712 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1 



[I have been quite interested in reading 

 your excellent review of the different meth- 

 ods for the prevention of swarming, with 

 and without increase. The plan of jumping 

 one hive over another to catch the flying 

 bees in another hive, a la Sibbald, is not 

 new by any means, except in detail. Lang- 

 stroth himself, in the early editions of his 

 book, describes the main principle of this 

 plan; and the senior editor of this journal 

 tried it after Langstroth's instructions about 

 thirty years ago. You do not state, friend 

 S., whether you had any difficulty about the 

 bees finding their old entrances, as was 

 mentioned editorially in our last issue; nei- 

 ther do you mention the labor of jumping 

 one hive over another. Taking it all it all 

 I am just now inclined toward the brushed 

 or shaken swarm plan as originally an- 

 nounced by you. —Ed.] 



FOUL BROOD. 



How to Secure a Surplus of Honey from a Col- 

 ony of Bees Having this Dread Disease. 



BY HARRY W. CRAVEN. 



A great many bee-keepers all over the 

 country, when first they discover foul brood 

 in their apiaries, hold up their hands in hor- 

 ror because of the dread disease which 

 makes such havoc with the busy little work- 

 ers. Some of our largest apiculturists, who 

 have vague ideas of foul brood as meaning 

 utter loss of profits and sometimes their 

 livelihood for one year, when they discern 

 the dread disease in their yards commence 

 to cure the disease at any cost when there 

 is absolutely no need of it. 



While working last summer on one of the 

 large bee-ranches of Colorado, where foul 

 brood is almost synonymous with healthy 

 brood, I found a very effective and practical 

 method by which the bee-keepers of that 

 section made large profits from their foul- 

 broody colonies. I will t^ to tell as best I 

 can how it is done. 



Let us start in the spring when the bees 

 commence to fly out, say about the middle 

 of April. At that time the examination of 

 colonies is under way for feeding and weed- 

 ing out the foul-brood hives to be treated 

 later. Now comes the honey-flow. The 

 hives of foul brood, when first discovered, 

 have been marked "F. B." and date of the 

 discovery affixed. Before starting with an 

 operation let us first of all provide ourselves 

 with the following apparatus: First we need 

 a nice clean hive with frames of starters ; 

 then we obtain what is known as a transfer- 

 board. It is nothing more than a shallow 

 wooden tray, which will fit either an eight- 

 frame or a ten- frame hive. Fig. 2 shows it, 

 and it is very easily made with J strips for 

 the sides, and | stuff for the floor. After 

 the transfer-board we get pieces of lath and 

 make a chute, the length of the chute 

 depending on the distance of the hole in the 

 transfer- board when put on the new hive. 



and a snug fit to the alighting-board. Fig. 

 3 shows the chute and how it is made. 

 Please take careful notice of it, for it is a 

 most important factor in the operation, and, 

 last of all, we shall have to have a queen- 

 cage, for the queen must be confined for 48 

 hours. 



Now we have come to the operating-table. 

 Let us begin by first finding the true foul 

 brood— no guesswork about it as to whether 

 it is chilled, black, or pickle brood. When 

 we are sure we have the real thing we go 

 and bring the new hive with starters, also 

 the other necessities that go with the hive, 

 and place them within convenient reach. 

 Then we commence in earnest. We search 

 out the queen of the foul- brood colony and 

 cage her, putting the cage and the queen on 

 the bottom-bar of the middle frame of the 

 new hive. After we have done this we 



Transfer'Board 



[Chute, \ 



aack andFroni. 

 Fig.3. 



HIVE PREPARED FOR FOUL BROOD. 



remove the old hive and put the new hive in 

 its place. We now put the transfer-board 

 on and make sure that it is bee-tight. Then 

 we take the foul-brood hive and put it on 

 the transfer-board, and again see to it that 

 Mistress Bee does not have an ingress or an 

 egress to the top hive. Next we take up 

 the operation of shaking the bees from the 

 foul-brood combs before the new hive with 

 the queen caged in it. We, however, leave 

 a small per cent of bees in the upper hive so 

 that the brood will all be hatched and well 

 taken care of. 



As the bees in the foul-brood hive hatch 

 out they enter the chute through the hole 

 in the transfer-board, and come out of the 

 chute from the inside, or with their heads 

 turned toward the entrance of the lower 

 hive. Coming back with new honey they 

 enter the regular entrance, and go to swell 

 the force of workers in the field. 



We are all ready for putting on the chute 

 now. We put on the chute so that the hole 

 in it and the hole in the transfer-board will 

 come together, and care must be taken that 

 they do, or else the bees that will be hatched 



