SEPTEMBER 15, 1&14 



matter of vigor, just as a weakly man may 

 be immune to smallpox while a man of 

 great strength succumbs to it, merely be- 

 cause one has been vaccinated and the other 

 not. It is possible that Italians have been 

 through an experience nearly equivalent to 

 vaccination. So my answer to your question 

 is that I don't know whether any of my bees 

 are immune to European foul brood, but I 

 think not; and that, so far as I have observ- 

 ed, I have had no proof that there is any 

 difference as to immunity between Italians 

 and hybrids. 



THE SHAKING METHOD. 



" Did I try shaking as a cure? " Didn't 

 11 Hundreds of enq^ty frames boiled in 

 lye, and not yet filled again with combs, are 

 mute reminders of the many combs that we''e 

 shaken and the colonies that were treated 

 after the most orthodox manner of shaking. 

 But never again any melting-up of combs 

 for me on account of European foul brood. 

 It is a wanton waste entirely unjustified. 



BEES GETTING INTO THE WRONG HIVES. 



Your observations as to the mixing of 

 bees in neighboring hives are interesting 

 and important. Their importance relates to 

 the introduction of queens rather than to 

 disease. And right here I must make the 

 rather humiliating confession that, while I 

 was familiar with the fact of such mixing, 

 I had always been of the opinion that it 

 Avas the older rather than the younger bees 

 that did the mixing. Your very yellow bees 

 going astray when only seven days old is 

 something of a settler on that point. The 

 special point of importance with regard to 

 introduction is this: When one has an api- 

 ary of dark bees, and introduces an Italian 

 queen into one of his colonies, and then 

 finds dark bees among the young bees of the 

 colony with the Italian queen, he should be 

 very sure no young bees have entered from 

 other colonies before condemning his Italian 

 queen as impure. 



Another point of importance other than 

 its relation to disease is your observation as 

 to bees mixing when hives are in pairs — 

 especially interesting to me as the father of 

 the idea of placing hives in pairs. You say, 

 " If one of a pair shows disease the ones on 

 the corresponding side of each adjoining 

 pair soon shows it lightly." For the sake of 

 beginners, let me exjDlain that more fully. 

 In my apiary the hives are in pairs. No. 1 

 stands as close to No. 2 as it can without 

 touching. Then there is a liberal space be- 

 tween 2 and 3 ; 3 and 4 are close together in 

 a pair; then a space between 4 and 5, and 

 5 and 6 are in a pair. A bee belonging to 

 No. 3 will not make the mistake of entering 

 No. 2 or No. 4. If it goes wrong at all it 



781 



will enter No. 1 or No. 5, because No. 1 and 

 No. 5 are on the same side of the pair as its 

 own hive, and so look more like its own hive 

 than either No. 2 or No. 4. From the center 

 of No. 1 to the center of No. 3 is a little less 

 than 6 feet; likewise all the other pairs are 

 the same distance apart. Now suppose we 

 place the hives singly at what we consider 

 the most desirable distance apart. Accord- 

 ing to what has been said, if we now put 

 another hive beside each hive already plac<?d, 

 there will be no more danger of bees enter- 

 ing the wrong hive than if we had left the 

 hives single. In other words, putting the 

 hives in pairs enables us to get twice as 

 many on the same giound as placing them 

 singly. 



In actual practice the likelihood is that 

 there will be less mixing with hives in pairs 

 than Avhen placed singly, simply because 

 one is likely to give more room to a pair 

 than to a single hive. 



What you say about the way the disease 

 is spread looks reasonable. Yet I am bound 

 to say that my observations last year do not 

 corroborate any too strongly that view. In 

 May there were 16 cases of the disease scat- 

 tered among my 83 colonies. According to 

 your observation one would expect that, be- 

 fore the season was ended, the number 

 should have been doubled or trebled. In 

 fact, there were only 8 more fresh cases 

 during the entire season. I am wondering 

 if it may not be that my pairs were further 

 apart than yours. 



At any rate, it is safe to say that, where 

 the disease appears, strong emphasis should 

 be put upon the importance of spacing 

 hives well apart, and of putting them in 

 pairs. For putting them in pairs on the 

 same area of ground just doubles our secur- 

 ity against mixing and thus spreading the 

 disease. 



INSERTING A QUEEN-CELL OF ITALIAN STOCK 

 SAME DAY THE OLD QUEEN IS KILLED. 



Replying to your question, if you kill the 

 queen in a fairly strong colony not badly 

 diseased, and give a cell of good Italian 

 stock the same day, I should expect a cure 

 with few exceptions; and a virgin just 

 hatched might be as good. But in a mild 

 case, if the queen is good it is not desirable 

 to kill her. In a bad case the queen is likely 

 to be poor, and should be killed; but in a 

 mild case she is not affected. I didn't kill 

 a queen in any case last year. In a few 

 cases I did as you say — took away all brood 

 and young bees, allowing the old bees to fly 

 back to the queen ; but I gave some brood 

 from healthy colonies, though I don't like 

 the plan as well as the one I used in the 

 majority of cases. 



