1921 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



183 



ter a swarm issues. The only differ- 

 ence in the manipulation in this case 

 is, that no brood or eggs are left in 

 the brood-nest, where the swarm is 

 hived back. 



THE DEMAREE PLAN 



By E. S. Miller 



The "Deniaree Swarm Prevention." 

 as described in the December number, 

 page 425, apparently is not the Deni- 

 aree plan at all. A number of years 

 ago, being rich in inexperience. I 

 tried with about fifty colonies, this 

 scheme mentioned by the gentleman 

 from Shanghai. My notion was that 

 by putting the old queen above an 

 excluder with a frame of brood and 

 empty combs, and allowing the young 

 queen to emerge below, the colony 

 might thus be requeened. Well, the 

 result was that in nearly every case, 

 later examination showed that not 

 only was the young queen missing, 

 but, also, a weakened condition of 

 the colony indicated that swarming 

 had occurred. Over ten years' use of 

 the real Demaree plan has for the 

 most part proved satisfactory. 



In the November number, respect- 

 ing mating from above an excluder, I 

 neglected to state that in order to 

 make the plan a success, there must 

 be no queen-cells or unsealed brood 

 at the time the cell from your breed- 

 ing queen is introduced. Do it this 

 way: Put the old queen in the lower 

 hive-body with one frame of brood, 

 filling out with empty combs or foun- 

 dation. Next, place a queen-ex- 

 cluder, then one or more supers, then 

 another excluder, and lastly, at the 

 top, the brood. After the brood is 

 all sealed and all queen-cells removed 

 from the top story, insert a ripe cell 

 from your best breeding queen. Shove 

 the upper hive-body slightly forward. 

 so that the young queen can get out 

 at the back of the hive. The purpose 

 of the two excluders with intervening 

 supers is to separate the two queens. 

 If there is unsealed brood or queen- 

 cells the virgin will, in most cases, 

 disappear, whether there is an old 

 queen in the hive or not, often taking 

 with her a swarm. 



The scheme for requeening advo- 

 cated by some writers, namely, killing 

 the old queen and at once inserting a 

 cell, simply will not prove a success 

 at any time when conditions are fa- 

 vorable for swarming. To be sure, if 

 the beekeper comes around a month 

 or so later, he is very likely to find 

 a young queen, but it must not be 

 assumed that it will be a queen from 

 the choice cell introduced. 



Grocery keepers that usually sold 

 one and two cases per week are not 

 selling one a month, and I have one 

 store that has not sold one case in 

 the last two months. There is some- 

 thing wrong somewhere. Why is 

 honey not a staple, the same as syrup? 

 I find plenty of syrup in every grocery 

 that I visit, but many stores have no 

 honey at all, and whem asked to buy 

 honey they give the same old answer 

 — too high in price. Honey is not a 

 staple, but a luxury. Honey should 

 not be compared to syrup in price for 

 it is not compared to honey in quality. 



Before the war when I sold comb 

 honey at $4 per case I got my sections 

 for $4 and $5 per thousand, mow they 

 are $22. One thing sure, we bee- 

 keepers and supply dealers must get 

 together somehow and make honey a 

 staple in place of a luxury, so that all 

 American children can have at least a 

 taste of nature's best sweet. 



I trust that the Honey Producers' 

 League will do something worth while 

 to put honey where it belongs,, in ev- 

 ery American home. 



VARIATION IN DISEASE RESIST- 

 ANCE 



By T. A. Myers 



Why not use these differences in 

 controlling American foulbrood? 



The behavior of bees, in any respect, 

 and under any given conditions, de- 

 pends not alone upon those conditions, 

 but also upon the stock of their 

 mother, the queen. When we con- 

 fine ourselves to Italians we can still 

 notice those many little differences, in 

 the way they work, how they finish 

 honey, in wintering, in building up in 

 the spring, in accepting a strange 

 queen, in robbing, and many other 



things. These various dispositions 

 which individual colonies show, are 

 inherited to a greater or less extent. 

 But how can these various disposi- 

 tions help us in American foulbrood? 

 Whenever an individual larva gets 

 the germs of this disease, it dies, be 

 the colony strong or weak. As 

 strong colonies are the most active 

 and progressive they are the first to 

 get the disease. Therefore keeping 

 healthy colonics strong is no protec- 

 tion against American foulbrood. 



Take a yard of 100 colonies in an 

 American foulbrood district with a 

 limited source of infection, as it usu- 

 ally is. This method will be especially 

 useful in a locality where it is diffi- 

 cult to find all the infection and elim- 

 inate it. Say one-half of the one hun- 

 dred colonies get foul the first year. 

 They are shaken and the brood piled 

 two or three high to hatch out, and 

 raise a queen. In twenty-one days 

 this brood is again shaken and the 

 infected combs removed. If we have 

 done this work properly the yard is 

 now free from disease: but have we 

 done everything we can to keep it so? 

 Yet this is where most beekeepers 

 stop. 



Suppose in the fall, when we kill 

 all poor queens, we include those 

 which got foul, together with the 

 queens raised from them, and replace 

 with cells from a good queen whose 

 bees staid clean. (In no case does 

 the queen carry the disease, but she 

 does keep on raising bees of the same 

 quality and character as before.') 



By working along this line for a few 

 years the amount of American foul- 

 brood can be greatly reduced. We are 

 working in harmony with the law of 

 the survival of the fittest, by killing 

 those queens which would have died 

 if we had not taken the disease away 



IS HONEY TOO HIGH? 



By T. C. Johnson 



Honey is moving very slowly this 

 season and I have made a great deal 

 of inquiry of both storekeepers and 

 consumers, and every time I get the 

 same answer — too high priced. I 

 have several customers that used a 

 whole case when it was $4 per case 

 that have only used one or two sec- 

 tions this winter. 



Summer Savorj'- Satiirci harlciisis. 



