1144 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15 



a laying queen. Next day set this hive con- 

 taining the queen in place of the laying- 

 worker colony, carrying the latter, after 

 thoroughly smoking, a long distance away, 

 dumping and brushing all the bees on the 

 ground, leaving a small box for any bees 

 that wish to cluster in, returning this to the 

 colony a day or two later. I think the plan 

 would work well if one can afford the lay- 

 ing queen and brood; but it would be less 

 trouble, after forming such a nucleus, to 

 give it a frame of bees from the naughty 

 colony, then another frame a day later, and 

 the rest still later. But it must still be x-e- 

 membered that, nine cases out of ten, the 

 best thing is to break up the colony, dis- 

 tributing the combs and bees to other col- 

 onies. 



Pickled brood disappeared on the intro- 

 duction of fresh blood by A. J. Halter, says 

 the editor, p. 1111. Look again; the only 

 fresh blood I find was that which seems to 

 have brought with it the disease. As near- 

 ly as I can make out, Mr. Halter thinks a 

 cure came from letting the bees rear a new 

 queen, "all brood hatching before young 

 queens began to lay." [By "fresh blood" 

 I meant the introduction of another queen. 

 In Mr. Halter's third paragraph he tells 

 about "letting them rear queens." This 

 indicated to me that the old queen was taken 

 out. On rereading this third paragraph I 

 am not entirely sure whether Mr. Halter al- 

 lowed the old bees to have their old brood or 

 not. He says he made shook swarms, put- 

 ting them on foundation; and I infer now 

 and inferred then when I wrote the foot- 

 note in question that he gave brood— name- 

 ly, "fresh blood" "from various hives." 

 Mr. Halter will please straighten us out. — 

 Ed.] 



Editor Hutchinson puts this conundrum : 

 "Suppose six men are to be nominated as 

 candidates, couldn't 'wire-pulling' elect one 

 of these men just as easily as it could nom- 

 inate a man? Hardly. Fewer votes are 

 cast for nomination than for election, and it 

 is easier to control a small than a large 

 number. But I think that doesn't meet the 

 case. I object to having as sole candidates 

 the two who receive the most votes for nom- 

 ination. The number of votes for nomina- 

 tion—the informal ballot, if you please— will 

 be much smaller than the number at the 

 formal ballot. Indeed, the number may be 

 very small— so small that not such a great 

 deal of activity in the way of wire-pulling 

 would be needed to secure a nomination ; 

 and whether there were any wire-pulling or 

 not it would be better that each member 

 should be entirely free to vote for any one 

 he chooses. I am" in entire accord with Bro. 

 Hutchinson when he says: "There ought 

 to be some honorable, public method of dis- 

 cussing candidates in advance of nomina- 

 tion." The place for that is in the bee- 

 journals, and the time to begin it, perhaps, 

 with the beginning of the year. Then it 

 might be well to have an informal ballot, 

 and the list published of all names voted for 

 and the votes cast for each. May be some- 



thing else would be a good deal better, and 

 the whole matter should have full, frank, 

 free, and friendly discussion. 



J. A. Green, p. 1102, scores eastern bee- 

 keepers for taking for granted that every 

 one has an intimate acquaintance with phos- 

 phate-sacks. Please don't come down on 

 'em too hard, my good friend. If we are to 

 keep quiet about every thing unless we're 

 sure that all the world will understand it, 

 we'll not be likely to tell much. Probably 

 it wouldn't help a great deal to be told the 

 material of old phosphate-sacks, for those 

 who can't get the phosphate-sacks are not 

 likely to be benefited by the knowledge; 

 and those who can't get them don't need to 

 know. But say, Mr. Editor, what are phos- 

 phate-sacks made of, any way ? [Phos- 

 phate-sacks, so far as I know, are made of 

 the same material as any other sacks for 

 holding grain or produce. The material, 

 however, may vary at different times. We 

 found that phosphate-sacks, old burlap or 

 new burlap, will answer the same general 

 purpose for the fuel. We were expecting 

 to catalog this Coggshall fuel in the form of 

 cartridges, but found we could not buy up 

 enough old phosphate-sacks or old burlap to 

 make it advisable to put it up for the gen- 

 eral market. New sacking or burlap is al- 

 together too expensive ; but every bee- 

 keeper can usually find enough for his own 

 use. — Ed.] 



The editor wants to know whether Ital- 

 ians ai'e more immune to pickled brood than 

 other bees, p. llll. I don't know about 

 pickled brood; but as to foul brood there 

 has been ct)nsiderable testimony from Aus- 

 tralia and Europe in favor of Italians, and a 

 strong word from England is found in the 

 1904 edition of Simmins' Modern Bee-farm. 

 He says, "Nothing is so disheartening to 

 the experienced bee-master as to see a bee- 

 keeper clinging to native bees in a neigh- 

 borhood where foul brood is prevalent . . 

 they are helpless in the face of foul brood, 

 and' will not even work with their owner 

 when he attempts to cure the malady." [I 

 think there can be no question that Italians 

 are more immune to black brood than black 

 bees. The evidence that you present from 

 across the water shows that they can also 

 resist foul brood better. The natural as- 

 sumption would be that they could also bet- 

 ter withstand pickled brood. Why this 

 should be I am not able to explain unless 

 because they would be less inclined to rob. 

 Years ago, when we were ItaHanizing from 

 a lot of black bees, I noticed that the "black 

 rascals" as we called them were much more 

 inclined to steal than our yellow bees. Pos- 

 sibly this might account for their greater 

 susceptibility to contagious diseases. — Ed.] 



It was decided years ago, says the editor- 

 p. 1104, that the slight gain from mid-win, 

 ter flights of cellared bees didn't pay for 

 the trouble. That assumes that there was 

 a slight gain, and that was not the belief. 

 It was the belief that such flights were a 

 damage, making the bees uneasy afterward, 



