492 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15. 



the thing that attracted my attention was Mr. 

 Large's solar wax-extractor, something of his 

 own devising and make. Of this I took a pic- 

 ture, the half-tone reproduction of which ap- 

 pears in another column. 



Its manner of construction will be apparent. 

 At the back end there is a cupboard door com- 

 municating with an air-tight compartment. 

 In this, if I remember correctly, Mr. Large 

 had a big lamp which was placed under the 

 slanting pan of the extractor. The heat from 

 this lamp, combined with the strong sunlight 

 from above, causes every particle of wax to be 

 melted. Mr. Large was greatly pleased with 

 the working of his extractor, and well he 

 might be. The neat trim appearance of the 

 machine shows him to be a mechanic. Indeed, 

 in the same yard I found his edge tools — 

 planes, etc., on a bench outdoors where he 

 leaves them right along. This would look 

 shiftless in Ohio, but every thing is so dry in 

 Colorado — no dew and no rain, or compara- 

 tively none — that leaving tools out thus is 

 quite the orthodox thing providing there are 

 no thieves about. 



It was at Mr. Large's also that I saw those 

 mammoth Belgian hares. I had seen them at 

 other places, but thought but very little about 

 them at the time ; but knowing what I now do 

 about them I would have plied Mr. L. with 

 one hundred and one questions. Those he 

 had were mammoth in size ; in fact, they 

 seemed to be almost as large as a shepherd dog. 

 They were confined in little pens, and all they 

 had to do was to eat and grow. 



It was at this same place that I first saw 

 real Colorado irrigation. I had seen the ditch- 

 es, but at the time I was visiting the State no 

 water was running to speak of. Mr. Large 

 started the water to going in the ditches in his 

 garden, for my special pleasure ; and then I 

 saw for the first time how utterly impossible 

 it would be for an ordinary windmill to fur- 

 nish enough water to irrigate even a small 

 plot of ground. Mr. Large used, I should 

 say, a thousand barrels of water to irrigate 

 just a small garden-plot once. Why, a little 

 eight-foot windmill would not be in it. 



In our next issue I will tell something about 

 our drive to the foothills near Longmont, and 

 of the sandstorm which we went through ; of 

 the way J. E. Lyon and the other Coloradoans 

 winter their bees. 



FOUL BROOD ON THE INCREASE IN THE 



UNITED STATES ; A CAUTION ABOUT 



SENDING SAMPLES OF BROOD 



THROUGH THE MAIL. 



I DO not like to pose as an alarmist, but it is 

 evident that foul brood is on the increase 

 throughout the United States. A few years 

 ago we heard of it only occasionally here and 

 there in isolated places ; but now we get from 

 three to five letters a week with samples of 

 brood, the writers asking whether it is the 

 dreaded disease or what it is. I have run 

 across one or two samples of black brood, 

 or what I thought to be such. I have seen a 

 number of cases of what I suspected was poi- 

 soned brood ; but, worse than all, a large num- 

 ber of samples of late were real foul brood. 



By the way, I wish to caution our friends 

 about mailing suspected samples of brood to 

 us. We do not object to having them sent us, 

 but co»ib must be Wfcipped in absorbing cotton 

 and then packed in stout wooden or tin boxes. 

 Just the other day a sample of brood came to 

 our office, packed in a loose flimsy pasteboard 

 box. The honey had leaked through, and the 

 package was badly daubed when it reached 

 my desk. It did not take me long to get it 

 down near the boiler furnace, but, happily, it 

 was only pickled brood. 



While we have no foul brood in Medina we 

 hope all the friends will be kind enough to see 

 that each specimen of brood is carefully 

 wrapped in absorbing cotton, and then encased 

 in tin or wood — not pasteboard. Common 

 spice or cinnamon tin boxes, oblong, with, 

 square corners, answer very nicely ; but even 

 then the brood should be wrapped in absorb- 

 ing cotton or in paraffined or waxed paper. 



We are very glad to help our subscribers, 

 and think perhaps it would be well for any 

 one who has a doubt as to whether he has a 

 contagious disease to send a sample of the 

 brood to us, for I think I can tell all cases of 

 foul brood, and diagnose pretty closely on 

 black and pickled brood. 



Just as I was dictating these words a bee 

 came in and hovered over the fresh ink with 

 which these shorthand tracks are written. I 

 wonder if it smelled what we are talking 

 about. Well, now, suppose that this sample 

 of brood in a leaky package that allowed the 

 honey to run through had been placed on my 

 desk while I was absent, and suppose it had 

 been foul brood. Do you think for a moment 

 that that bee would have gone away without 

 taking a good big drink of the virus that had 

 been imported through the mails ? 



If foul brood is on the increase in the coun- 

 try (and I am seriously afraid it is) the send- 

 ing of nuclei ought to be discontinued. In 

 New York State especially, colonies ought not 

 to be shipped from one locality to another. 



DR. miller's GOBACKS ; HOW TO MAKE 

 THE WHOLE CROP OF COMB HONEY NO. 

 1 ; his OUT-YARD AND HIVE-MOV- 

 ING RACK. 



While I was visiting Dr. C. C. Miller at his 

 home, he and his sister Emma quite inciden- 

 tally made reference to their " goback " colo- 

 nies and "goback sections." Said I, with 

 eyes staring wide open, " I should like to know 

 what new-fangled thing you are referring to." 



"Gobacks, " said the doctor; " haven't I 

 ever told about them in the journal ? " 



"You have not," I said — "at least I do not 

 remember seeing any reference to them." 



It seems that, in taking off their comb hon- 

 ey, they remove the supers when most of the 

 sections are completed. These are taken to 

 the house, and the filled sections are set to one 

 side to be scraped and cased ; but the unfin- 

 ished ones " go back " into the same or anoth- 

 er super. There may be one or a dozen or 

 perhaps a hundred or so of supers with partly 

 filled sections, and these are all designated as 

 "gobacks." They are either placed on top of 

 other supers that are being built out from 



