THE AMERICAN APIGULTURIST. 



321 



QUESTIONS AND AN S WEBS. 



BEES STARVING. 



A la<ly beekeeper of West Medway, Mass., 

 •writes thus: 



" What am I to rlo to keep my bees through 

 the winter? 1 fear they have uot made honey 

 enougli through the summer and none for me. 

 I am afraid tliey are dying even now." 



[Beekeepers who do not read a {rood bee- 

 paper generally And tliemselves in a bad fix 

 at some time during the year. Had this lady 

 been a regnlai- reader of the API. slie would 

 have had just the information she now de- 

 sires, and at the proper time too. The 

 middle of November is most too late in this 

 climate to feed bees for winter, unless an 

 experienced hand is to attend to the work.] 



QUEEN REARED BY TWENTY BEES. 



Poughlceepsie, N. Y. 

 In changing my bees this spring, from 

 one hive to another, a piece of the brood 

 coinl) broke down ; as it had brood that 

 would hatch in a few days I left it in an old 

 hive for a while; and onexamining it a few 

 days ago found tliat a queen ha<l hatcheii out. 

 I wish to Knowil a queen hatched under such 

 circumstances would be of any value. There 

 were only about twenty bees in with her. 

 She is of Syrian breed from the queeu you 

 sent me last summer. 



Respectfully vours, 



S. E. Wiley. 



[This question came to liand in 

 June last, but was mislaid. A 

 queen reared under such circum- 

 stances cannot be of any great 

 value. Twenty nurse bees are not 

 enough to rear a good queen, 

 even though the weather is hot all 

 the time.] 



DYSENTERY IN WARM WEATHER. 



lioston, Mass. 

 ]Mu. Allky :— I observe that one or two of 

 my colonics that I am feeding sugar syrup 

 seem to have a sbght dysentery Can you tell 

 me what it means ? I use one teaspoonful tar- 

 taric acid to ten pounds of best granulated 

 sugar to two quarts of water. 



Sidney A Fisher. 



[Several reports have come to 

 hand similar to the above. It 

 seems to be something new for 

 bees to have dysentery during warm 

 weather. Neither the sugar nor the 

 acid added to the syrup i^, it seems 

 to us, the cause of the trouble. 



Were not the bees during the 

 honey dearth of the past season 

 compelled to gather nectar from 

 flowers, they would not have visited, 

 had forage been as plentiful as 

 during most years? We can give 

 no other opinion of the cause of 

 the disease which aftlicts the apiary 

 of Mr. Fisher. 



Complaint of the same nature 

 has been made by some person in 

 one of our exchanges 



In our own apiary two colonies 

 were affected. After several ap- 

 plications of brine without any 

 good results, all the bees were 

 brushed from the combs and de- 

 stroyed. In order to test the mat- 

 ter, and for further experiment, 

 other bees were at once placed on 

 the combs. Now should they die of 

 the same disease before spring 

 there would be little reason to 

 doubt the cause : it certainly would 

 point to the food stored in the 

 combs. A new queen as well as 

 new bees were placed in each hive. 



Bees dying of dysenteiy in warm 

 weather suggest the unpleasant 

 thought that we are about to see 

 our apiaries depleted as was the 

 case some sixteen years ago. The 

 complaint was not a local one ; 

 nearly every apiary in the country 

 was more or less affected. During 

 that jear our bees were placed in 

 the cellar. The}" commenced to die 

 rapidly. The temperature was 

 raised and lowered, but all to no 

 purpose, as the bees continued 

 to die until all those of fifty 

 colonies had left the hives and 

 were dead on the bottom of the 

 cellar. 



The writer has not forgotten the 

 most discouraging circumstances 

 under which queen-rearing was 

 commenced the next spring. When 

 spring opened, the only tiling in 

 the shape of a colony of bees was 

 one fine queen and a handful of 

 bees. Well, it takes a good deal 

 of hard luck to discourage a fellow 



