126 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Deo., 



of foulbrood in August. In September, after 

 repeatedly sending bj' porter to Green Bay and 

 Buffalo for hyp'^sulphitc of soda, witliout suc- 

 cess, I wrote to a druggist at Green Bay, and 

 found tbey had always kept it, at thirty-five 

 cents a pound. Having sent to Dr. Abbe in the 

 spring for an atomizer, which cost five dollars 

 and somewliat less than a dollar postage, say six 

 dollars, I tried it (the hyposulphite) on part of 

 the brood combs ; but as it was cool weather, and 

 the bees had quit raising brood for the season, 

 they were rather slow in cleaning out the dead 

 broo.l : and as there was plenty of honey sealed 

 over in tlie presence of the disease, and I did not 

 v.'lsh to extend my experience in L.S71, they were 

 brimstoned September '23d ; and so closed the 

 record of the five stocks of lb70, but not quite of 

 my bees. 



The swarm of June 24th came out in the after- 

 noon, lit and waited till 4 o'clock p. m., and my 

 wife notified _me as they were off" for the woods^ 

 southeast, through bushes 1.1 to ;>0 feet high. 

 I followed by the noise, and losing that, kept 

 my course by the sun. After eighty rods came 

 within hearing, and found them entering a pine 

 tree thirty inches in diameter, the hole being 

 about twenty-five feet from the ground, and an 

 inch in diameter. It followed a knot slanting 

 downward aix inches, to the top of the hollow ; 

 and about four feet below was another hole 

 made by. ants — giving a fair chance for upward 

 ventilation. Before dark that day the tree was 

 down and sawed t hi-ee times off, and next morn- 

 ing before breakf.i.st the swarm was on the old 

 stand, with a good comb of brood front the old 

 stock, which has been removed ty a new place. 



The three stock.s put in empty hive in May 

 and June were transferred to one hive on the 1st 

 of August, and filled it on basswood blossom.s, 

 gathering as fast as a new swarm. The hive, 

 with frames, was baked over the stove, being 

 raised an inch or more on' blocks, to jirevent the 

 bottom of the hive from burning. It was lieated 

 till the resin started on the outside (process not 

 patented). 



These two stocks have showed no signs of foul- 

 brood. They were carefully examined Septem- 

 ber 25th. The brood had all left the cells, and 

 tbey were well filled with bees. They weighed 

 forty-three pounds each, net ; and allowing ten 

 pounds f(n' bees, combs, &c., had thirty-three 

 ' pounds of honey, each. 



My record for two years gives, for 1870, with 

 two hives in the spiing and twenty combs, three 

 hundred pounds of honey, worth ninety dollars. 

 For 1871, forty pounds of extracted honey, and 

 twenty pounds of honey in the comb, worth 

 twenty dollars. Thus making for the two years, 

 one hundred and ten (110 j dollars, less the empty 

 combs. Thirty-six empty combs were made into 

 beeswax, for fear of keeping foulbrood. A few 

 healthy combs would be worih more than a dol- 

 lar each, in an ordinary season. There were six 

 days in June, and nine days in August on bass- 

 wood blossoms, that a stock nu)de more than one 

 pound surplus per daj% requiring fifteen days to 

 lay in a year's supply for 1871. 



HkNRY D. M in Ell. 



Wasldngton Ilarb »; Wis., Sept. 28, 1-71. 



[For the American Bee Joarnal.] 



How Poulbrood Spreads. 



It may be spread by young bees entering the 

 wrong hive on their first flight, before they are 

 old enough to gather lioney. As young queens 

 sometimes enter the wrong hive, on returning 

 from their wedding flight, so may young workers. 



A hive of mine was lost by foulbrood in Au- 

 gust, 1870, and in September the three nearest , 

 hives, six or eight feet distant, had foulbrood. 

 There were no signs of robbing. It might have 

 been carried in by the bad air from the diseased 

 hive. 



That young bees are not destroyed by other 

 bees in the breeding season, I infer, because I 

 have taken combs from several hives into a shop 

 to extract honey, shaking off" the bees into a 

 large pan. The old bees flew out through the 

 window to their homes ; the young bees, remain- 

 ing in the pan, were taken out, emptied before 

 my hive, and always peaceably received. Drones 

 may also enter other hives, without molestation. 



The last of June, IsTl, a stock witli one-foui'th 

 of the brood dead, was driven into an empty hive. 

 The old hive, with wire cloth fastened over the 

 entrance, was put up chamber, and a swarm of 

 young bees hatched imt, without any old bees to 

 brood them. To save these, I concluded to put 

 them in an empty l)ox for three or four days, and 

 then give them to anotluu- hive. I put a piece 

 of comb with eggs in the box, so they could raise 

 a queen ; took tliem over half a tnile through the 

 woods one day, to where I was hoeing potatoes ; 

 shook and brushed them off" before the box, fast- 

 ened the old hive tight and took it home. The 

 next morning they flew lively, but towards noon 

 became more quiet. I raised the box and saw 

 two or three bees on the comb — all that remained 

 of one or two quarts of young bees, that had 

 never been an inch from their hive before. They 

 had found friends to pilot them to abetter home. 



H. D. MiNEK. 



Washihg'on Harbor, Wis., Oct. 25, 1871. 



[For the Aiiiericaa Bee Journal.] 



Eentucky and Tennessee Beekeepers, 



Mn. Editor : — As we have just returned home 

 from Tennessee, having been on a tour of inspec- 

 i'on among the beekeepers of Kentucky and 

 Tennessee, we thought it likely that a few lines 

 regarding our visit to some of the largest and 

 best conducted apiaries in the United States, 

 might be of interest to the readers of the Ameri- 

 can Bee .Tournal. We left home August 3d, for 

 Lowell, Garrard county, Kentucky, the home of 

 E. M. Argo, known to all beekeepers throughout 

 the United States, and to some of those in 

 Europe. We found him at liome, awaiting our 

 arrival. After spending a pleasant night, resting 

 our weary bones, we were the next morning 

 shown through the apiary by friend Argo and 

 his son. Just here, let us saj'- to the boys, that 

 Willie Argo is one of America's best beekeepers, 

 and will one day make his mark among the api- 

 culturists of this country, lie is only twelve 



