THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



151 



one side, lift each comb and shake 

 the bees upon the broad board, 

 placing the combs within the new 

 hive. Do this with each of the 

 combs, and watch the bees as they 

 walk up the inclined board. It is 

 next to impossible to miss her 

 ladyship, and it is all done in one- 

 tenth the time it takes to look for 

 black queens in the old way. I 

 have never missed finding a queen 

 since adopting this method. 

 Furthermore it imparts a positive 

 stimulus to the old colony thus 

 treated acting upon them much as if 

 they had swarmed out, and been 

 hived. One can find a dozen black 

 queens in less time than it takes to 

 look up three the old way, with no 

 danger of being made cross-eyed as 

 by the usual method. Of course 

 there is little difficulty in finding 

 Italian queens as they are not so 

 shy, and form a more conspicuous 

 object on the comb, hence no neces- 

 sity for such a procedure. 

 Gcdena, Mel, June 12, 1884. 



DOES POLLEN CAUSE 

 BEE-DIARRHCEA? 



By J. E. Pond, Jr. 



The advocates of the " pollen 

 theory, " make out a fair case for 

 themselves, but the}' are met at the 

 outset, by a few facts that militate 

 directly against their idea. These 

 facts are : first, pollen is a natural 

 food of the honey-bee, and nature 

 makes no mistakes ; second, bees 



do live in confinement for pro- 

 tracted periods, using at the same 

 time large quantities of pollen as 

 food, without being troubled with 

 bee-diarrhoea. It is not enough 

 when setting out a cause of this 

 disease, to say that certain colonies 

 were supplied with sugar syrup 

 alone, and were free from it, while 

 others were not that fed on natural 

 stores ; we mustgostill further, and 

 show that the presence of pollen in • 

 the hive is always followed by the 

 disease, and that the disease never 

 occurred when it was absent. Now 

 what are the facts ? 



Friend Fradenburg says in Am. 

 Bee Journal, June 11, "we want the 

 proofs," and he proceeds to say 

 in substance, "that fiftj^-nine living 

 witnesses prove to him that pollen 

 causes bee-diarrhoea." His proofs 

 are, that certain colonies that had 

 pollen in their hives had this dis- 

 ease, while others that were al- 

 lowed sugar s^n'up alone showed 

 no signs thereof. All this, how- 

 ever, proves nothing, except that 

 in the instance he mentions, bee- 

 diarrhoea followed the presence of 

 pollen among the stores fed to the 

 colony. Per contra; this last winter 

 I packed nine colonies on their sum- 

 mer stands, allowing them all the 

 pollen unused during the prior sea- 

 son ; not one of these nine colonies 

 showed a sign of diarrhoea, and as 

 our editor well knows, from per- 

 sonal observation, were as strong 

 as colonies are ever found just be- 

 fore fruit bloom, one of them gath- 

 ering in fact, seventy-two lbs. of 

 surplus honey in four days from ap- 

 ple bloom. I do not make this 



