114 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



hillsides have the appearance of being 

 covered with snow. The strong colonies 

 are also commencing operations in the 

 sections. 



Notwithstanding all our losses and 

 drawbacks on account of the weather, 

 we fully believe that we will secure a 

 very fair crop of honey. If we do not 

 secure it, then there is something wrong 

 over which we have no control. Like 

 producing a crop of anything else, we 

 should do well our part, and trust the 

 balance to the promise that "seed-time 

 and harvest shall not fail on the earth." 



DECOY HIVES FOR STRAY SWARMS. 



Farmers and small bee-keepers usually 

 lose quite a percentage of their swarms. 

 These early swarms are the very bees 

 that should gather the surplus crop, and 

 the loss of them seriously affects the 

 profits of the business. Our new swarmer 

 and system, that we are now perfecting, 

 promises to solve this problem com- 

 pletely. Then bee-keeping will be re- 

 lieved of one of its chief sources of 

 anxiety. But while so many swarms 

 are flying around loose over the country, 

 why not catch a few of them by means 

 of decoy hives ? If you have any old 

 hives on hand, no matter if they are 

 mere boxes, or even nail-kegs will do, 

 put them up in good-sized trees in the 

 woods. Also scatter a few through the 

 orchard, or any place where the bees 

 will be apt to find. 



A comb or two, placed in the decoys, 

 is a great inducement for swarms to 

 take possession of them, and it is sur- 

 prising how many of the decoys will find 

 occupants during the. swarming time. 

 We manage every year to catch a num- 

 ber in this way, and while some may be 

 our own, we feel sure that we catch 

 more than we lose by desertion. 



HAVE EVERYTHING NICE AND CLEAN. 



If you are using hives full of comb on 

 which the bees have died, to hive 

 swarms in, be sure they are reasonably 

 cleansed of dead bees and bad combs, 

 also that they are not hopelessly in- 

 fested by moth. Better melt up all 

 such combs, and hive on nice sheets of 

 foundation. In fact, it will pay to use 

 good, heavy foundation to poor comb of 

 any kind. 



When surplus sections are put on the 

 hives, be sure they are nice and clean, 

 and that the foundation will not drop 

 down as soon as the bees begin to hang 

 on it. Better go a little slow, and have 

 all in nice shape. — Western Plowman. 



Rock Island Co., Ills. 



Surfeit Among Bees that were Starved, 



E. STRONG. 



On page 9, I notice that Prof. Cook 

 has given a little time to the study of a 

 nameless or strange disease, of which 

 there has been great complaint, for some 

 years. He pronounces it a condition 

 rather than a disease, and closes with 

 this shrewd observation : "The appear- 

 ance suggests a very meager diet." 



I think he is right. I have for some- 

 time regarded this trouble as surfeit, 

 caused by bees being too suddenly "fed" 

 when in a starving condition, and gorg- 

 ing themselves with too heavy and con- 

 centrated a syrup, or with old honey not 

 sufficiently thinned. 



My bees have not escaped this trouble, 

 and doubtless all, at times, have had a 

 touch of it. It is far from a pleasant 

 sight, in the early part of the season, to 

 see hundreds of bees, young and healthy, 

 crawling away from the hive to die, 

 slowly. Some will be two days in dying. 

 A few seem to recover. I picked up half 

 a tea-cupful before a hive, and took 

 them in by the stove, and left them to 

 warm up. They soon "came to," and 

 were crawling all over, and you would 

 say, " Put them into the hive, and they 

 would be all right." But in a short time 

 they again came out into the grass to 

 die. This shows that they are not 

 chilled bees, although they act some 

 like it. 



They look and act as though they 

 might be poisoned by fruit-spraying. I 

 thought so this year, but as we have 

 been told that bees are probably not 

 poisoned by spraying, I looked into the 

 matter more closely. 



Well, the previous day I overhauled a 

 dozen colonies. It was the close of the 

 fruit-bloom, and the wet, cold ground 

 was white under the apple-trees. I 

 selected such colonies as looked hungry, 

 and the first five did not have one pound 

 of honey, all put together, and one col- 

 ony gave the flat buzz of starvation. 



In feeding them I gave extracted 

 honey, undiluted. Of the 5 colonies 

 fed, only 2 were hungry enough to be 

 sick. A few bees came out that night, 

 but the next morning a great many 

 were out, and this continued for nearly 

 a week. No other colonies were sick. 

 If it were poison, a few bees, at least, 

 would be seen at other hives. These 

 colonies were all strong, and full of 

 brood, and this had taken all the honey. 

 In some of the published complaints, 

 I see that this trouble followed the feed- 



