GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE.- 



47'.l 



fouiidiitlon made five years ago, kept lii boxes 

 without papering, standing through one sum- 

 mer where the sun shone through the window 

 directly on the boxes, and It was as good as 

 ever. [Since those items were published in re- 

 gard to papering we have received a letter 

 from a customer in the South, who. having or- 

 dered the foundation unpapered, reports back- 

 that some of the sheets stuck together. We 

 have hardly dared not to paper unless we have 

 received special directions to the contrary. It 

 makes lots of extra work in unpapering. and if 

 It could be dispensed with It would save one 

 extra automatic attachment to our machine, 

 for the great bulk of our foundation is now all 

 papered by machinery. So far as we are con- 

 cerned, it makes very little difference whether 

 we paper or not. If I were in the North, how- 

 ever, I think I would order all my foundation 

 unpapered. In the South it might make trouble 

 to leave the paper out.— Ed.] 



Dii R. C. Aikin. 



BEES evaporated; a new malady. 



In the spring of 1891, when I had the care of 

 Mr. N. C. Alford's apiaries at Fort Collins, 

 Colo.. I had an experience that I had never 

 heard the like of before nor since until the past 

 spring. 



The bees I had charge of were in three api- 

 aries—one in town, and two about seven miles 

 out. The out- apiaries were about 1}4 miles 

 apart— one on the river-bottom, and the other 

 a mile or so from the river. It was my custom 

 in the spring to go to each aj)iary about once 

 in two weeks or thereabouts, my visits becom- 

 ing more frequent as the season advanced to 

 near the honey-flow. The books in which I 

 made the records were, of course, left with the 

 proprietor when I left his employ in the fall of 

 1891, so I shall have to speak from memory and 

 approximate the dates, etc. 



I had been watching carefully the progress 

 of brood rearing, and had the colonies quite 

 strong in both bees and ^rood. The bees had 

 been packed in chaff, and all in ten-frame 

 hives. Many colonies were so strong that they 

 were clustering out, although we had not un- 

 packed yet. This was in May. While they 

 were so, I had looked all over and equalized 

 stores and brood, then was absent about ten 

 days, I think. About the last days of May or 

 first of June I went to the out-apiaries to again 



inspect as to stores, remove packing, and do 

 such work as would guard against swarming. 

 I had not noticed any thing wrong at the home 

 apiary, nor any very marked features Indicat- 

 ing wrong conditions at the first apiary visited; 

 but when I reached the river apiary, and began 

 to look at the hives, I was astonished at the 

 very few bees in them. 1 went to some hives 

 that I knew had been clustered out about ten 

 days previously, and I found not enough bees 

 to cover the brood. The weather was warm, 

 the bees packed in chaff, and the few bees left 

 were spread all through the hives caring for 

 the brood. The weather was so warm that 

 there was no loss of brood; and as they had 

 from four to seven combs well filled, the hives 

 were soon very populous again. 



My employer said the high winds had blown 

 the bees into the river. The stream is only a 

 small one, from 10 to 25 feet wide. The other 

 apiary, 13^ miles away, showed some loss too, 

 as a careful inspection showed, though, as I 

 said before, it was not so marked as to call 

 special attention to it until I had visited the 

 river apiary. There was also another apiary 

 some three miles away that the owner said was 

 afflicted in the same way. Some of the colo- 

 nies were so depopulated that, when I lifted 

 combs, I could lay my open palm on the face of 

 a comb of brood and scarcely touch a bee. It 

 was not what I understand as spring dwindling. 

 The bees were mainly young, for bees had been 

 hatching for weeks. At the time, I doubted 

 the loss being the result of winds, though I 

 could not account for It in any other way, so I 

 said little or nothing more about it, because 

 others said it was the wind. 



From the above experience until the last 

 spring (189G) I did not see or hear any thing 

 more of the trouble; but the apiarists about 

 Denver had a rather vivid experience last 

 spring, that brought the matter u? in a very 

 serious light. 



At the annual meeting of our State Associa- 

 tion that met in January we had arranged to 

 hold a spring meeting. In arranging dates 

 through the executive committee I was in cor- 

 respondence with Mr. Frafik Rauchfuss— our 

 secretary— who lives near Denver. I live 50 

 miles north of Denver. Mr. Rauchfuss report- 

 ed that he thought it useless to do any thing 

 toward a meeting, for all the bee-keepers there- 

 about were completely discouraged, because 

 their bees were nearly all dead. However, we 

 went ahead and had a meeting, although but 

 few came out, and they all had the blues. 



The trouble about Denver covered a diameter 

 of fifteen or twenty miles, as nearly as I could 

 find out. The Rauchfuss Brothers are good 

 apiarists and close observers, and they told me 

 the trouble came very suddenly. I think they 

 said it lasted only three or four days. The 

 time, I think, was about the middle or last of 



