April, 1909. 



American l^ee Journal 



the honey attracts the formic acid, and 

 thus the honey absorbs this acid while 

 ripening before it is sealed. Most of 

 this acid is absorbed by the honey from 

 the bees at the entrance when fanning 

 a current of air through the hive to 

 ripen the honey. The acid from their 

 stings is absorbed by that current of 

 air, and is, by the affinity of this honey, 

 absorbed by the honey. The wax has 

 nothing to do with it. Formic acid is 

 poison somewhat of the nature of salt. 

 Salt taken in large quantities is poison, 

 but is beneficial when taken in the right 

 proportion. So is formic acid. 



An all-wise Creator provided that the 

 bee should make a perfect sweet in the 

 proper manner, not interfered with by 

 the cunning of man, but the extractor 

 is man's invention, and does not add 

 to the value of the food, but to the 

 convenience of handling the product. 



I would much rather produce extract- 

 ed honey, and here in New Me.xico I 

 find that the production of the ex- 

 tracted honey is especially to be pre- 

 ferred, as cool nights hinder comb- 

 making, and I have been very sorry 

 that I did not take all my empty combs 

 with me from Illinois. But I find that 

 here, as elsewhere, the people prefer 

 comb honey. So I say, as I have said 

 before, to all, produce as much extract- 

 ed as your market will take at a .good 

 price, and educate people to use more 

 of the extracted article; but when you 

 have a good demand for comb honey, 

 supply that demand with the finest and 

 cleanest that you can produce. Both 

 comb and extracted honey are good and 

 wholesome, and people should use more 

 of it. That can't be disputed. But to 

 induce people to use more of it, you 

 should supply what they want ; but 

 whenever you influence people against 

 either comb or extracted, you hurt the 

 sale of both. 



So far I find that our mesquite is 

 our best honey-planf here, better than 

 our alfalfa. Mesquite grows only from 

 about 12 inches to 3 feet high, but I 

 almost had a bad "attack of the old- 

 fashioned bee-fever when I found that 

 bees came in loaded with fine nectar 

 from this mesquite for 6 weeks. In 

 fact, it was almost equal to a good 

 white clover flow for 6 weeks. But 

 what gave me the attack of the old- 

 fashioned bee-fever was the fact that 

 I had been able to purchase only one 

 not very strong colony to meet that 

 honey-flow. And what was worse, one 

 day when I was not near, they swarmed, 

 and about 2 barrels of water thrown 

 among that swarm would not convince 

 them that the J. E. Johnson Apiary was 

 the only place on earth for them to lo- 

 cate, and they pulled for the Guada- 

 loupe Mountains 60 miles away. I have 

 never heard from them since, but hope 

 they arc enjoying their new home. 



However, I built up 3 colonics from 

 what I had left, without any feeding, 

 but got only a little surplus. 



I find that alfalfa does fine here, and 

 we cut 4 to 6 times during the season, 

 but the second and third crops are about 

 the best honey-yielding cuttings. I 

 found that alfalfa one year old, in 

 bloom nicely in August, did not attract 

 a single bee, but older alfalfa had a 

 good number of bees working on it. 



Here we have little or no rain in 



April, May and the first half of June, 

 and as alfalfa begins blooming in April, 

 it yields better during those dry months. 

 Not only so, but you can't raise alfalfa 

 seed successfully after the rainy season 

 begins. We call July and August the 

 rainy season, because there are thunder 

 showers within sight of us 3 or 4 days 

 out of every week, and occasionally we 

 get a shower, and sometimes a good, 

 heavy down-pour. But the larger por- 

 tion of the showers are near the moun- 

 tains. After tliese rains begin seed does 

 not form well, neither does the alfalfa 

 yield much honey during those months, 

 so I will have to change my views 

 about Illinois alfalfa yielding honey. 



I have alfalfa growing luxuriantly in 

 ditches where water has run 6 to 12 

 inches deep for two weeks at a stretch. 

 It seems you can hardly drown alfalfa, 

 if it has just its head above water, but 

 if you cover it with water so that the 

 top can't get air, you can drown it, hut 

 not very easily. So I would say to Mr. 

 Dadant, you never had it too wet in 

 Illinois for alfalfa. But alfalfa is a 

 high-altitude plant, and I think the high 

 altitude with the very powerful ab- 

 sorbing atmosphere, is necessary for al- 

 falfa to yield nectar virell. 



You people in the low altitude don't 

 realize how absorbing this atmosphere 

 is. You can bring a brand new wagon 

 from Illinois here in March, and in May 

 every tire will fall off. After the wheels 

 have shrunk and the tires are rusted 

 they are all right. A woman with a 

 long clothesline, as she hangs out her 

 washin.g, can begin to take clothes in in 

 15 minutes after hanging them out. be- 

 ginning at the first end of the line. 

 So conditions are very different here. 



I succeeded in raising a fine patch 

 of alfalfa in Illinois, but it did not 

 yield honey. Prof. Hopkins wrote mc 

 that as yet he had failed to get a seed 

 crop. So while irrigating does not stop 

 the forming of seed in alfalfa here, rain 

 does. However, alfalfa that is intended 

 to produce seed, is not irrigated as 

 much, but is left pretty dry. Now if 

 during our rainy season we can't pro- 

 duce alfalfa seed and not get much 

 honey from its blossoms, I think you 

 may expect to get honey or a good 

 seed crop only in very dry years, or 

 when it happens to be very dry during 

 blooming time. I find that this mes- 

 quite, although it is of very hard wood 

 like hedge, the roots are very large, 

 sometimes 6 inches or more in diam- 

 eter. The top is only like a bush, but 

 it belongs to the legum or clover fam- 

 ily, and thus it is related to alfalfa, 

 and the soil has bacteria that work on 

 alfalfa roots and alfalfa does well, be- 

 cause the same bacteria work on the 

 roots of both. 



We have lots of flowers growing wild 

 all summer, and especially in the fall 

 and late summer. I can not name them 

 very well. Fruit-bloom is of 3 or 4 

 weeks' duration — apricots, peaches, 

 pears, plums, and apples of large or- 

 chards, from 100 to 200 acres; and as 

 mesquite comes at the close of the 

 apple-bloom, I consider it the most 

 valuable as yet. There are hundreds of 

 acres of mesquite, but as the country 

 improves, the mesquite will grow less 

 and alfalfa more. So far mesquite is 

 old, and the greater part of the or- 



chards and alfalfa is young. I think 

 alfalfa improves in yielding honey, as it 

 grows older. 



The ground does not freeze in win- 

 ter, but vegetation stops growing. There 

 is a little ice occasionally in the morn- 

 ings. Bees fly nearly every day all 

 winter, but as yet have consumed very 

 little honey. The winters are dry, and 

 bees winter fine.. 



This is the greatest place for auto- 

 mobiles I ever saw. The roads are al- 

 ways fine and often dusty. There is a 

 livery barn that has no horses — just au- 

 tomobiles. I have not yet been to 

 the mountains. The Guadaloupe (pro- 

 nounced Waluppe here) Mountains are 

 60 miles away, where there is much tim- 

 ber, some trees being 3 to 4 feet in 

 diameter. I have no doubt there are 

 some bee-trees there. New Mexico is 

 an old settled country. The house in 

 Sante Fe in which Gov. Curry lives, 

 was built in 1605, and is still in a good 

 state of preservation. Many years ago 

 when Gen. Lew Wallace was Governor 

 of New Mexico, he lived in this house 

 and wrote "Ben Hur." The writing 

 of "Ben Hur" was the means of the 

 writer's conversion from a disbeliever to 

 a Christian. Just think of a house still 

 in good use that was built 2 years be- 

 fore the Jamestown, Va., colony was 

 established! We hope to get State-hood 

 soon. 



I shall get more bees this spring. 



Davton, N. Mex. 



Foul Brood— How to Treat It 



BY M. M. EALDRIDCE. 



Manager N. E. France has sent me a 

 copy of the proceedings of the National 

 Bee-Keepers' Convention held in De- 

 troit, in October last. On page 72, I 

 find the following in regard to foul 

 brood, credited to R. L. Taylor : 



"If your colonies arc strong there is a way 

 to get rid of foul brood without much danger, 

 and, I think, with perfect safety so far as 

 the new colony is concerned, and that is Bald- 

 ridce's plan of using a hec-escape. You pre- 

 pare a hive for your colony with starters or 

 foundation, and place it upon the stand of 

 the colony that has the foul brood, setting 

 tliat one a little aside, putting the entrances 

 as nearly together as possible; then take into 

 the new" hive with the queen, to make a start, 

 sufficient bees to take care of the queen at 

 least and then put up a bee-escape upon the 

 front of your hive, having it in every other 

 way perfectly bee-tight. Then you have noth- 

 ing more to do but to let the bees come out 

 of themselves through the escape, and if you 

 place the escape properly they cannot return 

 to the foul-broody colony, but will go into 

 the new hive. Mr. Calridge uses that plan, 

 and says it is always successful. I have used 

 it in several instances, and have found it suc- 

 cessful." 



The foregoing, I suppose is word for 

 word as reported by the stenographer, 

 and may not be exactly as Mr. Taylor 

 gave the plan, or desired to give it. 

 This is why I stated in the beginning 

 that the plan is credited to Mr. Tayloi. 

 I am pleased to learn that Mr. Taylor 

 found the plan he describes successful 

 in treating foul brood, but I would not 

 be willing to advise any one to treat 

 tlie disease exactly in that way. I never 

 take the queen and some of the bees 

 away from the foul-broody colony to 

 start the new colony, and I see no ne- 

 cesity of doing so in any case. I prefer 

 to start the new colony by taking a 



