AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



395 



CONDUCTED BY 



Greenville. Texas. 



ub 



Greatly Encouraged with Prospects. 



We feel greatly encouraged with the 

 present prospects for a spring crop, as 

 our bees have come through without 

 any losses whatever, and are strong col- 

 onies. As we are having some fine 

 weather, queen-rearing is in full blast. 



We (I, for one) would be glad to meet 

 some of the old veteran bee-keepers of 

 other States than our own, at our meet- 

 ing at Mrs. Atchley's, in Greenville, on 

 April 5th and 6th. We expect to have 

 an interesting time. W. H. White. 



Deport, Tex., March 9, 1893. 



Bee-Diarrhea and Its Treatment. 



Mes. Atchley : — Here I come, in 

 trouble again. I examined my bees a 

 few days ago, and found that one colony, 

 where I put in a fine queen last fall, 

 had gone down to almost nothing. It 

 was one of tiy strongest last fall, and 

 I thought it was so yet, but I find the 

 bees dying off rapidly, and their combs 

 all covered with a yellow, bloody-look- 

 ing stuff, and they are dwindled down to 

 a mere handful. On examining further, 

 I find another colony affected too. What 

 is the matter ? What must I do with 

 them ? F. B. Efird. 



Winston, N. C, March 1, 1893. 



Friend Efird, you have a clear case of 

 bee-diarrhea, or spring dwindling, and I 

 would advise you to clean up the sick- 

 rooms, give them a new, clean hive, and 

 feed them ; uncap what honey they have 

 so as to stimulate them to activity as 

 soon as possible, and if they are reduced 

 so they are not strong enough to cover a 

 common-sized brood-nest, I would give 

 them some help from other hives in the 

 way of frames of hatching brood. 



I do not mean that the disease is 

 catching at all, or that the germs will 



spread to other hives, but look at the 

 common-sense point, and clean up the 

 sick-room, and the bees will do better. 

 I have tried salt, and all the remedies 

 that I have seen in print, all to no pur- 

 pose with me. The bees usually get all 

 right when settled warm weather comes, 

 and they get new honey, but I find it 

 helps wonderfully to stimulate them to 

 perfect activity as soon as possible. 



Good Prospects — House Apiaries, Etc. 



Never having seen anything from this 

 part of the world in "Sunny South- 

 land," I will venture a few notes. 



Two years of "blasted hopes" are 

 gone by, and now everything looks like 

 a splendid year — plenty of rain all the 

 month, bees robbing pollen and honey 

 from willow, early peach and almond 

 blossoms. The sages are budding finely, 

 and now we see the " silver lining of 

 the cloud" appearing that Dr. Miller 

 told us of in his June "straw-patch" of 

 1892, and which we failed to sea, 

 although we searched diligently for it. 

 That puts me in mind that I want to 

 thank Dr. Miller for his article on page 

 1 14 of the Bee Journal for this year. 

 When I read it, I said : " He shall stand 

 before kings ; he shall not stand knee- 

 deep in sugar-honey." We of this South- 

 ern country have had very little to say 

 on the subject of honey adulteration, 

 but I think we are all of one mind in 

 regard to the matter, and all wish to 

 stand up and bo counted with the true 

 men who are fighting against the debas- 

 ing of our chosen pursuit. 



Mr. B. Taylor, of Minnesota, in the 

 December Review, struck the key-note 

 of my hobby — the house apiary. Most 

 authorities claim that bees will not do 

 well with the hives close together, but 

 my bees do, and have done well for 

 years with only one inch between the 

 hives, in a house apiary. Away back in 

 Illinois, on the old homestead, one of my 

 earliest recollections are of bees kept in 

 a house apiary; and no matter how hard 

 the winter, we always had honey. 



In this climate it is not the winter, 

 but the summer that troubles us, and 

 after losing a good many colonies by 

 combs melting down, and seeing a good 

 deal of honey run down the hills, as an 

 experiment in the spring of 1891 I 

 placed 12 colonies in a house apiary ; in 

 the fall they had increased to 68 good, 

 strong colonies, and I sold from the 

 same a little over a ton of nice comb 

 honey, and wintered the 68 colonies in 

 the house apiary without the loss of a 



