THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



123 



For the Amerlcun Hee Journal, 



My Experience with Bee - Diarrhea. 



L. L. TIUEM, (lOo— 170). 



When in conversation witli Dr. .Jesse 

 Oren. a few days ago, I asked liim this 

 question: "Do .vour l)ees. show any 

 signs ot bee -diarrliea V"' He an- 

 swered: " I donotliiiow. Iflthouglit 

 tliey had it, I should not go to see 

 tliem, for I sliould not want to know 

 it until the very last." Now, when 

 we see with what dread such a bee- 

 keeper as Dr. Oren speaks of bee- 

 diarrhea, is it any wonder if beginners 

 should also have fears V I know of no 

 other successful bee-keeper who has 

 been able to winter bees better than 

 Dr. Oren— I mean with less disease 

 and loss. 



On Jan, 1, 18S-5. I carefully exam- 

 ined all of my 170 colonies of bees 

 which are in one cellar, and 2 colonies 

 showed just a few siiots on the fronts 

 of their hives. I will explain how the 

 cellar is arranged, so as to give the 

 reader a better idea of the conditions. 



It has a sub-earth ventilator 208 feet 

 long, running down an s-foot grade, 

 and is made of 0-inch tiling. This 

 supplies fresli air; and for an escape I 

 have an outlet of eomuion, 0-inch 

 stove-pipe connected with tlie cook- 

 stove pipe, and cleriug it 2 feet 

 above the stove. The pipe reaches 

 ■within 10 inches of the cellar floor. The 

 bees were carried into this cellar on 

 Nov. 19 and 20, ]sS4, and tiered up in 

 rows, part being 2 hives high and the 

 most of them o hives high. Only bur- 

 lap covers were put on top of the 

 frames, and C-inch strips of boards 

 were placed between each tier of 

 hives. The temperature has been 4b^ 

 above zero for 30 days, and to-day, it 

 as at 42^ above. 



Now, to return to the 2 affected col- 

 onies : 



On Jan. 30, 1 examined them again 

 and found only the same two affected. 

 'The whole fronts of the hives were 

 ■covered with the excrements. The 

 bees were breeding and restless, and 

 would fly as soon as the light ap- 

 peared. I removed the hives above 

 them as quietly as possible, and took 

 down both of the ones containing the 

 affected colonies, and found that botii 

 would have starved in less than 10 

 days. The hives were crowded with 

 bees, young and old. I next removed 

 the burlap covers, and as almost all of 

 my hives liave feeders in them, I found 

 that these two were ready to receive 

 one quart of sugar syrup. 



I made the syrup of 10 lbs. of gran- 

 ulated sugar, 3 lbs. of water, and a 

 piece of tartaric acid the size of a 

 small hickory nut, a la Ileddon, and 

 fed them, until each had 10 lbs. of it. 

 Today these two colonies are as 

 tightly clustered and as quiet as any 

 in the cellar. Time will tell whether 

 they will live, but if they die I have 

 lost only the time and have learned a 

 lesson. 



In the Bee Journal of Jan. 28, 

 188.5, Mr. A. J. Norris in his article 

 entitled " Pollen First Cause of Win- 

 ter Loss," touches a very important 

 point, viz : •' Removing the means of 



brood-rearing," and continues : "But 

 there is one thing of which I do not 

 feel assured, i. e., if the bees are 

 robbed of the necessaries with which 

 to rear their young, will the old bees 

 live long enough in the spring to build 

 up strong?" etc. 



I agree here with him, and as a rem- 

 edy, say, feed sugar syrup in October 

 until all pollen is covered over and 

 sealed up, and as the bees consume 

 this sugar stores first, no pollen will 

 be exposed until March. As there is 

 room enough for brood-rearing to com- 

 mence, not much disease will be the 

 consequence. 



I cannot believe that a colony which 

 does not breed until April can place 

 its record beside one which bred and 

 was full of young bees in March. I 

 am a strong advocate of feeding sugar 

 for winter stores, and I believe that 

 the pollen theory is correct ; only tell 

 us iiow we can leave just a little in the 

 hive and in such a shape as to do no 

 harm. 



La Porte City,OIowa, Feb. 2, 1885. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Honey-Dew and 'Worker-Larvse. 



C. THEIL3IANN. 



On page 41, Prof. A. J. Cook says: 

 ■' It will take years to persuade all 

 bee-keepers that the so-called honey- 

 dew does not fall like the gentle rain 

 from heaven, yet that it never so falls, 

 is very certain." 



I am one of those who cannot be 

 persuaded so easily on the honey-dew 

 question. From my boyhood until 

 now, it fas been natural for me to 

 study and investigate Nature's curi- 

 osities, and from what I have observed 

 about houey-dew.the Prof . or any other 

 person cannot convince me that all 

 honey-dew is the secretion of plant, 

 bark, or other lice, unless they can 

 prove to me that these lice can fly and 

 secrete while on the wing. Often have 

 I seen honey- dew away from timber 

 or trees, from 80 to 1(50 rods, on the 

 prairie and tame grasses and vegeta- 

 bles, and nearly all that I have tested 

 had, contrary to the louse honey, a 

 pleasant taste, and was quite light in 

 in color. Will the Professor please 

 explain how that honey-dew got there? 

 If not '■ like a gentle rain from hea- 

 ven," it surely did not come from be- 

 low, as it was always on the tops of 

 the leaves. • 



Further on, the Professor says : 

 " That bees can change worker larvae 

 to those of drones, is entirely beyond 

 the possibilities, even of the very 

 skillful workers." I do not know that 

 bees can change worker larv» into 

 drones, but I do know that they can 

 make drones from Vv'hat are called 

 worker eggs. 



In an article on page .594 in the Bee 

 Journal for 1883, I described my ex- 

 periences by which I am convinced 

 that ' bees do make drones from 

 worker eggs; for after the swarm 

 referred to deserted the hive, I very 

 closelv examined the piece of comb in 

 which" the eggs were deposited, and 

 the queen was a perfect one ; no cell 

 was missed on either side of the comb, 



and it was tilled with eggs almost to 

 its lower en<l, where the cells were not 

 more than ^b of an inch deep ; none of 

 the cells were built out the full length, 

 and tiierefore 1 could see the eggs 

 very plainly. There was not a miss 

 nor two or more eggs in a cell within 

 the whole circle. Now, then, is it 

 natural for a queen, right after swarm- 

 ing, to lay drone eggs among worker 

 eggs in the first piece of worker comb 

 which is built in its new home ? This 

 would be a rule of which I liave not 

 yet heard in the 17 years of my bee- 

 keeping. Even the poorest queens 

 that I ever had (such as would rather 

 lay drone eggs than worker eggs), laid 

 all worker eggs for at least 4 or o of 

 their tirst days in their new homes. 



It is entirely beyond any doubt that 

 the above-described eggs were not all 

 worker, and would surely have hatched 

 out worker bees, had the swarm, 

 which I hived on the piece of comb, 

 not lost its queen while swarming, 

 and had not its instinct led it to make 

 a queen, drones and workers from 

 those eggs to preserve its existence. 

 Laying workers in that colony were 

 excluded. While they had nearly 

 filled the hive with drone-comb, no 

 eggs or brood of any kind could be 

 seen, when the young queen com- 

 menced to lay. 



If I uulerstandProf.Cook.heclaims 

 that drone-eggs have no sperm. It 

 seems to me that if the drone-eggs of 

 a perfect queen could be examined or 

 dissected "correctly," that a sper'ln 

 would be found. It is entirely beyond 

 the possibilities for a black queen to 

 produce yellow drones, if she is not 

 fertilized by a yellow drone. These 

 facts alone prove the fallacy of the 

 sperm theory. 



Thielmanton,cxMinn. 



For tbe American Bee JooiiiaL 



How Does He "Know 1 



DR. D. C. SPENCER. 



In these days when the apiarist 

 seems more than ever to be endeavor- 

 ing to get at facts, sifting them as 

 best he may, from much of chaff and 

 theory, as he carefully scans such an 

 apparently able article as that on page 

 8.'), he feels like asking, '• How does 

 he knoio .?" Has he known " what bees 

 do in winter V" Has he carefully and 

 repeatedly noted the action of the 

 bees in their winter cluster during 

 severe cold weather, which being sub- 

 jected to a low degree of temperature- 

 say 20^ to 30-> below zero— as they 

 " take a full meal of honey and come 

 outside, the next inside doing the 

 same, and so on until the outside ones 

 are crowded in, warmed and get their 

 till, and come outside iu turn to clus- 

 ter over the rest? " 



Sometimes the writer of the above 

 tells us what he has "thought" and 

 and what he " thinks ;" now if he will 

 tell us what he knows about the sub- 

 ject in hand, and hoiu he knows it, 

 then, if the evidence is sufficient and 

 conclusive, we may set down such and 

 such points as facts, but not until 

 then. 



Augusta, -o Wis. 



