American Vee Journal 



exclusively, and they seem to winter 

 all right. 



Mr. Scott says he purchased a leather- 

 colored breeding queen for $10, last 

 spring, hut the disease broke out in the 

 colony before the summer was spent, 

 while all the Goldens in the yard re- 

 mained immune. If the Goldens are 

 immune to a certain extent from this 

 plague, certainly that trait will counter- 

 balance, and more, quite a multitude 

 of faults, should they exist. Mr. House, 

 at our convention, has strongly advised 

 the introduction of all Italian stock in 

 localities where black brood is present, 

 but I do not remember him specifying 

 the Golden strains in particular. 



will be a lot sadder if not wiser bee- 

 keepers in the Province than is the 

 case now. 



used to hear of, and obtained but otni 

 since I have been keeping bees. 



Black Brood in Eastern Ontario 



I am sorry to say that the l.ilack 

 brood outbreak in Eastern Ontario is 

 spreading badly. A letter just received 

 from Inspector Scott, informs me of 

 this fact, and he is strongly of the 

 opinion that it would pay the Govern- 

 ment to step in and destroy outright 

 all infected apiaries, and compensate 

 the owners where good apiaries are so 

 treated. It seems to be of a particularly 

 virulent type, and while it yields to 

 treatment temporarily, yet it is liable 

 to break out again, when there has 

 been no possible means of reinfection 

 by robbing. 



Mr. Scott says that in our present 

 methods we are simply " chasing " after 

 it instead of "heading it off," and he 

 says he sees no reason why, at its pres- 

 ent rate of spreading, that it will not 

 reach the bee-keepers of Western On- 

 tario in a very few years. From my 

 experience with the disease in the in- 

 fected districts two years ago, I can 

 readily believe that it will overtake us 

 in a hurry, unless radical measures to 

 stamp it out are taken at once. Foul 

 brood as we have known it in the past, 

 IS a mere ba.gatelle as compared with 

 this new pest, and while it now seems 

 to be under control in New York State, 

 yet it has cost the State a lot of money 

 to fight it, and it is a question if the 

 work could not have been done more 

 quickly and more cheaply if it had been 

 stamped out vigorously when the out- 

 break first was discovered. 



There is something peculiar about 

 the spreading of this disease. Unlike 

 American foul brood, it will go all 

 through an apiary in a few weeks when 

 there is not a bit of robbing going on. 

 The old-time disease that we have been 

 familiar with is chiefly spread by rob- 

 bing, and knowing this we have been 

 trained to guard against this point of 

 attack. Under this new disease's insidi- 

 ous methods of attack, we are almost 

 entirely helpless, and it is all through 

 an apiary in a hurry after the first cells 

 of disease are noticed in a single col- 

 ony. Where the disease is and has 

 been raging, are situated some of On- 

 tario's best bee-keepers, and naturally 

 they feel sore when they see some who 

 have never been near the infected dis- 

 tricts, making light of the outbreak as 

 though it were not anything out of the 

 ordinary. 



I do not wish to pose as a prophet 

 but I unhesitatingly venture to surmise 

 that if the present condition prevails 

 without checking, in a few years there 



Pollen from Basswood 



Since writing that note on basswood 

 pollen, as reported in the August 

 ."American Bee Journal, I have looked 

 in the " A B C of Bee-Culture," and 

 there I find that Mr. Doolittle says that 

 in his belief basswood never yields 

 pollen. A day or so after writing the 

 note referred to, the weather turned 

 warm and balmy — ideal conditions for 

 basswood to yield honey, one would 

 think, yet not enough honey came in 

 from the basswood to give us a taste. 

 However, pollen from the blossoms 

 came in abundance, and for about 10 

 days from ti in the morning until about 

 10 or a little later, the trees were 

 swarming with hundreds of bees, all 

 laden with this light yellow pollen. In 

 fact, some of the super-combs were 

 half filled with the pollen, and it is 

 plainly in evidence there yet. Why no 

 nectar was in the blossotns is a mys- 

 tery, but we know there was none, and 

 the same condition prevailed for quite 

 a large section of Ontario. Farther 

 west I understand there was consider- 

 able basswood honey gathered, yet 

 nothing like the old-time crops we 



Color of Alsike Clover Honey 



It has been claimed by some that 

 alsike clover does not produce as white 

 a honey as does the white clover. 

 Well, this year there was not enough 

 white clover within 3 miles of my yards 

 to fill a bushel basket with the blos- 

 soms, if they had all been gathered, 

 consequently all of our honey came 

 from the alsike. Judging by the quality 

 of this year's crop, I doubt if the white 

 clover produces a honey any whiter 

 than does the alsike ; and as for flavor, 

 it would be hard to beat the clover 

 honey that I have seen all over three 

 or four counties, and all from the 

 alsike. 



By the way, the prospects are none 

 too good for the alsike next season, as 

 the very severe and prolonged drouth 

 that prevailed shortly after the clover 

 was sown, literally dried the life out of 

 the plants. After clover is rooted it is 

 hard to kill by drouth, but for a few 

 weeks after first being sown, a drouth 

 like the one we had last spring will fix 

 it. Farmers all around us are com- 

 plaining of poor " catches " of both red 

 clover and alsike. 



By W. A. PKYAL. Alden Station, Oakland. Calif. 



A Foul Brood Doctor 



As matters stand, too often politics 

 has much to do with the appointment 

 of foul brood inspectors in California, 

 and frequently the qualification of the 

 applicant is not taken into considera- 

 tion. In this respect our bee-keepers 

 have to suffer as do almost every other 

 class of our population, since party 

 practises, which are almost synony- 

 mous with graft, demand the placing in 

 position of the man with the biggest 

 pull be he saloon manager or saloon 

 bum, or something almost as bad. So 

 hurry the day when merit and qualifi- 

 cation shall rule this government from 

 the humblest office to the most ex- 

 alted position in the gift of the people! 



Let's take the case of how a bee-doc- 

 tor is made; 'tis not a personal one. 

 but it comes mighty near being a true 

 one. Old Bill Bilkins is a sort of char- 

 acter in his town near the Nevada 

 State line. Bill likes whisky, and is 

 very handy with his tongue, and this 

 accounts for his being able to tell some 

 mighty powerful stories — in fact, the 

 boys say he can tell the biggest yarns 

 of any man for a hundred miles around. 



Bill has a mining claim, and besides 

 digging in his vegetable and berry- 

 patch he sometimes turns over some of 



the red dirt in his search for the yel- 

 low metal. Then he has a few colonies 

 of bees in old box-hives. He secured 

 the bees by "getting a line on a bee- 

 tree" over towards Devil's Roost. In 

 the fall of the year he robs the major 

 portion of his colonies, as the neigh- 

 bors down at the ford annually want 

 some of his honey to lay by as a medi- 

 cine for colds and croup. Some of the 

 good women secure several gallons of 

 Uncle Bill's ambrosial nectar, as they 

 vouch for its being better for the chil- 

 dren's bread than syrup. 



One year Bill's carelessness robbed 

 him of all his colonies but one. He 

 had a genuine case of foul brood, but 

 he did not know it until the following 

 season when he was telling an old-time 

 bee-keeper, whom he chanced to meet, 

 of the peculiar disease that caused his 

 bees to die. The bee-keeper told him 

 all he knew of the malady, and that 

 there was a statute against the spread 

 thereof, and that the supervisors had it 

 in their power to appoint inspectors at 

 so much " per diem," as the law-books 

 put it. 



Ten minutes later Bill was glued to 

 one end of a telephone line; at the 

 other he had the i:)istrict Attorney. He 

 wanted the county officer to. give him 

 the law relating to foul brood, espe- 



