Oct, 5, 1905 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



699 



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Illn ^asty 5 aftcrtl^ougl^ts 



The " Old Reliable " seen through New nnd Unreliable Glasses. 

 By E. E. Hasty, Sta. B. Rural, Toledo, Ohio. 



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Apiccltdbal akd Other Contradictions. 



To the man who is so very indignant about 

 apicultural contradictions I would say, peo- 

 ple disagree about everything txapt the things 

 Iheij flvn^l t'an nnythhiij abuitt. flow about 

 religion; do they agree about that? How 

 about politics; do they agree about that; If 

 it comes to that, how about farming; do they 

 agree about that? And editing — we have the 

 editor who writes the whole journal himself, 

 and the editor who never writes a line, and 

 all grades between. Page 597. 



The "National Biscuit" Stort. 



Don't more than half believe that TO-car- 

 loads-of-boney slory. Pounds, say 5,600,000. 

 Would swallow up the product of 560 apiaries 

 producing 5 tons each to fill one order. Where 

 were the whole of us while 560 of us were 

 being scooped? Page 59". 



Liberating thb Qceen Througe Candt. 



Bees may gnaw through candy and get at a 

 queen too soon. With cardboard over the 

 candy you run heavy risks of having the 

 queen not liberated at all. Seems to me that 

 a thin bit of very soft woolen goods would be 

 the right thing to put over candy. Bees 

 would never let it alone, and it would delay 

 them quite a bit. Page 597. 



Bee-Paralysis— Foul and Pickled Brood. 



The long and semi-scientific article of 

 Adrian (ietaz deserves well of a critic— but 

 (laws have it in their nature that they draw 

 more attention than merits. Valuable fact to 

 remember (it we could be sure of it) that the 

 Uiu'iVtDi (iaytoni of paralysis is smaller than 

 the JJ'iril/iis (lire! of foul brood. Alas, the 

 figures on page .599 feem to have gone insane 

 somehow or other! As given they make 

 Bnrllhis ,ilrii' forty times as long as it is 

 ihick — amazingly thread-like — and causing us 

 to wonder why no one ever told us that be- 

 fore. .My previous idea of the creature is 

 more like jour limes as long as it is thick. 

 And BariUits Gaytuni more than four times 

 as thick as it is long I Too badly out of 

 shape for belief. Science aud its eouclusions 

 are good things; but they sbould nut be swal- 

 lowed whole, not even by tbe unscientific 

 seeker after the facts. Science about foul 

 brood needs more verificaiioQ, and is in a 

 badly mi.xed up state. It is hardly in oondi- 

 ,tion to say, " That isan error,'' if a muliitude 

 of practical persons engaged in practical 

 work find that adult bees appear perfectly 

 teallhy in foul-broody hive,". I would sug- 

 gest that Mr. Getaz give us the alleged micro- 

 scopic observations without fibxoliite conclu- 

 sions therefrom. 



I regard the Geiaz experiment on a bad case 

 of paralysis as valuable. Kequeening wiih a 

 young, healthy queen saved the colony for 

 the time being, and resulitd in ail old, dis- 

 eased bees being driven out soon after; but 

 the new generations of bees still had some of 

 the disease among them The conclusion that 

 requeening is not a sure cure, but always an 

 improvement, seems justified. Presumably 

 tbe infection is in the hive all the time, and 

 not a day passes without many individuals 

 contracting it. That a very subtile and per- 

 vasive infection is best fought with vapor, 

 seems reasonable; and we may take at least 

 with decided interest the conclusion that the 

 vapor of camphor is the best thing we have at 

 present. Curious that bees make such haste 

 to propolize camphor, and cover it up inside 

 of 24 hours. (Hardly do that if they couldn't 

 smell it.) The propolizing diHiculty ought 

 not to be very hard to overcome. Say put 

 the camphor in a large queen cage, and shift 

 from one cage to another occasionally. Still 

 Mr. lietaz may be right, that the best way is 



to put it in after the weather forbids much 

 daubing of propolis. 



Perhaps the section on pickled brood is the 

 most valuable one in the article. Many of us 

 have no experience with pickled brood — and 

 a good many know nothing of it either by 

 experience or any other way. According to 

 our writer the disease is unique in that brood- 

 rearing .^tops. Hive gets " empty, swept and 



garnished " like the Soul in the parable. 

 Queen lays no more. And on the introduc- 

 tion of a healthy, laying queen no attention 

 is paid to tbe eggs she lays. They just stay 

 in .\liitu i/iiii till in S or 10 days they disappear. 

 Queen herself soon disappears it the original 

 one is left. Evidently it is a pretty strenuous 

 sort of plague that these words describe. A 

 bacterial disease brought in with the pollen, 

 which is its first nidus. But if only a little is 

 brought in I suppose we may expect partial 

 results — some dead and some healthy brood in 

 the hive at the same time, and recovery. At 

 least I think many cases have been reported 

 in print which were not fatal. 



That brood may simply starve sometimes 

 by the hive getting so hot, and keeping so 

 hot continuously, that the nurses stay away 

 froin their duty, is an important suggestion 

 to be kept and tested. Pages 598-601. 



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Doctor Itlillcr s ^ucsttouBox 



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Send Questions either to the office of the American Bee Journal, 

 or to Dr. C. C. Miller, Marengo, 111. 

 Dr. Miller does twt answer Questions by mail. 



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Too Late to Divide Colonies 



I have several 2 story 10-frame hives that 

 are so full of bees that they lie out consid- 

 erably of late. Now I want increase. Which 

 is the better, to divide now or wait until 

 spring? I will have to buy queens. Will 

 they have plenty of honey? 



I had one swarm from 28 colonies, spring 

 count, and an average of about 75 pounds of 

 extracted honey per colony. Missouri. 



Answer,— It will likely be better to wait 

 till spring. Less risk about wintering. 



TremMing Queen— Nucleus Manage- 

 ment 



I have li nuclei with queens hatched from 

 cells that I gave them Aug. 23. But I don't 

 see any eggs. One of the queens appeared to 

 be trembling very much, and not able to get 

 around well, remaining about the same place 

 on some sealed brood that I had placed in the 

 hive. She appeared to be slighted by the 

 workers. At this time of year I suppose it 

 possible that the queens may not mate. If 

 so, do you thinic they will be of any service 

 tome? Tbey all look well except tbe trem- 

 bling of the one. What would you do under 

 the circumstances? I am anxious to save 

 them. Oregon. 



Answer. —That trembling queen is pretty 

 certainly no good. To each of the other 

 nuclei I'd give a frame with unsealed brood. 

 If no eggs were present a week later, I'd unite 

 them with some colony. There is a possibility 

 tbe queens might be all right next spring, but 

 not a probability. 



take off the supers any time after Sept. 15, 

 and compel the bees to work in the brood- 

 chamber, will it have any bad effects? 



3. A neighbor had a swarm issue Aug. 20. 

 How late in the season have you ever had 

 swarms issue; 



4. My colonies are very strong. Is there 

 any danger of swarming after Sept. 1, espe- 

 cially if I take off the supers and crowd tbe 

 bees all down into the brood-chamber? 



Indiana. 



Answers. — 1. They might be pure red 

 clover queens without being pure Italians, 

 but of cour.se they should be pure Italians it 

 they were sold as pure Italians. A difference 

 as to tinge of yellow would not condemn 

 them, the specification as to purity of Italian 

 blood being that the workers should have 3 

 yellow bands. Drones vary in their markings, 

 even when of pure blood. 



2. There could be no bad effect unless the 

 queen were so cramped for room as to have 

 too few cells for brood, and there is not much 

 danger of that, for she is likely to be winding 

 up the laying business anyhow. Of course 

 there is a possibility that the crowding might 

 go so far that there would be no room to con- 

 tain all the honey; in which case it would be 

 a nice thing to take out a full frame and re- 

 place it with an empty one. 



3. I've had them in September. 



4. Yes. there's always danger that bees will 

 do tome fool thing in the way of swarming, 

 but the very strong ones are not so likely to 

 swarm as some weak one that has reared a 

 young queen. Crowding now is not likely to 

 produce swarming. 



Red Clover Bees— Late Swarming 



1. Last .July 1 introduced 7 red clover 

 queens. Tbe progeny of these queens varies 

 somewhat from a 'hill yellow of 3 bands to a 

 real bright goldi?ii yellow of 3 bands, and in 

 the latter case the 5ellow on the underside of 

 tbe abdomen cvifuds clear back to the tip. 

 Should the ))rot,'tiiy c f these queens all be^.r- 

 '(1-^/// alike as an indication of purity? The 

 drones also vaiy from a slight iadieation of 

 yellow to a bright orange yellow, showing in 

 2 or :t bands, t^lmuld the drones all be marked 

 iiiirthj alike: I'htse beesall seem to be regu- 

 lar hustlers, liul i am pleased with them, but 

 at the same tune I would like to have them 

 pure Italians 



2. My beev- are now putting in vigorous 

 work on gok!i-n! ! and other autumn bloom 

 (of which th. !• i- profusion here), and are 

 storing quite a -jud deal in the supers. If I 



Wood Splints vs. Wired Frames- 

 Changing from 9 to 8 Frames 



lam now getting frames leaiy for next 

 year's extracting and increase. 



1. Will the wood splints, to which you so 

 often refer, lake the place of horizontal wir- 

 ing of frames, when the latter are to be used 

 for extracted honey? In other words, are 

 splints as strong as wire when used in this 

 way; 



2. .Vly hive Is a 9-frame one, i. e, takes 9 

 loose banging standard Langstroth frames 

 without a dummy. The frames are '« inch 

 wide; bollom and end bars the same widih. 

 As propolis is freely gathered here in July 

 and August, would you advise me to change 

 to a nail-spaced frame such as yours by reduc- 

 ing the uumiier to S, and using a dummy — for 

 extracted honey? 



3. My present combs are all built on wired 

 frames. Would cutting the combs out and 

 placing them in new, unwired frames after 



