612 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



BEES MORE QUIET TO HANDLE UNDER A 

 CAGE OR IN A HOUSE-APIARY. 



Elsewhere in this issue Mr. J. L. Byer 

 speaks of the ease with which he handles 

 bees under a wire-cloth cage or bee-tent at a 

 time when, ordinarily, they would be very 

 cross. This, he explains, was done, prima- 

 rily, to circumvent robbers. We have notic- 

 ed this time and time again. AVhen robbers 

 are prowling around, bees are apt to be cross; 

 but even when they are inclined to sting 

 from other conditions, they can usually be 

 handled very easily under a cage; for the 

 moment that a cross bee or a number of 

 them find they are imprisoned in the enclos- 

 ure, their desire to sting is immediately 

 transformed into the desire for liberty. They 

 bump their heads against the wire cloth, 

 and then when tired out they cluster quiet- 

 ly in the top of the cage. Outside cross bees, 

 of course, can not make any trouble, and 

 for that reason the apiarist can work hour 

 after hour and day after day, with a great 

 deal of comfort. 



Years ago, when we had entire charge of 

 our home yard, doing nearly all the work, 

 it was our invariable practice, after the rob- 

 bing season when we had more than a mo- 

 ment's work at a hive, to work under a cage. 

 In our effort to circumvent the thieving 

 bees, we found we had inadvertently stop- 

 ped all the sting nuisance; and, asour friend 

 Byer says, we also discovered w e could take 

 off the bee-veil because no bees offered to 

 sting. 



Precisely the same thing is observed when 

 we work in a house-apiary. Bees released 

 on the inside of the building seek only to 

 get out, for the enclosure in which they sud- 

 denly find themselves is unnatural. 



FINDING BLACK QUEENS FOR THE PURPOSE 

 OF REQUEENING. 



The article by J. L. Byer, on page 619, is 

 interesting because he undertook a problem 

 that is new to most modern bee-keepers; 

 that is to say, bee-keeping where it is car- 

 ried on to any extent has to do mainly with 

 Italians and hybrids, or, more correctly 

 speaking, a cross between the old-fashioned 

 blacks and the yellow bees. It is very sel- 

 dom that we find an apiary of any size that 

 has pure blacks — such blacks as we used to 

 see in ye olden days. 



The editor well remembers in the early 

 70's what a time he used to have in trying 

 to find black queens; how two or three of 

 us* would collect around the hive as the 

 black fellows boiled over and ran like droves 

 of sheep from one part of the hive to the 

 other until all seemed one moving mass of 

 confusion. 



Mr. Byer's problem was the more compli- 

 cated because he undertook the work during 

 the robbing season. 



We might say that he wrote us, as he did 



* Tt sepmed to require three pairs of eyes located 

 at different jjoints of view to locate the queen in 

 her wild scramble with the rest. 



a number of others, asking for the best meth- 

 od of hunting up black queens. We sug- 

 gested the use of extrance-guards, shaking 

 the bees in front, and catching the queen 

 when she attempted to get in. But that 

 was impracticable on account of robbing. 

 Elsewhere in this issue .T. E. Crane gives a 

 method that he thinks eliminates the diffi- 

 culty almost entirely. See page 615. 



But why is the matter of finding black 

 queens of particular interest now — especial- 

 ly so if we do not have black bees in the 

 modern yard? Simply this: It is proven 

 now, we think, beyond any question, that ■ 

 black bees do not resist foul brood, especial- % 

 ly the European type, nearly as well as pure 

 Italians. It has come to pass that many of 

 the up-to-date bee-keepers are now compel- 

 led to buy out their neighbors' "black stuff" 

 and Italianize it. The disease has been 

 spreading, and their only protection lies in 

 having only pure Italians. What Mr. Crane 

 and Mr. Byer have to say in this issue on 

 finding queens will be read with particular 

 interest. 



BLACK BEES NOT IMMUNE TO THE RAVAGES 

 OF EUROPEAN FOUL BROOD. 



Elsewhere in this department we refer 

 to the fact that the old-fashioned blacks do 

 not resist European foul brood as do the 

 Italians, and the same is true to a great ex- 

 tent of hybrids. In this issue Dr. Miller 

 speaks of the recurrence of European foul 

 brood among his bees. He does not touch 

 on the question whether he has, during the 

 last two or three years, Italianized any of 

 his apiaries. For many years he has rather 

 favored hybrid bees — not only because they 

 were cheaper, but he thought them as good 

 as if not a little superior to pure Italians in 

 the production of comb honey. Now, then, 

 as it seems to have been pretty well proven 

 that European foul brood is inclined to lin- 

 ger in an apiary of hybrids or blacks in spite 

 of treatment, we wonder if our good friend 

 the doctor has yet Italianzed. Mr. S. D. 

 House, of Camiilus, N. Y., showed us an 

 apiary a year ago, with his strain of pure 

 ] talians, that did not have a trace of Euro- 

 pean foul brood; and he assured us that the 

 disease existed among all the bees of his 

 neighbors who had hybrids and blacks with- 

 in a mile or two. Mr. House considers a 

 vigorous strain of Italians as almost entire- 

 ly immune to European foul brood. One of 

 his pupils, Mr. Irving Kinyon, whose apiary 

 we carefully inspected, showed no trace of 

 the disease, and Mr. Kinyon, like Mr. House, 

 attributed that immunity to vigorous Italian 

 stock. 



The inspectors of New York, if we are not 

 mistaken, are urging the very great import- 

 ance of Italianizing to ward off disease. Mr. 

 Byer is only one among hundreds of others 

 who are now taking steps to insure them- 

 selves against the European type of foul 

 brood. In fact, this year, so far as our ex- 

 perience goes, shows the largest trade in 

 Italian queens that we have ever known. 



