62 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



January, 1917 



rHEADS""OF""GRM?ri ?jFR0M^g jnD^ FIELDS 



way these minerals and salts can be assimi- 

 lated by the human system is in the food 

 we eat. Doctors' prescriptions cannot sup- 

 ply a deficiency in these elements. They 

 must be obtained in our food. Honey is 

 the only natural sweet. Even maple sugar 

 is prepared by boiling. White sugar has 

 been clarified until these salts are eliminat- 

 ed. These salts and minerals and other 

 very volatile substances are found only in 

 their proper proportion, and so they can 

 be assimilated in honey, fruits, nuts, vege- 

 tables, and such foods as may be eaten in 

 their uncooked state. Eugene Christian 's 

 book on food chemistry explains these mat- 

 ters very clearly and fully. 



Halley, Colo., Oct. 24. C. Stimson. 



Cc: 



Treatment for My husband kept bees 



the Two for fifteen years. Two 



Brood Diseases years ago he died. 



Foul brood bothered 

 him more or less all the time. This spring 

 I hired a beeman from California. He 

 claimed to be an expert. You know bees 

 in our locality have been in a bad condition. 

 This spring half of them were dead. Some 

 claimed that sour honey was the cause of it. 

 The man used all clean combs, and cut out 

 all foul-brood colonies. Over and over again 

 he exposed them to strong sulphur fumes. 

 Well, the man left about a month ago; and 

 while going thru the bees putting them into 

 winter quarters I found a new disease. Some 

 colonies again are foul. Black brood is 

 present — both kinds. Do you think sulphur 

 is a sure cure? We always destroyed every 

 comb from the ones that had American foul 

 brood, burned the hives out with a torch, and 

 boiled the frames. 



. If you run combs thru the extractor with 

 brood in, will it kill or dislodge the brood? 

 Will honey that is only half capped when ex- 

 tracted sour or ferment? He ran for ex- 

 tracted honey only, and worked it that way. 

 He never used an excluder, and extracted 

 when the combs were only partly capped 

 over. My husband raised only comi) honey, 

 and had good crops in this locality. 



If we had a foul-brood inspector in this 

 part of the country it would help us much. 

 We had hardly half a crop this year — all 

 clover with a little fireweed honey. It rain- 

 ed too much thru the summer; but the bees 

 gathered lots of honey later; but the most of 

 it is strong. Subscriber. 



Oak Point, Wash., Oct. 16. 



[It is probable that you had among your 

 bees both American and Eurojiean foul 

 brood. Some call the latter black brood. 



Sulphur would be of little value in disin- 

 fecting the combs. In the case of American 

 foul brood the combs must be melted up and 



the frames burned, the hives scalded or 

 burned out on the inside before they could 

 be used again. With the European foul 

 brood the case is a little different. The 

 treatment consists in keeping the colony 

 queenless for ten days and then requeening. 

 The process may have to be repeated; but 

 when a new queen is put in, it must be an 

 Italian queen of resistant strain. 



It is possible to extract from combs con- 

 taining brood; but where it is unsealed some 

 of the young brood will be thrown out with 

 the honey, and it will be scattered all thru. 

 It is usually not advisable to extract from 

 brood-combs, on this account. Honey that 

 has been half capped over may or may not 

 sour when extracted. It depends upon the 

 climate and the kind of honey. Some honeys 

 can be extracted when only parts of the 

 combs are capped over. Others should be 

 capped over entirely before being run thru 

 the extractor. — Ed.] 



Preventing Wires A year ago some one 

 from Sinking recommended that in 



into End-bars nailing a frame one of 



the nails thru the 

 upper end of the end-bar into the top-bar 

 and also the one thru the bottom-bar up 

 into the end-bar be not driven quite home at 

 first, but that the ends of the wire when 

 wiring be fastened by winding round these 

 nails and then the nails driven home. I 

 suppose the idea was to save the time taken 

 in picking up and driving two three-ounce 

 tacks; but I have discovered in trying the 

 plan that some time is lost in extra " fid- 

 dling " of the wires; besides, the wires are 

 not likely to be as tight as they should be. 

 I took two frames and wired one exactly in 

 accordance with these directions, the other 

 the same except that the ends of the wires 

 were fastened to three-ounce tacks driven at 

 the sides of the holes, so that the wire 

 from the holes to the tacks ran at right 



angles to the grain instead of with the 

 grain. Then I tried the " tune " of the 

 wires and found that they were tighter on 

 the frame where they were fastened to the 

 nails, as was shown by the higher pitch of 

 the middle wires on that frame, but that, 

 nevertheless, the top and bottom wires, 

 which felt the influence of the way of 

 fastening, were a trifle slacker on that frame 

 than on the one with the tacks. 



The difficulty in getting the wires tight 

 is that, when they run out of the holes 

 lengthwise in a direction lengthwise of the 



