1070 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 15 



abundant material in beedom — brains and 

 product — to make the League a great suc- 

 cess. Don't wrangle among yourselves. 

 Forget your little differences in the great 

 cause. Make your motto, "Co-operate and 

 advertise." You may then rightly expect a 

 bright future for honey. 

 Medina, Ohio. 



MOLD. 



How it Grows ; is it Detrimental to Bees ? 

 BY F. G. SMITH. 



Knowing that many bee-keepers regard 

 the bees as able to clean up moldy combs 

 and make them as good as new, I wish to 

 give the result of my observations, and my 

 reasons for regarding it as an unsafe prac- 

 tice to follow. 



First, let us consider the nature of mold. 

 It is not a chemical product that can be pro- 

 duced at will by bringing about the right 

 conditions, but it is a living organism, and, 

 like all forms of life, is the product of pre- 

 existing life. It also produces, as do all 

 other forms of life, more of the same kind; 

 and, under favorable circumstances, the in- 

 crease is very rapid: under others there is 

 no reproduction at all. The vital germs of 

 reproduction are not contained, as in the 

 case of the higher plant growths, in a true 

 seed, but are in the form of spores; and 

 these spores are very minute, and have the 

 power of remaining dormant for a time, to 

 spring into life at the first favorable chance, 

 and increase with a rapidity unknown in the 

 higher forms of life. 



Thus it follows that, for mold to exist, 

 there must be both the spores present and 

 favorable conditions for their development; 

 and the more spores and the more favorable 

 the conditions, the more mold we shall have, 

 and the more spores to produce mold. Safe- 

 ty, therefore, lies in keeping the mold out 

 of our hives and not letting it get a start at 

 all. If we fail in this the next best thing is 

 to destroy every trace of it. Can the bees 

 be trusted to do this? I think not— not but 

 that they may in a good many cases do so, 

 either by carrying it away or making it too 

 dry in the hive for it to grow. But the fact 

 that it does grow in the hive with bees 

 shows that the spores often escape destruc- 

 tion by them. The covering of the germs 

 with honey or comb does not kill them, for 

 they will go through a comb and so spread 

 on both sides of it at once from a common 

 center. 



Then it naturally follows that, the more 

 mold there is in the hive, the more likely it 

 is to get the start of the bees during a cold 

 damp spell, and the more time they will 

 have to spend over it when they might oth- 

 erwise be at work gathering honey or rear- 

 ing brood; and my experience satisfies me 

 that, when one uses moldy combs, he is 

 much more apt to be troubled with mold 

 again. Of course, we can not always keep 

 mold out of our hives any more than we can 



keep weeds out of our farms; but the more 

 weeds we let go to seed on our farms, the 

 more trouble we shall have with weeds in 

 the future; and it is reasonable to suppose 

 it is the same with mold. 



This year I had some hay that got wet 

 after it was bunched up, and in the bottom 

 of the bunches were some moldy spots. 

 When I drew it, some of these spots were 

 so small that I paid no attention to them. ■ 

 One load was quite damp, and I let it stand 

 on the wagon several days. When I did un- 

 load it, some of those little spots had spread 

 nearly across the load, and had ruined near- ■ 

 ly half of my hay ; yet there were places in ■ 

 the load where there were no moldy spots ■ 

 put in, and no mold appeared there, though ■ 

 the conditions were just as favorable for its * 

 growth as where it was. because there were 

 no spores present, and so they could not 

 grow. 



It taught me a lesson, and I said that, 

 hereafter, I would not draw in any more M 

 spots of moldy hay if I knew it; and I would I 

 burn moldy combs and disinfect with a 

 strong germ-killer every hive that became 

 moldy. Then I would open them to the sun 

 and air for a time, and then kill any scent of 

 the germicide with the scent of anise or 

 something else that the bees like, before 

 using. Perhaps a good sun bath might be 

 sufficient for the bare hive and the frames if 

 the sun were hot, as sunshine is a great 

 germ-destroyer; but I would not risk it un- 

 der unfavorable circumstances. 



Blanchard, Mich. 



[What you say about mold in general is 

 correct; but it is seldom, I think, that it 

 does any damage in the hive. Nearly every 

 spring there will be a sort of blue coating or 

 mold on some of the combs in the hives; 

 but I could never discover that they were in 

 any manner detrimental to the bees. There 

 is another mold that we find on a mass of 

 dead bees that means no good to the live 

 ones. There is still another mold that is 

 found on combs affected with pickled brood. 

 Such combs should be melted up, not neces- 

 sarily to get rid of the mold, but of the dis- 

 ease itself.— Ed.] ^ 



MOVING BEES TO OUTYARDS WITHOUT 

 CLOSING THE ENTRANCES. 



The Plan a Success, but some Precautions Need 

 to be Observed. 



BY E. F. ATWATER. 



Mr. Root:— Yon ask for the experience of 

 those who have moved bees without shut- 

 ting them in the hives. I first heard of this 

 method through Rambler's article telling 

 how Mr. Stearns, of Selma, Cal., moved his 

 bees. Then a year or two ago friend A. T. 

 Pennington, of Arcadia, Oregon, told me of 

 moving bees in that way. 



This spring, having several yards to move, 

 we put the method into practical use, always 

 on a spring wagon. Our method is to sub- 



