August, 1907 



American Hee Journal 



niont of diseased bees. All drug meth- 

 ods only check for a time. Baldridgc 

 method often a success, but sometimes 

 fails where full combs are used ; but the 

 so-called "McEvoy method," if carefully 

 followed, never fails. 



State Laws. 



Wisconsin was first to have a State 

 Inspector of Apiaries. Others seeing 

 the benefit of this law have secured a 

 similar one. Now California, Colorado, 

 Connecticut, Idaho, Michigan, Minne- 

 sota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, 

 New York, Ohio, Texas, Utah, Wash- 

 ington, and Canada, have either County 

 or State bee-inspectors. 



Black Brood or European Foul Brood. 



For a few years this disease has been 

 serious in New York, destroying entire 

 apiary after apiary, and had it not been 

 for the careful work of the four New 

 York Inspectors, all New York bees 

 would have become extinct, and also in 

 other States. 



In 1906, Dr. Phillips, of the U. S. 

 Department of Agriculture, in charge 

 of Apicultural Investigations, Washing- 

 ton, D. C, after carefully investigating 

 this fatal disease in New York, went to 

 California, where, with J. M. Rankin, 

 of the Bureau of Entomology, located at 

 Chico, Calif., found the same disease in 

 localities there, in some places quite 

 serious. From there Dr. Phillips in- 

 vestigated and found it in Illinois, Mich- 

 igan and in Indiana in local spots. Seri- 

 ous wherever found. 



Convention Called. 



While making these investigations, Dr. 

 Phillips, by agreement, met August 3, 

 1906, in Milwaukee, the Michigan and 

 Wisconsin State Inspectors, and, after 

 a day's convention, decided to go to- 

 gether at once to Michigan where the 

 several stages of this disease could be 

 seen. August 4-3-6, the above commit- 

 tee of three inspected several apiaries 

 diseased with Black Brood or European 

 Foul Brood. One apiary of once 300 

 colonies had only 12 diseased colonies 

 alive; another of 130 colonies with 100 

 diseased. It was decided that a National 

 convention of all State and County In- 

 spectors was much needed, and Novem- 

 ber 12, at San Antonio, Texas, was se- 

 lected, it being the day following the 

 convention of the National Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Association. This meeting w^as a 

 valuable one. About 50 bee-keepers, in- 

 spectors from 14 states, Dr. Phillips, and 

 Dr. White, were present. 



• N. E. France, 



Inspector of Apiaries. 



Platteville, Wis., May 28, 1907. 



Size of Cells in Comb Foundation 



William Findlay, of Basco, 111., has 

 been doing some measuring and com- 

 paring, and writes as follows: 



"In cutting the comb out of some old 

 box-hives, that had been occupied by 

 common black bees, I was surprised to 

 find such superbly built combs in one of 

 the hives, uniformity of cells and but 

 little drone - comb, some 170 cells be- 

 ing counted. Sheets of " Light brood" 

 foundation were procured from three 



manufacturers — A. I. Root Co., Dadant 

 & Sons, and Gus Dittmer. A compari- 

 son of the dilTcrcnt makes was made. 

 The A. I. Root sheet, contained 50 cells 

 to loj/) inches; Dadant, 49!/^ to I0J4 

 inches; Dittmer, 50 to 105-16 inches. A 

 comparison was made with the worker- 

 comb of the box-hives, and a Root sheet 

 of foundation. A horizontal range of 

 cells, counting from 24 to 48, were com- 

 pared, the comparison, as to count and 

 distance, often agreeing; some of the 

 sheets of natural-built comb show an 

 excess of one cell, in a count of 30, 

 compared with the foundation ; another 

 sheet lacked one cell, in a count of 

 34 cells, in comparison with the founda- 

 tion. 



It will be noted that there is a slight 

 variation in the size of natural-built 

 worker-brood cells; this is caused by 

 the bees starting to build comb at sepa- 

 rate points ; where the separate points 

 are united, the cells often average a 

 trifle larger in diameter than the aver- 

 age; on the other hand, the texture of 

 the cell-walls of comb built by black 

 bees is somewhat lighter than that built 

 by Italians. 



Sometimes we hear people talk of "the 

 little black bees," and "the small black 

 bees," impMng that the black bee is 

 smaller than the Italian. If this be a 

 fact, are we going to cause our Italians 

 to degenerate, by forcing them to build 

 comb, by furnishing them foundation 

 that has too small a cell-base? To ar- 

 rive at a definite conclusion, some ex- 

 perimenting is required to be done. Se- 

 lect a colony of your best "long-tongued 

 hustlers," remove a comb from the cen- 

 ter of the brood-nest, and insert in its 

 place an empty frame; a plain wax-line 

 may be used as a comb-guide. 



The Weed-process foundation that is 

 sent out this season is a shade smaller 

 in cell-capacity than t^hat manufactured 

 5 and 6 years ago, the comparison be- 

 ing, new 46, to 43 cells of the old. 



William Findlay. 



The point made by Mr. Findlay seems 

 to be that if ItaKans are larger than 

 blacks, the comb for Italians should be 

 larger, whereas his counting shows the 

 comb-foundation put upon the market 

 only large enough for blacks. The 

 whole matter is one worthy of careful 

 consideration. It is probably safe to 



"Bees build 'their cells not exact hexa- 

 gons, but with the transverse diameter 

 greater than the two oblique diameters. 

 Following this, Rietsche makes founda- 

 tion with ceils having a transverse diam- 

 eter of 5.6 milimeters (.220452 of an 

 inch, or 4.5357 cells to the inchj, and 

 oblique diameters of 5.45 millimeters. — 

 Apiculleur, p. 113." 



That gives 4.5357 cells to the inch, 

 measuring transversely, as against 4.6606 

 to the inch, measuring obliquely. The 

 measurements of foundation made by 

 Mr. Findlay give an average of about 

 4.849 cells to the inch. That is about 

 .188 of a cell in an inch more than 

 in the Rietsche foundation measured 

 obliquely, and about .313 more than in 

 the Rietsche measured transversely. 



But is the Rietsche cell patterned af- 

 ter nature? Another Stray Straw on 

 the same page says : 



"Italians, says R. Pinot, Apiculleur, 

 page 113, build cells having a mean diam- 

 eter of 5.5 millimeters, while the na- 

 tives reach only 5.2 millimeters." 



According to that the Italians build 

 an average of 4.6182 cells to the inch. 

 The Rietsche average is 4.6189, prac- 

 tically the same as that built by the bees. 



It is worth while to notice the other 

 point in the last quotation, the difference 

 of .3 millimeters between the cells of 

 blacks and Italians. The mean diameter 

 of the blacks, 5.2 millimeters, is equiva- 

 lent to 4.8864 cells to the inch. 



If there has been no mistake in the 

 data, and no mistake in the figuring, 

 it looks as if the cells of American 

 comb foundation are unnecessarily large 

 for blacks, and a trifle too small for 

 Italians. 



After sending the letter above, Mr. 

 Findlay sent the following: 



After the above-mentioned circular let- 

 ter was sent out. Dr. C.C. Miller's"Stray 

 Straws" came to hand, with two notes, 

 as to the transverse diameter of work- 

 er-bee cells. The data there stated, for 

 "natives," supposed to be the common 

 black bee, is a mean diameter of 5.2 mil- 

 limeters to the cell. This is in very 

 close agreement with the data arrived 

 at by myself : Calling the (transverse") 

 diameter, of common black bee worker- 

 cells, 5.2 millimeters, will give us 505^ 

 cells to 10^4 inches. 



COMPARISON OF DATA 



The A. I. Root Co., Foundation 50 cells to 10« in 4.877 cells to inch 



Dadant it Sons, Foundation 49'/! " " 4.828 



Gus. Dittmer, Foundation 50 " 10 5-16 in 4.849 



Black Bee Worker-Comb SOVi " lOH in 4.926 



Rietsche Foundation, ("S. S.") 46.596" " 4.535 



say that anything that would diminish 

 the size of Italian bees is not desirable. 

 The count of the natural comb showed 

 considerable variation. It is just pos- 

 sible that Mr. Findlay did not take into 

 account the difference in the three diam- 

 eters of a cell, and he may not always 

 have measured in the same direction. 

 Upon this point the following Stray 

 Straw from Gleanings, page 821, is per- 

 tinent : 



This comparison goes to show, that 

 the popular brands of comb-foundation, 

 as now manufactured, would be suited 

 for neglected common black bees; for 

 select-bred, it would be a shade small 

 in cell capacity. 



The writer has no natural-built comb, 

 built by improved Italians, on hand, nor 

 has he any colonies that are in favora- 

 ble condition to build any at the present 

 time. Some years ago we heard consid- 



