September, 1917 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



673 



„i,es fr,„„ LESSONS OF FIFTY YEARS 



Fort Plain 

 is the home of 

 P. H. Elwood, 

 one of the most 

 prominent of the 

 New York bee- 

 keepers. He is 

 now in his seventieth year, and has been 

 keeping- bees for more than 50 years. His 

 first connection with bees was in 1862, when 

 a bee-tree was found and 100 pounds of 

 honey obtained. 



Mr. Elwood and Capt. Hetherington 

 formed a partnership which was continued 

 for five years. The former had made a 

 start in beekeeping with the old box hive; 

 but during the partnership, coming in fre- 

 quent contact with Moses Quinby, who lived 

 but ten miles away, they decided to use his 

 liive. Mr. Elwood is even now using the 

 Quinby hive (altho he owns others) secured 

 when buying bees. At the start they bought 

 bees which proved to be diseased with 

 American foul brood. Hetheringion ad- 

 vised running them for extracted honey on 

 account of the disease, altho only three 

 weeks before the close of the white-honey 

 harvest, removing the queens and allowing 

 all the brood to hatch, then shaking the bees 

 from the combs and destroying the latter. 

 But the trouble practically disappeared, 

 and, therefore, they decided to Avinter them, 

 and that was the last they saw of the disease. 



In reply to a series of questions (for I 

 knew that such disappearance of the disease 

 must be a very rare occurrence), Mr. El- 

 wood said that there was no question about 

 its disappearance, and that it was undoubt- 

 edly American foul brood, for Quinby, 

 Hetherington, and Elwood all knew the dis- 

 ease. They claim that (altho rarely the 

 case) if the bees clean out the larvae 

 promptly after they die, and before they be- 

 come ropy and sticky, the colony may be 

 cured. This may explain Avhy some have 

 found that combs from colonies with Amer- 

 ican foul brood can sometimes be used with- 

 out spreading the disease ; and there have 

 I)een cases in Avhich an insp^ector lias pro- 

 nounced a colony .slightly diseased, and 

 later no disease could be found. Mr. James 

 Armstrong, one of the most etlficient in- 

 spectors in Ontario, told me that if a dis- 

 eased cell is stirred up with a toothi5ick, 

 destroying or in a measure breaking up its 

 adhesive contents, it is possible that the cell 

 might he cleaned out by the bees. In fact. 

 Hetheringlon and Elwood bought and used 

 a lot of combs that had besn in contact with 

 the disease. However, I do not for a mo- 

 ment think that any of the above gentlemen 



qA Famous Pioneei in Beekeeping 



Interviewed, Tells oj Many Things 



'Done and Learned 



By R. F. Holtermann 



would advise de- 

 pending .u p o n 

 the bees to cure 

 American foul 

 brood. 



The s e c 11 d 

 season the part- 

 n e r s continued 

 to run for ex- 

 tracted honev and had an average of 112 

 liounds of honey which sold at 15 cents per 

 pound in kegs. During the same season 

 one colony produced 582 pounds of extract- 

 ed honey, the colony gaining 57^/4 pounds in 

 two days while the basswood flow was on. 

 Nearly all the surplus for the season was 

 produced from bassAvood, as clover had been 

 largely a failure. 



PRICE OF COMB HONEY. 



Then they engaged in comb-honey pro- 

 duction, and during those years they re- 

 ceived an average of about 5 pounds of 

 comb honey per colony. The first season it 

 sold at 28 cents per pound, the honey being 

 built and sold in two-comb glassed boxes 

 which were weighed with the honey and sold 

 at the same price. 



INCREASE. 



Ever since the box hive was dropped they 

 made increase artificially and sought to pre- 

 vent natural increase. The combs in the 

 brood-chambers were examined and the 

 queen-cells broken down. This method of 

 prevention of swarming was practiced 44 

 years ago. Shade for the hives was also 

 used as a preventive. As above stated, they 

 used the large Quinby hive which had a 

 capacity of 100 pounds of surplus on the 

 sides and one story on top. Occasionally 

 they tiered up. The plan was to take the 

 partly filled sections at the sides and finish 

 them on top. 



ITALIAN BEES. 



The first year Elwood was in partnersliip 

 with Hetherington they decided to get rid 

 of their black bees, and, therefore, Elwood 

 bouglit an Italian queen from Quinby and 

 reared queens from her. Her progeny did 

 splendid work, and Mr. Elwood has us?d 

 Italian blood ever since. There were, how- 

 ever, so many black bees about that tli? 

 Italians could not be kept pure. 



PARTNERSHIP DISSOLVED. 



This partnei-ship lasted five years, during 

 which time they increased to about 400 

 colonies and secured an average of about 50 

 pounds of comb honey per colony, altho 

 the price received was gradually lowering. 

 The size of the section was also reduced. 

 The first single section was 5^4x51/4x2 

 inches, and held about two pounds of 



