350 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 15 



"backbone of the country," and should be 

 protected. It seems to me that now is the 

 time for wise diplomacy. There is very lit- 

 tle honey in this city. It could be brought 

 here greatly to our gain, and to no detri- 

 ment to the producers here, while the peo- 

 ple in general would be immense gainers. 

 The reciprocity scheme should be brought to 

 the front. I believe it could be so handled 

 as to aid greatly both America and Germa- 

 ny, and injure neither. It is a subject 

 worthy our biggest men. A great brainy 

 man could formulate a plan that would help 

 both countries immensely, and would, at 

 the same time, cement a friendship that 

 would be a great blessing not only to the 

 bee-keepers of America but to all classes in 

 both nations. 



KAISER WILLIAM IT. 



The present Kaiser is doubtless one of the 

 greatest men of the world. He is a great 

 advocate of learning, and even more enthu- 

 siastically in favor of Christ's gospel. He 

 has not only won the enthusiastic admira- 

 tion of his own people, but the profound re- 

 spect of the entire world. Under the influ- 

 ence of his reign Germany has made gigan- 

 tic strides in all productive and commercial 

 enterprises. She is rich and prosperous— 

 only 35 years old, and yet in some ways- 

 many ways— she has distanced all competi- 

 tors in the race for what makes a people 

 greatest. Yet in his surcharge of faith in 

 the army, in his distrust of the people— so- 

 cialists— who are, for the most part, true, 

 worthy, and patriotic, he is very wide of the 

 mark. The American student of Germany 

 has no call to be envious or covetous. 



Berlin, Prussia. 



HOW THE BEES ARE WINTERING. 



As I predicted before, bees are wintering 

 badly here. In one apiary I was asked to 

 look at, 35 per cent were dead by Feb. 10, 

 with a strong probability of a number more 

 dying before spring. In another apiary, 

 where I made only a hasty and superficial 

 examination, I think fully 75 per cent were 

 dead at the same date. As bees usually 

 winter here with very little loss, this heavy 

 mortality, following a season of total failure, 

 will come as an unpleasant surprise to some 

 who have looked upon the possession of bees 

 as a sure road to wealth. 



DOES FOUL BROOD AFFECT THE MATURE 

 BEES? 



We are accustomed to look upon foul brood 

 as a disease of the larvee only. It is hard to 



explain the only practical methods of cure 

 on any other basis. Some of the scientists 

 claim to have discovered the bacilli of the 

 disease in the bodies of mature bees and 

 queens. Practical men generally have not 

 adopted their views, and some of them have 

 questioned whether the bacilli found by the 

 microscopists may not be the result rather 

 than the cause of the disease, the real cause 

 being yet undiscovered. I have been some- 

 what inclined to that opinion myself; but 

 there is one thing that looks favorable to 

 the theory that the adult bees may be dis- 

 eased. This is that a colony that is even 

 slightly affected with foul brood, only a few 

 cells showing the disease, is much more 

 likely to die in wintering than a colony that 

 is perfectly healthy. On this account it is 

 decidedly unsafe to attempt to winter over 

 such colonies, as they are quite liable to die, 

 be robbed, and so scatter the disease. [I 

 note that the scientists have stated that the 

 germs have been found in the virus of the 

 queens and in the alimentary tract of ma- 

 ture bees. I should be inclined to believe 

 that those colonies that had a cell or two of 

 foul brood did not winter- kill because of any 

 direct effect of the disease, but, rather, be- 

 cause, like a colony without a queen, they 

 were discouraged. You know that a queen- 

 less colony will perish much quicker than one 

 having a queen, long before there is any 

 chance of brood being reared or eggs being 

 laid. -Ed.] 



QUEEN- REARING BULLETIN. 



I am in receipt of Bulletin No. 55 of the 

 Bureau of Entomology by E. F. Phillips, Ex- 

 pert Apiculturist. This is entitled "The 

 Rearing of Queen-bees," and is a very read- 

 able and practical presentation of some of 

 the latest and best methods of queen-rear- 

 ing. This bulletin may be had free by ad- 

 dressing the Department of Agriculture at 

 Washington, and it will pay every bee-keep- 

 er to have it. It is evident that no mistake 

 has been made in selecting Dr. Phillips to 

 have charge of this department during the 

 absence of Prof. Benton. 



WHICH IS THE TOP OF A SECTION? 



There has been considerable discussion in 

 the bee- journals as to which side up a sec- 

 tion should go. I have always been accus- 

 tomed to see sections with the lock corner 

 down, and it came as a distinct surprise to 

 me when another bee keeper asked me in 

 sober earnest why I put my sections in the 

 supers upside down. It seemed that he had 

 always been accustomed to the other way, 

 though he could give no reason for it fur- 

 ther than that somebody had told him that the 

 lock corner should go on top. To me a sec- 

 tion with the lock corner up has a curiously 

 ungainly and one-sided look, though that is 

 perhaps only a matter of education. Per- 

 haps the ordinary person would not notice 

 the matter at all, though I think that the 

 greater symmetry of the section that has 

 the joining down is one of those fine points 

 that add to the attractiveness of an article, 

 though it may seem unimportant and almost 



