AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



597 



nonsense. An empty hive never, no 

 never, gave the disease, aod never will. 

 I always tell the owners not to waste 

 their time in disinfecting or doing any- 

 thing with the old hive, but cure the 

 disease right in the same hive, which 

 they always do. 



Some think that the queens in very 

 badly diseased colonies will cause foul 

 brood, which I know is anything but a 

 fact. I ofteu have to put two, three, 

 and sometimes four weak colonies into 

 one, that have been so used up from 

 foul brood, in order to get a fair colony 

 to make it pay to cure them of foul 

 brood. In such cases, if the queens suit 

 me, I get them for nothing, and bring 

 them home and do away with some poor 

 queens, putting these queens from the 

 foul colonies into my own. I have 

 proved it in every possible way, and I 

 know for a fact that the queens never 

 did cause foul brood. 



Comb foundation has been blamed for 

 helping to spread foul brood, which is 

 not a fact. I defy any man to cause 

 foul brood from foundation made from 

 wax rendered out of the worst of fo^il 

 broody combs. The disease is spread by 

 the bees robbing ffoul broody colonies, 

 and they carry the disease just in pro- 

 portion to the amount of the diseased 

 honey they convey to their own hives. 



In my next article I will give all my 

 methods of curing foul brood. I don't 

 use any drugs, nor starve any bees at 

 any time, and any man can cure the 

 worst cases of foul brood by my methods, 

 from May to November. I am getting 

 many letters on this business all the 

 time, and hope that my articles in the 

 American Bee Journal will serve as 

 an answer to many of them. 



Woodburn, Ont., April 24, 1893. 



■-•-^ 



Ill-Breeding of Bee§ — CoIonle§ 

 in Good Condition. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY C. THEILMANN. 



The question asked Mrs. Atchley, on 

 page 461, is in short answered by Mrs. 

 A. that she don't know, while at the 

 same time she knows of 30 colonies kept 

 in box-hives, 10 miles from any other 

 bees, and all started from one colony, at 

 least 15 years ago, and which are still 

 in the best of health and prosperous 

 condition. Should not this be evidence 

 sufficient that " line " breeding does not, 

 with bees at least, degenerate them in 

 any wise ? 



Mrs. Atchley says that she does know 

 that in-breeding makes a vast difference 

 in the animal creation, and that retro- 

 grading begins just as soon as in-breed- 

 ing starts ; she doubts whether this 

 holds good with bees. This view co- 

 incides with ray own. I would only ask 

 further, can bees really breed in ? What, 

 in reality, is in-breeding? If I under- 

 stand in-breeding correctly, it is the cop- 

 ulation or connection direct by parents 

 and children — any other breeding would 

 be what is called " line breeding." If 

 I am wrong in this, then I would like to 

 be set right ; but if I am correct, then 

 I would further say that when God 

 created the honey-bee, he put a stop 

 to the in-breeding part, as you all know, 

 by subduing every drone in the act of 

 copulation with the queen, and by the 

 construction of the queen so that she is 

 fertilized for her whole life by the one 

 connection ; this prevents in-breeding 

 entirely by the bees. 



Line breeding is claimed, by our most 

 experienced breeders of domestic ani- 

 mals, as not only detrimental, but bene- 

 ficial, if judicially done. 



Whether the human race has made 

 progress or retrograded in this respect 

 since Cain had to take his sister to wife, 

 is beyond my apprehension. I would not 

 be afraid of my bees degrading if left 

 entirely to themselves, but I know I 

 have better bees now, for every purpose, 

 than I would have had if I had let them 

 have their own way for the past 20 

 years, and this was done by selecting 

 and breeding from the best. 



I put my 300 colonies of bees out from 

 the 5th to the 10th of April. All were 

 alive except one colony ; but three of 

 them swarmed out the same day when 

 put out. They have lost more bees in 

 the cellar than usual, also considerable 

 honey in some of the hives is candied. 

 Some of them are rather weak. The 

 others are in fair to good condition. 



On April 10th soft maple was in full 

 bloom, and my bees brought in pollen in 

 less than one hour after being put out. 

 Since then the weather has been cold 

 (20° above on the 15th), wet and 

 cloudy. To-day, at 1 p.m., we have 

 over one foot of snow, and it is still 

 snowing hard, with 31° above zero. It 

 is a sight, seeing a foot of snow on top 

 of my bee-hives, and the trees loaded 

 heavily with the snow, instead of blos- 

 soms. No cleaning out, or anything else 

 could have been done safely with the 

 bees since the 10th, on account of the 

 cold, raw air we have had. 



There has been but very little seeding 



