THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



217 



ti 



dispose of there, I can give away to my 

 friends. I find tliis a superb way to make 

 and keep friends. I donH know any more 

 appropriate present to make, or one more 

 pleasingly received, than a few pounds, or 

 a gallon or two even, of nice extracted 

 honey. Try it my bee friends, I assure you 

 it will do you good, as well as the friend to 

 whom you give, and vou will be surprised 

 to lind how Kindly it will make your friend 

 feel and act towards you. Honey is a great 

 aeificator with the human as well as with 

 he bee family. M. C. Hester. 



» ♦ ^ < « — 



For the American Bee Joui-nal. 



City Bee-Keeping. 



We had a very good honey season, both 

 as regards quantity and quality. Having 

 my bees on the roof of a house, and in the 

 city, puts me to disadvantage when com- 

 pared with my brethren in the country. 

 My bees have to fly too far to pasturage; 

 and yet up to last Saturday, 1 had 3,020 tts. 

 of choice, extracted clover honey from my 

 22 stands of bees. Some of my neighbors 

 beat this very much, but I have convinced 

 myself that nearness of pasture was the 

 cause of it. Their stands were not stronger 

 than mine, but their honey was coming in 

 faster. There is enough honey with my 

 bees yet, ready to be taken off, to make it 

 average 1.50 lbs. to the hive, or more. And 

 this is a great deal more than our average 

 used to be, 10 or 13 years ago. The average 

 of 15 to 20 lb. to the hive was considered a 

 great harvest at that time. Should we 

 grumble now if we can't sell all our honey 

 in a hurry? The honey market is dull at 

 present, as usual at this time of the year. 

 A month or two later it will be in better de- 

 mand, however. Chas. F. Muth. 



Cincinnati, O., July 1.5, 1876. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Foul Brood. 



I noted in the last number of the Jour- 

 nal mention of cure of foul brood by the 

 use of salicylic acid. The method is sub- 

 stantially the same as that which I discover- 

 ed and published, with the use of sulphite 

 of soda. And I have no doubt but that the 

 acid will cure equally, if not more certainly 

 than the sulphite. Both are powerfully dis- 

 infectant and destructive to parasitic 

 growths and germs. 



If I could have found any foul brood in 

 this region I would have experimented with 

 this remedy, and also another new one 

 (new ones are being constantly discovered) 

 called sulpho-carbolate of soda. Salicylic 

 acid is perfectly harmless, and is obtained 

 from various sources, one of which is from 

 salicine, the active principle of Avillow. 

 Meadow sweet and wintergreen also con- 

 tain it, but the princii)al source of supply is 

 from phoenol, one of the products or coal 

 tar. When largely diluted it is not un- 

 pleasant to the taste. This Avith sulpho- 

 carbolate of soda we use freely and success- 

 fully in diptheria, as an internal disinfec- 

 tant. If any one is experimenting with foul 

 brood I wish that sulplio-carbolate of soda 

 might have a fair trial. 



I have no doubt that foul brood can be 

 thoroughly cured in any hive by disinfec- 

 tants. But there is no cei'tainty of a cure 

 unless every cell of honey which was sealed 



while the hive was diseased, and every cell 

 which contains diseased larvae, and every 

 empty cell even, is thoroughly disinfected. 

 And it makes but little difference what the 

 disinfectant is, jjrovided it is harmless to 

 everything but the disease and is a thorough 

 disinfectant. But does it pay? If valuable 

 life was at stake, (utlier human or animal, 

 no amount of pains would be too much to 

 save it, but to my mind the bother and un- 

 certainty of curing a hive that could be so 

 easily replaced amounts to more than value 

 received, except the pleasure of the con- 

 sciousness of having mastered the enemy, 

 ie. cured it. Edwd. P. Abbe. 



New Bedford, Mass. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Queen Trap. 



I wintered 50 stocks of bees out doors; 

 the season here is late, but bees are doing 

 well now. I used a queen trap for the last 5 

 or 6 seasons, with very good success, catch- 

 ing the queen of first swarms and the 

 swarm returns to the hive after discovering 

 they have no queen. By taking the trap 

 containing the queen from the old hive 

 which is then removed, and an empty hive 

 with the trap and queen put in its place, the 

 swarm as it returns passes through the trap 

 taking the old queen with them into the 

 empty hive. Sometimes they will cluster 

 and stay 15 or 20 minutes, and at other 

 times hardly give one time to change the 

 hives before they return. Of course, mov- 

 able frames are necessary in managing bees 

 this way, as in three days after the first 

 swarm has left, the old hive must be ex- 

 amined and all queen cells but one cut out, 

 and the hive left without a trap on it, or the 

 young queens could not get out to mate 

 with the drones. This trap also retains all 

 the drones that pass into it, and they can be 

 destroyed, let fly, or returned to the hive, as 

 you wish. George Garlick. 



Warsaw, Ontario, June 17, 1876. 



From the Maine Farmer. 



Surplus Honey. 



A very good way to afford the bees room 

 to store honey, is to cover the hive with sec- 

 tion boxes. These I have made 5 inches 

 high, the ends of the sections 1% in. wide, 

 the tops and bottoms 13< in. wide. Thus it 

 will be seen the ends are close fitting, while 

 the top and bottom will be open so that the 

 bees can pass through. By attaching comb 

 to the top bars the bees will generally build 

 within the bars, so that when filled the sec- 

 tion can be separated, each seetion contain- 

 ing a single comb. Tiie hive eau be entirely 

 covered with these sections, and when 

 partly filled raise the whole up and place 

 another set beneath, and the bees will 

 readily pass down through; and if the 

 honey season holds out, fill both sets, and in 

 good seasons perhaps more. If tliese sec- 

 tion frames are placed across the hive it 

 would make the sheets of comb rather un- 

 wieldy to handle or to transport to a dis- 

 tance; so I think it better to place a rest 

 across the centre on top of the iranies, and 

 place two shorter sets of sections length- 

 wise of the hive. There is another advan- 

 tage in this way, and that is, as the combs 

 run the same way with those in the frames 

 in the body of the hive, no harm will arrive 



