372 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1. 



Ontario is in the frostless belt, the nights do 

 get to be quite uncomfortable, and the queen- 

 rearing hives need protection. The hive proper 

 is surrounded with a case made from packing- 

 boxes, and the spaces packed with absorbents. 

 The entrances will be noticed well up on the 

 front of the hive. Under the bottom of the 

 hive proper was a space large enough to put in 

 a five-gallon honey-can through a door in the 

 rear. At night in early spring the can is filled 

 with hot water, and placed under the hive, 

 keeping up the temperature for a whole 34 

 hours, when another can of hot water is insert- 

 ed. But what is the use of rearing queens 

 when they are sure to develop b^e-paralysis? 

 The disease in this case is worse than foul brood. 

 Before departing, Mr. McF. treated us to 

 some of those delicious oranges. A tree reserv- 

 ed for his own private use had oranges upon it 

 which had been on the tree for two years, and 

 were sweet and toothsome with age. The 

 orange is a persistent dinger, and it is noun- 

 usual sight to see the yellow fruit and the blos- 

 soms thickly studding the tree. On Euclid 

 Avenue, Ontario, we found the horse-cars still 

 running as of yore. The mules draw the car 

 up, and then are mounted on a little truck be- 

 hind, and all merrily and swiftly ride down. 

 On the avenue we found Mr. J. V. Caldwell, 

 recently from Illinois. Mr. C. is here with his 

 family to stay; is an enthusiastic bee-keeper, 

 and already has an apiary out a little from On- 

 tario. Though in the " paralysis belt."' his bees 

 have not been much affected with the disease, 

 and that the disease will get under control is 

 the wish of the Rambler. 



[It will be remembered that, some time ago, 

 there apnenred some libelon« matter in the Ru- 

 ral Calif ornlan. to the effect that we were 

 disseminating " bee-paralysis " on the Pacific 

 coast, and that a certain bee-keeper in Ontario. 

 Cal.. who had purchased ([ueens of us, and 

 whosp name was not given at the timp. claimed 

 that his apiary was being rajiidly decimated by 

 a disease alleged to have originated from a 

 qupen purchased of us. Wo afterward learned 

 that the editor of the apiarian department of 

 the Rural was evidently givinir vput, to a little 

 personal spite on account of a difficulty we had 

 with him some years ago. Our attorney was 

 notified to look Into the matter: an^l at the 

 same time our special correspondent, Rambler, 

 was instructed to hunt up the bee-keeper in On- 

 tario, referred to. So far as the matter between 

 ourselves and the publishers of the Rural Cali- 

 fornian was concerned, the latter pursued a 

 policy that was satisfactory to us, and the le- 

 gal aspect of the matter was dropped. 



The article above is the result of the Ram- 

 bler's investigation, and we wish to say at the 

 outset that we have every rea'^on to believe 

 that Mr. McFatridge is a straight and honora- 

 ble man. We find, too. that wn did send him a 

 queen from our apiary about the time he speci- 

 fies: but. as we can show, he is certainly la- 

 boring under a great mistake in attributing the 

 source of the disease to that queen. By con- 

 sulting our records we find that we did not have 

 bee-paralysis, or "nameless bee-disease." dur- 

 ing 18S!). In the second place, we do not find 

 from our records that Mr. McFatridge ever 



wrote us regarding the queen. If he did. they 

 do not show it. Of course, if he had had even 

 a suspicion of such a thing he ought to have let 

 us know it. In the third place, we call atten- 

 tion to the facr that bee-paralysis was and had 

 been raging pretty severely during that season 

 in certain parts of California — ves right in Mr. 

 McFatridge's own county, before we sent the 

 queen in question. As an evidenco of this we 

 would refer to a single paragraph from an ar- 

 ticle written by W. A. Webster, p. .583, Glean- 

 ings for July. 1889: 



You will doubtless rememljer my letter of last 

 winter, about the new bee-disease. If you are not 

 too much pestered liy ignoramuses, and entirely 

 out of patience. T will try to sliow that my trouble 

 was not due to a local cause, hut w 'S the foreninner 

 of what threatens to seriunsly cripple the hec-keepcfx of 

 the State. Willi tlie openinfr of sprinfr 1 And my 

 entire stock of 170 stands "p-one wltere tlie wood- 

 bine twineth." and the monster making- serious in- 

 roads among- my co laborers. From what little I 

 am able to g-ather, 1 believe tlie same tiling is at 

 work in Tnyo, Ventura, and San Bernardino Counties. 

 Developments are a little different now, as to symp- 

 toms, from my previous description: viz., of ma- 

 ture l)ees, aljdomen distended and hard; trembling-, 

 listlessness, death: brood baldhended: many dead, 

 two-thirds or fully developed slii-king in the cell; 

 queen a failure, and moth comi)li'tes the work of 

 destruction. So far as [ am able to learn, ibe'-e 1irs 

 not been over two per cent of natural swarming- 

 through api-aries in this county. We have arrived 

 at the g-oal for which our eastern brethren sigh — 

 non-swarming-; but, like the mm whose cow had 

 learned to live without eating, death closes the 

 scene. 



The italics in the above are our own. and we 

 would call attention to the fact that Ontario is 

 in San Bernardino Co. The letter that Mr. 

 Webster refers to was published on page 165, 

 Mar. 1, same year; and in that article he began 

 to notice the presence of the disease the previ- 

 ous September, 1888, and reports he had a loss of 

 .50 or more colonies as the result of this disease. 



Now. then, having shown conclusively that 

 the disease was raging on the coast, and was 

 threatening " to seriously cripple the bee-keep- 

 ers of the State." before we sent the queen from 

 which Mr. McFatridge alleges the disease orig- 

 inated, and having shown, too. that there was 

 no beeparalvsis present in our home apiary, 

 nor in any of them, in fact, during that year, 

 1889, it would seem altogether improbable that 

 the disease could have come from the queen 

 sent to friend McFatridge in July of that year. 

 Anoth")- thing, notice that he says the disease 

 appeai-ed in colonies having (lueens purchased 

 from Doolittle, Trego. Mrs. Atchley. and oth- 

 ers; and that the progeny from all of these 

 queens were more or less affected by the dis- 

 ease. Now. we do not believe for a moment 

 that any of those l)reeders sent that disease 

 with the queens. The disease was already 

 prevalent, as the extract above clearly shows, 

 and simply made itself manifest in colonies bav- 

 ins queens shipped from the East. 



We were interested in those drygoods-box 

 hives shown in one of th(> half-tones. This pic- 

 ture shows better than any thing else the effect 

 of the Calit'oniia climate on joints or corners 

 merely nailed together. Doesn't it show the 

 need of dovetailed or lock-corner joints? — Ed. J 



CALIFORNIA ECHOES. 



liH Riunhh'i: 



Why are Dr. Miller's Straws like the busy 

 bee among the flowers? Because it is a harvest 

 of small things. 



The report of the Vermont State Associatoen 

 says the membership reported a yield of .59,413 



