330 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



May, 1917 



8. Agents and dealers in supplies to 

 Older immediately in order to anticipat? 

 their season's needs and to sliip to beekeep- 

 ers goods with utmost promptness. 



9. Producers to order necessary supplies 

 early, and to order standard goods to save 

 time at the manufacturing plants. 



10. Beekeepers to supply themselves with 

 a liberal quantity of containers immediately 

 in order that the present seeming shortage 

 in tin and glass ware may not prevent the 

 sale of their crops. 



11. Every beekeeper to sell as much of 

 his honey as possible on home markets. 



12. Those who sell honey at wholesale not 

 to sell their honey until they have fuU in- 

 formation concerning the needs of whole- 

 sale markets. 



These recommendations conclude with 

 the following appeal : " We call upon all 

 beekeepers, and all those whose chief inter- 

 est is the upbuilding of tlie beekeeping in- 

 dustry, to redouble their efforts to increase 

 the importance of beekeeping as an agri- 

 cultural industry which conserves a valu- 

 able national resource, and which produces 

 a non-perishable, wholesome food." 



WE CANNOT URGE too strongly the 

 largest possible production of honey this 



year. It is the 



A CALL FOR 



HELP TO 



BEEKEEPERS 



l^atriotic duty of 

 every beekeeper 

 in the land to 

 'attend the na-i 

 t ion-wide call for increasing and conserving 

 the food resources of the country — and at 

 the same time he will be doing himself an 

 excellent turn. " The rapidity with which 

 the unusually large honey crop of last year 

 was sold," says Dr. E. F. Phillips, " does 

 not indicate danger from overproduction, 

 even in times of peace, and there is every 

 reason to expect that 1917 will see a good 

 lioney market." 



Dr. Phillips, of the Bureau of Entomol- 

 ogy, Washington, D. C, has just issued a 

 public letter on " The Necessity for Increas- 

 ing the Honey Crop," in which this timely 

 advice is given beekeepers : 



Beekeepers should do their utmost this year to 

 increase production, not only hy increasing the 

 number of colonies in so far as it can be done with- 

 out decreasing the crop, but especially by giving 

 their bees the best of attention. Those who have 

 their bees in box hives are being urged, so far as 

 they can be reached, to adopt the modern equip- 

 ment, but this will be valueless unless they at the 

 same time adopt modern practices. Natural swarm- 

 ing should be curbed as much as possible, and 

 increase should usually be made by artificial division. 

 The crop may often be materially increased by giv- 

 ing the bees plenty of room for storage, for gather- 



ing often ceases when bees are overcrowded. In 

 tliis regard many commercial beekeepers are not 

 doing their best. Those owning only a few colonies 

 may profitably increase the number of their colonies, 

 but they should remember that, without intelligent 

 care, bees will not be profitable, except in rare sea- 

 sons. The tendency at present is rightly to encour- 

 age the professional beekeeper, who knows how to 

 get the most from his bees. The professional bee- 

 keeper, and those who wish to enter this class, should 

 at once consider the establishment of additional 

 apiaries, care being exercised not to overstock any 

 one locality. To those who have not begun out- 

 apiary management, this year promises to be a good 

 time to make the start. 



The beekeepers of America will hear the 

 special call directed to them in this year of 

 war and world-wide want, and will not fail. 

 Of this we are certain. 



UNDER THIS TITLE, Mr. F. R. Beuhne, 

 Government Apieulturist of Victoria, re- 

 views the work 

 NOSEMA done in a study 



APIS IN of an adult dis- 



VICTORIA ease of bees. 



The paper ap- 

 pears in the Journal of Agriculture of the 

 Department of Agriculture of Victoria for 

 last October. 



The discovery of Nosema apis by Profes- 

 sor Zander and the work done on the organ- 

 ism by the English investigators naturally 

 caused the Australian beekeepers to wonder 

 whether the death of adult bees, which they 

 observed in 1909, was due to this organism. 

 The Government Biologist, -Mr. W. Laidlaw, 

 found the organism and this caused some 

 alarm. However, it was found that the 

 protozoon was present in 86 apiaries out 

 of 88, from which bees were examined, and 

 in many of these apiaries no dwindling of 

 colonies was observed. This is also known 

 to be true in the United States. This indi- 

 cates either that the English investigators 

 were mistaken, that Australian and Ameri- 

 can bees enjoy an immunity to the organism, 

 or that climatic differences account for the 

 variations observed. Recent work by 

 Rennie and Anderson in Scotland throw 

 considerable doubt on the conclusions of 

 the English investigators. 



In tliis paper, Mr. Beuhne outlines ex- 

 periments conducted in 1915-16, in which 

 nineteen colonies containing Nosema apis 

 were removed to a new location, while five 

 infected colonies were left belund. Of the 

 five, two dwindled away and the otliers freed 

 themselves of Nosema. Of the nineteen, 

 two were accidentally lost thru robbing, 

 and the last examination showed Nosema in 

 only one colony. One of the nineteen died 

 of starvation. " Even badly affected colo- 

 nies may completely recover under favorable 



