762 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



J^ov. 28, 



are called " tobacco staples," and if you can't conveniently 

 get them, use strips of tin. Let the strips be about two inches 

 long, and H to an inch wide. Make a hole in each end of the 

 tin, then put the tin so half its length is on the hive and the 

 other half on the bottom-board, and drive carpet tacks in the 

 holes. That makes plenty of room below the bottom-bars for 

 the accumulation of dead bees without clogging the entrance. 

 Now for the screens. Take a piece of wire-cloth having 

 three meshes to the inch, cut it as long as the inside width of 

 your bottom-board, and wide enough so that when it is placed 

 to close the entrance, it will project upwards about an iuch on 

 the hive. It will be held in place by a stick Jg-ineh square, 

 and as long as the outside width of the hive, the stick being 

 fastened by light nails. 



Car}admr) Bccdott)^ 



Ooiiis It Blind. 



I know of at least five persons in my immediate neighbor- 

 hood who, during the past season, have commenced bee-keep- 

 ing in entire ignorance of the pursuit. Vainly have I tried to 

 impress upon them that it is sheer folly to embark in this 

 business without the help of a manual and a bee-journal. I 

 have shown them samples of the American Bee Journal, and 

 represented to them that they can have it for a year, also 

 a copy of " Bees and Honey," at the low price of $1.00 — but 

 to no purpose. Such people are pretty sure to make a failure 

 of bee-keeping, and they deserve to do so. 



Clipping Queens' Wingg. 



Dr. Miller's " Canadian friend " makes his best bow in 

 acknowledgment of the graceful compliments paid him on 

 page 711. In return, I must own that the worthy Doctor 

 keeps his end up well, and makes the best of a lame cause. 

 It does not seem to me that there is much force in the argu- 

 ment derived from a horse that has had his tail docked. One 

 of the objections to this cruel practice is that when the 

 maimed creature switches his stub of a tail to get rid of the 

 fly that is biting him, he loses his labor, and is tantalized at 

 once by the fly and the failure of his attempt to drive it away. 



I do not remember that I ever saw a queen exercising her 

 wing machinery except in actual flight, but she may do it for 

 all that. Her feminine modesty leads her to hide, if possible, 

 away from prying eyes. She may take her " gymnastics " 

 when she is not " all exposed before the sun," and in the pres- 

 ence of strangers. I presume Dr. Miller takes his daily bath, 

 but I never saw him do it, though I have been in his company 

 many times. I simply give the theory for what it is worth. 



The Doctor admits the law that disuse of an organ causes 

 it to shrink and lose capacity. In the course of generations 

 of disuse the organ may become permanently impaired, and 

 at length disappear. If clipping the queen should at all im- 

 pair wing-power in her race, it would be a serious, if not irrep- 

 arable, loss, because the usefulness of the insect largely 

 depends upon its power of flight, especially in localities where 

 long distances have to be traversed. If Dr. Miller does the 

 least injury to his bees by clipping their queens' wings, then 

 he is not justified in saying, " I'm not as bad as the ants," be- 

 cause he has a far higher gift of reasoning power than they 

 have. 



Mr. R. L. Taylor's Bulletin for September — Foul 

 Brood. 



Owing to the character of the season of 1895, all experi- 

 ments into which swarming was to have entered in any way 

 were necessarily defeated, as the swarms were not to be had. 

 On account of the drought, there was not only no honey-flow, 

 no swarming, and no surplus, but the amount of stores and 

 brood in the hives diminished almost to the vanishing point by 

 the first of August. One other curious result seems to have 

 followed this almost total consumption of stores, some of 

 which had been in the hives for years, and that was the 

 development of several cases of foul brood, which was evi- 

 dently of a very malignant type. Great care was taken to 

 discover all these cases of the disease, and when the slight 

 honey-flow began early in August, prompt steps were taken to 

 effect a cure. 



Mr. Taylor's mode of accounting for this outbreak of foul 



brood Is not inharmonious with Mr. Cheshire's contention, 

 that it is impossible for bacilli to multiply in honey, because 

 they cannot grow in any fluid having an acid reaction. But 

 while not multiplying in honey, the bacilli may, he thinks, 

 remain in it for months without sprouting. If for months, 

 why not for a longer period ? If these bacilli, after remain- 

 ing dormant in honey for a longer or shorter period, are 

 brought into contact with any substance that furnishes a cul- 

 ture for them, such as a larva, they may at once become 

 active, and multiply at a rapid rate. This is one of various 

 causes of a renewed outbreak of the disease when the bee- 

 keeper is flattering himself that it has been extirpated. The 

 facts brought out in this bulletin on this point are full of 

 warning, and show that eternal vigilance is the price of im- 

 munity from this fell disease. 



Bacilli are minute bodies that multiply very rapidly when 

 quickened into active life. A single dead larva is capable of 

 containing millions of spores, and if, as it would appear, the 

 bacilli are liable to occur in honey even as an occasional con- 

 tamination, old stores may be a fruitful source of danger. 

 Mr. Taylor's apiary was probably not the only one in which 

 honey that had been consumed almost down to the vanishing 

 point, may have contained dormant bacilli, and it will be wise 

 for bee-keepers to be on the alert and watch for any manifes- 

 tations of disease that may appear next spring. 



An interesting experiment is detailed in the Bulletin in 

 regard to queens from foul-broody hives conveying the infec- 

 tion. A queen from a colony affected with foul brood of the 

 worst description was caged and put into a healthy colony 

 April 20. In 3(5 hours the queen was released, accepted by 

 the bees, and began to deposit eggs within a few hours. 

 Repeated examinations were made during the season, but 

 there was no appearance of the disease. Mr. Taylor draws 

 no positive conclusions from this one case, rightly remarking 

 that it would not be wise to rely absolutely even on a dozen 

 such experiments, for so far as yet known, though 49 queens 

 might be used without conveying the disease, the introduction 

 of the 50th might entail costly consequences. It is not yet 

 absolutely certain that the colony which was the subject of 

 the experiment has escaped. A diseased cell or two may have 

 been overlooked in the scrutiny, and the plague may be 

 dormant for a considerable time before becoming visibly 

 developed. 



The closing paragraph refers to alleged cases in which 

 foul brood has disappeared of itself, but farther investigation 

 is needed in regard to such cases before any positive conclu- 

 sions can be reached in regard to them. 



The American Bee Journal. 



I note the two paragraphs in the "Editorial Budget" for 

 Nov. 7. The first disclaims the paternity of the large family 

 of bee-papers that has come into existence, while the second 

 makes a well-founded appeal for help in enlarging its field of 

 usefulness. I endorse both paragraphs. 



In all-round ability, the amount of information given, and 

 cheapness, the American Bee Journal outstrips all its rivals. 

 I do not see how it is furnished at such a low subscription 

 price. It must be that Editor York is putting capital into it 

 with a view of returns in the future, or else that he has a 

 wealthy Company behind him that is doing it. Notwithstand- 

 ing the improvements made during 1895, the pledge is given 

 that there will be greater things than these during 1896. 

 " Forward " is to be the watchword. 



A prompt payment of subscriptions and a little earnest 

 canvass for new names would be but a reasonable return for 

 the efforts Editor York is making to give his patrons all he 

 possibly can in return for their money. 



[I might say to the foregoing that there is no wealthy 



Company backing the American Bee Journal. It is only by 



hard work and the strictest economy that I am able to make 



it what it is. — Editor.] 



-t-—^ 



Breeding and Crossing of Bees. 



Taking together the account in Oct. 10th number of the 

 Bee Journal, and Mr. McArthur's articles Nov. 29 and Dec. 

 6, 1891:, describing the bright, gentle, and industrious bees 

 bred on Toronto Island, I find that Mr. McArthur began with 

 a Carniolan queen mated to a choice Italian drone, and that 

 he bred her daughters to drones from the same Italian queen, 

 and so on down to the 24th generation of daughters, grand- 

 daughters, etc., of the Carniolan, mated in every instance to 



