1903 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



919 



Well, the cartmen picketed out the oxen 

 and pulled out for more congenial surround- 

 injfs, stating- that they'd return the next 

 day to move the carts to wherever I stated. 

 My partner on this trip, Mr. Smith, of 

 Georj^ia, and myself, soon turned in under 

 the cart to sptnd the nif,'ht. At dawn I 

 mounted my wheel and rode aw.iy, leaving 

 Mr. Smith to master the situation in the cot 

 under the cart of bees while I searched the 

 neighborhood for a locatio^n. riding hard 

 till two o'clock, when I kicked a pedal oflT 

 my wheel, and went on one foot into town 

 to get breakfast. At 2 i'. m. I had found 

 no suitable place, but struck a man who, 

 for SlOO, would rent me a place where there 

 was no house and no well, no fence, nor 

 any thing in p irticular. I went on, and 

 soon found a better place, but not as far 

 from that man who "changed his mind" 

 as I should like to be. The bees, though, 

 are doing reasonably well at present. Lo- 

 cations in this part of Cuba are not so plen- 

 tiful as some may lead one to believe. 



That's right, Dr. Miller; you stand by 

 the hard sound wood as giving the strong- 

 est smoke. You challenge Krnest to a duel 

 with smokers. Let him use rotten wood 

 and 3'ou let me send you some hard sound 

 yaba wood, and with a few pufifs of the 

 bellows you can send him to the hospital or 

 optician. It served me thus before I knew 

 what was the cause. The same wood, 

 though, when rotten, can be used without 

 danger. 



You tell them, Mr. Editor, not to think 

 too much of formaldehyde or formalin, as it 

 is called here. All old combs that have 

 putrid larv;f in them are safer rendered 

 into wax, or burned. I evaporated an ounce 

 of the 40 percent solution with an alcohol- 

 lamp and oil can evaporator, with rubber 

 tube and piece of pipe, into £0 frames set 

 loosely into hives (Dovetailed), with the 

 joints or cracks all plastered over to keep 

 fumes from escaping; and after a day or 

 two I used some of them to shake on to, and 

 the disease still remains. Whether ifs the 

 same cells that the bees have not cleaned 

 or not, I can't say, for I never marked the 

 diseased cells when fumigating; but these 

 combs contain the dark cofTee-colored ropy 

 mass which still retains its odor. 



Now let me suggest that some of you send 

 some foul brood to those who recently de- 

 cided the two diseases, foul and black 

 brood, are the same. Ask them, after they 

 have thoroughly fumigated with formalde- 

 hyde, to try to grow cultures from the rot- 

 ten mass in the combs; then if they succeed 

 in growing cultures after fumigation it 

 would not be safe to recommend the drug 

 as a cure. But after several trials, after 

 fumigatintr, if they fail to grow cultures, 

 then it will be all right to say, "Hurrah 

 for the curel" liut until 30U have some 

 real evidence, don't say much in its favor. 

 My experience on combs infected would not 

 warrant its use. I have nearly two pounds 

 of it, which costs in a Havana wholesale 

 pharmacy 70 cents per lb. But we'll risk 



no more combs from it in healthy colonies 

 unless they are apparently clean, and are 

 fumigated only as a safeguard against any 

 stray germs v/hich, according to Howard 

 and others, will die naturally when ex- 

 posed to a few hours of common air, or just 

 set the clean combs out a day or two, and 

 air them, as that would be as good. 



Will some of the professionals who rec- 

 ommend the drug — the inspectors who use 

 it — please state specifically on what kind 

 of combs or infection they use it? and if on 

 the putrid coffee-colored ropy mass, did it 

 dry it up? and did the bees clean it out 

 from the cells, and such cells and combs 

 remain clean? 



I note what Mr. Atchley says on page 

 717. I have seen no bees with paralysis in 

 Cuba; but I had quite an experience with 

 that disease in Texas, at which time I 

 watched the poor bees in front of the hive, 

 with the shakes, and all swollen up as Mr. 

 Atchle3' describes; but what I found inside 

 of them did not look like larval food. They 

 were clogged with hard dry pollen which 

 they seemed unable to rid themselves of. 

 Try as hard as they might, the effort causes 

 them to shake or tremble. I thought the 

 disease was from lack of water or from bad 

 pollen. 



San Antonio, Cuba, Sept. 5. 



[I feel sure you misunderstand the item 

 you have alluded to from the Australian 

 Bee keeper. I understand that cur Aus- 

 tralian friend meant that the production of 

 honey — that is, honey from natural sources 

 — is to be a secondary matter, and the pro- 

 duction of beeswax by feeding sugar, when 

 no hone3' is to be secured in the fields, the 

 primary business of the apiarist. I talked 

 with our mutual friend Mr. de Beche in re- 

 gard to this, and he said he had in times 

 past made some experiments in feeding 

 cheap sugar, to secure wax, that convinced 

 him the thing was practical, if I am cor- 

 rect. No one would think of feeding this 

 cheap sugar, to be had in all sugar-making 

 countries, with the view of producing any 

 thing to be called honey. 



Your plan of outdoor feeding is all right 

 for encouraging brood- rearing; but I hard- 

 ly believe it jiossible that feeding in this 

 way would be practicable for the produc- 

 tion of comb honey. I suppose you contem- 

 plate having an apiary so far away from 

 bees belonging to anybody else that there 

 will be no danger of feeding the neighbors' 

 bees.— A. L K.J 



MY FIRST TRUANT SWARM. 



BY GEO. W. PHILLIPS. 



For some time I had been having spasmod- 

 ic attacks of the bee-fever. Eventually I 

 made up m}' mind to become an apiarist. I 

 was a boy of about eighteen then, and I en- 

 tered into the work with a real boyish en- 

 thusiasm. My capital consisted of only a 

 small pile of shillings, and this was soon 



