466 



May 30, 1907 



American ^ae Journal 



you if you sell it all any way? 



Mr. Arnd — ^I don't handle all the 

 honey there is. 



Mr. Taj'lor — I am talking about the 

 people who deal in honey. You are 

 talking for the lot. 



Mr. Arnd — I am talking of my own 

 orders. If my orders come in faster 

 this year than last I will sell more honey. 

 Another thing, too, when orders come 

 to you without your solicitation it shows 

 it is being helped along. 



Mr. Abbott — I want to suggest that 

 the law could not do anything, for it 

 is not in force until the first of January, 

 and, besides, it has no relation to any 

 honey except that which enters into in- 

 terstate commerce. There is no pure 

 food law in Missouri or in Kansas. I 

 believe but few States have a pure food 

 law corresponding with the National 

 law, and you can adulterate all you 

 please in the other States, provided yon 

 never send it out of them. Illinois has 

 one, and it is the Illinois State law that 

 is operating here, and every State in 

 the Union ought to have one like the 

 National law. Let us keep that in rnind, 

 and go home and besiege our legisla- 

 tures, if we want it to benefit us, to 

 make a law in accordance with the Na- 

 tional law. 



Dr. Miller — We can vote on it. 



Pres. York — All who think the Na- 

 tional law will be a benefit, raise your 

 hands. All who think it is not a bene- 

 fit raise your hands. It seems to be all 

 one way; those who voted, any way. 

 Practically all think the law will help. 

 The law is not in effect yet, and prob- 

 ably will be amended if there are any 

 weak points in it, after a while. 



Remedy for Bee- Paralysis. 



"What remedy, if any, have we for 

 the disease known as bee-paralysis?" 



Mr. Taylor — In my experience, a sim- 

 ple change of queens is all that is nec- 

 essary. 



Mr. Whitney — I asked that question. 

 I had a colony of bees in June that de- 

 veloped what I supposed to be bee- 

 paralysis ; that is, they exhibited all the 

 symptoms such as I have read about in 

 the bee-papers; it was growing worse 

 rapidly for about a week, and I thought 

 it was being communicated to an ad- 

 joining colony, from the appearance of 

 bees on the alighting-board. I got some 

 sulphur and decided to experiment a lit- 

 tle, even if I killed a colony of bees. 

 I sprinkled sulphur all over the alighting- 

 board, all over the bees, on the top- 

 bars of the frames of both hives, and 

 in 2 or 3 days I gave them another dose ; 

 inside of 6 or 8 days there was not a 

 bit of the disease left. I did not 

 know but what I had discovered some- 

 thing. 



Dr. Miller — I have had paralysis 

 among my bees; I painted my shop red 

 and the disease disappeared. I do not 

 know that there is any other disease, 

 unless it be the disease of bee-stings, 

 that has had so many remedies as bee- 

 paralysis. One man says he has done 

 so and so, and the disease disappeared. 

 In this part of the country, as far north 

 as this. I think it will generally disap- 

 pear of itself, no matter what you do, 

 or don't do ; and I doubt very much 



whether anything in the way of medica- 

 tion or treatment will do any good, un- 

 less it be sulphur treatment. And I 

 may say that is the only one that I 

 have known of, that has been mentioned, 

 that a number of people have not men- 

 tioned as having failed. I think so 

 far no one has reported that the sul- 

 phur treatment has failed ; but it is 

 not original up in this part of the conn- 

 try. Mr. Poppleton, of Florida, is the 

 one who has used the sulphur cure, and 

 really I have a great deal of faith in 

 it. I think so far no one has reported 

 who has faithfully tried the sulphur 

 cure and it has failed; and until some 

 one tries that faithfully and says it is 

 a failure I shall have some faith in the 

 sulphur cure. I do not know anything 

 else that has been reported but what 

 has been a failure. A number have re- 

 ported the change of queens and a curt 

 resulting, but a number of others say 

 that they changed queens and it did not 

 cure. 



Mr. Taylor — I had a colony that was 

 very badly affected with paralysis. It 

 was early in the season, and I got a 

 queen from another colony and took out 

 the queen that belonged to the affected 

 colony and put in the new one. I put 

 her in a cage, and soon after I did the 

 exchanging a bee-keeper from the neigh- 

 borhood called on me and wanted to 

 know if I could not let him have a queen. 

 I told him that I hadn't any queens 

 to spare, but I had just taken one out 

 of a hive that I did not consider of 

 any value, ana if he wanted to take her 

 and try her he might. Accordingly he 

 took her. In 3 or 4 weeks he was back 

 again, and I inquired how the queen had 

 done, and he said that the young bees 

 were shaking terribly, while mine were 

 steady and all right. I thought that 

 was pretty good proof, at least in that 

 case, that the changing of the queen 

 had completed a cure, and that the dif- 

 ficulty was with the queen. 



Mr. Wilco.x — Transferred the disease, 

 you mean? 



Mr. Taylor — Transferred the disease 

 to another colony, 



Mr. Whitney — Doesn't that prove that 

 the sulphur remedy is of value? 



Mr. Taylor — I do not think it has any 

 bearing on it. 



Mr. Whitnej' — I did not change 

 queens, but I gave them a dose of sul- 

 phur. 



Mr. Taylor — I don't know what else 

 happens in the hive. We guess too much 

 about these things. 



Mr. Hobble — I have one or two col- 

 onies every year that have what I sup- 

 pose to be paralysis, and when I had 

 the first one I knew nothing about treat- 

 ing them in any way, and I gave them 

 a good dose of salty water. They got 

 well all right. I have continued that 

 from that time to this, and I have never 

 lost a colony, and they have always come 

 out all right. 



Mr. Kimmey — How do you administer 

 the dose? 



Mr. Hobble — I put the salty water in 

 a little pepper-box; take the hive cover 

 off, and then shake it all over the hive, 

 letting it run right down over the 

 frames. 



Pres. York — You sprinkle or spray it 

 on the frames and bees. 



Mr. Hobble — I have never lost a col- 

 ony yet, and they always got well in 

 the course of about a week. 



Election of Officers. 



After an intermission, election of of- 

 ficers was taken up, and resulted as 

 follows: President, George W. York; 

 Vice-President, Miss Emma M. Wilson; 

 of Marengo, 111, ; and Secretary-Treas- 

 urer, Herman F. Moore, of Park Ridge, 

 111. 



Pres. York — I hope every person who 

 is here now will remain for the evening 

 session. We have invited some singers, 

 and expect to have quite a little musical 

 program to begin with, both instrumen- 

 tal and vocal. 



In accordance with what had been the 

 custom for several year, Secretary 

 Moore was allowed $20 for the past year 

 for his services. 



Age of Larvae for Queen-Rearing. 



"What is the age of larvae chosen by 

 a queenless colony from which to rear 

 queens?" 



Mr. Taylor — My answer probably 

 would not be agreeable to all. My ex- 

 perience is that they use larvae from 

 2 to 5 days old. I used sometimes to 

 experiment in rearing queens, and of 

 course in those days I was very curious, 

 and observed closely with regard to 

 what ^ they did choose — what sort of 

 larvce they did use for rearing the 

 queens — and I found that they chose 

 larvre of different sizes, so much so that 

 I was in tlie habit, when I wanted 

 queens from those reared in that fash- 

 ion, of looking through the hives in 

 the course of 5 or 6 days after the col- 

 ony was made queenless, and examin- 

 ing the cells and removing from the 

 cells those larvae which appeared to be 

 too large. I found proof of that fact 

 in the time required for the hatching 

 of the queens. The queens w-ith mt 

 begin to emerge in 10 days from the 

 time the colony is made queenless. If 

 the bees chose larvK two days old it 

 would not be possible for the queens 

 to emerge in 10 day;;. It would take 

 at least a day or two longer, because 

 until the larvx are chosen for the pur- 

 pose of rearing queens, their progress 

 is slower. It takes a worker to mature 

 say 20 percent or more longer than it 

 does a queen, so that the larva of a 

 queen would have advanced as far in 

 5 days as a worker in 4 days ; so I will 

 say that the choosing of a larva first 

 devoted to the rearing of a worker must 

 take a little longer than one devoted 

 from the first to the purpose of rear- 

 ig a queen. Dr. Miller will not agree 

 with me. He made an experiment sev- 

 eral years ago — and I wish I had it here 

 • — quite an extensive experiment on that 

 very point, to prove, as he claimed, that 

 the bees never choose larvae that were 

 more than 3 days old. But as I looked 

 at his experiment, which was very elab- 

 orate, and which was thoroughly dis- 

 cussed both by himself and myself, I 

 thought the experiment showed conclu- 

 sively that larvae more than 3 days old 

 were chosen. Of course now, after the 

 lapse of time, I can not enter into the 

 particulars, but that has been my ex- 

 perience. 



Dr. Miller — I do not understand part 



