58 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Feb. 1 



seen. In the December issue, a large clear 

 engraving shows the twenty-six members 

 of the newly formed North Otago Bee-keep- 

 ers' Association, of which John Allan is 

 president. This association holds field days 

 and regular conventions, and is as up-to- 

 date as any association in this country. At 

 a meeting held on Nov. 5, during a discus- 

 sion on the question of foul brood, the Mc- 

 Evoy treatment was endorsed as one that 

 gave the greatest benefit. After this fol- 

 lowed a demonstration of fixing foundation 

 in frames. The question of the disposal of 

 the honey-drop was also taken up in detail. 



MORE PROOF THAT FARMERS ARE NO 



LONGER "KILLING THE GOOSE THAT 



LAYS THE GOLDEN EGG." 



One of our subscribers, J. R. Mintle, of 

 Glenwood, Iowa, has sent us a clipping 

 from the Mills County Tribune, on the sub- 

 ject of sweet clover. One of the local at- 

 torneys, who owns a ranch in Northern 

 Nebraska, is reported as saying that his 

 cattle are being fed from a stack of sweet 

 clover, and that they not only like it, but 

 are doing well on it. He plans on putting 

 in ten acres of sweet clover in the spring. 

 A near neighbor has a forty-acre patch. 



One of the Professors from the State Ag- 

 ricultural College, at Ames, Iowa, in a re- 

 cent address at Glenwood, stated that sweet 

 clover would soon come into more general 

 use, as farmers have ceased treating it as a 

 nuisance, as they did formerly. 



OUR DEPARTMENT EDITORS. 



On page 71 of this issue we present a pic- 

 ture of each of the department editors, some 

 of whose faces may, perhaps, be unfamiliar 

 to our readers. 



Dr. Miller and G. M. Doolittle, whose de- 

 partments appear each issue, need no intro- 

 duction, for they have been considered 

 sound authorities in bee culture for scores 

 of years, we might say — at least for consid- 

 erably more than twenty years. And for 

 years to come the writings of these two will 

 live on, extending and perpetuating their 

 good records. Whenever we think of these 

 two old friends we understand a little more 

 clearly why it is that some men never die. 



Wesley Foster, Mrs. Acklin, and J. L. 

 Byer, whose departments appear in the first 

 issue of each month, are the newer members 

 of our staff. Mr. Foster has appeared before 

 our readers long enough to show that he 

 has made good. Mrs. Acklin, whose de- 

 partment, " Bee-keeping in Southern Cali- 

 fornia," started last summer, has also prov- 

 ed that she is alive to the bee-keeping inter- 

 ests in her territory. Mr. Byer, who takes 

 Mr.Holtermann'splaceinfurnishing"Notes 

 from Canada," as mentioned in our Dec. 

 15th issue, appears for the first time as head 

 of the Canadian department in this issue. 

 We have known him for some time as an 

 occasional contributor, and we are sure that 

 his comments will be no less valuable, com- 

 ing, as they will, from now on, every month. 



Louis H. Scholl and J. E. Crane, whose 

 departments appear the second issue of each 

 month, have also been with us long enough 

 so that our readers know them to be safe 

 counselors. Mr. Scholl stands rather high 

 in the world, being nearly six and one-half 

 feet tall; but Mr. Crane, though not so large 

 has shown himself to be a good "sifter." 



EUROPEAN FOUL BROOD; MORE PROOF OF 



ITS EUROPEAN ORIGIN, AND HENCE 



THE FITNESS OF THE NAME. 



Evidence is beginning to accumulate, 

 showing that European foul brood, or what 

 we formerly called "black brood," is more 

 or less common in England and on the Con- 

 tinent. Indeed, there is a possibility that - 

 it is the common brood disease in Great J 

 Britain. After carefully analyzing the * 

 writings of some of our European authori- 

 ties, particularly of our British cousins, we 

 are convinced that, when they sjeak of a 

 "mild type" of foul brood, most of the lar- 

 vae dying before they are sealed, they are 

 unwittingly describing European foul 

 brood; that when they give the symptoms 

 of the more advanced stages, after the 

 brood dies when sealed up, they are de- 

 scribing the genuine foul brood, or what we 

 call American foul brood. Let us take, for 

 example, two or three references. Turning 

 toDzierzon's "Rational Bee-keeping, " Eng- 

 lish edition for 1882, page 273, we find the 

 following: 



FOUL BROOD IS OF TWO KINDS. 



There is one kind that Is mild and curable, and 

 another kind malignant and incurable. Both kinds 

 are, however, contagious. 



The curable occurs In this way: More of the lar- 

 vae die still unsealed, while they are still curied up 

 at the bottom of the cell, rotting and drying up to 

 a gray crust that may be removed with tolerable 

 ease. The brood which does not die before sealing 

 mostly attains to perfection: and it is onlv excep- 

 tionally that foul-brood cells are met with sealed. 



This is exactly reversed In the malignant kind of 

 foul brood. In this the larva' do not generally die 

 before they have raised themselves from the bot- 

 tom of the cell, have been sealed, and begun to 

 change into nymphs. The rotten matter is. there- 

 fore, not found on the cell floor, but on the lower 

 cell wall. It is brownish and tough, and dries up 

 to a firm black crust, both in consequence of the 

 heat prevailing in the hive, and of a small opening 

 bitten in the depressed cover. This matter the 

 bees are not able to remove; and when they are in 

 some strength they can at most get rid of it by en- 

 tirely biting down the tainted cells and making 

 fresh ones. 



It is a marked characteristic of European 

 ■foul brood that most of the larvae die before 

 they are sealed. In other respects the sec- 

 ond paragraph exactly describes the dis- 

 ease. The last paragraph undoubtedly re- 

 fers to American foul brood. 



Again, we turn to Samuel Simmins' book 

 entitled "A Modern Bee-farm," edition 

 1904, page 10.3. In speaking of the cure for 

 foul brood he says: 



Cheshire considered that the queen should not be 

 removed; but, on the contrary, if it is intended to 

 save the combs I have found the first step toward a 

 rapid recovery is made by deposing the reigning 

 queen and giving a young and vigorous queen bred 

 from clean stock, when the entire attitude of the 

 bees Is changed, and great determination and ener- 

 gy take the place of the former utter inability to 

 clear out the foul stuff. 



