THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



31 



Dr. MahivS.— In 18G5-GG or 67, my 

 bees, which were in box hives, were 

 aflected with foul brood and I did not 

 know how to treat it. I came to this 

 country in the winter or spring of 

 1868. I sold my bees to a neighbor 

 and believe tliat he has not any foul 

 brood now. 



C. S. DiCKixsoN.— There is no use 

 in trying to conceal this matter the 

 better way is to own it. Now I have 

 two apiaries and foul brood exists in 

 one of them. The other is free from 

 it and I intend to keep it so. If you 

 do not choose to purchase bees or 

 quecus of me you need not do so. I 

 am anxious to clear my apiaries of this 

 scourge. I know of two or three in- 

 stances in Broome county where par- 

 ties acknowledged that their bees had 

 foul brood and it may perhaps exist in 

 other localities. 



C. R. IsHAM. — There is uo foul brood 

 in Wyoming county. 



Mk. Bacon. — I do not think that Mr. 

 Dickinson's bees have the genuine foul 

 brood. I wish that if any parties here 

 present have this disease in their api- 

 aries, they would say so. 



Du. Mai;ks. — I do not think that Mr. 

 Dickinson has malignant foul brood in 

 his apiary. In 18G'J I lived in Brewer- 

 ton and kept bees They were troubled 

 witii tlie disease described by Mr. 

 Dickinson but it did not prove to be 

 foul brood. When I lived in Oswego 

 county I had bees in the same condi- 

 tion. Mr. Bacon in speaking of tills 

 disease said that were a siock of his 

 bees atlected with it he would destroy 

 both the hives and the bees. Now there 

 may be a kind of foul brood whicii is 

 not of a malignant character, and if we 

 were to destroy all such at once there 

 would be a needless loss. 



Mr. Stark.— Some twenty-five years 

 ago my bees were troubled with what 

 I called bee rot and I did not know 

 how to get rid of it, nortiuitthe brood 

 would rot. I drove the bees out into 

 new hives and they built new combs 

 but the brood would still rot and I lost 

 thirty-tive to forty colonies. It lasted 

 four yeiirs and if it was not foul brood 

 it was foul enough for me. A neighbor 

 of mine who lived about three-fourths 

 of a mile from me had two colonies of 

 bees which I thought were tree from 

 it and I bought them but they Were af- 

 fected with it. I never was troubled 

 with anything of this kind before and 



suffered until I lost from 120 to 130 

 colonies when I destroyed my hives 

 and constructed new ones and have 

 never had foul brood since. 



M)-. Dickinson then moved that the 

 chair be empowered to appoint a read- 

 ing clerk which motion was passed and 

 the chair appointed Mr. Dickinson as 

 such clerk. 



The following essay was then read. 



How TO Managr the Apiary for 

 Comb Honey. 



Bv Dr. C. C. Miller. 



I AM by no means competent to an- 

 swer in full how to manage the apiary 

 for comb honey, but appreciating the 

 compliment of having such a suliject 

 assigned me by the N. E. B. A., I shall 

 touch upon some of the points con- 

 nected with the subject. 



At the outset I am confronted by an 

 item about which I must confess ig- 

 norance : — the best race of bees for 

 comb honey. It is claimed for the 

 blacks that they make the whitest comb 

 and the Syrians have been accused of 

 making the most watery looking comb 

 honey. I have noticed quite a ditt'er- 

 ence in colonies as to tilling the honey 

 out to the capping so as to give it a 

 watery appearance, some colonies mak- 

 ing very white comb, antl possibly 

 some particular strain or cross might 

 be found tliat should excel in this re- 

 spect. It has been claimed that blacks 

 enter boxes or sections most readily, 

 but I have never found any ditHculty 

 in this respect with Italians or hybrids. 



With regard to hives, I think I should 

 want a shallower hive for comb honey 

 than for extracted butl have used only 

 ^he Langstroth hive and have had a very 

 limited experience in extracting. A 

 wider knowledge might change my 

 views. I know that in the height of the 

 storing season my bees fill a Langs- 

 troth frame to the top bar with brood, 

 so I should hardly want anything shal- 

 lower. For comb honey it is not best 

 to have more than seven or eight Langs- 

 troth frames in the brood nest. My 

 hives were nnide for ten frames and 

 I close down to seven or eight by 

 means of a division l)oard. If I were 

 commencing again I miglit have the 

 hives made just large enough for the 

 seven or eight frames as being less 

 cumbersome, but there are some ad- 

 vantages in the extra space contained 

 ill the larger hive. It makes a nice 



