1911 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



93 



General Correspondence 



IN MEMORIAM OF D, A. JONES. 



The Remarkable Career of a Remarkable Bee- 

 keeper; How he Introduced New Races of 

 Bees; his Foul-brood Cure; his Baby 

 Nuclei, etc. 



BY E. R. ROOT. 



D. A. .Tones, one of the leading bee-keep- 

 ers of thirty years ago, known all over Can- 

 ada and the United States — indeed, we 

 might say all over the entire bee-keeping 

 world — passed away at his home in Bee ton, 

 Canada, on the 20th of last November. The 

 information did not reach us until we saw 

 the announcement in the Canadian Bee 

 Journal, 



Mr. Jones came into prominence in 1879, 

 when he, together with Frank Benton, 

 formerly of the Department of Agriculture, 

 made a special trip to the Orient, at great 

 personal risk, covering thousands of miles, 

 to secure new races of bees. Mr. Jones bore 

 the entire expense of that expedition, and 

 after a year brought back to this country a 

 large number of Cyprian, Holy Land, and 

 Carniolan queens. During the years 1880 

 and 1881 there was quite a furore over these 

 new races, and all the prominent bee-keep- 

 ers of the world secured queens from Mr. 

 Jones. While the Cyprians were splendid 

 honey-gatherers and breeders, they were too 

 vindictive — too awfully cross — to wear well 

 either in this country or Canada. The 

 Holy Land bees, while not so cross as the 

 Cyprians, ran excessively to brood-rearing. 

 It was not an uncommon thing to find 

 Langstroth combs with every cell contain- 

 ing brood. The Cyprians and the Holy 

 Lands themselves were very beautiful bees; 

 and, while resembling Italians in the one 

 fact that they too were yellow, yet they had 

 quite enough distinctive characteristics, 

 both in markings and temperament, so they 

 could be readily distinguished. Even when 

 crossed with the ordinary Italians their 

 bad temper seems to go with them. On ac- 

 count of these very undesirable peculiarities 

 these two races have practically disappear- 

 ed from the United States and Canada. But 

 the Carniolans have stayed with us. The 

 bee-keeping world owes a big debt of grati- 

 tude to the man who, at an enormous cost 

 and at great personal risk, practically set- 

 tled the question for all time of the most 

 desirable races of bees. While the Cyprians 

 and Holy Land bees lost out in the race, 

 the superiority of Italians and Carniolans 

 has been established ever since. Mr. Jones, 

 generous to a fault, never insisted that he 

 should have the exclusive trade in the bees 

 he brought to this country. He never was 

 sore because others went into the business. 

 His broad generous spirit, and the genial 



twinkle of his eye, had to be experienced to 

 be appreciated. 



In the early '80's Mr. Jones was, no doubt, 

 the leading bee keeper of Canada. He ran 

 a series of outyards, and later on establish- 

 ed a school of apiculture. At one time he 

 had some two or three dozen students who 

 went to Beeton from the United States and 

 Canada to study bee culture under his 

 leadership. One of these students was R. 

 F. Holtermann, our old correspondent. 



During these early days Mr. Jones' bees 

 contracted foul brood; but he did not realize 

 at that time the seriousness of the disease. 

 He seemed to regard it as something that 

 one could easily handle, and he then pro- 

 mulgated to the bee-keeping world what was 

 called at the time the Jones or starvation 

 foul-brood cure. This was an adaptation of 

 the Quinby method of treating bees, and 



D. A. JONES WHEN HE WENT TO THE ORIENT 

 FOR NEW RACES OF BEES IN 1879. 



was very similar to what is now known as 

 the McEvoy cure. The bees were shaken 

 off the combs into a wire-cloth cage, or box 

 with a wire-cloth top. They were then put 

 in a cool place so that they would consume 

 the honey in their honey-sacs. As soon as 

 some of the bees from sheer weakness be- 

 gan to show signs of starvation they were 

 then placed in a clean hive on frames of 

 foundation, and compelled to work out their 

 own salvation. The old combs were burned 

 or melted up, and the old hive disinfected. 



It was later found that it was not neces- 

 sary to starve the bees, because drawing out 

 the foundation was found to be quite suf- 

 ficient. 



Mr. Jones was generally ahead of his 

 times. For example, his system of queen- 

 rearing and baby nuclei, which he intro- 



