MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS ON APICULTURE. 



BEE DISEASES IN MASSACHUSETTS. 



By Burton X. Gates, 

 Expert in Ai)iciiltiire. 



INTRODUCTION. 



In Massachusetts bee keeping is not an industry conducted by a 

 few, as in the Hawaiian Ishmds, where four corporations harvested 

 600 tons of honey last year ; but there are more than 2,100 men who 

 derive some profit from their bees and who have interests at stake. 

 There is besides, a vast, concentrated, and steadily increasing popu- 

 lation which, fortunately for bee keepers, provides an almost unlim- 

 ited home market. In order to point out the status of the industry, 

 the writer estimated in 1904," that two tablespoonfuls of honey per 

 person as a year's ration is all that is now consumed, and of this less 

 than one-fourth is produced in Massachusetts. Theoretically it is 

 possible for Massachusetts to support approximately. 40,000 colonies 

 of bees, which could more than equal in amount Hawaii's honey crop 

 for last year. There is reason to believe, however, that bee keeping, 

 if it is not actuallv decreasing, is not progressing along with the 

 steadily increasing population of the State. This is borne out by the 

 general feeling among the country people that to-day there are fewer 

 bees kept on the farms than there were fifty years ago. 



One of the fundamental reasons for this condition may be found in 

 the presence of brood diseases of bees, Avhich exist in practically every 

 quarter of Massachusetts and Connecticut, as well as in the other Xew 

 England States, and which from time to time have doubtless killed 

 out the bees in many localities. There is undeniable proof of this; 

 furthermore, from evidence of former outbreaks it must be concluded 



°Bee Keeping: How to Meet its Dangers and Difficulties. By Burton N. 

 Gates, with suggestions by I»rof. C. F. Hodge. Fifty-second Ann. Kept. Sec. 

 Jfeiss.^8t. Bd. Ague, pp. 411-426, Boston, 1!)05. Massachusetts Crop Report, 

 Vol. 17, Xo. 0, Octooer, 1004, i^j. 30^0. Boston, 1904. 



