March. 1922 



THE evolution 

 of the per- 

 fect brood- 

 comb, by H. H. 

 Root, commenc- 

 ing on page 79, 

 February Glean- 

 ings, is what I 

 have been look- 

 ing for for many 



months, and is of great value. Tracing the 

 various efforts that have been made by va- 

 rious persons to secure the perfect founda- 

 tion for a perfect comb during the past 50 

 years, he gives a very complete history, in 

 brief, of the whole subject. The candor and 

 conservatism of this article lead us to be- 

 lieve that the merits of the "wood-base 

 foundation" have not been overdrawn. The 

 next question we ask is, ' ' Can this wood- 

 base foundation be manufactured at a cost 

 that beekeepers can afford to use it in place 

 of that now in use?" 



* * * 



On page 83, J. L. Byer speaks of the many 

 kinds of pests "that afflict almost all kinds 

 of rural industries, ' ' so that it requires 

 "eternal vigilance" to keep one from going 

 under. He is quite right. The potato has 

 its beetles and blights; the apple tree has, 

 it is said, more than 150 enemies; the plum, 

 its eurculio; wheat, its blight; the cotton, its 

 boll weevil; domestic animals, their dis- 

 eases; bees, foul brood; and so on to the 

 end of the chapter. Besides insects and 

 blights, bacteria and microbes, there are 

 storms and tempests, floods and drouths, 

 and sometimes earthquakes thrown in for 

 good measure. Surely it looks as tho there 

 was some malign spirit abroad in the earth, 

 with power to make all the trouble possible 

 for us mortals. But it is not so. These dif- 

 ficulties are for our good, and our efforts to 

 overcome them have helped to make the 

 rural population of America the most intel- 

 ligent and enterprising in the world. Take 

 the boll weevil that has invaded the South 

 and within a comparatively few years was 

 thought to be a national calamity; it is now, 

 if I am correctly informed, considered a bless- 

 ing instead. It has in much of the South- 

 land revolutionized farm life, compelling the 

 cultivating of a large number of crops in the 

 place of cotton, requiring greater intelli- 

 gence and in the end producing greater com- 

 fort and wealth. 



* * * 



The beekeepers of the country owe a debt 

 of gratitude to Arthur C. Miller for his 

 painstaking experiments in curing European 

 foul brood, as given on pages 86 and 87. I 

 believe any one who has had much experi- 

 ence with this kind of disease will be ready 

 to admit that there is a virulent type of 

 European foul brood that does not readily 

 give way to the dequeening and Italianizing 

 method of treatment. It is simple, inexpen- 

 sive and appears to be practical. This type 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



157 



of disease has 

 doubtless much 

 to do with the 

 contradictory ex- 

 perience of bee- 

 keepers in try- 

 ing to clean up 

 European foul 

 brood. For one 

 I am glad Mr. 



Miller recognizes it as a distinct type. 



* * * 



E. F. Atwater, on page 85, discusses the 

 advisability of removing the old bees from 

 a colony before winter. Well, is it desir- 

 able? We know* a strong colony will win- 

 ter more successfully than a small one; and 

 yet, if we put two strong colonies together 

 in the fall, we do not feel at all sure that 

 the double colony will be any stronger the 

 next June than either one would have been 

 if wintered separately. During the fore part 

 of winter the old bees will help keep the 

 colony warm and in fact all winter, if the 

 hive is well protected, but they drop out 

 very quickly when they begin to fly in 

 spring. This should be the rule; but those 

 old bees are more restless than the younger 

 bees and may (and, I believe, often do) set 

 up a restless condition in the colony, so that 

 the colony is worn out before spring. So 

 we may have two colonies side by side 

 equally strong in the fall, and find one win- 

 tering well and the other very badly. Let 



us have young bees for winter if we can. 



* * « 



On page 75 is a short editorial on the Gov- 

 ernment Bulletin 998 that merits every bee- 

 keeper 's attention, as it relates to the en- 

 ergy produced by bees under different con- 

 ditions, and the tremendous amount of en- 

 ergy required by bees during a good flow of 

 honey. I used to wonder, as doubtless 

 many others have, when we first began to 

 read of flying machines why such high 

 horsepower engines. were required — 50, 75 or 

 100 and over, just for one man to fly. So 

 we may learn from the bee how much energy 

 is required for flight, as well as the value 

 of honey as fuel. 



* s » 



"From North, East, West and South," the 

 reports are very favorable for a bumper 

 crop for 1922. It would seem as tho con- 

 ditions were more than usually favorable. 



How much we are indebted to the kindly 

 criticism of other beekeepers for our knowl- 

 edge of our business! These criticisms have 

 been like steppingstones to a broader 

 knowledge of the science of beekeeping we 



might not otherwise have acquired. 



* * * 



Bill Mellvir may be a rustic jay, but his 

 method of insuring his bees against freez- 

 ing when his "honey crop is sold" is wor- 

 thy the attention of every beekeeper; be- 

 sides he is able to beat Walt Mason at his 

 favorite trick. See Nov. and Jan. issues. 



