OCTOBER 1, 1010 



Oil 



BEEKEEPING AMONG the ROCKIES 



Wesley Foster, Boulder, Colorado 



foul brood, alt ho it rages all around you. 



THE FALL FLOW. 



Bees liave gathered some honey 

 in September this year; but the 

 man who has not provided extract- 

 ing-combs for bees has secured lit- 

 tle of it, as comb-honey supers are 

 not the thing for such a slow flow. 



The quality of winter stores is good, and 



wintering promises to be good. 



THE ALFALFA WEEVIL. 



The Government bulletin on the " Con- 

 trol of the Alfalfa Weevil " states that the 

 infested area is widening about ten miles 

 per year. There seems to be no way of 

 preventing the spread of this pest, so we 

 shall all doubtless suffer sooner or later. 



The center of infection is in Utah and 

 has extended into Idaho, but has not reach- 

 ed Colorado — that is, it has not been official- 

 ly reported to have reached Colorado. A 

 western-slope farmer told me he had a 

 piece of alfalfa infested by the weevil; but 

 if so, the authorities had not yet found it 

 out. 



BOULDER C0U2s^TY FAIR EXHIBIT. 



The Apiary Department of the Boulder 

 County Pair was well taken care of this 

 year. Mr. D. W. Sj^angler was the able 

 superintendent and Mr. J. C. Aikin, of 

 Loveland, judged the exhibits. Entries were 

 made in nearly all classes. The exhibit of 

 fancy comb honey was the best the writer 

 has seen anywhere. First premium for the 

 best six cases of fancy comb honey was won 

 by Milton Cantonwine, of LongTnont, and 

 second premium by A. J. McCarty, of 

 Longmont. Mr. Seph Francis, of Lofig- 

 mont, got first premium for best and largest 

 exhibit of apiary products. A feature of 

 the exhibits was the use of honey in canning 

 and cooking. The educational value of this 

 is not small. 



Thursday, September 7, Seph Francis 

 and W. H. Foster, of Boulder, gave live-bee 

 demonstrations before interested crowds. 



EUROPEAN FOUL BROOD A RESPECTER OF 



PERSONS. 



European foul brood plays favorites with 

 beekeepers more than does American foul 

 brood. European foul brood is a respecter 

 of persons, and American foul brood is not. 

 If you are an alert, up-to-date beekeeper, 

 keeping all eolonias strong, and headed by 

 young queens of resistant stock, you can 

 be reasonably free to laugh at European 



You will need to be a queen-breeder, and 

 also to be prepared to feed your colonies, 

 should a lull of sufficient importance occur 

 in the flow. It seems no strain of bees is 

 absolutely immune unless you give them a 

 chance, and a good chance too. 



It behooves every beekeeper, whether he 

 is ten miles or five hundred from apiaries 

 infected with European foul brood, to se- 

 cure resistant stock of Italians, and keep 

 young vigorous queens of this stock in his 

 hives. It will pay in honey crops, and be 

 insurance against European foul brood also. 



One interesting fact concerning the 

 spread of European foul brood is that the 

 diseased district in Colorado has moved, so 

 far, only to the eastward. The area of dis- 

 eased apiaries has moved eastward three or 

 four miles, and, so far as known, has not 

 spread westward at all. The bees fly in an 

 eastward direction in the spring, as the wild 

 flowers are more profuse on the hills to the 

 east in this locality. The direction of the 

 prevailing wind is eastward in the daytime 

 and westward at night in this diseased local- 

 ity. What effect may the wind have on the 

 spread of the disease? As the bees are a 

 fair grade of Italians, European foul brood 

 has spread very slowly in the last two years, 

 and it should be possible to prevent its 

 further spread and stamp it out. We shall 

 .see what the result will be. 



This disease, we think, is being brought 

 under control in Colorado, and it may be 

 possible to prevent its spread to other parts 

 of the state. The infected apiaries are still 

 confined to an area not more than five miles 

 in diameter. The beekeepers have purchas- 

 ed hundreds of queens of golden stock, and 

 are getting results. The majority of the 

 beemen are learning to handle the disease 

 and will be able in the future to secure 

 crops of hioney, even tho some disease may 

 he present. 



We have no success to report from caging 

 queens. Removing the brood and requeen- 

 ing seems to have good results. Keeping 

 colonies strong and uniting weak ones for 

 this purpose is essential. It is probably not 

 necessary to destroy combs; but those badly 

 i?ifected had better be destroyed. It is much 

 clieaper to practice a few short-cut methods 

 than keep the disease always present, even 

 if it is under control. It is certainly a 

 ideasure to see beekeepers get control of 

 the disease by inlroducing new stock of 

 queens and improved apiary i)ractices. 



