THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



327 



ply, and before reading Mr. Ileddon's 

 article, I liad made a memorandum in 

 my note-hook as follows : " ]5eesneed 

 but very little ventilation, if tlie air 

 they get is pure and uniform." 



Before Mr. II. laughs too loud and 

 long at the audacity and absurdity of 

 my claim that his conclusions (it in 

 with the tlieory of hibernation, per- 

 mit me to boil "tlie whole thing down. 

 He tells us that if bees are kept in 

 the right temperature to induce that 

 state of quietude which we all admit 

 to be desirable, they will not eat pol- 

 len to any excess. Tliey may possibly 

 use a little for making chyme, but 

 " they will not take bee-bread into 

 their intestines." It is when the hive 

 becomes so cold that they are obliged 

 to stir around and get up heat by ex- 

 ercise, that there is waste of tissue 

 which compels " the consumption of 

 tissue - making food (nitrogenous 

 food), bee-bread." It seems to me 

 that this harmonizes exactly with my 

 theory. I have said, over and over 

 again, let us find out the temperature 

 necessary to keep bees in that state of 

 torpor or semi-torpor in which they 

 will consume the minimum of food, 

 and they will not contract diarrhea. 

 I have supposed they might use a 

 little pollen even in that condition, 

 and Mr. Heddon seems to grant this 

 in his allusion to chyme, also in the 

 admission that various colonies had 

 wintered fairly well, though they had 

 taken some pollen. I said this in my 

 essay, at the Rochester convention : 

 '"But whether honey or pollen, if 

 thev eat more than they can excrete 

 without fouling the hive, diarrhea is 

 the sure and fatal result." Mr. Hed- 

 dou's experiments compel a modifica- 

 tion of this. That large number of 

 colonies which he reports as having 

 died without any evidence of diar- 

 rhea, succumbed directly to the cold. 

 There was no nitrogenous food to re- 

 pair the tissue wasted by the exercise 

 compelled to get up heat, so when 

 their resources in this direction were 

 exhausted, they were speedily killed 

 by " cold, too long continued." I 

 should say that they died from in- 

 ability to hibernate. Mr. Heddon 

 says what amounts to the same thing. 

 It became so cold in the hives that 

 they could not keep still ; they were 

 unable for any prolonged time to get 

 up heat by exercise ; hence, they gave 

 up the ghost. This boiling-down of 

 the main facts rather detracts from 

 the scientific air of Mr. Heddon's 

 narrative, but the essence of it is all 

 there. 



I and others who do not believe 

 what is now so widely known as " the 

 pollen theory," have "maintained that 

 excessive feeding during winter was 

 the great cause of diarrhea, but we 

 were unwilling to believe that pollen 

 alone was in fault. Early in this 

 controversy I held that if the condi- 

 tions of safe wintering were right in 

 other respects, the instinct of bees 

 would be a safe guide— what food to 

 eat, whether honey or pollen, and how 

 much of it. Mr. Heddon now vir- 

 tually takes this ground, and thereby 

 upsets his theory. These are his 

 words : " If colonies of bees are kept 

 in a room whose temperature never 



goes below 4-5-' (in some cases I might 

 put it lower), tliey willnot take bee-bread 

 hitn their intestines, whether they use 

 it for making chyme or not." One 

 would naturally reply to this that it is 

 only necessary to regulate the tem- 

 perature, but Mr. Heddon knows very 

 well that 4.3° has often been prescribed 

 for the temperature of bee houses and 

 cellars; but notwithstanding this, 

 diarrhea has often broken out in these 

 repositories. To account for this 

 fact, Mr. Heddon says : " If the 

 honey which the hives contain, is of 

 good wintering quality, that is, very 

 free from floating pollen, this will be 

 all the precaution necessary to insure 

 safety. If, on the other hand, the 

 oxygen stores contain a goodly quan- 

 tity of nitrogen, via floating pollen in 

 the honey, the bees may have the 

 diarrhea, and this is the reason that 

 disease has been experienced in warm 

 cellars. If the pollen is diffused 

 throughout the honey in considerable 

 quantity, it will get into the bees' in- 

 testines and accumulate in larger 

 quantities than the bees can hold, 

 and their instincts to do this will 

 cause the disease." 



Most of the paragraph just quoted 

 is mere supposition, and I must 

 bluntly say that I do not believe it. 

 I have more faith in natural instinct 

 than to think that bees will eat pol- 

 len by accident. Surely they will not 

 take it unless in some way an appe- 

 tite is created for it. Granting for 

 the moment Mr. Heddon's theory, 

 and that the bees are not rendered 

 hungry enough to need such strong 

 food as pollen, will they not reject it V 

 In taking the honey, must they also 

 consume the pollen that floats in it V 



Right here comes in the question 

 as to the dry feces, and I do not hesi- 

 tate to say that if Mr. Ileddon and 

 Prof. Cook will take the same pains 

 with them as they have done with 

 the wet feces, the " pollen theory " 

 will get its quietus. It is undeniable 

 that there is a dry, powdery substance 

 deposited on the bottom-boards of 

 hives during the winter confinement 

 of bees. Following the lead of Father 

 Quinby. I have maintained that this 

 dry powder is excrement. Further, 

 I have held that when bees void their 

 feces in this dry state, it is one of the 

 best evidences that they are winter- 

 ing well. My experience this winter 

 has confirmed this view. As long as 

 my bees were able to keep in that 

 quiet state which I have called hiber- 

 nation, this dry deposit fell from be- 

 tween the combs ; when the " cold 

 long-continued " compelled exercise 

 and feeding in excess, they got the 

 diarrhea. I agree with most of what 

 Mr. Ileddon says about " cold, long 

 continued." 



Now I ask ^Ir. Heddon and Prof. 

 Cook to tell us what this dry powdery 

 deposit is. If it is not feces, it is re- 

 jected grains of pollen and other im- 

 purities which the bees found float- 

 ing in the honey. Let Prof. Cook ex- 

 amine this dry powder with a micro- 

 scope, and he will find that it largely 

 consists of pollen. It is not pollen 

 exclusively. What there is beside 

 pollen, I have supposed to be the ex- 

 cremental remains of honey. 



If this pow<lery matter is dry feces, 

 then bees do eat pollen largely in con- 

 linement, without necessarily retain- 

 ing the waste matter in their intes- 

 tines till a chance offers for flight, or 

 else become diseased, and then the 

 trouble arises from their eating more 

 and oftener than can be voided in a 

 dry state, which is, of course, a slower 

 process than that of voiding in a wet 

 state. Accumulation of wet feces, 

 will soon result in diarrhea. 



If. on the other hand, this powdery 

 stuff is not dry feces, but rejected 

 pollen and other impurities found in 

 the honey, it is proof that the instinct 

 of the bees is a sufficient guide, what 

 and how much to eat, unless they are 

 forced by extreme cold to devour 

 more food than can be retained in 

 their intestines during long confine- 

 ment. 



Mr. Heddon can impale his pollen 

 theory on either horn of the dilemma 

 here presented, but one or the other will 

 certainly be fatal to it. The whole 

 problem resolves itself into a question 

 of ventilation or temperature. Find 

 the temperature in which bees will be 

 so quiet and comfortable that they 

 will not have to consume food, 

 whether honey or pollen, in excess, 

 and you have solved the difliculty 

 without any need of picking pollen 

 out of the cells with toothpick.?, or 

 preventing its being stored by that 

 readier method which Mr. Heddon 

 promises to disclose. 



Speedside, Ont. 



ror the Amerrcan Bee Journal. 



Methods of Curing Foul Brood. 



L. C. WHITINI4, il. D. 



I want to say a word about foul 

 brood. I would not give one cent for 

 all the medicine in the world to be 

 fed to a colony of foul-broody bees 

 unless you take away all the combs 

 and honey and give themaclean hive. 

 If that is done, experience proves 

 that it is not necessary. The plan 

 adopted by Mr. D. A. Jones is suc- 

 cessful, economical, and within the 

 capacity of the average bee-keeper. 



I do not believe that any man can 

 rear queens f ronra foul-broody colony 

 and make the price of the salt in his 

 dinner. I should not want to use 

 such queens ; not from fear of foul 

 brood, but for the lack of vitality in 

 them. I do not believe that there is 

 a bee-keeper in the United States 

 mean enough to sell queens from 

 such stock ; but if they were caged 

 on sugar candy, and free from foul- 

 broody honey, experience would lead 

 me to believe that there would be no 

 disease developed from them. 



Shake your bees into a box or hive, 

 keep them two or three days shut up 

 without food, then put them upon 

 full frames of foundation in a clean 

 hive, and they will be free from dis- 

 ease unless they get some of the old 

 honey or contract the disease from 

 some other colony. If the old hive, 

 combs and honey are heated to the 

 boiling point, all the germs will be 

 destroyed. 



East Saginaw,© Mich. 



