lis 



THE AMERICAN BEE KEEPER. 



May 



BEE KEEPING IN CUBA. 



Ed. Am. Bee-Keeper. — Dear Sir: 

 We have the same story to tell this 

 year that every body else is telling 

 both here and in the U. S. ; poor crop, 

 prices starving low, and no demand 

 for one's crop after he has labored for 

 a year to raise it. This has been the 

 poorest season for honey and the low- 

 est prices we have ever had to meet, 

 but we know why the crop is short, it 

 is because the pasturage has all been 

 plowed up for pine-apples, but we do 

 not know why the price of honey 

 should fall from 45 and 48 cents 

 to 25 and 30 cents per gallon. 

 This falling off amounts to 

 something on 5,000 gallons of honey. 

 When a man works twelve months 

 taking care of his bees (as we must 

 do here) and then only get two thirds 

 of a crop, and have to sell that for 

 about half its former price, there is 

 but very little fun left in the busi- 

 ness. Some of the papers say they 

 have got some kind of a substitute 

 for honey in the "old country" and 

 that it is cutting into the honey mar- 

 ket fast, but my idea is that this is 

 "fishy" the most of it. However 

 true it may be, it certainly will not 

 help the honey raising industry, but 

 it is my opinion that Cuba has seen 

 her best days in the honey line for 

 the importation of foul brood here 

 some twelve years ago, was the great- 

 est blunder that has been made here 

 in the bee line and if it had not been 

 for a "penny wise and pound foolish" 



man it would have been destroyed at 

 once, hive, bees, and all, and so stop- 

 ped right there, but theory claims to 

 lead practice and experience, so a 

 "king of dollars" ordered a man of 

 experience and one who was perfectly 

 well acquainted wuth this dreaded 

 disease to "try and doctor it" for al- 

 though worth half a million, and I 

 don't know how much more, he didn't 

 want to be so lavish as to burn up a 

 swarm of bees hive and all, so a 

 Doctor's kit for the treatment of this 

 bee disease was procured and the 

 daily doses were administered from 

 the time the egg was laid until it was 

 sealed over, and what was the result? 

 The plague thrived and in a fevf 

 weeks there was a half dozen more 

 cases of it found, and again the 

 owner was told of the spread of the 

 disease and informed that the medi- 

 cine was no good, Avhereupon he sug- 

 gested that a few more drops be add- 

 ed to to the dose and the process re- 

 peated twice a day. But although it 

 kept it back it did not cure it, and 

 other cases that had not been found 

 got so bad that spraying the combs 

 with all of the other work was impos- 

 sible. So as a last resort, all the cases 

 that could be found were treated thus. 

 The bees were shaken into a tight 

 hive and kept there for three days 

 without any honey, but fed with salt- 

 ed water sweetened a little with sugar 

 their combs were melted up, the hives 

 boiled for half a day, and the frames 

 too. Then the bees were taken and 

 put into new hives with new frames 

 and new foundation, and the hives in 

 which they were temporarily confined 

 boiled. And did all of this work do 

 any good ? Well it might have done 

 some good but it did not stop the dis- 



