AUGUST 15, 1914 



61d 



Dr. C. C. Miller 



ITEAY STMAW! 



John E. Roebling asks: "In liiving a 

 swarm on sealed brood, would it be all right 

 to take a hive-body of said brood right off 

 another hive — where it had been placed 

 about ten days previously over excluder — 

 without shaking off adhering bees, or would 

 the swarm be likely to kill said bees?" I 

 should not expect any fighting. 



Bulletin No. 92 of United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture, by Dr. G. F. 

 White, is one of great interest. It shows 

 that 145.4 degrees F. kills European foul 

 brood; 208.4 kills American foul brood; 

 136.4 kills sac brood ; and 134.6 kills nosema 

 disease. This is with the stipulation that the 

 given degree of heat be maintained continu- 

 ously for at least 10 minutes. That settles 

 it that bringing diseased honey to the boil- 

 ing-point, and keeping it there for 10 min- 

 utes, will kill either of the four miscreants. 



The liquor crowd are fond of telling, as 

 quoted on page 567, what a large number 

 of people would be affected if their business 

 should be killed. I wonder if they realize 

 that the more people engaged in it, and the 

 more grain used in it, the stronger the argu- 

 ment for killing it, and for killing it now. 

 According to their way of thinking (or at 

 least talking) if there are but a few thieves 

 and thugs, throttle 'em ; but if they are 

 sufficiently numerous, give 'em full play, or 

 at least go no further than to " regulate " 

 'em. 



JosiE Gray succeeded last year by return- 

 ing all brood and bees next day to the 

 swarm, p. 353. It's dollars to doughnuts 

 that the plan will not succeed this year. But 

 you say. Mi*. Editor, that if the plan is 

 continued there will be weak colonies from 

 the failing of old queens. Why shouldn't 

 the bees supersede the failing queens, just 

 as they do in my apiary, where every good 

 queen is superseded by the bees? [Bees will 

 supersede failing queens, but the point is, 

 that many are not superseded until the colo- 

 nies have become so weakened that they 

 are not profitable as honey-producers. For 

 this reason many beekeepers replace all 

 queens when two years old. Now, doctor, 

 we really thought that you did this, or at 

 least that you replaced your failing queens 

 with young and vigorous ones. How about 

 it?— Ed.] 



A PRIME swarm issues about 3 days before 

 the first virgin leaves her cell, says British 

 Bee Journal, p. 214, May 28. The accepted 

 tradition on this side, following Quinby, is 



(hat the prime swarm issues about the time 

 the first cell is sealed, or 7 to 8 days before 

 the emergence of the first virgin. I suspect 

 that the bees don't follow either rule, but 

 vary greatly. Certainly that is true of my 

 bees. Up to June 25, 12 colonies have 

 swarmed. As to 8 of them I know that they 

 swarmed from 7 days or less to 12 days or 

 less after the first egg was laid in a queen- 

 cell, the average being 9.62 or less. But in 

 every case their first cells were destroyed. 

 If they had not been destroyed, the suppo- 

 sition is that they would have swarmed 

 sooner. As to the time from the laying of 

 the eggs in the second set of cells up to the 

 time of swarming, I can give it for the 

 whole 12 cases. It varied from 2 days or 

 less to 11 days or less, averaging 6 days or 

 less. More data and more exact data are 

 needed on this point. 



A Californian asks if I had handled foul 

 brood in Europe and America, and found 

 that foul brood was foul brood in either 

 place, how I would name the other. He has 

 none now unless it be the New York bee 

 disease, for which he asks help. I want to 

 say emphatically that foul brood is not al- 

 rvays foul brood in the sense that it is always 

 the same disease. It would be much simpler 

 if " black brood " could have been left as the 

 name of the New York disease, which is now 

 called European foul brood, and " foul 

 brood " had remained the name of the other 

 disease now called American foul brood. 

 The important point is that effective treat- 

 ment for European foul brood will not do 

 at all for American foul brood. 



Here's the treatment for European foul 

 brood that works here as well as any thing 

 I know : First, no matter whether the case 

 be severe or mild, make the colony strong. 

 In a severe case, kill the queen ; and as soon 

 as the colony recognizes its queenlessness, 

 say within 24 hours, give a ripe queen-cell, 

 or, immediately at the time of killing the 

 queen, give a virgin not more than a day old 

 or a cell in a protector. That's all ; the bees 

 will do the rest. In a mild case, make the 

 colony strong, and cage the queen in the hive 

 for a week or ten days. Only that. But 

 don't expect the disease to be at once and for 

 ever stamped out. Last year I had the 

 disease in a mild form in about one colony 

 in four ; this year in about one in twenty. 

 [This treatment is very simple; but if you 

 had used only vigorous Italian blood instead 

 of part hybrid would you not have been 

 entirely free from the disease by this time? 

 —Ed.] 



