1062 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



J. E. Crane 



SIFTINGS I Middlebury.Yt 



Honey seems to be moving more 

 readily than a year ago, notwith- 

 standing the larger crop. 



« » * 



" European foul brood is a 

 respecter of persons,'' says Wes- 

 ley Foster, page 910, Oct. 1, and 



he is right, 



» * * 



An item in a recent number of the Rural 

 New-Yorker speaks of the great value of 

 sweet clover in subduing Canada thistles. 



■s * * 



Arthur C. Miller's observation and ex- 

 planations, pages 931, 932, Oct. 1, are so 

 entertaining and enjoyable that I honestly 

 believe it pays to stir him up occasionally. 



* * * 



T was glad to learn from Gleanings, 

 Oct. 1, page 903, that glass is being elimin- 

 ated from section honey. It always seemed 

 to me a swindle to sell so much glass for 



honey. 



* * * 



That is not a bad idea of Dr. A. F. Ronney 

 on getting schoolchildren to write an essay 

 on honey, and offering a prize for the best. 

 We are certainly getting practical these 



days. 



* » * 



Reference is made, page 902, Oct. 1, to 

 wintering bees under snow. Our experi- 

 ence has been that the more snow about 

 hives the better, providing the entrance 

 slopes away from the hive so water will run 

 away from the entrance. 

 » « * 



We have had fairly good success in in- 

 troducing virgin queens into full colonies 

 at once after removing the old queen, by 

 Mr. Baldwin's method of immersing in 

 honey and pouring down honey with the 

 queen. I believe this method is going to 

 prove of great value where we wish to 

 supersede old queens. 



* * * 



It has been a lot of work to weigh every 

 section of our honey this fall, and place the 

 different weights in several different grades ; 

 but it is something of a pleasure to know 

 that every buyer will get every section in 

 the same case of the same weight and qual- 

 ity. Another thing I notice, 11 and 12 

 ounce sections of honey look much better 

 when packed by themselves than when 

 packed with heavier honey. Small apples 

 by themselves may be No. 1; but packed 



with large apples they are most emphati- 

 cally cidls. 



HOW DANGEKOUS IS SACBROOD? 



Prof. Burton N. Gates calls our atten- 

 tion, page 913, Oct. 1, to the great loss to 

 beekeepers from sacbrood, a subject of 

 more than ordinary importance. The whole 

 subject of sacbrood is usually treated as a 

 small matter, and dismissed as " nothing but 

 a little sacbrood." The facts are, it is al- 

 ways a serious drawback to the prosperity 

 of a colony, and many times nearly as 

 destructive as American foul brood. While 

 it is thought to be of small consequence, 

 we could hardly expect much interest to 

 be taken in any remedy that might be of- 

 fered. The disease has such an elusive 

 character of appearing and disappearing 

 that any attempt to cure it has seemed 

 like fighting the air. Some years we have 

 not found half a dozen cells of it, and again 

 it has interfered seriously with the sucoess 

 of many colonies. One beekeeper I know 

 destroyed the old combs in one hundred col- 

 onies in one season to get rid of foul 

 brood, and very successfully, too ; and the 

 next season I believe half of the hives con- 

 tained sacbrood. Where did it come from? 

 I don't know. I have sometimes thought 

 we were more apt to find it in new combs 

 than in old, so that there would seem to be 

 a poor show of cleaning it out by shaking 

 on to foundation. Where we have had very 

 bad cases of it we have of late sometimes 

 broken them up, destroying the combs. 



With this disease, as with European 

 foul brood, I believe we shall find the 

 most satisfactory treatment in removing 

 the queen where there is a serious loss 

 from it, and requeening with more resistant 

 strains. 



Sacbrood is often mistaken for foul brood. 

 While writing the above paragraph on 

 sacbrood I received a letter from Mr. Ivan 

 Robinson, of Pembroke, N. H., saying he 

 had found some very suspicious-looking 

 brood in one of his hives that he feared 

 might be foul brood, as the colony had dead 

 brood, and had failed to store much honey. 

 He had destroyed every bee with brim- 

 stone, and put the honey in a safe place. 

 Later I received a sample of the brood, 

 which proves to be sacbrood. The sample 

 of brood received was in this year's comb; 

 and if he had destroyed only the queen, 

 and had given another of resistant quality, 

 he might have had a good colony another 

 year, free from disease. I cannot help ad- 

 miring his thoroness, however. 



