July, 1917 GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 527 



FROM THE FIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



T believe I was the first to introduce 

 Italian bees into Texas. I imported two 

 queens thru Rev. H. A. King, then of New 

 York city. It Avas in 1871. Some years 

 later, and, to ray almost certain knowledge, 

 before there were any Italian bees in Travis 

 County, I found my Italian bees, a number 

 of them, working on sumac about fourteen- 

 miles from my apiary. My small establish- 

 ment was then two and a half miles east of 

 the capital at Austin. I was eleven or 

 twelve miles west of the capital, across the 

 river and in the mountains at the time. 

 The character of the country east of Austin 

 is totally different from that west. The 

 geological formation is different. A great 

 geological fault exists between the place I 

 occupied and the capital. On my side of 

 the fault all vegetation was dry and parch- 

 ed. In the mountains conditions were much 

 better. The bees had discovered the fact 

 and were taking advantage of it. 



Huntsville, Tex. E. P. Stiles. 



A Visit to Charles E. Stewart, of Johns- 

 town, N. Y. 



My first meeting with the New York bee- 

 keepers and my first visit to their state was 

 at the state convention held at Rochester, 

 in 1882 or 1883. There I met for the 

 first time, L. C. Root, P. H. Elwood, G. M. 

 Doolittle, Mr. N. Betsinger, and other prom- 

 inent beekeepers. That meeting impressed 

 me as being made up of strong men, of men 

 who knew what they were talking about. 

 Since then it has been my good fortune to 

 attend many such conventions in New York, 

 either as a private individual or as one 

 engaged by the State Department of Agri- 

 culture, and I do not hesitate to say that I 

 owe a good deal of apicultural information 

 to the New York State beekeepers. 



It is quite well known that the policy of 

 the State Department of Agriculture has 

 been to appoint for inspectors four bee- 

 keepers of good standing and of undoubted 

 practical experience. Their practical ex- 

 perience and the information acquired from 

 year to year during their rounds of inspec- 

 tion has made them very valuable men in- 

 deed. This fact, has often been called to my 

 attention. To illustrate, I may mention 

 that, in speaking of the long experience of 

 these insijeetors, Dr. G. F. AVhite said, " So 

 far as I know, these four men have never 

 diagnosed a case of bee disease wrongly." 

 I was also told tliat not only had they nam- 



ed each case correctly but that, again and 

 again, in consultation and separately, they 

 had determined, before the disease struck 

 a given section of the country, just what 

 inroads would be made on certain apiaries. 

 These decisions were based upon the strain 

 of bees and the skill of the owner. Such 

 men as these may, then, be considered 

 among the best authorities in the world; 

 and having been entertained by one of 

 them, Chas. E. Stewart, a 500-colony bee- 

 keeper, I shall endeavor to give some of his 

 ideas on European foul brood and also on 

 fall feeding. 



PREVENTION OF EUROPEAN FOUL BROOD. 



Mr. Stewart told me of one of his neigh- 

 bors wlio was right in the midst of a section 

 where European foul brood abounded, and 

 still had never been obliged to treat a colony 

 for this disease, altho he did have a few 

 mild cases that were cleaned up by the bees 

 themselves. And yet it seems that this 

 apiai-y was very poorly managed, that it 

 had twice changed hands, that some of the 

 com.bs in use were over twenty years old, 

 and that the owner succeeded in producing 

 only one pound of comb honey to three 

 pounds produced by Mr. Stewart in an api- 

 ary but one mile distant. Time and again 

 the inspector had gone there expecting to 

 find his services needed, but his expecta- 

 tion was never realized. However, altho 

 this man was not an extra good beekeeper, 

 still his exemption can probably be explain- 

 ed by the fact that he chanced to have a 

 predilection for buying queens wherever he 

 thought there was a good strain. 



ITALIAN QUEENS FOR AMERICAN FOUL BKOOD. 



Notwithstanding Italian queens are such 

 a factor in preventing European foul brood, 

 Mr. Stewart thinks that it would be folly 

 to depend upon them to get rid of Ameri- 

 can foul brood. Still they might clean up 

 the disease in its first stages, as they have 

 been known to remove the affected larvae be- 

 fore it reached the gluey stage when it 

 fastens to the side and bottom of the cell. 



IMMUNITY. 



He believes that the extent to which the 

 disease will affect a certain colony depends 

 upon, first, its vitality as indicated by its 

 ability to winter under strenuous conditions; 

 second, its house-cleaning propensities, in- 

 cluding the cleaning -out of the diseased 

 larvfB. 



SPREAD OF EUROPEAN FOUL BROOD. 



In speaking of Avhat causes the spread 

 of the disease, he said that he frequeritly 



