Dec. 1. 1911 



717 



peration I happened to think of carbolic 

 acid, and made a strong sokition in water, 

 pouring it on the floor and letting it follow 

 the honey down. In a very short time the 

 place was rid of them. Tlais was an eye- 

 opener as to what could be done with the 

 stuff. 



CARBOLIC ACID IN CASE OF ROBBING. 



About as lively a time at robbing as I ever 

 saw was at a fellow bee-keeper's house one 

 day. I happened to arrive after the bees 

 were thoroughly aroused, and in a short 

 time it would have been too late. 1 procur- 

 ed a cloth, soaked it in a strong solution of 

 acid and water, and stuffed it into the en- 

 trance so that only one bee at a time could 

 pass. The trouble was soon over. I gave 

 instructions that the cloth should be kept 

 soaked until the next day, however, to drive 

 away the prowlers, and the colony which 

 otherwise surely would have been lo^t was 

 saved. 



IN TRANSFERRING, OR IN TREATMENT OF 

 FOUL BROOD. 



I keep carbolic acid constantly on hand 

 for cases of robbing, but use it to the be-t 

 advantage in the treatment of foul brood, or 

 in transferring from old box hives where it 

 sometimes happens that little particles of 

 honey have dropped, and where, during a 

 lull in the honey-ilow, robbers are bound to 

 be about. With a liberal spraying of the 

 mixture around the hives to be treated I 

 have no trouble. 



I am pleased to see that friend Crane has 

 taken hold of this, and feel sure that he will 

 find it a great help. The atomizer may be 

 all right, but I prefer the sprinkling can. 

 Acid is cheap, and I like to use jilenty of it. 

 I treated ten colonies this fall without a par- 

 ticle of trouble in an apiary of 28, when no 

 honey was coming in. 



OPEN-AIR FEEDING IS WASTEFUL. 



Much is said about stimulative feeding, 

 but I do not remember ha\ing read any 

 thing in regard to dry sugar — that is, sugar 

 that has been moistened, but not enough io 

 become dissoh ed. Two years ago I fed 500 

 lbs. of sugar by the open-air method as an 

 experiment. I was busy away from home 

 at the time, and would feed before I left in 

 the morning. At night it would be all gone, 

 and I thought I had struck something rich. 

 Imagine my surprise later on, when examin- 

 ing the hives, to see scarcely any perceptible 

 change in the amount of stores in any of 

 them. 



Not long aeo I discovered what had be- 

 come of that 500 lbs of sugar. In liquefying 

 some candietl honey, some of it ran out in 

 the steam-vat; and, rather than throw it 

 away, I set it out for the bees. It was a 

 sunshiny day, so it was not long before they 

 were living up to their reputation, going in 

 and out as fast as their legs and wings \\ ould 

 take them. About 4 o'clock I went out to 

 see how they were progressing, standing so 

 that they weteflying between nieand i he sun, 

 and so t could see the little drops falling like 

 rain. My theory is that they gorged them- 



selves so that they could not carry it to the 

 hives, and dropped it on the way. No more 

 open-air feeding for me. 

 Hartford, Conn. 



BEE-KEEPING EXTENSION. 



The Bettering of Bee-keeping in Belgium. 



BY DR. BURTON N. GATES. 

 Massachusetts AaricuUiiral College, Amherst, Mass. 



During the last decade particularly, an ef- 

 fort has been made to bring within the 

 knowletlge of the laymen the most recent 

 results of agricultural investigation. In the 

 United States various methods have been 

 tried. Many agricultural colleges now have 

 special departments devoted to this kind of 

 teaching. Some educators are skeptical as 

 to the ultimate outcome of these methods, 

 yettheresultsof agricultural-extension work 

 are not new in Europe. Belgium particular- 

 ly has developed the method and given it a 

 long trial. As never before, most concen- 

 trated attention is turned toward the dis- 

 covery of the most effective and economic 

 methods of extending agricultural educa- 

 tion. 



As a new subject in this instruction, there 

 seems to be an oi)portunity to present bee- 

 keeping to the public, and thereby accom- 

 plish a greater organization, better bee-keep- 

 ing, larger i)roduction, and more handsome 

 returns for the apiarists. For years the sub- 

 ject of bee keeping has had attention, even 

 in Belgium, one of the smallest countries in 

 Europe, where most astonishing results fol- 

 lowed. These are set forth in detail in a re- 

 cent paper entitled L' Agriculture Beige de 

 1885 a 1910.* 



The results as presented in this paper have 

 been translated by J as. A. Stedman, Assist- 

 ant Farmers' Institute Specialist of the Of- 

 fice of Experiment Stations, United States 

 Department of Agriculture, and presented 

 under the heading, "The Results of Agri- 

 cultural Extension in Belgium," in the an- • 

 nual report of the office of Experiment Sta- 

 tions for the year ending .June 11, 1910.t 



It will be well to consider that Belgium 

 is about equal to the States of Vermont and 

 Delaware combined, and has a population 

 equal to that of the six New England States. 

 About one-fifth of the people are engaged in 

 agriculture, having small holdings. The 

 measures which have enabled agricultural- 

 extension work were adopted in 1885, since 

 which time the most remarkable increase in 

 agricultural productivity and valuation of 

 lands is apparent. This remarkable im- 

 l)rovement, it is maintained, is attributable 

 to the measures adopted in 1885. The re- 

 port gives a summary of the results of sev- 

 eral phases of agricultural industry during 



* L' Agriculture Beige de 1885 6, 1910. Monographies 

 publi^es A Toccasion du XXV. annlversaire de I'ln- 

 stitution du Service des Agronomes de r^tat. Lou- 

 vain: Imprimerie Fernand Giele. rue de la Station 

 15, 1910. 



t Washington, 1911, pages 425 to 447, 



