824 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15 



THE RESULT OF MR. BENTON'S TRIP IN QUEST 

 OF NEW RACES OF BEES IN THE EAST. 



After receiving an official announcement 

 (published in our last issvie) to the effect that 

 Dr. E. F. Phillips, formerly acting in charge, 

 was now Apicultural Investigator in the 

 Bureau of Entomology, we wrote to the 

 acting Chief of the Bureau, G. L. Marlatt, 

 stating that we had as yet received no infor- 

 mation as to the result of the trip of the for- 

 mer Apicultural Investigator, Mr. Frank 

 Benton, in the East in search of new races 

 of bees, adding that we had received numer- 

 ous inquiries as to the outcome, and that any 

 information that the Bureau could give us 

 we should be pleased to place before our 

 readers. The subjqined letter will explain: 



United States Department of Agriculture, 



BUREAIT OF ENTOMOLOGY'. 



WASHINGTON, D. C, May 29, 1907. 

 My dear Sir:— I am in receipt of your letter of May 

 16th, asking for information concerning the results of 

 the trip by Mr. Frank Benton, in search of new races 

 of bees. 



I regret that I am unable to give you a report of 

 this trip, since the Bureau of Entomology has receiv- 

 ed no such report from Mr. Benton, and he is no long- 

 er connected with the Bureau of Entomology. The 

 only information which we have on the subject is a 

 verbal statement from Mr. Benton to the eflect that 

 he found very few bees, and was unable to ship any of 

 them to this country. The tone of his statement con- 

 cerning them would indicate that they are not desir- 

 able. 



Respectfully yours, 



G. L. Marlatt, 

 Acting C hief of Bureau. 



The A. I. Root Co.: 

 Mr. E. R. Root, Ed. Gleanings in Bee Culture, 

 Medina, O. 



We regret very much the outcome of the 

 trip; for in view of this failure to produce 

 results it will probably deter any further at- 

 tempt on the part of our government to send 

 a man after new races of bees for some time 

 to come, and perhaps it is just as well. Any 

 desirable race of bees capable of domestica- 

 tion can be sent here by some resident bee- 

 keeper at an atom of the expense it would 

 take to send a man after them. 



We were under the impression that Apis 

 dorsata was the particular bee sought for in 

 the Benton expedition; but his experience 

 was doubtless the same as that of others — 

 the difficulty of confining or housing these 

 bees and shipping them. At one time there 

 was great enthusiasm manifested in the mat- 

 ter of importing them to the United States; 

 but in view of the several unsuccessful at- 

 tempts to domesticate them, even in their 

 own habitat, to say nothing of the difficulty 

 of getting them here, we may conclude that 

 they, like the bumble-bees, will always re- 

 main in a wild state, and in a climate adapt- 

 ed to their nature. 



INVESTIGATIONS OF FOUL BhOOD IN GER- 

 MANY. 



Dr. Albert Maassen, of the Kaiserlichen 

 Anstalt, at Dahlem, Germany, has recently 

 issued another brief statement on his inves- 

 tigations of brood diseases of bees which is 

 of interest. In June, 1906, Dr. Maassen is- 

 sued a note announcing that he had examin- 

 ed 112 cases of diseased brood, and had found 

 Bacillus alvei, Cheyne, in but 13. Since, as 



we now know that Bacillus alvei is found in 

 European foul brood, this would indicate 

 that this disease is present in Germany, a 

 supposition which is the more strengthened 

 by symptoms mentioned in various foreign 

 journals and texts. 



In the other 99 cases Bacillus alvei was not 

 found; and while the author does not give 

 the symptoms of these cases, the descriptions 

 of foul brood in foreign publications would 

 indicate that the ropy type of disease, Amer- 

 ican foul brood, is the prevalent disease in 

 Europe, and we are justified in the surmise 

 that this is the disease in which Bacillus alvei 

 was not found. Bacillus alvei is never found 

 in American foul brood in this country, ac- 

 cording to recent investigations of Dr. Moore, 

 of Cornell University, and, later, of Dr. 

 White, in the Department of Agriculture, 

 Washington, D. C. 



This is further strengthened by the fact 

 that, while spores are present in abundance 

 in diseased material, they grow only with 

 difficulty. The author speaks of the pres- 

 ence of another bacillus; but in neither of 

 his papers does he give us any description of 

 the organism, so that it is impossible to tell 

 what it is that he finds. The uniform pres- 

 ence of this other bacillus, and the prevalence 

 of American foul brood in Europe, justifies, 

 us in thinking that the bacillus found in the 

 99 cases is possibly Bacillus larvce, White. 



All recent workers on the brood diseases 

 of bees — Burri, Lambotte, and others, speak 

 of the fact that the bacillus in ropy foul 

 brood fails to grow, or grows only with dif- 

 ficulty,' on the usual laboratory media, and 

 this, to that extent, confirms the work of Dr. 

 G. F. White, of the Bureau of Entomology.^ 



Dr. Maassen has also seen two other or- 

 ganisms in diseased material, Streptococcus 

 apis and Sjnrochcete apis. He has not as yet 

 described these micro-organisms, nor has he 

 established any casual relationship for any of 

 the species seen by him in diseased material 

 The work is still being carried on. 



BUCKWHEAT CAKES AND HONEY. 



The honey market is not the only one 

 which has been improved by the passage of 

 the recently enacted pure-food laws. The 

 latest to come to our notice is buckwheat, 

 which has recently taken a rise owing to the 

 fact that buckwheat flour in future must be 

 buckwheat flour, and ' not a mixture of 

 "Red-dog flour" and buckwheat/ 



There were some who all along declared 

 that a good deal of our buckwheat flour was 

 not genuine, and it appears they were en- 

 tirely right in their surmise. The result is, 

 there is not enough of the genuine ai'ticle to 

 go round just now. In addition, it is said 

 that the American people are more disposed 

 than formerly to eat buckwheat cakes; but 

 they want the real goods, and they ought to 

 get them by all means. This looks like good 

 news, and there is every indication that tnese 

 statements are not in the least overdrawn. 



This prompts several of our agricultural 

 exchanges to ui-ge their readers to grow 



