July, 1909. 



American Hee Journal 



city had been selected as the place of 

 release because it was on the highest 

 cliff of a high plateau, and the parties 

 who made the wager evidently wanted 

 to give the best possible chances to those 

 pigeons of recognizing their direction. 



Again, on the transatlantic steamship, 

 when going to Europe, in 1900, I wit- 

 nessed the flight of half a dozen pigeons, 

 which were sent ahead, a day before our 

 arrival, to announce the ship. By pay- 

 ing a dollar, anj- of the passengers was 

 enabled to forward a short message to 

 his friends. The messages were all pho- 

 tographed in minute form, inserted in a 

 small tube and tied under the wing of 

 a pigeon. Did those pigeons reach home 

 by a "sense of direction" located in the 

 brain, or had they simply traveled 

 enough before being used, to be able 

 to recognize the direction to follow? 

 Let some others, better posted than I 

 am, give the reply. I, however, wish 

 to say that there is a limit to the "sense 

 of direction" either in pigeons or in 

 bees, and that the length of it surely 

 depends in great part on the configura- 

 tion of the country. 



It seems to me that a good place 

 to test the possible greatest length of 

 flight of bees after honey would be the 

 irrigated valley of one of our Western 

 States. In those districts where the 

 blooming region of alfalfa is bordered 

 by boundless dry wastes surrounding 

 a narrow valley, bees ought to go far- 

 ther than anywhere else, perhaps far- 

 ther than 8 miLs. But if I thought 

 my bees could or would go even 6 miles 

 in any direction regardless of obstacles, 

 and harvest honey profitably, I would 

 quit keeping out-apiaries and would not 

 hesitate to place even a thousand colo- 

 nies in one single spot. 

 Hamilton, 111. 



Foul-Brood Legislation 



BV DR. G. BOHRER. 



I see by the late Annual Report of 

 the Illinois State Bee-Keepers' Associa- 

 tion, that there is a difference of opin- 

 ion as to the propriety of there being a 

 foul brood law in that State. At any 

 rate, the details as to the matter of 

 specifying the length of time after foul 

 brood has been found in an apiary within 

 which the ailment must be treated, and 

 the disease .^tamped out. was a sub- 

 ject of controversy. If my judgment is 

 not very much at fault, this is a matter 

 that should be left for the inspector to 

 determine. If it be at a time when there 

 is a honey-flow, the treatment can not 

 be applied any too soon. If when there 

 is no honey coming in, and there is a 

 disposition to rob, it is plain to be seen 

 that the sooner the matter is dealt with 

 the better, as the disease will spread rap- 

 idly under such circumstances, if neg- 

 lected. 



Then, again, a colony may be quite 

 populous and well supplied with honey 

 in the fall, in which case I wintered a 

 colony over, and will this evening (June 

 9) put it under treatment after the 

 Ealdridge method. It is proper to state 

 that I treated this colony last Septem- 

 ber on the Ealdridge plan, but the bee- 

 escape I used (a Porter) was defective. 



and an occasional bee entered the hive 

 after having come out of it. By which 

 means, diseased honey was no doubt 

 carried into the new hive, and the dis- 

 ease with it. 



Others that I treated on the Baldridge 

 plan are perfectly free from it, and are 

 carrying in honey from alfalfa bloom 

 rapidly. I also see that one person as- 

 sumed the ground that treat the disease 

 as he may, it will appear again, which 

 position is an erroneous one. For scien- 

 tific investigation has abundantly shown 

 that foul brood is a germ disease, and it 

 has been also proven in thousands of 

 cases that when the germs are exter- 

 minated, and a colony of bees are put 

 upon comb and honey free from foul 

 brood germs, they are no longer annoyed 

 by the ailment. That a failure may, and 

 no doubt will, occasionally occur, as in 

 the case I have called attention to in 

 my own apiary, I have not the slightest 

 doubt. But it does not by any means 

 justify us in concluding that there is 

 no such a thing as stamping out this 

 ailment. For there is an overwhelming 

 array of evidence, proving beyond all 

 doubt or question, that foul brood is 

 curable if treated according to well-test- 

 ed methods. 



As to the matter of destroying bees, 

 hives, and honey, there are cases that 

 require just such treatment, and noth- 

 ing short of fire or burial beyond the 

 reasonable possibility of resurrection, 

 will serve an effective purpose. I refer 

 to old, worthless hives, weak colonies, 

 and diseased honey and poor comb. 



The foregoing facts and suggestions 

 I had intended to call attention to at 

 the Chicago-Northwestern convention at 

 its session referred to in the Illinois 

 report, but for reasons that I will not 

 take time nor space to relate, I omitted 

 to do so at that convention. 



Illinois surely needs a foul brood law, 

 sufficiently rigid to enable the bee-keep- 

 ers of the State to stamp out this pest, 

 which is as much of a stumbling-block 

 to bee-keepers as is glanders among 

 farmers' horses, if left unrestrained. 

 At some of the coming conventions, 

 either State or National, I may have 

 something more to say concerning foul- 

 brood legislation. 



Lyons, Kans. 



Methods of Introducing 

 Queens 



BY C. M. DOOLITTLE. 



As the best time in the whole year for 

 supplanting superannuated queens is just 

 before the close of tlie honey harvest, 

 and as I have several letters about this 

 subject, I thought that an article regard- 

 ing the matter might not be amiss just 

 at this time. 



In introducing queens it should always 

 be borne in mind that a queen taken 

 from a nucleus or a colony in the api- 

 ary and introduced to another in the 

 same apiary, does not require one-half 

 the care that must be given a queen from 

 a distance coming in the mails. The 

 reason for this seems to be thai the 

 queen when taken from a nucleus in the 

 same yard is in an immediate laying con- 



dition, and will not run around provok- 

 ing the bees by her different actions 

 from what their old mother had, causing 

 them to look closely after her, and chase 

 her if she sees fit to run, as will a queen 

 after having had a long journey. 



In introducing all ordinary queens 

 coming from my own apiary, or carried 

 from the home apiary to one 3 or 5 miles 

 away, I generally adopt one of the two 

 following plans: 



The first is to go to a nucleus or the 

 hive from which I wisih to get the queen 

 to supersede the one which I do not 

 want, and when she is found I take the 

 frame she is on, bees and all, together 

 with another frame from the same hive, 

 carrying tliem near the hive from which 



1 am to take the superannuated queen. I 

 next hunt out the poor queen, and after 

 killing her, take out 2 frames from this 

 hive and place the 2 frames brought from 

 the nucleus, in their places, then closing 

 the hive. Now shake the bees off the 2 

 frames in front of the hive and carry 

 them to the nucleus, or carry bees and 

 all, as you prefer. The object in taking 



2 frames with them is so that while wait- 

 ing outside of the hive slie and most of 

 the bees may cluster between them, thus 

 becoming quiet, and, when placed in the 

 hive, both are put in together, thus leav- 

 ing the queen quiet among her own bees. 

 In this way I do not lose one queen out 

 of 50, and as the operation is so simple, 

 and the queen so quickly installed, the 

 advantages more than overbalance so 

 small a loss. 



The next plan is to go to my nucleus 

 and get the young laying queen in a cage 

 before looking for the queen to be super- 

 seded. I next look for her and kill her, 

 when the hive is closed. I now blow in 

 at the entrance enough smoke to alarm 

 the whole colony, pounding with my fist 

 on the top of the hive until I hear a loud 

 roaring inside, which shows that the bees 

 arc filling themselves with honey. I then 

 run in the queen to be introduced, at the 

 entrance, smoking her in, while I still 

 keep pounding on the hive. In doing 

 this nothing but wood-smoke should be 

 used, for, if tobacco-smoke were used, 

 many of the bees would be suffocated. 

 If done when there is danger of robbing, 

 wait till just at night, or do it on some 

 cloudy, cool day when the most of the 

 bees are staying at home, for where rob- 

 bing is started, or the smoked bees an- 

 noyed by robbers, the success is not so 

 certain. The idea is to cause the bees to 

 fill themselves with honey, at the same 

 time smoking them so that the bees and 

 queen smell and are under the same con- 

 ditions, so that they do not realize that 

 any change has been made. By this plan 

 I seldom lose a queen, but it is not quite 

 as simple as the first; however it is 

 equally as successful as the other. 



In introducing a queen which comes 

 from a distance, I most often use what 

 I term the caged-framc-of-brood plan, 

 which is as follows : 



Get out a frame of very thin material 

 which will just go inside of the hive, and 

 at the same time admit of one of the hive 

 frames going inside of it. I usually 

 make this so it will take 2 frames inside 

 of tlic cage, for where we wish to intro- 

 duce a queen in the latter part of the 

 season, we shall need all the bees we can 



