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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



March 1, 1906 



and his bees are only a side issue, lets them stand. If 

 they live, they live; if they die, they die. The neighbor's 

 bees carry the disease home, and that is where you get 

 foul brood. Then we want a law so that when we know a 

 man has foul brood in his apiary we can have an inspector 

 go and- visit the yard and stamp it out. I do not believe 

 it is necessary to destroy the hives, or anything of that 

 kind. I believe my friend here, Mr. McEvoy, has de- 

 stroyed many cases where he never destroyed a hive. 

 Mr. McEvoy — I never destroyed a hive in my life. 



Mr. Kannenberg — Mr. France, in Wisconsin, has 

 treated foul brood many times without destroying the 

 hive. I shall hand in my name here to help along a foul- 

 brood law down at Springfield. When we are working 

 against a foul-brood law, we are working against our own 

 interests. 



Mr. McEvoy — A good many are acting on the propo- 

 sition that we are trying to do something that we would 

 have to force, which is not the case. 



Mr. Holtermann — If you have a competent man you 

 will have very little trouble. There may be a little oppo- 

 sition to him at first, but if he will take it right, it will end 

 right, as a rule. I think you had better get a law passed; 

 it will be to the interest of every man in the business, and 

 the men who opnose it will be all right if you take them 

 right. Whatever you do in your law, make the inspector 

 the sole judge. No appeal! If an appeal can be made 

 from the decision of the inspector, while that is going on 

 the mischief will be done. Make the inspector the sole 

 judge, and see that he does his duty. 



Mr. Kannenberg — I should think a man who has a 

 lot of bees, and makes his living out of them, would be 

 only too glad if there is a compulsory law to keep out 

 foul brood. Those who have only a few bees would not 

 care whether they had it or not, but the man who makes 

 his living out of bees should care whether his neighbors 

 bring in foul brood. 



Mr. Wheeler — That all comes along the line of abso- 

 lute cure. When you convince the fellows in Illinois that 

 you can cure that disease, then is the time to talk, and not 

 until then. And another thing, we want absolutely 

 straight, honorable men for our inspectors if we have to 

 have them. We want men that we can trust. Our fortunes 

 are at stake; our whole interests, our life's work, are at 

 stake. We want men who will not go in and destroy our 

 property for some notion or whim. We want prooerty 

 preserved. That is the law first taught in the Declaration 

 of Independence — preservation of life, liberty and prop- 

 erty. And I hope we may sometime get a law that will 

 work along that same line. When that day comes, I am 

 in for it. But until you can prove that the disease is 

 curable, I will not consent to it. Not only that, but this 

 convention does not represent the bee-keepers of Illinois. 

 Don't for one moment forget that. Don't forget that Illi- 

 nois bee-keepers represent people all over the State, and 

 about-nine-tenths of them never darken these doors— 

 never come inside of this convention hall. They have their 

 interests as well as we do, and I have heard nothing from 

 them. 



Mr. Baxter — I would like to ask Mr. Wheeler one 

 question. Have you ever had foul brood in your own 

 apiary? 



Mr. Wheeler — I have not said anything at all of that 

 kind. I have experimented in all sorts of ways, but I do 

 not know that I am to be picked out individually here to 

 answer any questions. I am not afraid to have anybody 

 ask me outside. We do not know what the future has in 

 store for any of us. You all talk about the question just 

 as I do. I have had experience with it — a great deal of 

 experience. I have tried these experiments, and I have 

 followed directions, and I believe the time will come when 

 you will all, every one of you, say that Wheeler is right. 

 I expect I may not live to see it. 



Mr. Ferris — There is a point in Mr. Wheeler's argu- 

 ment I sec some light in. A man who is a would-be 

 inspector, who went in and inspected some hives and pro- 

 nounced them foul-broody, and afterward another inspec- 

 tor went in and told them it was pickled brood, there 

 would be trouble. Unless we have a thoroughly compe- 

 tent man, a man's whole apiary might be destroyed under 

 a compulsory law. And that is a point we must look after, 

 so that a man does not go forth and destroy in the wrong 

 place. We should have not only a man who can enforce 

 the law, but have the right kind of a man when he is 

 going to enforce it. 



Mr. Whitney — I don't understand why we should ap- 

 point a man as inspector until after we get the law! 



A motion was made and seconded that the Committee 

 on Legislation be instructed to co-operate with the State 

 Bee-Keepers' Association to secure a foul-brood law. 

 Motion carried almost unanimously. 



Baby Nuclei in Queen-Rearing. 



"What is the testimony in regard to the value of baby 

 nuclei in queen-rearing?" 



Ernest R. Root — There is no question but what baby 

 nuclei will fertilize queens, small or large. The trouble is 

 to get the bees to stay in the little boxes, so as not to keep 

 renewing them all the time. We have been exprimenting 

 with the small boxes and find that it works, and fertilizes 

 the queens, depending upon how many bees we get into 

 the boxes. Instead of having very thick partitions, we 

 have very thin ones. The frames are the same as in an 

 ordinary hive. The advantage in using b_by nuclei is 

 to keep from using smoke. We never use a smoker in 

 handling baby nuclei. The fact about the matter is that 

 the first brood will be reared right against the thin par- 

 tition on both sides, showing that the additional warmth 

 of the two clusters means a great deal. Instead of having 

 six to the Langstroth frame, we now have three to that 

 size frame, and we can run the baby nuclei in pairs clear 

 up into the month of November. 



Dr. Bohrer — How many frames do you have? 

 Mr. Root — Four; 2 to each division. 

 Dr. Miller — Mr. Root says these are renewed about 

 once a month, but I think Mr. Laws and some other dyed- 

 in-the-wool baby-nuclei men say they have a fresh lot of 

 bees for each queen. 



Mr. Root — That plan is all right, but it involves too 

 much work for us down at Medina. As I understand it, 

 he forms a baby nucleus every time he wants to carry the 

 bees to the out yard. We have found it less work to use 

 the baby nuclei to run through the entire season, like an 

 ordinary colony. 



Mr. Hutchinson — There is one point on which Mr. 

 Ferris lays considerable emphasis, and that is the distance 

 apart of the frames — that is, placing them wide apart. He 

 says if there is a large space between them, more bees can 

 crowd in there than can rear bees successfully. 



Dr. Miller — May I emphasize the point that Mr. 

 Hutchinson made right here as to the room that is there. 

 A good many years ago, when I first commenced working 

 with bees, I devised a nucleus hive, using a common 10- 

 frame Langstroth hive, taking 6 nuclei, one in each frame, 

 and it worked very well. Years after I tried to repeat the 

 same thing, and I found what a great many authorities 

 said, that the nuclei would be deserted; that the bees 

 would desert them. When I made my second attempt at 

 it, I was wiser then — knew more about bees, and rather 

 smiled at my former ignorance in using 6 of them in that 

 10-frame hive, which gave a space of nearly 2 inches to 

 each. I gave them, this time, only a reasonable amount, 

 only about Yz inch at the side of each one, and the bees 

 flew out and would not stay in there! I concluded my 

 first crude attempt was the better one. Another point: I 

 do not think, after trying all these years and experiment- 

 ing with baby nuclei, that this thing is quite as modern 

 as some of us are likely to think. About 40 years ago I 

 visited Adam Grimm, and I think about all of his hives 

 were just about the size of the present baby-nucleus hives. 

 And I remember his pulling them apart without any 

 smoke. The things would fly at him, and he would say, 

 "We must wait a little and then go at them again." That 

 is about the size of Adam Grimm's nucleus hive [referring 

 to a model]. 



Mr. Dadant — Mr. Gray, of Ohio, made baby nuclei. 

 We reared our queens from the larvae instead of doing 

 as you do to-day, but we did have some very good nuclei, 

 and the question was to keep the combs well separated, so 

 as to have a large amount of bees between. When the 

 honey would come, they would spread out. 



Dr. Bohrer — Mr. Langstroth used 4 frames. I have 

 been in his apiary a good many times. I never reinforce 

 them. When they have filled every available space I 

 remove the queen. 



Mr. Stanley described at some length his method and 

 baby-nucleus hive. His hive is a little larger than the 

 "rdinary baby-nucleus hives. It has 3 frames, 4x5 inches. 

 He started with 6 combs in the spring, and then divided 

 them later on. 



Mr. Holtermann — Have you introduced a large num- 

 ber of virgin queens? 



