1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



883 



quently forwarded on to us, labeled, " N. E. 

 France looking for foul brood." I have al- 

 ways known that the Wisconsin inspector was 

 unusually vigilant ; that he never allowed a 

 case of diseased brood to escape his attention ; 

 but I did not suppose he was so anxious to 

 find foul brood that he would look for it 

 among the bare rocks. 



Joking aside, Mr. France, in his tours over 

 the State, is in the habit of taking along his 

 camera, and he has now a large and interest- 

 ing collection of pictures which he has taken 

 among bee-keepers — pictures showing foul 

 brood in its various stages ; pictures of dis- 

 eased and infected hives that he has caused to 

 be burned ; pictures of bee-keepers and bee- 

 yards, just as he has found them. 



So far as I have been able to learn, Mr. 

 France, with all the vested authority of the 

 State which he has back of him, makes no en- 

 emies, but sees that the provisions of the law 

 are rigidly enforced. He has not only per- 

 formed a signal service for the State, and is 

 doing so every summer, but in a larger way he 

 is doing a service for the whole United States 

 in that he is stamping out and corraling foul 

 brood in a limit so small that it is doing prac- 

 tically no harm. In a like manner Mr. Mc- 

 Evoy, in Canada, is rendering a similar ser- 

 vice, and, as I showed in our last issue, we 

 have four energetic inspectors who are doing 

 a splendid work throughout New York ; but I 

 hope none of them will try to find either black 

 or foul brood among the bare rocks. 



than the forward bumps over the bridges? 

 We should like to hear briefly from a number 

 of our readers on this point. Of course if a 

 spring wagon is used it does not make very 

 much difference how the honey is loaded. 



COMB HONEY — HOW TO I,OAD IT ON A WAGON. 



We have for years printed what we called 

 our " caution card," which reads as follows : 



FRAGILE. 



COMB HONEY. 



Handle With Extra Care. ^Sk 



Do not Move it on Hand Trucks. ^ 



Do not Drop it. 



Do not Dump it. Load with the flnger point 



Set it Down Easy. '*-^^ ^ow, Locomotive, or 1 



Haul it only on Vehicles with Springs. 



The card is intended to be nailed on the case 

 so that the direction indicated by the finger 

 shall be parallel with the combs. Referring 

 to this, one of our subscribers, while admit- 

 ting that this is correct so far as loading in 

 railway cars is concerned, thinks they, for ve- 

 hicles commonly used in the public highways, 

 should read, " L,oad with the finger pointing 

 toward the side of the dray or wagon," the rea- 

 son being that the wheels on one side are liable 

 to drop into a rut, giving a sudden jar to the 

 combs, and therefore the edges of said combs 

 should point toward the wheels. Another says 

 that those same edges should point toward 

 the horses ; for when a wagon goes over a 

 sluiceway, or bumps against a bridge that 

 may be four or five inches above the general 

 level of the road, then the jar on the ccmbs, 

 if the edges point toward the wheels, will 

 have a tendency to break the fastenings. 

 This is the position we have taken. The 

 question is, are the side dumps more severe 



SOME OF THE EVIDENCE (?) THAT WAS IN-^ 



TRODUCED IN THE PEACH BEE CASE ; OR, 

 UTTER V. UTTER. 



There are no new developments to report 

 in regard to this case, except that I have come 

 in possession of some of the evidence that 

 was presented when the case was tried before 

 the justice. I am informed that the bee-keeper 

 who testified that the bees could bore holes 

 through wood, and work wax as hard as stone, 

 is a man who can neither read nor write ; 

 and when he was referred to an article in 

 Gleanings, showing that honey-bees can not 

 puncture sound fruit, he is reported to have 

 said, "Pshaw! I do not care any thing for 

 them books. I know more about bees than 

 they do." He has only ten or twelve stands 

 of bees, and about twelve acres of land. It 

 seems he set out a peach-orchard, and when 

 asked by the lawyer what he was going to do 

 with his bees when his peaches came in bear- 

 ing, he replied, "Keep them until someone 

 sues me." 



Another witness for the prosecution testified 

 on direct examination that he saw a bee alight 

 on a peach, and, calling his hired man, they 

 watched the bee, and the result was that the 

 bee punctured the peach, obtained some juice, 

 and flew away ; that the peach showed a small 

 puncture. On a cross-examination the lawyer 

 asked, " Did you examine that peach before 

 the bee alighted on it ? " He replied that he 

 did not ; that there might have been a hole in 

 it before he saw a bee on it. 



This same witness also testified on cross-ex- 

 amination that the twigs or branches produc- 

 ed by the plaintiff were diseased by being af- 

 fected with the yellows. 



The plaintiff's sons, on the stand, said that 

 they had seen bees attack peaches ; that the 

 bees would stand on their hind legs,'^ and 

 probe or puncture a peach, and then fly away; 

 that they had witnessed this operation through 

 a magnifying-glass. 



I am informed that all who heard the evi- 

 dence say there was no proof that the maraud- 

 ing bees (although they admitted that they 

 were on the plaintiff's trees) belonged to the 

 defendant. But on this point the plaintiff is. 

 reported to have said that when they, the bees, 

 got their " belly full " they would go toward 

 Utter's apiary. 



It will be remembered that the plaintiff 

 avers that the defendant's bees stung the 

 trees ; but it appears from further investiga- 

 tion that the plaintiff's trees were badly af- 

 fected by the yellows, for he (the plaintiff) 

 told two witnesses that there were 49 trees in 

 his orchard that he was going to pull out on 

 account of disease. 



In spite of such admission and that there 

 was plenty of evidence produced from bee- 

 keepers, to the effect that the bees could not 



* Italics mine. 



