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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



J. E. Crane 



I IF TINGS I Middlebury, Vt. 



We are glad of the introduction we are 

 given in the May 1st issue to Charley Repp. 

 I like to see a man with a backbone strong 

 enough to defy the liquor interests of the 

 country. Three cheers for Charley Repp ! 

 * * * » 



We were blest with a wonderful yield of 

 dandelion honey during May. Strong colo- 

 nies filled their hives, and many crowded 

 the queens. This is something I have known 

 but once before in fifty years. As a result, 

 bees have built up very strong, and the 

 outlook is good. 



I ran across an enthusiastic young bee- 

 keeper last week. He started in some two 

 or three years ago, and foul brood cleaned 

 him out, I believe, twice, without giving him 

 a cent of profit; but last year he started 

 anew, buying seven new colonies free from 

 disease, and increased them to 21, and se- 

 cured 500 lbs. of surplus honey. He has 

 wintered every colony, and I have not seen 

 a healthier or thriftier lot of bees this 

 spring. 



* * * « 



An interesting page is 329, May 1, by 

 Doolittle, on the prevention of swarming by 

 removing brood. It has seemed to me that 

 those who have recommended this method 

 have rather overdone the matter. In my own 

 experience I have had but poor success in 

 securing combs filled with brood when pla'^ed 

 in the center of a hive after the season of 

 swarming arrived. Befort; ibis time there is 

 something gained with prolific queens and 

 a strong colony in an eight-frame hive. 



« « » « 



GOOD AND BAD COMBS. 



The question of good combs is not the 

 only spoke in the wheel of successful bee- 

 keeping, but n is an important one, and 

 Arthur C. Miller has done well to call our 

 attention anew to iLis important subject. 

 A bee inspector meets with constant sur- 

 prises. One of the things that constantly 

 surprise me is that any one should pay out 

 his hard-earned money for a movable-comb 

 frame hive and then allow the bees to build 

 such crooked combs that they become im- 

 movable. Or why do they buy and put bees 

 into movable-frame hives and then never try 

 to move or handle such frames? Or, again, 

 as Mr. Miller says, why use combs with such 

 quantities of drone-cells as we often find? 

 Only last week I opened a hive and found 

 two frames of drone brood, most of it with 



sealed brood, besides more or less in other 

 places in the hive. I estimated there were at 

 least 6000 cells of drone brood, to say noth- 

 ing of a great horde of drones already 

 hatched. 1 often find such combs near the 

 center of the brood-nest, so the colony can 

 begin rearing drones very early in the sea- 

 son. Mr. Miller says he keeps his drone 

 combs as far from the brood-nest as he can, 

 so the bees will not use it until late in the 

 season. The same amount of labor and food 

 would, in the hive I have mentioned, have 

 produced 9000 workers; and the difference 

 between 9000 producers and 6000 consum- 

 ers would amount to considerable. What 

 would we think of a dairyman who could 

 keep a herd of twenty should he keep fifteen 

 cows and five steers? or the poultryman who 

 should allow a large per cent of his flock to 

 be roosters? 



PROBLEMS IN FOUL-BROOD INSPECTION. 



Mr. W. N. Randolph, page 333, May 1, 

 lays down some vigorous rules for cleaning 

 up foul brood. I cannot help wondering if 

 he has had any experience with it. One bee- 

 keeper whom I visit had one colony diseased 

 last spring. He burned combs, hives, and 

 all, and then buried the ashes, but I find it 

 again in his yard this year. In one district 

 last year I destroyed every colony I found 

 diseased; but I have found just as much 

 this year. Sometimes we find almost every 

 colony in a township diseased. Shall we 

 destroy all? 



An inspector is often up against some 

 knotty problems. The scorching of the in- 

 side of a hive with a torch is all right, and 

 I presume the painting would answer; but 

 how about the thousands of bees from a 

 diseased colony? These bees have been 

 walking over diseased combs, drawing out 

 the dead larvae, tearing open cells contain- 

 ing dead and putrid larvae — in fact, getting 

 in as close touch with the disease as it is 

 possible for them to, their bodies covered 

 with hairs just right for carrying bacteria, 

 and yet we never think of t."orching their 

 bodies or painting them; but if they con- 

 sume all the honey they carry with them, 

 there is little danger of their taking disease 

 to a new hive, we are told. 



How about the colonies in trees, church 

 steeples, or cornices of houses, as I was 

 shown the other day? I believe as the edi- 

 tor says on the same page, in a footnote to 

 Mr. Hershiser's article, " Education along 

 apieultural lines will do more good to elim- 

 inate foul brood than anything else." 



