THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



287 



?7 is only the young bees that are diseased. 

 They crawl out of the hives and die for 

 weeks, until the ground is bhu-k with 

 them, making attempts to fly, but not nno 

 in a hundred can rise, the very few that 

 do fly have no power to guide themselves, 

 cannot keep a straight course, but zig zag 

 about and fall. 



With me, thi.^ commenced with my 

 1>ees in Augu>^t and continued till towards 

 the last of Bepteml>or. I have satisfied 

 myself that this conditon of things is the 

 result of an attempt ou the part of the 

 bees to rear more broods than the amount 

 of honey in the hive, or to be obtained in 

 the fields, will support. The brood in 

 the larvtv and chrysalis state, may be said 

 to be put on >*hoTt rations — the short sup- 

 ])lie8 being equally divided among all, 

 none have enough, and when the brood is 

 old enough to seal, there is not food enougJi 

 deposited in the cell to properly mature 

 the bee. ^My reasons for beleiviug this 

 are, 



Ist. That it occures when the bCes are 

 gathering but little honey, and in stocks 

 that have not much honey on hand. 



2nd. In a majority of cases the affect- 

 ed hives were such as had been queenless 

 for a time (either by h>iving tlirown oil' a 

 swarm or otherwise) and consequently 

 were more disposed to rear brood largely. 

 3rd. The affected stocks were invari- 

 ably black bees, the Italians at the time, 

 feeing able to gather from red clover were 

 letter supplied. 



4th. About twenty days from the 

 time the bees commenced gathering honey 

 from the fall flowers, tlie mortality ceased. 

 We have in tliis latitude a honey 

 dearth, from about the 15th of July to 

 about the 5th of September, during which 

 bees gather very little honey. They com- 

 menced gathering from the fall bloom 

 tliis year and last, the "tth of September, 

 as my books show. Bees were gathering 

 lioney freely by the 15th of September, 

 hut the young bees in my two Black 

 Stocks continued to die. I predicted to 

 my bee friends that they would cease to 

 die after the 2Cth, it proved to be so, all 

 the eggs had after the 5th of September 

 (the time the bees began to gather sup- 

 plies) produced healtliy bees. Those 

 having bees la a similar condition the 

 coming season, will please notice in re- 

 gard to the supply of honey, as I did 

 not think of short supplies being the 

 cause of the mortality, until after tiny 

 were gathering freely, when an examina- 

 tiou could not have proved anything, 

 hearing in mind that bees may be found 

 dying as described, with honey in the 

 hive, from an unwillingness ou the part 

 of the bees to consume their sealed stores 

 largely on brood rvv.riiig when gathcriuiT 



little. I have found it necessary hereto- 

 fore, to unite with others, stocks affected 

 in this way, being all old bees, they 

 would, sometime in the winter or early 

 spring, show signs of dysentery, (caused 

 by the reduc»'d size of the cluster from 

 the old bees dying) which would disap- 

 pear after uniting. I thought of writing 

 to the JocRNAi, on this subject last Sep- 

 tember, but sup]x)sed old bee-keepers 

 were familiar with what was a new idea 

 to me, and it would be, with my limited 

 experience with bees, like landsmen at- 

 tempting to teach sailors navigation, 

 liussellville, Tenn. W.H. Ricmjs. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Death of Doctor L. J. Dallas. 



Prominent among those who have done 

 much to advance the apiacultural interests 

 of the State, was Dr. L. J. Dallas the sub- 

 ject of this sketch, whose long illness ter- 

 minated fatally this month (^October) in 

 the 63rd year of his age. 



Since l«5i>, when he removed with his 

 family from Ohio to Kansas, his best ener- 

 gies have been given to tiie development 

 of our young State, 



Securing a farm near Baldwin City, he 

 put it under "a high state of cultivation, 

 and practiced medicine, also, during the 

 same time. He loft the farm in 1864, 

 and moved into town that he might 

 the more successfully prosecute other 

 branches of business. 



He was a strong advocate of the cause 

 of temperence ; As a physician he ranked 

 high among his professional brethren; 



As a friend of education he manifested 

 that same indomitable perseverence, 

 characteristic of the man, that overcomes 

 dilMculiies which to common minds would 

 have appeared in.-urmountable. 



AYith the taste for all the embellish- 

 ments and adornments of civilized life, he 

 made his home a paradise of beauty. 

 ^Vltli christian fortitude he withstood the 

 storms and contentions of life, which all 

 men like himself, born with positive 

 ideas, have to encounter. With due re- 

 gard for his family of children, he gave 

 each of them a good education, tlius quali- 

 fying them for the various resjionsibilites 

 and duties of life. He was a man of 

 great general information, — a member of 

 tlie 3Iethodist Cliurch and for a long time 

 one of the trustees of "Baker University" 

 located in the same city where he had his 

 home at the time of his death. He evi- 

 dently lived Avith a determination to leave 

 the world better th.m he found it. 



During the 15 years of his residence in 

 this state he kept bees. The la.st nine 

 years, he lived in Baldwin City and turned 

 Iun attention hiruely to this business. 



