AMERICAN BKE JOURNAL. 



273 



"^ ^ ■*■ ^ -^ ■^ ■*■ ■^ ■^ - 



Bce-Diarrliea — Its Cause and 

 Prevention. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY W. Z. HUTCHINSON. 



Of all the obstacles with which bee- 

 keepers of the Northern States have to 

 contend, none equal the losses of bees in 

 winter and spring from diarrhea. Many 

 are the causes to which it has been at- 

 tributed — cold, confinement, improper 

 food, dampness, " pollen," lack of food, 

 or of ventilation, etc., have all been 

 blamed for this trouble. 



The disease, if such it can be called, is 

 simply the result of an over-loading of 

 the intestines. Cold confines the bees 

 to their hives until they are unable to 

 longer retain their feces, and the result 

 is termed diarrhea. Simple enough on 

 the face of it, isn't it ? Doesn't seem as 

 though there could have been so much 

 discussion about it, does there? Well, 

 it comes about something in this way : 



One man says it is caused by the cold. 

 Another says, "No, it isn't. We have 

 long, cold winters here, yet my bees do 

 dot suffer from diarrhea. If it was the 

 cold, they would have it." He doesn't 

 consider that his location may furnish 

 a different class of food. 



Another says that confinement does 

 not cause the trouble, as his bees were 

 confined in the cellar so many months, 

 and suffered little or nothing. This 

 man forgets that in a warm cellar much 

 less food is consumed, and, consequently, 

 the longer it takes to overload the in- 

 testines. 



Another lays the difficulty to the con- 

 sumption of pollen. Another says, " No, 

 my bees have plenty of pollen in the hives, 

 and they never have the diarrhea. If 

 pollen causes diarrhea, why don't they 

 have it?" This man forgets that pollen 

 in the hives does not cause diarrhea, it 

 is its consumption under such condi- 

 tions that the bees cannot unload the 

 intestines. We may not know exactly 



what are the conditions that cause an 

 undue consumption of pollen, but we 

 do know that in almost all cases of bee- 

 diarrhea, the fecal mass is almost wholly 

 pollen. We also know that when bees 

 laave no pollen in their combs, when 

 their only food is pure cane-sugar (honey 

 contains some grains of pollen), they do 

 not have the diarrhea under the same 

 conditions when bees with natural stores 

 have perished by the wholesale. I feel 

 quite certain that bees with only pure 

 cane-sugar for stores, placed in a cellar 

 where the temperature is about 45'^, 

 will bear a confinement of four or five 

 months with no traces of disease. 



Some honey is nearly as good as sugar 

 for winter stores. At least, bees have 

 many times passed the winter with it for 

 food, and came out in the spring with 

 perfect health. The difficulty is to al- 

 ways k7iow when honey is a healthful 

 food for winter. There are some sec- 

 tions of the country where it never is. 

 Mr. Bryon Walker, in the eastern part 

 of this State, near large swamps, could 

 not successfully winter bees. He tried 

 almost all known methods for a dozen 

 years or more, and finally moved to 

 another locality where he is more suc- 

 cessful. Before he moved away, he 

 practiced brushing the bees from the 

 combs in the fall, and killing the bees. 

 They were certain to die in the winter, 

 and he reasoned that he might as well 

 save the honey that they would consume, 

 and keep his combs in a clean condition. 

 In the spring he went South and bought 

 bees by the carload, and stocked his 

 apiary again. 



To be able to decide in regard to the 

 suitability of honey as a winter food for 

 bees would be a great step. If a bee- 

 keeper could send a sample of his honey 

 to some chemist and learn if it were 

 safe for his bees to winter upon it would 

 be a grand thing. If it were not, he 

 could extract it and feed sugar. What 

 is it, aside from the floating pollen, that 

 makes some honey unsuitable for a win- 

 ter food for bees ? This is a hard nut 

 for our Experimental Apiary to crack. 



To remove all of the honey from an 

 apiary when we do not know that it will 

 prove an unsafe food, and substitute 

 sugar, for the purchase of which we 

 may not have the ready money, with 

 honey of sloV sale, is a proceeding that 

 would not be considered business-like. 

 Bee-keepers prefer to take the risk, one 

 year with another, of leaving their bees 

 their natural stores, when these stores 

 are apparently well-ripened honey, and 

 then using all other precautions possi- 



