536 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



JUI^Y 1. 



Very recently a queen-breeder who has some 

 500 nuclei, and who is carrying on the busi- 

 ness of queen-rearing very extensively, sent a 

 sample of diseased brood, desiring us to wire 

 him at once what it was. The sample came 

 duly to hand, and I immediately wired back, 

 "Not foul brood — possibly black or pickled 

 brood." At the time of sending a sample to 

 me he sent one to Dr. Howard also, and the 

 latter very promptly wired him that it was 

 nothing worse than pickled brood. This in- 

 formation was worth to him hundreds of dol- 

 lars ; otherwise he would have withdrawn his 

 advertising, broken up his nuclei, practically 

 throwing away a splendid trade in queens, at 

 the same time ruining his business perhaps 

 for all time to come. He had only one case 

 in his yard, and that was promptly disposed 

 of. 



While we at Medina are perfectly willing to 

 perform such services so far as we are able, 

 because we have a journal and bee-keepers' 

 supplies to sell. Dr. Howard can not afford to 

 do them for the mere love of the pursuit. I 

 wrote him, asking him what it would be worth 

 to diagnose diseased samples of brood, and he 

 replied that he thought he could afford to do 

 it for $2.00 ; and this I regard as very reason- 

 able, considering that he may have to spend 

 hours with the microscope ; so I would sug- 

 gest that doubtful samples be sent to Dr. W. 

 R. Howard, Fort Worth, Texas (but until the 

 r2th of July he will be at 8200 Locust St., 

 St. Louis) with a letter of explanation, and 

 don't forget to send the money. 



In a letter recently received from Dr. How- 

 ard, he gives specific directions by which 

 every bee-keeper can diagnose to some extent 

 for himself. Of the three particular brood 

 diseases he gives the following diagnostic 

 signs : 



FOUL BROOD. 



Glue-like consistence of the mass, and the offensive 

 smell. 



BLACK BROOD. 



Jelly-like consistence of the mass, the absence of 

 ropiness noticed in foul brood, and the peculiar sour- 

 like smell. 



PICKLED BROOD. 



Always watery, turning black after being attacked 

 with the mucof fungus— a black mold— and by placing 

 the larvEC in a sterilized chamber, keeping warm and 

 dark, in three or four days the white fungus of pickled 

 brood appears. I nearly always place a few larvae of 

 every specimen of all kinds of dead brood. Foul 

 brood and black brood are attacked with a fungus, 

 though kept for months. Wm. R. Howard. 



THE CARI^OADS OF HONEY THAT ANNUALLY 

 GO TO WASTE IN RED-CLOVER FIELDS FOR 

 THE WANT OF BEES WITH LONG TONGUES 

 TO GATHER IT ; BREEDING BEES WITH LONG 

 TONGUES ; $25.00 AND $10.00 PRIZES OF- 

 FERED FOR LONG-TONGUED BEES. 



Two or three days ago, after making a visit 

 to our out->ard I made a run on the wheel 

 around through the adjoining section of coun- 

 try to determine what the bees were at work 

 on, as I saw they were flying vigorously from 

 the yard in all directions. There was a red- 

 clover field of 17 acres that was being cut. At 

 the time of my last visit there were only about 



four or five acres left, but bees were working 

 just the same. I concluded there must either 

 be more fields of red clover or that the bees 

 were working on something else. Sure enough, 

 within a quarter or half a mile I found several 

 fields, making in all something like twenty 

 acres, I should judge, of common red clover. 

 In these fields were also scattering heads of 

 white clover. Throughout the fields the bees 

 were busily flying at work. They would first 

 visit the white heads ; and if there was noth- 

 ing left in them they would next take the big 

 red ones. B}' the way they hovered on the 

 large clovers, alighting on them and then 

 quickly leaving them, I came to the conclu- 

 sion that they were not getting much from 

 them. I accordingly watched several bees. 

 First there came an Italian. It alighted on a 

 head of red clover, and I carefully marked 

 with my eye the flowerets or cells into which 

 it ran its tongue. After the bee had left the 

 head I pulled the same flowerets from the 

 head the bee sucked from, and then with my 

 thumbnail and fore finger I squeezed up to- 

 ward the ends, and out of the base of each 

 floweret I forced a very small drop of nectar. 

 I positively kneiv that the bee had gotten all 

 the sweetness out of these flowerets it could. 

 Whether it got any at all I could not say — 

 probably not. But this one head of clover 

 that I examined, and which the bee evidently 

 left in disgust, contained enough nectar to 

 have filled at least three bees. I squeezed out 

 of all the flowerets of this head of clover a 

 very large drop. I then applied it to my 

 tongue and secured a good big morsel of 

 sweetness. Probably other bees had visited 

 this head. I knoiv at least one did, and I am 

 equally positive that this one bee extracted all 

 the nectar within its reach from several of the 

 flowerets of the heads. But even then the bee 

 left enough to have staggered it and two or 

 three more. 



A great deal has been said in regard to the 

 possibilities in the way of breeding bees with 

 longer tongues ; and when Dr. Miller, a } ear 

 or so ago, talked about a glossometer — an in- 

 strument for measuring bees' tongues — I rath- 

 er ridiculed him. But the one observation 

 from the red-clover field, as above given, con- 

 vinced me that common worker-bees probably 

 do not get more than a tenth of the honey ac- 

 tually in the red-clover heads. If the bees 

 could get all the honey, I doubt whether the 

 basswood-tree or any other honey-plant in ex- 

 istence could anywhere near approach it in 

 the supply of ntctar. 



There is not a bee-keeper but has observed 

 the large amount of nectar that can be pressed 

 out of the flower-cells of the big red clover 

 heads ; and I suggest that some of our bee- 

 keeping friends try the same experiment I did 

 — watch a bee ; and after it has got all the 

 nectar it can from certain flower-cells, pull oflf 

 these same cells and see how much nectar is 

 still left. 



If white clover is going to be so uncertain 

 in the future, it seems to be morally certain 

 that bee-keepers must move into basswood re- 

 gions or else develop bees with longer tongues. 

 If it were possible to breed workers with 



