THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



107 



CMiibs tlostvoyed. Tlif tow boes left were 

 given to swarms, under^oiiiff treatment, or 

 destroyed as circumstanees dietated. 



The old swarms treated as new, this year, 

 and the siicceediiij;- years, have oonie out 

 free trom Infection with the one excei>tioii 

 spoUen of above, riitortunately for my e\- 

 pm-imeuts both these swarms wert^ lost tiu^ 

 winter folhtwiiiii, and 1 was left with none 

 but the old stocks that iiadmort' or less foul 

 brood in them. The next spring I kei>t the 

 disease in eheek until swarming time, by 

 vaporizing the (•oml)s with hyi)osuli)hite of 

 soda. Then removed the combs and treated 

 the same as the year before, with the ex- 

 ception of trying to cleans tlie cells as Dr. 

 Abbee recommends, with an atomizer. It 

 did not work to suit me, and 1 afterwards 

 used a small bulb syringe which did the 

 work easier. 1 found it along and tedious 

 job, to oi)en and cleans the cells tilled with 

 putrid nuitter. It ajJiicared to be effectual 

 m all cases, except when tiiere was a deposit 

 of old pollen in the cells, which the bees 

 would not clean out, and the brood raised on 

 top of it would be infected. The most dif- 

 ficult work of all, was to clean out the cells 

 where the larva had died and dried up in 

 tlie cell, without being capped over. This 

 dried up larva is the coffee colored deposit 

 found on the botton hoard. The bees will 

 clean them out after it is vaporized, but the 

 disease does not ai)iiear to be entirely eradi- 

 cated from them. The bees seldom iuicap a 

 cell tilled with putrid nuitter. They make a 

 small opening to see what the trouble is, 

 and leave it in disgust. The amount of 

 work attending the cleansing of the combs, 

 - and the uncertanty of the result, brought nie 

 to believe that there was no econemy in try- 

 ing to save them. That it was better to keep 

 the bees in the best of these old combs, 

 without a queen, and get all the honey you 

 could from them, and destroy all the combs 

 in the fall. Since then I limited my opera- 

 tions to this idea. As soon as the brood was 

 all hatched, the honey was extracted, the 

 best or cleanest combs were vaporized with 

 liyposulphite of soda, the hive washed with 

 tlie same, making all as clean as possible. 

 Whenever honey is extracted, the combs are 

 vaporized and put back into the same hive 

 until the honey season is over, or the bees 

 are worn out. The combs not used, are 

 melted into wax as soon as possible to make 

 sure that no bees get to them. Too nuich 

 care cannot be taken to prevent the spread 

 of this disease. I should not handle healthy 

 swarms afteropeningan infected one, or use 

 any of the tools fm- that purpose. I am sat- 

 isfied from feeding one swarm with the 

 honey extrai'ted from disi^ased coml)s, that 

 it is almost sure to carry the infection with 

 it. If I wished to experiment further with 

 it, I should try soaking the combs in a s^olu- 

 tion of chloride of lime, and afterward 

 cleans with an extractor as suggested by 

 Dr. Abbee. We ought to be thankful to Dr. 

 Prenss for his microscopic examinations 

 and Dr. Abbee for remedies. 1 treated my 

 liives to a bath of bin-ning sulpher by mak- 

 ing a fire on the groun<l with a few chips, 

 placing hives over the tire one on top of the 

 other, without any top or bottom boanl, the 

 heat passing through the hives like a chim- 

 ney. After they were well heated up, a 

 liandful of sulphor was thrown in and a caj) 

 or board i)ut on the U)\) to keej) the fumes 

 of suli)h()r in. I then cleaned up the hives, 

 gave them two good coats of paint inside 



and out, and count them as good as new. 

 All frames and honey l)oards that were 

 worth saving, were baked in a stove oven, 

 anil i)ut in order foi- use, conlideut that tluiy 

 are free from anything that will start the 

 disease. I introduced tluMlisease thesi'cond 

 tium, into my a|)iary with a swarm bought 

 in the spring of is:;;, and 1 am fully satisfied 

 that in this case it was caused from ferment- 

 ed i)ollen, as these coud)s wt;re the first 

 alfecb'd and the only ones for sometime. 

 Had thei-c been any d'isi'ase in the hive the 

 yinir i)revious, it could hardly have escaped 

 Iny notice when tlie combs were transferred 

 to frames. 



]>y this treatment, I have as many healthy 

 swaVms at flu; closi^ of the season, as I had 

 diseased oiu's in the spring, beside the 

 honey which the Ixies hatched from the dis- 

 easecl combs gatluu-, which is largely in ex- 

 cess of what I had expected. 



I have sometimes got a few boxes of honey 

 from the old swarms treated as new, but am 

 satisfied if the hiv»^ is well stored with honey, 

 and the bees in good condition for winter. 



One great problem to solve is, is there any 

 danger to other apiaries in this way of man- 

 aging the swarms ? 



My opinion is that after the honey has 

 been extracted the second time, and the 

 combs have had a second vaporizing, that 

 the honey if taken to a healthy swarm 

 would not carry the infection with it. I 

 should be afraid to use the old condjs for 

 brood combs without further treatment, as 

 the old pollen might still retain the seeds of 

 the disease. 



I have noticed that the swarms kept 

 without a queen, cap a large portion of the 

 honey with an oval cap like that over drone 

 brood. This has been so universal that I 

 suspect something wrong with the queen in 

 any hive when I find hoaey so capped. 



L. C. WiiiTrnG. 



East Saginaw, Michigan. 



Getting Honey in Boxes. 



Paperi- read at the seventh annual session 

 of the Michigan Bee-Keepers' Association, 

 Dec. 16th and 17th, 1874. 



At your request, I will give a brief dis- 

 cripti'on of our way of making box-honey. 

 Not, however, with the idea of instructing 

 your association, or of influencing any one, 

 who has had more experience. We haven't 

 got it perfect yet by any means. 



THE HIVE. 



I haven't had experience enough witli the 

 side-box hive, to be able to recommend it for 

 general use. If bees will swarm from them, 

 as readily as from top-box hives, then we 

 have our labor in vain, in making more ex- 

 pensive hives, and in putting on a greater 

 number of boxes. Bees swarmed immoder- 

 ately last season in this section, from all 

 liinds of hives. 



I can safely recommend the Langstroth 

 hives for box-honey, as I have had experi- 

 ence in their use, and they are successtully 

 used, and are the leading hive in tliis sec- 

 tion. It is ten inches deeii, with ten frames. 



THE ^rANAUE.MENT. 



As we have l)ut little basswood, we are 

 obliged to manage our bees, so as to have 

 h )ney stored in boxes, from white and 

 alsike clover, tulip, &c., in the early part of 

 the season, (otherwise, we should have no 



