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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



apiaries, and only a small erop from the 

 oilier two apiaries. 



The symptoms are not the same as for 

 bee paralysis. The bees tremble but very 

 little, and are not as shiny, and but few are 

 swollen. In fact, some bees that look 

 healthy in every way run out of the en- 

 trance, but are unable to fly, fall off the 

 alighting-board, and crawl away. 



After trying different treatments without 

 any results I have come to the conclusion 



that the only cure is settled warm weather 

 for a few days. I positively know cool 

 rainy weather causes its appearance, for 

 the next two seasons whenever we had 

 several days of weather that confined our 

 bees to the hives the disease would reap- 

 pear. Fortunately, the last two seasons I 

 haven't had a trace of the disease, altho it 

 still gives me the chills when the weather is 

 favorable for its appearance. 

 Elmendorf, Texas. 



TREATING BEE PARALYSIS IN WASHINGTON 



BY MRS. A. A. GOOD 



I do not think the old or new disease that 

 has been so bad in western Washington this 

 year is in my apiary. From the description 

 I have read in the journals at different 

 times I think my bees have paralysis. The 

 first I saw of it was in 1911 in a colony 

 whose queen was raised from an egg of a 

 queen I got from Texas. Every year since 

 then, except this year, I have bought one 

 or two queens from the East, and in nearly 

 every colony where I have queens raised 

 from the eastern queens the disease has ap- 

 peared, and once a year afterward it broke 

 out in the colony where I had put the 

 eastern queen. I have never had it in my 

 native bees. I say " native " because my 

 bees are descendants of bees taken from 

 the woods. They are not black bees. They 

 are as good-looking Italians as any that 

 were hatched from the eggs of the Italian 

 queens I bought, except the golden. 



When the disease first starts there appear 

 a number of small black shiny bees with 

 their wings slightly spread, and some of 

 them trembling. Then there will be bees 



with distended bodies, some trembling, and 

 some stupid ; and, if let alone, the colony 

 will dwindle away. I cure it by killing the 

 queen and giving them sealed brood and a 

 queen-cell from a healthy colony. I have 

 tided introducing a queen, but have never 

 been successful in getting one accepted in 

 a diseased colony. 



The spring of 1915 was the best one in 

 my apiary that I have seen in my seven 

 years of beekeeping. The bees built up 

 well and stored some honey in April. Then 

 it came off dry. By June they had used up 

 all their stores in brood-rearing, and in 

 July I had to feed a number of colonies or 

 they would have starved. I have often 

 wondered if hunger and poor honey did not 

 have something to do with this new disease. 



There was a two-weeks honey-flow in 

 August, and the most they gathered was 

 honey-dew off the leaves of the alders, and 

 that is all they have in their hives now; 

 but our winters are mild, and I hope the 

 bees will come out all right in the spring. 



Lakewood, Wash. 



A SUCCESSFUL SULPHUR TREATMENT OF NOSEMA APIS 



BY 0. S, DAVIS 



The bees about here have Nosema apis, 

 Isle of Wight disease, just plain paralysis, 

 or something, all right. I have seen a hun- 

 dred colonies at one time in our apiaries 

 affected; that is, the bees were sick, crawl- 

 ing over the ground in all directions, and 

 dying everywhere. Some colonies were very 

 much worse than others, and our best colo- 

 nies were often the worst affected. Some 

 of the bees were shaking as with the palsy, 

 others were slick and shiny, some had dis- 

 tended abdomens, and some had a pinehed- 

 up appearance. Queens became affected 



and soon died. In a few hives the brood 

 died — from chilling, I think. 



We tried sulphur according to the A B 

 ( ' and X Y Z — i. e., we took the brood away 

 and sulphured the bees thoroly. They gen- 

 erally died. Then a neighbor beekeeper told 

 us to put sulphur on the alighting-board, 

 but it did not work very well. So we got 

 a sulphur-machine that my brother uses to 

 blow flowers of sulphur over the grapevines 

 to fight mildew. This machine blows a fine 

 spray of sulphur with considerable force 

 right into the mouth of the hive. We treat- 



