American Bee Journal 



DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO BEE CULTURE. 



Vol. X. 



CHICAGO, APRIL, 1874. 



No. 4. 



Correspondents should write only on one side of 

 the sheet. Their best thouuhts and practical ideas are 

 always welcome ; no matter how rough, we will cheer- 

 fully "fix them up." 



For the American Bee Journal. 



The Bee Disease. 



The question, What caused the loss of so 

 many bees, durhig the two or three last 

 winters, seems to be attracting more atten- 

 tion, at the present time, than anything 

 t'lse connected Avith bee culture. And there 

 is probably no other point upon which there 

 is such a diversity of opinion, or upon the 

 proper solution of which, so much depends. 

 That there has been some general cause for 

 the losses which bee-keepers have sustained 

 throughout the Northern States, is too 

 palpable to admit of successful contradic- 

 tion; but that there has been any cause 

 operating that cannot, with proper care, be 

 remedied by the apiarian, I do not believe. 

 Neither do I believe with some of our 

 apiarians, that the loss was caused by an 

 epidemic; nor with others, that it was the 

 result of the bees eating from honey. I 

 believe that it was caused, mainly, by cold, 

 and disease engendered by the same. 



That there was dysentery, I freely admit, 

 for I saw the most convincing proofs of that, 

 among some of my neighbor's bees that 

 died, but in every case it was wliere bees 

 were wintered on the summer stand, or 

 placed in cold depositories — no better, if as 

 good, as the summer stand. I will mention 

 a few of the many cases that came under 

 my observation last winter : 



J. W. Hulet, living about one-half mile 

 south, put his bees, consisting of eight 

 swarms, in a cold shed, filled in with 

 sawdust, four inches thick at the ends and 

 one side, the other side being inch boards. 

 He lost six of the eight swarms by dysentery. 



Lewis Skeels, living a short distance 

 south-west, wintered his bees on their 

 summer stand, and lost all he had, by the 

 same disease. 



I put eighty-eight swarms in my bee-house, 

 which is frost proof. Three of the eighty- 

 eight swarms were made up of bees taken 

 out of my nucleus hives, at the end of the 

 queen-rearing season. One of the three was 

 queenless, being put in the house as an 

 experiment, and the other two had young 

 queens that had not layed any eggs, so far 

 as I knew, when put into the house. I lost 

 these three, probably from old age of the 

 bees, as those taken from the nucleus hives 

 w^ere nearly all reared during the summer 

 months, and two of my regular swarms by 

 starvation, and that with from fifteen to 

 twenty pounds of honey in their hives, the 

 bees having clustered at one side of the 

 hive, their stores being at the other; and one 

 swarm from some unknown cause. The 

 rest came through in good order. There 

 was little or no appearance of dysentery, 

 the combs of those that died being clean and 

 bright, except where the cluster of dead bees 

 had slightly caused them to mould. 



Now, if it was bad honey that killed my 

 neighbor's bees, by giving them the dysen- 

 tery, why did mine not have it V Their 

 honey could difter l)ut little from what mine 

 had, since they were kept so close together. 



]\Ir. E. L. Arnold, living five miles north, 

 wintered his bees, consisting of twenty 

 swarms, in his cellar, and did not lose any, 

 while his neighbors lost from one-fourth to 

 one-half of all they had. 



Mr. J. K. Miller left his bees on their 

 summer stands until some time in January, 

 and up to that date lost seven out of thirty- 

 eight, and a number of the rest were so 

 weak, he thought they could not live until 

 spring. He then put the rest of them in his 

 cellar, and only lost one swarm after they 

 were carried in, and in that he thinks the 

 bees were nearly all dead before they were 

 put into the cellar. 



It has been asserted that bees carefully 

 housed, had suffered about as much as those 

 wintered on their summer stands. There 

 may liave been such cases, in some localities, 

 but there has certainly been none in this 

 section. 



I fear that extracting the honey and feed- 

 ing syrup, in order to prevent the dysentery, 

 will kill more bees than it will save, owing 



