106 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Feb. 16, 1899. 



Repairing f Bruised Comb Honey When a hole is 



puncht in a nice section, E. A. Emmons makes a case-knife 

 quite hot on a stove, then smears it over the hole, which 

 covers it with a coating- of wax. If the hole is very large, 

 a bit of white comb from an unfinisht section is dropt on. — 

 Gleaning-s. 



To Drive Bees Out of a llollow Tree, put under the 

 clu.ster a bunch of cotton-batting- saturated in dilute car- 

 bolic acid. The odor is insupportable to the bees, and they 

 will soon be clustered on the outside of the tree. If the en- 

 trance is above the cluster, bore a hole at the rig-ht place to 

 g-et the carbolic acid, below the cluster.— French Journal. 



Queen-Excluders Hinder,; according to evidence given 

 in^the Progressive Bee-Keeper, by F. L. Thompson. They 

 restrict workers as^.well as queens, dead workers being 

 found on top of the zinc, and a screen door composed 

 partly of excluding zinc, altho it allowed bees to get out, 

 did not admit robbers when'robbing was rampant. 



Carbolic Acid in Place of Smoke has been used much in 

 England and Europe. A writer in L'Abeille et sa Culture 

 says that bees conquered by the odor of the acid allow them- 

 selves to be handled or brusht without much resistance, and 

 the odor of the honey being overpowered by the odor of the 

 drug, the robbers are not troublesome, so the bees are less 

 irritated and more tractable. 



The Laying of a^Young Queen — The young queengal- 

 ways lays her lirst eggs without any order. She travels 

 over the combs and lays at random. Upon a large comb I 

 counted 13 sealed cells, and not more than three of them 

 were together. The first eggs are generally found on the 

 comb that contains the cell from which her young majestv 

 issued, and it is only later, when the laying becomes abun- 

 dant, that it becomes^more'regular.— Pfalzer Bienenzucht. 



Foul-Broody Honey ; How long shall it be boiled?— In 



reply to a question some time ago in this Journal, Dr. Miller 

 said that to make it safe to feed to bees honey taken from a 

 colony infected with foul brood, the honey should be brought 

 to a boil and held there not less than 2}i hours. Critic Tay- 

 lor insisted IS minutes was ample, and Editor Root endorst 

 the idea. The latter has changed his views, and has now 

 become more radical than Dr. Miller, for he says, " I believe 

 one will be taking risks if he feeds such honey if it has been 

 boiled less than three hours." 



" Propolis is Often Mixt with Wax when it is used," 

 says Editor Hutchin.son. D. W. Heise showed him a cake 

 of wax secured by repeated meltings from chips of propolis, 

 altho it had a strong odor of propolis. Editor Hutchinson 

 thinks we are losing a little wax when we throw away the 

 scrapingsof sections.— Bee-Keepers' Review. —Why, haven't 

 you often seen bees packing on their legs scrapings of wax 

 found out-doors, and what else is done with such wax but to 

 use it for propolis ? And don't you know that the analysis 

 of the lamented Dr. Planta showed more than half of ordi- 

 nary bee-glue to be beeswax ? 



No-Bee-Way Sections are not viewed with':favor"by 

 the Jeditor of the Canadian Bee Journal. He thinks vrhat- 

 ever advantage there may be in the open separator may be 

 had with the old style of sections. Jacob Alpaugh makes 

 fences with tin for the upright parts, and these are used 

 with old-style sections. At the Toronto exhibition plain 

 sections took no prizes. Sections of the ordinary kind 

 shown there beat the sections .shown by Danzenbaker at 

 Buffalo. To the claim that plain sections will cost less for 

 shipping-cases, he replies that different shipping-cases will 

 create confusion. 



" The Origin of Foul Brood is foundlJin a fermenting 

 mass of neglected dead animal matter and excretions, com- 

 bined with the presence of a weakened colonj-, breeding and 

 feeding amongst, and warming up to blood heat such neg- 



lected matter, which the)- in a deteriorated state are unable 

 to remove." This is the dictum of S. Simmins, editor of 

 Bee-Chat. He disclaims any belief in spontaneous genera- 

 tion, but thinks the initial germ of foul brood is present in 

 all healthy colonies, ready to grow whenever circumstances 

 are propitious. He suggests that the primarj- seed is so in- 

 finitesimal that no scientist has so far discovered it. In- 

 spector McEvoy is at least partly with him in his belief — a 

 fact he mentions with apparent pride. Scientists who have 

 produced the bacilli from the spores will hardly agree with 

 the view that the primary seed of foul brood has not yet 

 been discovered. 



Bees and Fruit. — In Bienen-Vater are given results of 

 some experiments in which netting was put over branches 

 of trees at time of blooming. The time of blooming of 

 blo.ssoms on such covered limbs was prolonged as if the 

 blossoms were waiting for the bees to fertilize them. On 

 apple-trees the time of such blossoms was prolonged one to 

 three days more than the time of blossoms uncovered. 

 Pear-blossoms were prolonged four to five days ; plum, four 

 to seven days. No fruit set on the covered apple branches. 

 Some fruit set on the other trees, most of it falling pre- 

 maturely. 



The Holtermann Hive-Cover is mentioned in Canadian 

 Bee Journal by D. W. Heise, as a flat cover costing about 

 the same as the ordinary cover, absolutely water-tight, and 

 a good non-conductor of heat and cold. Something in that 

 line has been needed a long time. (If I remember correctly 

 our figures show that this hive-cover cost us more than the 

 all-wood ones. It is cheap, as made by the E. L. Goold Co., 

 because they have a good deal of sheet metal that is used 

 for protecting certain packages, and this metal is practi- 

 cally good for nothing otherwise. — Editor.) — Gleanings. 

 Whether it costs more or less, a water-tight, non-conducting 

 cover will be likely to find a market. 



The Braula Coeca,; or Bee-Louse, is quite common 



across the water, and is sometimes found on bees freshly 

 imported into this country, but somewhat curiousl)' it never 

 is reported as being perpetuated here. Probably not one 

 bee-keeper in a thousand in this country has ever seen a 

 bee-louse. H. W. Brice says of it in the British Bee Journal : 



" What are its means of existence ? Is it a scavenger 

 or does it suck the juices of the bee ? The latter is, I think, 

 the more reasonable conclusion, but even -where the Braula 

 is found in large numbers bees seem but little inconven- 

 ienced by them, and they are usually more plentiful in 

 strong colonies than in weak ones. They also have a de- 

 cided preference for the bodies of queens, tho I have seen 

 them scattered on all bees indiscriminately, tho the bodj' of 

 the mother-bee is, as a rule, the favorite haunt of the para- 

 site. Why this is so I do not say, tho I think they have no 

 choice, and if queens flew daily, as does the worker-bee, she 

 would have just as few braute as the rest." 



The editor says it seldom lives more than one season in 



England. 



Travel -Stain ; what is it?— A thoughtful article from 

 J. E. Crane appears in Gleanings, in which he resents the 

 popular idea that the dirty feet of the bees traveling over 

 the surplus combs are responsible for the darkening of the 

 cappings. He says : "I consider the whole idea of travel- 

 stain as a foul slander. The idea of our illustrious insects 

 not being tidy is infamous." Sometimes bees carry pollen 

 into the hives on their bodies, and this may have some 

 efl'ect in darkening the sections. Bees often use considera- 

 ble propolis for capping late in the season when wax is 

 scarce. But the chief source of the dark color on sections 

 is the dark wax and old cappings carried from the brood- 

 chamber into the super. One proof of this is that the dark 

 color is not on the surface of the cappings, but the cappings 

 are colored clear through. A queen is removed from a 

 strong colony. All goes well so long as there is maturing 

 brood to seal, but after eight or nine days the brood is all 

 sealed, and yet the hatching bees are throwing off 1,000 to 

 1,500 cell-caps daily. Not being needed elsewhere, a good 

 share of these cappings are carried into the super to darken 

 the sections. The case is cited of a strong colony thrown 

 on foundation in Julj', which remained queenless, and after 

 four months the combs, even in the brood-chamber, were as 

 white as the most fastidious dealer could desire. 



The Premiums offered onjpage 62 are well worth work- 

 ing for. Eook at them. 



