58 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



plan my invention, and only intended 

 to modify or cheapen it. That this is 

 so, one has only to e.xamine and com- 

 pare the frames, as illustrated ; his 

 modification being a connecting of 

 the end-strips of my frame, by a bar 

 over the top. AVhetl)er this is, or is 

 not, an improvement, future experi- 

 ment must decide. 

 Adrian,? Mich. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Hibernation and Pollen in 1764. 



C. L. SWKET. 



Sometime last winter I purchased 

 an old English book from an English 

 family that were selling out. It was 

 published in London, England, in 1764. 

 The title of the book is : "The Com- 

 plete Farmer, or General Dictionary 

 of Agriculture in all of its Branches : 

 Together with the method of Rearing 

 Bees and of acquiring large quantities 

 of AVax and Honey, without destroy- 

 ing those laborious insects : Pub- 

 lished by a Society of Gemtlemen, 

 Members of the Society for the En- 

 couragement of Arts, Manufactures, 

 and Commerce." The following ex- 

 tract from this book perhaps will be 

 of interest to the readers of the Bee 

 Journal, as the hibernation and pol- 

 len theories are now being discussed. 

 It will be interesting, as showing how 

 far experimenters had got on these 

 questions in 1764 : 



" Providence has ordained that in- 

 sects which feed on leaves, flowers, 

 and green, succulent plants, are in an 

 insensible or torpid state from the 

 time that the winter's cold has de- 

 prived them of the means of subsist- 

 ence. Thus the bees, during winter, 

 are in so lethargic a state, that little 

 food supports them ; but as the 

 weather is very changeable, and every 

 warm or sunny day revives them, and 

 prompts them to return to exercise, 

 food becomes necessary on these occa- 

 sions. 



"Mr. White very judiciously ob- 

 serves, that a greater degree of cold 

 than is commonly imagined to be 

 proper for bees, is favorable to them 

 in winter. ' If a sharp frost,' says 

 that experienced gentleman, 'contin- 

 ues for two or three months, without 

 intermission, you mayobserve,through 

 your glass, that the bees are all this 

 time closely linked together in clus- 

 ters between the combs. If they are 

 not altogether without motion, yet 

 it is certain that they stir not from 

 their places, while the cold continues, 

 and therefore eat not at all. A colony 

 of bees, tlierefore. placed on the 

 north side of a building, will waste 

 much less of their provisions, than 

 others which stand in the sun ; for 

 coming seldom forth, they eat little ; 

 and yet in the spring are as forward 

 to work and swarm, as those which 

 had twice as much honey in the pre- 

 ceding autumn. The o^ner should, 

 however, examine their state in the 

 winter, and if he finds that instead of 

 being clustered between the combs, 

 they fall down in numbers on the 

 stool or bottom of the hive, the hive 



should te immediately carried to a 

 warmer place where they soon re- 

 cover. 



" Most writers on the subject have 

 observed that these insects are sub- 

 ject to a kind of purging in the spring, 

 which is often fatal to the whole hive. 

 Madam Vicat ascribes this distemper 

 to the honey being candied in the 

 hive by the cold. But Columella de- 

 scribes it as an annual distemper 

 which seizes them in the spring, wlien 

 the spurge blossoms, and the elm dis- 

 closes its seeds ; for the bees, being 

 allured by the first flowers, feed so 

 greedily upon them that they surfeit 

 themselves therewith, and die of a 

 looseness, if they are not speedily 

 relieved.' 



" He relates Hyginus's advising, 

 in tills case, to cover the bees with 

 ashes of the fig-tree ; and aflfirms, 

 that, being enlivened by the warmth 

 of these ashes, the bees will revive in 

 two hours, and go into a hive brought 

 to them. Columella advises giving 

 them rosemary and honey diluted 

 with water. Aristomachus seems to 

 have prescribed the most effectual 

 cure, namely, to take away all the 

 vitiated combs, that is, all the combs 

 in vphich there are open cells appear- 

 ing to contain candied honey. 



"The authors of the Maison Rus- 

 tique, impute this purging to the bees' 

 feeding on pure honey, which does 

 not form a food sufficiently substan- 

 tial for them, unless they have bee- 

 bread to eat at the same time ; and 

 advise giving them a honey-comb 

 taken from another hive, the cells of 

 which are lilled with crude wax or 

 bee-bread. 



" The common practice is to feed 

 them in the autumn, giving them as 

 much honey as will bring the whole 

 weight of the hive to nearly twenty 

 pounds. To this end, the honey is 

 diluted with water, and then put into 

 an empty comb, split reeds, or, as 

 Columella directs, upon clean wool, 

 which the bees will suck perfectly dry. 



" The following directions ^ven for 

 this purpose in the Maison Eustique, 

 seem to be very judicious : ' Replen- 

 ish the weak hives in September, with 

 such a portion of combs full of honey, 

 taken from other hives, as shall be 

 judged to be a sufficient supply for 

 them. In order to do this, turn up 

 the weak hive, after taking the pre- 

 caution of defending yourself with 

 the smoke of rags, cut out the empty 

 combs, and put the full ones in their 

 place, where secure them with pieces 

 of wood run across, in such manner 

 that they may not fall down when the 

 hive is returned to its place. The 

 bees will soon tix them more effect- 

 ually. If this method be thought too 

 troublesome, set under the hive a 

 plate of liquid honey, unmixed with 

 water, with straws laid across it, and 

 over these a paper pierced full of 

 holes, through which the bees will 

 suck the honey, without daubing 

 themselves. This should be done in 

 cloudy or rainy weather, when the 

 bees stir least abroad ; and the hive 

 should be covered, to protect the bees 

 from robbers, which might be allured 

 to it by the smell of honey.'" 



Glenwood,d His. 



For the Ainerican Bee Journal. 



Italians vs. Foul Brood, etc. 



GEO. W. WEBSTER. 



A few years ago I found some of 

 the colonies in my apiary at Bonair, 

 Iowa, troubled with what I feared 

 might prove to be foul brood. There 

 was more or less dead brood in the 

 cells, varying from a few cells in each 

 frame to one-half of all the brood, and 

 this in the middle combs, too, so that 

 it could not be accounted for as 

 chilled brood. It also continued all 

 summer. The bees kept at work 

 gathering a surplus of honey, and 

 sometimes swarming, but they did 

 not do as well as the other colonies. 

 There was no foul odor about the 

 hives. 



I wrote to Mr. G. M. Doolittle, de- 

 scribing the disease, but he did not 

 think that it was foul brood. Neither 

 did I ; still I was anxious about it and 

 watched it very closely. It did not 

 seem to spread in the apiary. Of 

 course I tried to not give much op- 

 portunity for other bees to get any of 

 the honey. One colony finally be- 

 came so bad that I concluded to brim- 

 stone the bees, heat up the honey^ 

 and melt the combs into wax. 



About Aug. 15, I took out the 

 queen and did not allow the bees to 

 rear another, thus getting rid of all 

 living brood. This also gave them a 

 chance to fill the hive with honey. 

 When the first frost came I brim- 

 stoned the bees, when, to my surprise, 

 I found as nice and clean combs of 

 honey as I ever saw. There was not 

 the least sign of any dead brood hav- 

 ing been in the colony. 



Tlie next year .5 or 6 colonies 

 showed signs of the disease. At this 

 time I was rearing Italian queens and 

 Italianizing my apiary as fast as I 

 could get pure queens, keeping out all 

 impure drones. I had but tew hy- 

 brids left, and I noticed that the dead 

 brood was confined to the hives con- 

 taining darkest hybrids. As fast as I 

 could give these pure queens, all 

 signs ot dead brood disappeared ; i. e., 

 wfien the pure Italians began to hatch. 

 At the end of tlie season only one 

 colony had any dead brood, and that 

 was a colony of dark hybrids. 



The next winter I had all the bees 

 in large chaff hives, and left them on 

 the summer stands. My apiary was 

 centrally located in a grove of twenty 

 acres ot cottonwoods, poplars, maples 

 and evergreens, 2j to 60 feet high, af- 

 fording the most complete protection 

 from winds, and I only lo.st one col- 

 ony, that being caused by the en- 

 trance becoming closed so that the 

 bees could not get out. In the spring 

 I watched the colony of diseased hy- 

 brids with much interest, to see if 

 the warmer hive would help them to 

 keep out the foul brood, as I had an 

 idea that the disease originated in the 

 spring by the brood becoming chilled. 

 It seemed, however, to make no dif- 

 ference ; there was as much dead 

 brood as ever. 



As soon as I could I gave them a 

 queen-cell from an Italian colony, and 

 in due time they had a pure queen 

 By the time the colony was half Ital 



