I think in 

 the American Bee Journal, of a man who sent up a sample 

 of suspected comb to a professor for his opinion, and was 

 told the comb was not diseased, whereas subsequent events 

 proved it was diseased. The professor replied, describing 

 the coffee-colored, stretchy character of diseased matter, 

 and saying he could hardly credit how such a mistake could 

 have been made. I think a very simple explanation would 

 be that the aforesaid comb was in the initial stages of the 

 disease, showing only pale yellow displaced larva;, and no 

 coffee-colored matter at all, which, of course, developt later 

 in the owner's hive. Cumberland, England. 



Separators or No Separators, Etc. 



BY EDWIN BEVINS. 



ON page 106 is an item headed " Separators and Fences." 

 The first sentence affirms that F. L. Thompson says 

 that "the idea that sections are better filled without 

 separators than with them is a mere notion." Standing 

 alone, this sentence,' like some texts of scripture, would 

 leave the reader in some doubt as to what the author was 

 driving at. Further on Mr. Thompson is quoted as saying 

 that " a number of times he tried separators in half of a 

 super, with no separators in the other half, and that the re- 

 sult was always the same — no difference." The last quota- 

 tion serves the purpose of a key to the meaning of the first 

 one, and altho I have not read the article from which these 

 quotations were made, I conclude that the article in its en- 

 tirety was an argument against the use of separators. 



Now, how many bee-keepers in the United States will 

 stand up and say, that they have observed no difference in 

 the weight or smoothness of sections of honey produced 

 with and without separators ? I have used supers in the 

 same yard for several years — some with and some without 

 separators — and there has always been a markt difference 

 both in weight and appearance of the sections. A super 

 full of sections when filled with honey would always weigh 

 more than a super with separators. The sections without 

 separators were always unevenly filled and difficult to pre- 

 pare for shipment. If this is not Mr. Thompson's experi- 

 ence, I believe it is the experience of nine out of ten, if not 

 of ninety-nine out of a hundred, of comb-honey producers. 

 But I will pursue the subject no further, having, as I said 

 before, not read Mr. Thompson's article, and it may be that 

 I have been fighting a man of straw. 



CROSSING SWORDS WITH MR. DOOI,ITTI,K. 



I am aware of the hazard in differing from Mr. Doolit- 

 tle about anything pertaining to the management of bees 

 and bee-hives. Armed cap-a-pie with apicultural lore and 

 experience he riots amid the crowd of less well equipt bee- 

 keepers as the armed and armored knights of the middle 

 ages rioted amidst the common herd of the soldiery of the 

 times. 



But I will venture to say that I do not quite like his rec- 

 ommendation to use the 10-frame Langstroth and dove- 

 tailed hives in place of the 8-frarae sizes, and then contract 

 to seven frames during the white honey-flow. This man- 

 agement may be good for those who do not care to give their 

 bees in 8-f rame hives much attention in cold weather, as the 

 after management may be made conducive to successful 

 wintering. 



The principal reason for my objection to the change is, 

 that, with this lateral expansion of the brood-chamber there 

 must be a corresponding expansion of the super. I am be- 

 coming more and more convinced that a super holding 24 

 4|^ sections is quite large enough. Observations in recent 

 years have inclined me to the belief that I would prefer a 

 super taking less than 24 sections to one taking more. The 



objection to a change to a smaller super is the difficulty of 

 adjusting the double-purpose brood-chamber to the one- 

 purpose super. 



FASTENING FOUNDATION ON MOULDED TOP-BARS. 



And now I will tell the bee-keepers who use moulded 

 top-bars a trick I have learned about fastening foundation. 

 I use a Daisy foundation roller to roll the foundation on, 

 and this fastening is sufficient if the frames are used im- 

 mediately, but the foundation in frames not used soon will 

 loosen in places, if not all along the bar. To prevent this, 

 use a splint the length of the foundation, nailing it on with 

 some fine wire nails. The splints may be made from the 

 small branches of willow or other straight-grained wood 

 that splits easily, and the convex side of the splint placed 

 against the rolled edge of the foundation. Supply manu- 

 facturers could cheaply furnish splints for the purpose. 



Decatur Co., Iowa. 



The Principles of Plant Growth or Work. 



BY PROF. A. J. COOK. 



FROM numerous letters which I have received, I feel 

 quite certain that many readers will not only gain 

 pleasure, but much of value, if I give in this article a 

 simple, plain explanation of the principles of the plant 

 growth. Indeed, every bee-keeper and every farmer can 

 not be too well verst in the principles of vegetable physi- 

 ology. There are many who think that the plant takes the 

 honey right from the sap. It would seem that simply tast- 

 ing of the sap would quickly correct this mistake. 



One of the most wonderful discoveries of this century 

 was that of Schwann, made about 60 years ago, of the cell. 

 It was shown that the basis of all structure of both animals 

 and plants consists of cells. These cells are very much the 

 same whether in the plant or animal. The plant then con- 

 sists of cells — little sacs or vessicles, which are not as 

 their name implies, empty vessels, but are always full of a 

 semi-liquid substance known as protoplasm or cytoplasm. 

 This cytoplasm is the great worker in all plants and ani- 

 mals. Thus the cells are the seat of all work done ; and all 

 the work is done by this cytoplasm. 



As every well-informed person knows, we are constantly 

 wearing out and building up. Whenever we do any work, 

 like moving a muscle, tissue tears down or wears out. and 

 at once builds up again. This is why we must constantly 

 have food to furnish material for this building up, or ana- 

 bolism as it is called. The plants behave in the same man- 

 ner. They wear out and build up. The cells which make 

 up the organism act in this respect as the whole organism 

 acts. They are the workers, and in working they wear out, 

 and as surely must build up. Thus, the plant will starve 

 without food, just as surely as will the animal. 



We see, then, why plants languish when water, their 

 most important food, is withheld, or when they are in a 

 poor, worn-out soil. These cells perform two important 

 functions. They have the power to absorb liquid substances 

 and pass them on to other cells. In this way the sap goes 

 from the roots far up to the leaves. 



The other important work of these cells is to do the 

 work of the plants, taking certain food elements and build- 

 ing up vegetable tissues. They are then carriers and man- 

 ufacturers. It is the function of the living cell everywhere 

 to take up the liquids that come in contact with it. Thus 

 the cells of the roots of the plants take water and the min- 

 eral salts, and, as we have seen above, they pass these up 

 thru the trunk and twigs, even to the topmost leaves. 



Perhaps water is the most important element which the 

 roots take, and, contrary to what most people think, prac- 

 tically all water comes from the roots. The mineral ele- 

 ments are quite numerous ; but only three need usually be 

 supplied to the soil. These are nitrogen, potash and phos- 

 phoric, each of which is always combined as it passes along 

 in solution with or as a part of the crude sap from the roots. 

 As this material passes from the cells usually in the outer 

 sapwood, the cells take what they need for their nourish- 

 ment. They especially draw heavily on the nitrogen. As 

 stated, this sap passes to the leaves. 



The leaf-cells, as also the green part of the bark, have 

 as a constituent of their protoplasm, chlorophyll. There 

 comes into the leaves from small breathing-mouths on the 

 underside, called stomata, carbon dioxide from the air. 



The leaves by virtue of the protoplasm in their cells 

 have the power of forming carbohydrates, probably from 

 the water and carbon dioxide, the former of which they re- 

 ceive from the roots, the latter from the air. While it is 



