July 26, 1900. 



americafn bee journal 



471 



all ABC to him, on which account he may not go into miii- 

 utia' sometimes as much as mig'ht be desired by the rest of 

 us who do not know so much about queeii-rearinfj. Mr. 

 Pridgen should not be held accountable, probably, for what 

 is most likely a printer's error in a passage you mention, 

 "minus most of the board." That "board" should read 

 " brood." 



Answering your questions, I understand Mr. Pridgen to 

 say that a colony is to be selected from which bees are to be 

 taken to act as starters of cells. Put an excluder over the 

 hive containing this colony, and on this excluder put a hive 

 body. Fill this hive body with combs of brood obtained 

 frqm other colonies. No queen is to be given to this upper 

 story, and no bees need be given, for the bees will come up 

 from the lower story thru the excluder to care for the brood. 

 I do not know for certain why Mr. Pridgen would leave 

 matters in this condition for 12 days, but can imagine two 

 reasons — one, that there may be no unsealed brood from 

 which to rear queens ; another, that a force of bees may 

 have time to hatch out. It is quite possible he may have 

 some different reason, and we'll be glad to have him tell us. 



The queen remains all the time in her own hive. At 

 the end of 12 days the upper story is taken from over the 

 excluder, still leaving the queen in the lower story, and the 

 upper story with its now queenless bees is placed in any 

 convenient place on a bottom-board with wire-cloth tackt 

 on as a ventilator, so that no bees can escape and yet the 

 bees have abundance of air. This may be accomplisht by 

 having a very deep bottom-board with the entrance closed 

 with wire-cloth, or a frame the size of the bottom of the 

 hive may be entirely covered with wire-cloth, and the hive 

 placed thereon, hive and wire-cloth both being raised by 

 means of a block under each corner. 



No directions are given for the disposal of the other 

 body in which is the queen, nor of the excluder over it, for 

 nothing is to be done with them. They are left on their 

 own stand where they were at the beginning. 



The substance of the whole story is that this removed 

 upper story contains a lot of bees shut up with no queen, 

 and with nothing from which to rear one, and just crazy for 

 the cells you will give them.' 



Perhaps Superseding the Queens. 



I have two colonies of bees each of which has a young 

 laying queen. Their first brood is just capt over — good 

 worker-brood. Now they both have started queen-cells with 

 larva* already in them. What causes that ? They are not 

 very strong yet. They have each 3 or 4 frames of eggs, 

 larva; and sealed brood. One of the queens seems very pro- 

 lific. IHINOIS. 



Answers. — I don't know, but I suspect the bees are try- 

 ing to supersede their queen. Those who do not clip their 

 queens are hardl)' aware how often a queen is superseded 

 when only a few weeks, and sometimes only a few days, 

 old. The queens seem all right, appear to lay well and all 

 that, but for some reason the bees are not satisfied with 

 them, and supersede them. If they are thwarted by having 

 the cells torn down, the queens are likely to fail rather sud- 

 denly, and it looks as if the bees could forsee their coming 

 failure. 



Brood-Frame Cover— Absconding Swarm. 



1. What is the proper material to cover brood-frames 

 to keep bees from going into the super when there are no 

 sections on ? 



2. I hived a swarm in a new dovetailed hive, and set it 

 in the shade of an apple-tree, but had the brood-frames 

 covered with a new table oil-cloth ; but after they were in 

 the hive a few hours they all went out and left. I had ar- 

 rived just as the last bees were coming out of the hive, 

 and I tried to make them cluster, but they would not stop. 

 I tried to stop them with a spray pump, by spraying water 

 on them. Why did they leave the new hive ? Mich. 



Answers. — 1. The proper way is to have no supers on 

 when you don't want the bees to enter them. Don't think 

 of having a super of sections on with something to prevent 

 bees getting into them. Put it down as a fixt rule that sec- 

 tions are never to be put on except during a flow of honey, 

 or just before one is expected. Possibly you may refer to 

 having a super on a hive without any sections in it, the su- 

 per being filled with planer-shavings, leaves, or something 

 of the sort for winter. In that case it is desirable to have 

 some covering over the brood-frames so the bees cannot get 



up into the packing. Probably nothing is better for the 

 purpose than burlap, altho cotton-cloth or almost any kind 

 of cloth will answer. 



2. That " new table oil-cloth " was no doubt somewhat 

 to blame. Oil-cloth, when new, has an objectionable smell, 

 and bees are fastidious in that respect. You might put it 

 over an establisht colony, and they would stay all right, be- 

 cause unwilling to desert their brood and stores, but when 

 first hived they have not sufficient inducement to stay in an 

 objectionable place. Even if there were no smell about the 

 oil-cloth it is not a good thing to put over a newly-hived 

 swarm. It is too close and warm. One of the things of 

 most importance to look after in the case of a newly-hived 

 swarm is to see that they have unliviited ventilation. Raise 

 the hive on blocks, and for at least the first day or two leave 

 the cover partly off or partly raised. Hardly any danger of 

 leaving the hive too open for the first two or three days. 



Diagnosing Pickled and Blacic Brood. — I never have 

 any difficulty in diagnosing a sample of real foul brood. 

 The symptoms of that disease are so markt that it is very 

 easy for one who is at all acquainted with its characteris- 

 tics to determine whether or not it is a case of Bacillus alvei 

 (foul brood) ; but to decide between a case of black and 

 pickled brood is not so easy, for the two look very much 

 alike, and under some conditions they are alike so far as 

 external appearances are concerned. Knowing that a good 

 manj' bee-keepers had sent samples of diseased brood to Dr. 

 Howard, I felt that we could hardly ask him to make such 

 diagnoses without compensation, for he is not in anyway 

 connected with an experiment station or any government 

 work ; and a man of his attainments as a bacteriologist 

 ought not to be askt to perform a difficult service of this 

 kind, requiring years of preparation and study, for noth- 

 ing. As yet, I know of no one in this country who has been 

 able to discriminate between one and the other absolutely. 

 Black brood, as we know, is decidedly contagious — perhaps 

 more so than foul brood, and quite as destructive. Pickled 

 brood is a mild form of disease ; but so far as I know it is 

 not very destructive. Very often it will disappear of itself, 

 and in any event a mild treatment will eradicate it entirelj'. 



We will suppose that a bee-keeper discovers something 

 in one of his colonies that looks suspicious to say the least. 

 If he can know absolutely, by sending a sample to some 

 competent expert, that he has neither black brood nor foul 

 brood, this knowledge may be worth to him hundreds and 

 possibly thousands of dollars. 



Very recently a queen-breeder, who has some SCO nuclei, 

 and who is carrying on the business of queen-rearing very 

 extensively, sent a sample of diseased brood, desiring us to 

 wire him at once what it was. The sample came duly to 

 hand, and I immediately wired back, " Not foul brood — pos- 

 sibly black or pickled brood." At the time of sending a 

 sample to me he sent one to Dr. Howard also, and the lat- 

 ter very promptly wired him that it was nothing worse 

 than pickled brood. This information was worth to him 

 hundreds of dollars ; otherwise he would have withdrawn 

 his advertising, broken up his nuclei, practically throwing 

 away a splendid trade in queens, at the same time ruining 

 his business perhaps for all time to come. He had only one 

 case in his yard, and that was promptly disposed of. 



While we are perfectly willing to perform such services 

 so far as we are able. Dr. Howard can not afford to do them 

 for the mere love of the pursuit. I wrote him, asking him 

 what it would be worth to diagnose diseased samples of 

 brood, and he replied that he thought he could afford to do 

 it for $2.00 ; and this I regard as very reasonable, consider- 

 ing that he may have to spend hours with the microscope ; 

 so I would suggest that doubtful samples be sent to Dr. W. 

 R. Howard, Fort Worth, Tex., with a letter of explanation, 

 and don't forget to send the money. 



In a letter recently received from Dr. Howard, he gives 

 specific directions by which every bee-keeper can diagnose 

 to some extent for himself. Of the three particular brood 

 diseases he gives the following diagnostic signs : 



FOUL BROOD. 



Glue-like conststeoce of the mass, and the offensive smell. 



BLACK UKOOD. 



Jelly-like consistence of the mass, the absence of ropiness noticed 

 in foul brood, and the peculiar sour-like smell. 



PICKLED HKOOD. 



Always watery, turning- blacU after being: attackt with the mucor 

 fungrus — a black mold — and by placing? the larva; in a sterilized chamber, 

 keeping warm and dark, in three or four days the white fundus of pick- 

 led brood appears. I nearly always place a few larvee of every specimen 

 of all kinds of dead br.ood. Foul brood and black brood are attackt 

 with a fung-us, tho kept for months. W'm. R. Howard. 



— Gleanings in Bee-Culture. 



