878 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1. 



I FELT SWINDLED after looking through 

 those seven pages of pictures, beginning at 

 page 140. Beautiful pictures, to be sure, but 

 I had a right to look for folks, and not a folk 

 to be seen. Say, you didn't take those pic- 

 tures on Sunday ? Now give us some pictures 

 of the folks. [Whom do you mean by 

 "folks"? If you mean the employees, they 

 are inside running the machines. If you 

 mean the members of the Root Co., we hardly 

 know whether we ought to show ourselves in 

 our own journal or not. Perhaps some day 

 we may show four generations of Roots, the 

 oldest of whom is over 87, and the youngest a 

 little over eight years. — Ed.] 



AFTER some discussion it seems agreed in 

 Revue Internationale that, instead of having 

 extracting combs cltaned up by the bees be- 

 fore being put away, they should be left as 

 they come from the extractor, there being no 

 trouble from mold or souring, the bees being 

 more prompt to occupy them the next season. 

 Will the esteemed editor, M. Bertrand, please 

 tell us whether honey in such combs will not 

 granulate sooner than in combs thoroughly 

 cleaned out? [In most localities of the North, 

 that would be just the trouble. Perhaps Cogg- 

 shall or some of the other extracted-honey 

 men will tell us why they let the bees lick the 

 combs dry before putting them away for win- 

 ter.— Ed.] 



When worms are found on sections of hon- 

 ey that are sealed up tight immediately upon 

 being taken from the hive, it is said the bees 

 carried the eggs there on their feet. Does 

 that look reasonable? Are the eggs in places 

 where the feet would touch them ? Would 

 they stick to the feet? Pull the head off a 

 moth, and almost immediately it begins to 

 feel around with its ovipositor for an angle or 

 a crack, not laying till it finds one. Are not 

 the little worms on the sections first found at 

 an angle? Considering what an artful dodger 

 the moth is, how swift in its movements, and 

 how constantly trying to get into a hive, is it 

 not more reasonable to suppose that it has 

 dodged its way through the hive and made its 

 way into the super ? 



A bright improvement is that arrange- 

 ment by which no water can get through the 

 cracks of the cover unless it runs up hill. 

 Now if the cover will not warp out of level, 

 and if you can get rid of that objectionable 

 projection below the general surface at the 

 ends, tin may not be needed in a cover. There 

 are some bee-keepers who will never be will- 

 ingly driven to have a cover whose lower sur- 

 face is not entirely level throughout. [Yes, I 

 believe the new form of cover is better than 

 any thing that has been hitherto brought out, 

 and we can even eliminate the bottom projec- 

 tions under the cleats by using angle irons in- 

 stead of cleats. This will be making the cov- 

 er a little more expensive, but really I prefer 

 to have the cleats, for myself, stick down- 

 ward. — Ed.] 



IT is refreshing to have people talk defi- 

 nitely and specifically, as does N. D. West, p. 

 828. A toothpick will draw out the dead 

 brood %. to % of an inch, but it will not break 



and spring back like rubber (in the New York 

 disease). Now tell us just how far it will 

 string out before it breaks in genuine foul 

 brood, and how much more slowly than rub- 

 ber it springs back. [If you are asking me 

 the question, I think I have seen filaments 

 from foul brocl all of 2 inches long, and per- 

 haps in some cases 3 inches. When it breaks 

 it flies back almost like a rubber baud ; but 

 the diseased matter from so-called foul brood 

 in New York is only very slightly ropy — at 

 least the samples that have been sent here, 

 which I have examined, do not show filaments 

 any thing like these which can be made from 

 the real foul brood. — Ed.] 



A FOUL BROOD CURE is thus reported by the 

 editor of Bee Chat: A badly diseased colony 

 was taken from its stand, a clean hive with 

 frames of foundation put in its place, the 

 queen and a frame of healthy sealed brood 

 given, and the returning bees built it up into a 

 good colony which remained healthy. The 

 old stock had no laying queen for three weeks, 

 and had only young bees, and these cleaned 

 up every thing so there was no more disease. 

 But the colony in the first place was not bad- 

 ly depopulated with disease, the time was fa- 

 vorable for swarming and storing, no bees 

 were shaken from the combs, and only young 

 bees left in the old hive. N. D. West's views, 

 p. 828, coincide with these closely. [There is 

 no reason why it should net work, as it is al- 

 most what is called the starvation plan of 

 cure. — Ed ] 



Editor Simmins is somewhat radical if not 

 revolutionary in his views on foul brood. He 

 says a bee flying from a foul-broody colony 

 never carries the disease to another colony, 

 except under the conditions of natural swarm- 

 ing ( filled with honey ? ) . (It may be remark- 

 ed in passing that this agrees with Bald ridge's 

 plan of cure). Mr. S. made two colonies ex- 

 change places without smoking or frightening 

 the bees. One was not strong but healthy, the 

 other strong and badly diseased. The weaker 

 colony received most of the workers of the 

 other colony, but remained healthy. [I feel 

 very positive that Editor Simmins is wrong ; 

 for every colony facing in the same direction, 

 and adjacent to another colony having foul 

 brood, is sure to have this disease sooner or 

 later, for the simple reason that young bees 

 get mixed up more or less at the entrances, 

 and go into the wrong hive. The transmis- 

 sion of the disease in this way occurred over 

 and over again at our apiary outside of the 

 swarming season; and if I am positive of any 

 thing, I am positive that the disease is cirried 

 by the bees from one hive to another, whether 

 the honey-sacs are full or not. — Ed] 



Somewhat startling it is to find M. Bou- 

 vier, editor Revue Universelle d" 1 Apiculture, 

 making a strong plea for glucose as food for 

 bees. They take greedily pure glucose (?) 

 but he advises half glucose and half sugar 

 syrup. Each evening, for a month, he fed to 

 each of 2<> colonies half a pound of the mix- 

 ture, and they flourished under the diet. He 

 considers glucose more nearly like the natural 

 food of the bee than sugar which is crystalliz- 



