54 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



^0ni;$lJoiufi.ntci^., 



For the American Bee Journal, 



Odd Tidings. 



The "Proposed Remedies," jSTo. 1, pp. IS 

 and 10, 1875, are excellent, but will not pre- 

 vent failures in safely wintering bees, wliile 

 paying no atti'ntidu to that most important 

 factor,— quality of the honey ! 



"Novice" is right in saying, that the 

 nature of honev bas much to do with it. I 

 experienced and witnessed this many times; 

 but the best testimony is given by Huron 

 von Ehrenfels.tlie too-long forgotten master 

 in the kingdom of queens and bees, who 

 will lind his resurrection amongst the bee 

 friends of this new world. 



In his excellent, old treaty or bee-book, 

 this man of 1,000 hives, in olden times, tells 

 us about bee-dysentery as follows : "At 

 Stollhof, in an ajnary, next a pine forest, I 

 wintered 300 stocks, weighing from 30 to SO 

 lbs. The winter was a hard one and there- 

 fore much honey was consumed for keeping 

 up the warmth. In March and April, ISOl, 

 I found more than half of the colonies so 

 very unpeopled, that often the queen was 

 left with only 20 to 30 worker bees in a 

 honey-store of 40 to .50 lbs. It crawled 

 around, discouraged and alone, smeared by 

 the droppings, the fly-holes coated by it, and 

 the workers, swollen bodies, lay motionless 

 scattered on the hive ! 



"I guessed (piickly the cause, else I should 

 have lost all stocks. In a hurry I ordered 

 from my traveling apiary, near Vienna, 

 flower-honey and buckwheat honey, strain- 

 ed pure and cold, that is got out of the 

 ct)ml)s without any crushing or melting, fed 

 this in open troughs, often and plentifully 

 before the stands. All the workers who 

 could make eftorts enough, went for this 

 honey and, just now, dysentery ceased, 

 brood and bees multii)lied daily, and stocks, 

 many weakened dciwn to 100 workers, re- 

 covered ! 



"So, in forest regions, honey abundance 

 turns out to be more dangerous than honey 

 dearth. Miraculously, here also in other 

 cases, I always saw the queen being the 

 last to die. After all workers were dead, 

 she alone was left living. Wherefrom this 

 durability, this conservation ? Never tak- 

 ing honey out of the cells, but ordinarily 

 out from the mouth of the workers, even in 

 this case she gets warm honey and probably 

 fresh digested for her, insuring and saving 

 her from being poisoned." 



I say by this kind and quality of honey, 

 most abiuidantly and extraordinarily pro- 

 duced from other organs, processes and 

 sources than flowers, richly flowing, drop- 

 ping like dew— honey dew— hurriedly gath- 

 ered, stored and sealed, and so not enough, 

 not twofold or twice digested, that is 

 neither first by the proper organs of plants 

 (the blossoms)" nor finally and sufficiently in 

 the stomach of the bees. And now you see, 

 even a tly-sp(!ll under glass, muslin and the 

 like would not helj) aiul save your pets from 

 this bad occurrence. But your bees can be 

 cured and saved from death by dysentery 

 when this fatal diseased is causen by the 

 bail effects of the three kinds of honey,— 



dew honey; unripe, (thin or unsealed); sour 

 lioney,— or artificial food. 



But "prevention is better than cure," and 

 therefore each bcc-kct^jier ought to prepare 

 to preserve and to feed ui the right time and 

 manner, this only one safe and normal, 

 natural winter food, — full combs of (or ex- 

 tracted, swung out) blossom honey, (best 

 from buckwheat) and ought to keep always 

 a full reserve of such pure and healthy 

 feed honey on hand for his own and other 

 bees. Apipiiilus. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Down With the Importation of Bees. 



In the last convention of the North Amer- 

 ican Bee-Keepers' Association, a few bee- 

 keepers have fired at the importation of 

 bees. 



Mr. A. Benedict was first to begin the 

 fire. He said that he supposed that there 

 were hybrid bees in Italy. Upon reading 

 this I wrote to our friend to know on what 

 he had based his supposition. But in his 

 answer, he could give nothing definite. He 

 had seen some so-called imported queens, 

 who were undoubtly impure. But. for him- 

 self, all the imported queens he had received 

 were pure, ana gave hnn the best liees. 



The second bee-keeper who spoke against 

 importation was Mrs. Ellen Tupper. Mrs, 

 Tupper has since denied, in the Ameeican 

 Bee Jofknal, what Dr. Rush had report- 

 ed of her sayings ; so I have nothing to ask 

 but the names of the many bee-keepers who 

 with Mr. King, complained of having re- 

 ceived impure imported Italian bees, with 

 the names of the importers. I will here 

 notice that in a few months Mrs. Tupper 

 has greatly changed her mind as to import- 

 ed bees. In France we have a saying : Sou- 

 vent femme varie, (Often women vary) and 

 Mrs. Tupper shows that she is not an ex- 

 ception. 



It seems that Mr. King is endowed with 

 the same qualificatioi\, for, two years ago lie 

 asked praises for the importation, that he 

 opposes to-day. As I like well-tlefined posi- 

 tions, after reading the assertion that he has 

 seen impure Italian bees in Italy, I wrote 

 bin', to know the name of the apiaries, 

 where he foinid these impiu-e colonies. < He 

 answered, the same as Mrs. Tupper, that 

 the report of Dr. Rush contained many 

 errors, corrected, in part, in the Bee-Keep- 

 ers'' Magazine. In this paper Mr. King 

 corrects indeed, some of his sayings, but he 

 maintains that he saw imnure bees in Italy. 

 I wrote a second time asking for the name 

 of the apiarian. "Mr. King thinks best to 

 mention no name." Best ! for whom ? 

 For me, or for Mr. King '? As it is not for 

 me it is therefore for liim. Yes I and as I 

 know the why. I will disclost' it to my 

 friends. It was at the ai>iary of Major 

 Ilruska, that Mr, King saw, or said that he 

 saw, impure bees. In narrating the fact 

 ]\Ir. King adds : that Mr. Ilruska told him 

 that these bees were brought to his apiary 

 from otlief i)arts. Now, when ?»Ir. King 

 and ISIr. Ilruska were face to face, they 

 were both in great end)arrassmcnt. Mr. 

 Ilruska could not understand Mr. King, 

 and i\[r. King could not understand Mr. 

 Ilruska. The one could only sjieak (ler- 

 man and Italian, the other only English. 

 Ilruska, who is a rich man, worth about 

 .•ijiiioOjWM), is apiarian by pleasure, and enjoys 



