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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 1 



help matters any. The only proper thing to 

 do when these troubles da come is to face 

 them with a determination to overcome any 

 and every obstacle that comes in your way; 

 then when success rewards you for your 



Perseverance, how pleasant it is to look 

 ack over the past and realize that you 

 have accomplished all you labored for! I 

 hope that you who have this disease in your 

 apiaries will give this treatment a thorough 

 trial next season, and please report the re- 

 sult of your trial to Gleanings so that eve- 

 ry reader of it will have your opinion of the 

 method. 



In my next article I will call your atten- 

 tion to some of the possibilities of bee-keep- 

 ing; and in doing so I think I can show at 

 least some of you how you can realize more 

 net profit from an apiary of one hundred 

 colonies than many obtain from apiaries of 

 several hundred. For some time I have ex- 

 pected some one would take hold of this 

 subject and write a series of articles telling 

 us how we might add much to our present 

 income. If in my attempt to accomplish 

 this I fail I shall have the consolation of 

 knowing it was in a good cause; and if I 

 succeed it will afford me much comfort to 

 think I have added my mite toward helping 

 my brother-man. 

 Delanson, N. Y., Oct. 7. 



[I wish to call our readers' attention to 

 the fact that there are two or three impor- 

 tant factors in administering this treatment. 

 The first is Italians, with a preference for 

 the extra -yellow stock. Experience has 

 shown in thousands of instances that black 

 bees are very much more prone to get this 

 disease in the first place, and when they do 

 get it they are more liable to succumb to it 

 than Italians or Carniolans. Put this fact 

 down big. 



Second, the bees must be given time enough 

 to polish up — that is, disinfect their combs 

 in anticipation of a laying queen ; for, as 

 Mr. Alexander points out, the bees must not 

 be allowed to have a queen until after 20 

 days of queenlessness. The rationale of this 

 is thorough cleansing and disinfection. Dur- 

 ing the 20 days that intervene, the bees are 

 constantly expecting a queen, and therefore 



Eolish and repolish up the cells ready for 

 er. This scrubbing apparently cleans out 

 all the old germs of the disease. During 

 the interval of twenty days the nurse-bees 

 use up all the chyle, or larval food, contain- 

 ing a taint of the disease. 



Now right here this question may come 

 up. When brood-rearing stops in the fall, 

 there is not only 20 days without brood, but 

 many times 20. Why. then, should these 

 same colonies next spring, as they have re- 

 peatedly, come down with the disease? Mr. 

 Alexander explains it in this way: When the 

 queen stops laying in the fall, the bees do 

 not polish up the combs as they do in the 

 height of the season, when the bees are 

 fairly howling for brood or eggs. The 

 combs are left smeared with dead brood; the 

 stuff dries on hard, and is not removed till 



the subsequent spring; but in the height of 

 the laying season or brood-rearing season the 

 combs are cleaned up, when the dead matter 

 can be removed in a sort of viscid state, and 

 before it has been glued fast to the walls of 

 the cells. Mr. Alexander and myself talked 

 it over in company with no less a bee-keep- 

 er than P. H. Elwood, who was present one 

 of the days when I was at Mr. Alexander's 

 yards. On no other ground can be explained 

 this cure, except, possibly, that the disease 

 might have run its course at the Alexander 

 yard, the same as many infectious diseases 

 do. But when we understand that black 

 brood continues on in other yards in the im- 

 mediate vicinity where this treatment has 

 not been applied, we are almost forced to 

 the conclusion that the Alexander plan has 

 a great deal to do with the disappearance of 

 the disease. 



Another fact that seems to be a part of the 

 treatment is that of the removal of the old 

 queen. In view of the fact that it always 

 pays to requeen at least once in two years, 

 and sometimes oftener, we can hardly count 

 the destruction of the old mother an actual 

 loss. The only loss we can figure on at all 

 is the absence of all brood for 20 days; but 

 this does not compare with the nuisance and 

 expense— the great expense— of destroying 

 thousands and thousands of good combs as 

 well as the frames containing them. Even 

 if we melt them up the return is small com- 

 paratively. Then there must be the foun- 

 dation, which, according to the McEvoy 

 treatment, must be cut out at least once, 

 compeUing the bees to try again. 



Up to the present time the McEvoy treat- 

 ment was considered the most effective, but 

 not a cure in many cases. The reason for 

 this is not hard to understand. The de- 

 struction of the old combs and the compelling 

 of the bees to draw out two sets of foun- 

 dation involves the cessation of brood-rear- 

 ing at least a week and probably longer, 

 and, at the same time, the entire removal of 

 the source of infection that might be jn the 

 old combs. But the treatment too often 

 failed because the germs of the disease 

 would still reside in the alimentary tract of 

 the bees, sufficient time not having elapsed 

 (20 days). As soon as the young larvae re- 

 quire feeding, the larval food itself would 

 be liable to have the germs and reinfect the 

 young brood. 



Another interesting fact is that Italians 

 are more proof against the disease than the 

 blacks; and why is this so? Probably be- 

 cause they are less inclined to rob, but more 

 probably because they do a more thorough 

 job of housecleaning than the native bees 

 of this country. 



The question may naturally arise now, 

 whether or not this Alexander treatment 

 would not prove equally efl^ective in the cape 

 of foul brood. We do not know. Mr. Al- 

 exander is somewhat doubtful, for the rea- 

 son that the dead matter of foul brood forms 

 a more tenacious glue (and hence an almost 

 insoluble coating that the bees can not re- 

 move) than the coating formed by black 



