September, 1909. 



American Bae JoarnaJJ 



tliat he lias " cured" UK oO. ItIO cases by 

 bee-stings, and that, too, witliout a fail- 

 ure to report, I simply do not believe 

 it. The printer made a mistake setting 

 up the types, and if the bee-men who 

 are writing about cures will wait awhile 

 they will find themselves like the doc- 

 tors, who, when they have found a cure, 

 and about to publish it to the world, 

 suddenly find that their pretty fabric 

 was rotten at the foundation. 



Thirty years' experience in the prac- 

 tice of medicine justifies me in the as- 

 sertion that while the doctors know 

 mightly little about curing disease, the 

 laity knows a great deal less, and that 

 the first thing a person does when he 

 has an attack of rheiunatism, is to rush 

 to the doctor or the drug-store. He 

 will stay by the Medicine Man or the 

 druggist until he loses faith, then go to 

 taking hot baths, electricity, faith cure, 

 osteopathy, and what not; and I have 

 yet to find that they ever went to the 

 bee-man /;/i/. The logic of this is, no 

 one may know what effected a "cure," 

 if there be such a thing. It might have 

 been the doctor's prescription, for they 

 do not always kill ; possibly the mud 

 baths, the static machine, absent treat- 

 ment — any of the hundred and one 

 things they have experimented with ; 

 or,- possibly, the true explanation is. 

 Mother Nature stepped in, removed an 

 obstruction, and the disease abated. It 

 is not logical to give credit to the /as/ 

 remedy used, but people always do it. 

 and this popular weakness accounts for 

 the success of certain "patent" medi- 

 cines — that and advertising. 



Negative evidence in this vicinity is 

 to the effect that bee-men " have rheu- 

 matism more or less of the time," as 

 they tell me. I have, though I am care- 

 less with my bees and am stung daily. 

 r do not know a bee-man who has not 

 rheumatism some of the time, and be- 

 ing stung (I quote), "does not seem to 

 make a bit of difference one way or the 

 other." 



.^n attack of rheumatism is self- 

 limited; that is, even the articular or 

 inflammatory type, will abate in a cer- 

 tain number of days i^i/hoii/ Ireit/mcnl 

 of any kind, if the patient has strength 

 to survive; and in milder manifesta- 

 tions of the disease, sometimes called 

 myii/ffiit and myodynia, the patient will 

 be down <ine day and up the ne.xt, with- 

 out taking a drop of medicine or a bee- 

 sting. 



Strictly speaking, according to the 

 Century Dictionary and Dungleson, 

 " Rheumatism " tneans the disease com- 

 monly called " .Acute .'\rticular Kheu- 

 matism," or Inflammatory Rheumatism, 

 a trouble characterized by swelling of 

 the joints, high fever, and excrutiating 

 pains ; though to quote the Century 

 again, "The word is used with a cer- 

 tain and unfortunate freedom in appli- 

 cation to joint pains of various origin 

 and anatomical forms," and, I might 

 add, to almost any kind of an ache 

 which the patient does not understand. 

 It is these cases which are "cured " by 

 non-medical healers. 



In this article I have tried to con- 

 form to the usage of the word by unin- 

 formed writers who do not know the 

 rudiments of diagnosis, the efTect of 

 drugs (medicines) on the human sys- 

 tem, the composition of the remedies 

 they apply ; yet a person comes to them 



and says, " I have rheumatism." The 

 bee-sting doctor applies a few hundred 

 stings gently, and lo ! they have fouml 

 out something that hundreds and thou- 

 sands of eilucated and observing medi- 

 cal men have failed to discover — that 

 bee-stings will cure rheumatism. Tush I 



For five years I have experimented 

 with bee-stings in hopes of getting re- 

 lief from asthma ; then tried it on an 

 eczematous patch on the leg (mine), 

 and have observed that I have rheuma- 

 tism more since working with the bees 

 than formerly ; but that is because I am 

 older and more exposed to the weather. 



The only effect I have ever been able 

 to get from bee-stings was an eruption 

 of hives — ur/icaria — and I believe that 

 to have been due to uric acid, though 

 the disorder is purely nervous in its 

 manifestation. I did once have a case 

 of bee-sting in a woman of 40 where 

 tlie patient died, but it subsequently 

 transpired that the cause of death was 

 (probably) a "remedy" given by a 

 neighbor woman before the doctor ar- 

 rived. Stories in the newspapers about 

 people being killed by bee-stings I take 

 mighty little stock in. I have been a 

 newspaper writer too long myself. 



Buck Grove. Iowa. 



Brood in Section Honey, Etc. 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



"liiavebecn troubled witii broo<i in my 

 sections of honey for several >'ears. Will 

 Mr. Doolittle tell us in the .-Vnierican Bee 

 .lournal what can be done to iire\'ent this? I 

 use an 8-franu: Lanystroth hive. 



Years ago, when all of the hives which 

 were in use contained from 201)0 to 250O 

 cubic inches, brood in the surplus 

 boxes was of rare occurrence, but since 

 the movable-frame hive came into gen- 

 eral use, and especially since many of 

 our best bee-keepers have been recom- 

 mending hives as small, and some even 

 smaller than an 8-frame Langstroth 

 hive, which is less than two-thirds the 

 size which was formerly used, so as to 

 secure a larger surplus of section 

 honey, brood in the sections is of quite 

 common occurrence. Nothing is much 

 more provoking to an apiarist when he 

 goes to a hive.e.xpecting to find all of 

 the sections filled with nice white 

 honey, than to find them filled with 

 honey from half way to within an inch 

 or so of the bottom, as he expected, 

 and the rest filled out with brood. 



.Another thing which causes this 

 state of affairs to exist is the exclud- 

 ing of all drone-comb from the brood- 

 chamber of all hives except .3 or 1 hav- 

 ing our best breeding queens, as is 

 recommended in our bee-papers and 

 bee-books. I do not butt against this; 

 but bees will have some drones, and if 

 they cannot rear them in the brood- 

 chamber, they will do so in the sec- 

 tions, if any chance is offered for so 

 doing there. 



Now there are three ways of keeping 

 the queen down below where she be- 

 longs, the first of which is a large 

 brood-chamber, as has been hinted at. 

 But as this is a kind of remedy the 

 advocate of small brood-chambers does 

 not like, he will, in all probability, not 

 accept of it. About the time that con- 

 traction of brooil-chambers began to 

 be thought of, comb foundation was 



invented, and it soon became apparent 

 that if the queen could not find any 

 drone-comb in the surplus apartiuent. 

 where the bees were averse to brood in 

 any event, that with worker-comb foun- 

 dation in the sections, the remedy 

 would be complete. Then, again, honey 

 stored in worker-comb presents a much 

 finer appearance, so we were not long 

 in deciding that if we would reach the 

 best results we must fill our sections 

 with foundation, which the larger part 

 of our bee-keepers do today. But con- • 

 traction became a fever in the minds 

 of some, and was carried on to such 

 an extent that the queen had not room 

 enough left below in which to indulge 

 her egg-laying capacity, even for work- 

 er-brood ; so some of us would have 

 sections completely filled with such 

 brood. 



Not to be foiled, bee-keepers soon 

 brought into use perforated zinc, the 

 perforations of which were so nicely 

 made that it would readily allow a 

 worker-bee to pass through, but when 

 the queen came to try she could not do 

 the same. In this queen-excluding zinc 

 we have a perfect thing, so where a 

 a queen-e.xcluding honey-board is used 

 it is impossible to have brood in the 

 sections or supers of any kind, and all 

 drones would also be kept out, which 

 saved our nice white capped sections 

 from being folded with their excre- 

 ment when ridding our sections of 

 bees, as was often the case previous to 

 this. 



There has been quite a little theoriz- 

 ing about this method of keeping the 

 queen and drones where they belong, 

 some claiming that not so much honey 

 could be obtained where the bees were 

 compelled to pass through so small an 

 aperture to reach the sections, claim- 

 ing that bees are often loth to enter 

 the sections where the most open pas- 

 sage-way possible is not given. How- 

 ever, time, that prover of all things, 

 has shown that these theories are more 

 fallacies than otherwise, for facts have 

 proven that as much honey is stored 

 where perforated honey-boards are used 

 as is stored without them, and so it has 

 come to pass that such are considered 

 one of the essential things by nearly if 

 not quite all bee-keepers. 



But it was soon found that all metal' 

 honey-boards were too expensive, as 

 well as too frail to be taken from the 

 hive after being glued down during 

 the summer months without the per- 

 forations being pulled out of shape ; so 

 again the inventive genius of the api- 

 arist was called into use, and we soon 

 had a combination of zinc ami wood, 

 which gave us a much better board, and 

 one which was at the same time rigid 

 enough not to get out of shape and 

 spoiled by being kinked when it was 

 taken from the hive; besides, it was 

 much cheaper and answered the pur- 

 pose even better than the board wholly 

 of zinc. 



But I think I hear my questioner say- 

 ing, " That may be all very well, but I 

 am not so rigged. What shall I do?" 



Well, I think the best advice would 

 be that you get so rigged. However, 

 if you think otherwise, there are two 

 or three ways of working without the 

 wood-zinc honey-boards. When brood 

 is found in the sections, the " what 

 shall be done " will depend very largely 



