316 



TEE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



November 



(From Gleanings). 



rOUL BROOD. 



Probably there is no one thing in 

 bee keeping that has had more care 

 and study given it by apiarists than 

 foul brood, and probably no study 

 which has given as little satisfaction, 

 for we are but little nearer a solution 

 of the true cause of the disease than 

 we were when Quinby wrote about it 

 in the early sixties. When a colony 

 has this dread disease a few of the 

 larvte die soon after the bees seal 

 them over. The capping to the cell 

 soon has a sunken appearance, quite 

 often with a pin-hole in the center, 

 though not always so as some claim. 

 Upon opening the cell the larva is 

 found stretched at full length in the 

 cell, having a brown appearance, 

 while all healthy larvie or pup?e are 

 white. If touched this dead brood is 

 of a salvy, soapy nature and gives off 

 an offensive smell. From the first few 

 cells the disease spreads rapidly till 

 the combs become a putrifying mass, 

 generally during the first season, and 

 nearly always during the second, the 

 stench at this stage often being smell- 

 ed a rod or two from the hive. A few 

 of the larva? mature into bees and the 

 population of the hive decreases till 

 they become a prey to robbers, when 

 the honey is taken off by these rob- 

 bers only to carry the seeds of the 

 malady to the robber's hive, for the 

 disease is spread through the honey 

 as well as from anything coming in 

 contact with it. The cure is to drive 

 out all the bees from the affected hive 

 and keep them shut up in an empty 

 box until they are nearly starved, so 

 that they shall have digested all of 

 the diseased honey. They can now be 

 hived in a new hive containing comb 



or comb foundation without carrying 

 the disease with them. If they are to 

 be hived in an empty hive this starv- 

 ing process has been proved unneces- 

 sary, as the diseased honey is all used 

 up in comb building before any larva? 

 are hatched to which it can be fed. 

 Great care should be taken that no 

 bees get at the contents of the old 

 hive before the combs are rendered 

 into wax and the honey and hive 

 scalded. Other cures have been rec- 

 ommended but most of them are inef- 

 fectual, except in the hands of an 

 expert. 



THE GREAT BARRIER TO THE XORTH POLE. 



The great obstacle in tiiuling the North 

 Pole is, of course, the all-pervading ice. 

 During the summer, the season of constant 

 sunlight, the Arctic seas open somewhat 

 and the explorers push their ships farther 

 and farther to the north with the hope 

 strong within them that they, of all the 

 venturesome spirits who have sought the 

 Pole, will find it, and will win undying 

 glory. But these open seas which stretch 

 out so invitingly are luring them to their 

 destruction. Weeks have been passing 

 wliile the staunch craft of the explorers 

 has been sailing north. The sun sinks lower 

 in the southwest, and at last leaves the re- 

 gion developed in the long Arctic night. 

 The pathway of water between the fields of 

 ice slowly closes. The ship, now in all 

 probability pushing her way desperately to- 

 wards the south, makes less and less progress 

 and finally stops. The ice gathers round 

 her and presses her with an embrace that 

 ■ constantly grows tighter and more deadly. 

 She is in a trap. vShe groans and cries like 

 a living thing in pain as her frame is slowly 

 crushed ; but the remorseless ice only 

 squeezes her the harder, and finally she be- 

 comes broken and useless, and those who 

 brought her here leave her to her desolate 

 fate and begin a journey southward over the 

 ice — a journey which, for many, ends in 

 graves in the frozen solitudes. — Erom " To 

 the North Pole by Balloon, in Demorests 

 for November. 



