502 



rich for their growth, but it is folly to expect 

 success on light, sandy uplands. I have seen 

 as fine clover grow in South Carolina and 

 Georgia as ever did in Pennsylvania and 

 Maryland ; and I am glad to say that more 

 attention is being paid to their cultivation. 

 Alsike clover and melilot can not be success- 

 fully grown. First, it is very difficult to get 

 even a fair stand ; and, secondly, even after a 

 passable stand is obtained, the plants are killed 

 during our long, dry summers. 



Buckwheat grows well, but it either fails to 

 secrete honey during the summer months, or 

 the honey is dissipated before the bees can 

 gather it. If sown the latter part of August, 

 so as to bloom in September, it comes in com- 

 petition with plants that are richer in honey, 

 and the bees, in most of cases, refuse to work 

 on it. 



Catnip, horse or goat-mint, mustard, etc., 

 when cultivated, yield much honey. The 

 first two of these plants might profitably be 

 grown in all out-of-the-way places. 



In laying out our pleasure grounds, and in 

 planting shade* trees, it is advisable to keep an 

 eye to utility as well as to ornament. Many 

 of the most valuable and ornamental shade 

 trees are also excellent for bee forage. I can 

 especially recommend the Pawlonia imperi- 

 alis, catalpa, china berry tree (melia azedaracli) 

 sterculia flatani folia, or varnish tree, and 

 mimosa. 



Most of these beautiful trees are natives of 

 Japan, a country to which America is greatly 

 indebted for a large number of her most highly 

 ornamental trees and plants. 



In some seasons, in many localities in the 

 south, there is'found on the leaves of various 

 trees and shrubs, a saccharine formation called 

 honey-dew. Without discussing any of the 

 theories advanced to account for this secretion 

 or excretion, I simply refer to it, and state that 

 the amount of honey obtained sometimes from 

 this source is very great. Its quality is in- 

 ferior. 



Before I close this paper, I must refer to the 

 wanton destruction of melliferous trees and 

 shrubs in nearly every portion of the southern 

 country. In some sections this has been car- 

 ried to such an extent as to preclude the pos- 

 sibility of surplus honey in apiaries that 

 formerly yielded large returns. It behooves 

 every bee-keeper to give attention to the pres- 

 ervation of honey-producing trees and plants 

 as much as possible. Dr. J. P. H. Brown. 

 Augusta, Ga. 



The following papers were then read 

 on 



Fonl-Brood-it* Sanger*! and its Care. 



Foul-brood has for years, been a terror to 

 bee-keepers in the old world, and was trans- 

 planted to America by importation. It has 

 made tearful progress in the South and 

 Southwest, also in the Eastern States and 

 California, and bids fair to be a serious 



stumbling block to bee-culture, if not 

 checked in time. I have answered so many 

 letters in regard to this matter that I could 

 not well select a better subject for this 

 article. 



Our greatest danger lies in ignoring or 

 hiding the trouble, as under such a policy, 

 nobody's bees are safe in a neighborhood 

 where one hive is afflicted. Bobbing bees 

 may spread the disease anywhere. A hive, 

 afflicted with foul-brood, cleaned out by 

 robbing bees and left on the stand, will 

 keep a whole neighborhood infected for 

 years. We may imagine, therefore, the 

 mischief which will follow a carelessness 

 of this sort. 



Foul-brood does not originate in a healthy 

 colony, but is a disease of itself, of a spora- 

 dic nature, which does not affect the lives of 

 old bees, but is carried along on their legs 

 or other parts of their body into the hive, 

 and wherever it comes in contact with larvae, 

 it finds a fertile soil. The larvae die and 

 foul-brood begins its growth. 



Spores or micrococcus develop and are 

 carried all over the hive and combs by the 

 bees. Wherever one of those parts, which 

 are too small to be discovered with the naked 

 eye, happens to drop into a brood cell con- 

 taining larvae, a new start is given to the 

 disease. The dead larvre decay and turn 

 fast into a tough, yellow, bad smelling mass 

 of a ropy nature, distributing micrococcus 

 all the time until all the brood is affected. 

 It often happens that larvae take the disease 

 just before the cells are capped. We recog- 

 nize those capped cells afterwards, by their 

 flat appearance aud a little perforation in 

 the middle. Bees perhaps getting impatient 

 about the hatching of their young, make 

 the opening and quit in disgust upon dis- 

 covering the bad odor arising from within. 



The air of a foul-broody hive is so disgust- 

 ing that I imagined I could smell it when 

 walking past. The dead larvae, turned into 

 a yellowish-brown, dry up and stick, mum- 

 my-like, in the lower corner of the cells. 

 Being of the same color as the comb, they 

 are often undiscovered, and although the 

 combs are disinfected thoroughly, as the 

 bee-keeper thinks, they will bring death and 

 desolation to the hive wherever introduced. 

 As soon as an egg is laid in one of those 

 cells and the larvae begins to develope, the 

 mummy softens up and the disease takes its 

 start anew. 



There is said to be, also, a harmless foul- 

 brood which makes its appearance in a weak 

 colony and disappears again when the bees 

 become populous. I never made the ac- 

 quaintance of this kind, and believe it to be 

 an entirely different disease. As a proof, 1 

 offer the following : 



Having my apiary on a roof and wearing 

 out the latter, I concluded one summer to 

 put on a new one. This was 10 or 12 years 

 ago. I knew how to keep a hive of bees 

 closed up safely for a day, of course, if it 

 was in July and the weather warm. So we 

 went to work. At noon, when the honey 

 commenced to run down the tin spouts, into 

 the gutter, I knew what 1 had done ; but 

 at 5 p.m. every stand occupied its old place. 

 About % or more of my bees were killed. 

 Every comb was broken down, and every 

 bee killed in some of the hives. The un- 



