Oct. 15. 1911 



615 



J. E. Ckane, Mlddlebury, Vt. 



Mr. B. D. Cook, a master of his profes- 

 sion, looking over our bees preparatory to 

 fall feeding, reports that he finds carbolic 

 acid a great help in preventing robbing. 



Mr. Bver states, page 453, Aug. 1, that 

 British "Columbia has the strictest foul- 

 brood law yet enacted. Hold a little, my 

 brother ! Massachusetts has a law that holds 

 bees in quarantine unless accompanied by 

 certificate from an inspector that they are 

 free from disease. 



In attending the Charter Oak fair at 

 Hartford, Conn., recently, I was introduced 

 to a physician who told me that the med- 

 ical profession had recently discovered that 

 honey is one of the best remedies known 

 for nervous exhaustion, the patient taking 

 from a teaspoonful to a tablespoonful of 

 honey in a glass of water six or seven times 

 a day. 



On page 459, Aug. 1, INIr. Beucus has giv- 

 en in a single paragraph more truth about 

 the cause of swarming than has, perhaps, 

 ever before been condensed into the same 

 space, or possibly more than all that has 

 been written on the subject before. It tal- 

 lies exactly, too, with the conclusions I had 

 reached some time before. Indeed, I had 

 hoped to write up the subject when I had 

 time, for I believe that, with the knowledge 

 we now have, we may be able nearly or 

 completely to check swarming by natural 

 rather than artificial means. 



4?- 

 Hello, friend Doolittle! You say, page 

 454, Aug. 1, that to look up black or" hybrid 

 queens you sit down and examine the 

 combs until the queen is found, etc. Now, 

 then, I want to know if you can do that for 

 an hour when no honey is coming in, with- 

 out music about your ears in the key of 

 seven sharps. Yet we have been finding 

 them this season for many days, sorting out 

 the old or defective ones with great rapidity. 

 We use a queen sieve, and are not trou- 

 bled by robbing. You say, too, on the same 

 page, that a dark room keeps the color of 

 combs better than a light one. Goodness 

 me ! I thought the less color we had on our 

 surplus combs the better; while, poor igno- 

 ramus that I am, I have been keeping a 

 thousand combs in the light of a window 

 for the avowed purpose of getting rid of the 

 color; and as fast as they lose it I take them 

 down and replace with others. 



" Every one his own foul-brood inspector" 

 is the heading of an editorial, page 448, Aug. 

 1. A capital idea, surely; but the majority 

 of bee-keepers can not see — not that they 

 are without eyesight, but they have not 



been trained to look carefully enough to no- 

 tice the difference between healthy and 

 diseased brood. I find some intelligent 

 bee-keepers on the watch for it; but until 

 more than one bee-keeper in seven reads 

 some journal devoted to bee-keeping, not 

 much will be accomplished. I was sur- 

 prised when I began inspection work to dis- 

 cover how very few ever read or care to read 

 any thing about bees. Why! the ignorance 

 of the great majority of bee-keepers is be- 

 yond my powers of description. 



I visited a yard the last of May, which is 

 owned by a young man. He was not at 

 home, but I showed his father the disease 

 in various stages. When I was that way 

 again, the young man said his father show- 

 ed him the disease, but that he had to show 

 him the second time before he was sure of 

 it. To his credit let it be said that, when 

 he did see it, he went to work with a will 

 and cleaned out his yard in good shape. 



Page 415, July 15, the editor calls on me 

 to "describe exactly how to use" carbolic 

 acid to secure the best results. I can not do 

 better than give my experience in a single 

 instance. On the afternoon of July 24 I 

 rode with Earl M. Nichols from Lyonsville, 

 Mass., to Reedsboro, Vt., to inspect a yard 

 of some thirty-five colonies of bees. We 

 arrived in the midst of a heavy thunder- 

 shower, and could do nothing that day. 

 The next morning was clear, and the sun 

 was shining when not obscured by passing 

 clouds. Mr. Crozier, a very intelligent bee- 

 keeper in whose care the bees were, inform- 

 ed us that there had been no honey coming 

 in for some time, and it was almost impos- 

 sible to handle them in the open on account 

 of robbing; and he had a small inclosure 

 made of fine wire cloth where he could open 

 a hive when absolutely necessary. Most of 

 the hives had one or more supers which, ot 

 course, had to be removed to reach the 

 brood-chamber. The bees, as I understood, 

 were to be shipped later into Massachusetts, 

 where the law is very strict; besides, Mr. 

 Nichols would not want any bees with the 

 least suspicion of disease near him. The 

 bees were Italians with an unenviable rep- 

 utation for robbing. We worked leisurely, 

 examining every hive carefully, and, when 

 through, there were very few bees lurking 

 suspiciously about the hives. I had with 

 me a ten-per-cent solution of carbolic acid 

 and an atomizer. Before opening a hive I 

 would sprinkle a little of the acid on the 

 front of the hive and about the entrance, 

 or, more frequently, two or three at a time. 

 Possibly a much weaker solution would do 

 just as well, although I am not certain. 

 Now, I would not say that, if the acid had 

 not been used, there would have been high- 

 handed robbery; but it was an occasion 

 where, if ever, we would expect it. 



