1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1197 



I have given many years of study to learn 

 how to keep bees through a five-ruonths' win- 

 ter in that way, and I must say that, if there 

 is any one thing connected with cellar win- 

 tering that has more to do with success than 

 SLUj other, aside from good food, it is perfect 

 quiet. When we take a hive from the cellar 

 with only about a pint of live bees, and see 

 about four or five quarts of dead bees around 

 it, we can hardly say that that colony lived 

 through the winter; but when they can be 

 placed on their summer stands after 160 days' 

 confinement, apparently as strong as they 

 were Nov. 1, then we can say we know some- 

 thing about wintering. This has been done, 

 is being done, and can be done when they 

 are kept quiet. But it will be a long time 

 before it can be accomplished where they 

 are subjected to harsh disturbance during 

 long northern winters. 



Delanson, N. Y. 



HOW TO CURE FOUL BROOD IN FIVE 



MINUTES, AND YET SAVE ALL 



THE GOOD BROOD. 



BY N. E. CLEAVER. 



I have never had any foul brood in any of 

 my yards, and so have not practiced the plan 

 at home. But I am called all over this part 

 of the State to treat foul brood, and have 

 had only one failure since using this method. 

 The plan works equally well for old box 

 hives or new and up-to-date hives, and is so 

 simple that any one can work it. 



Provide the following outfit: 1. A nice 

 clean hive with full sheets of foundation, and 

 in the center a frame of unsealed brood, with 

 some adhering bees from a colony that has 

 no disease (a caged queen may be hung by 

 the side of the frame of brood if desired). 

 2. Tack a small piece of queen-excluding 

 zinc over the entrance side of a Porter bee- 

 escape board, to prevent drones from clog- 

 ging the escape, or a full sheet may be used 

 without tacking. 



Now you are ready to begin. In the eve- 

 ning, during a fair honey-fiow, lift the dis- 

 eased colony from the stand and place the 

 clean prepared hive where the diseased colo- 

 ny had stood. Do not put a cover on this 

 new hive, but instead put on the Porter bee- 

 escape board with the opening downward. 

 Now take the old bottom-board off the dis- 

 eased colony (if the bottom-board is nailed 

 on, you can either knock it off or bore a hole 

 through it), and set the diseased colony on 

 top of the Porter escape-board. Close every 

 entrance to the diseased colony if there is 

 any. Be very careful about this part; do not 

 leave an opening anywhere except the one 

 through the escape-board into the lower hive. 

 Shade the upper diseased hive, or it may 

 overheat the next day when the sun comes 

 out. 



Now you have not been more than five 

 minutes, probably not more than one min- 

 ute, and your part of the work is done. In 

 the morning, when the bees go out to work 

 they will carry no diseased honey with them. 



They go out through the Porter escape and 

 through the new clean hive. When they 

 come back loaded with honey, they can not 

 get back up into their old hive, and so de- 

 posit the honey in the new clean hive. The 

 frame of brood makes them feel at home, and 

 from it they will raise a queen, if you have 

 not given them one. The old queen goes on 

 laying in the upper story until the honey 

 and nurse bees get scarce. In two or three 

 weeks the upper story will be pi-actically de- 

 serted; sometimes a handful of bees and the 

 queen will be all that vou will find, and some- 

 times all will be dead. If you want to util- 

 ize the colony for section honey, though a 

 diseased colony is not likely to be strong 

 enough for that, you can take away the up- 

 per diseased hive after about a week, and 

 the loss in brood will not be very great. 

 When the diseased hive is removed it snould 

 be taken into a closed room, the few remain- 

 ing bees should be destroyed, the combs 

 melted at once, the frames burned, and the 

 hive cax'efully cleaned. If the hive is a cheap 

 thing, burn it. I said I had one failure in 

 working this plan. The apiary belonged to 

 a woman. I told her how to proceed after 

 the bees were trapped out of the diseased 

 hive, so she took the honey and old combs 

 out of the frames, burned the frames, cai'e- 

 fully cleaned the hives, and set the diseased 

 honey out in the wash-tub "for the bees to 

 eat." The last part reminds me of the arti- 

 cle on page 907. Well, the bees ate the hon- 

 ey and spread the disease all through the api- 

 ary, and she said she thought my plan was 

 a failure. 



If I were working in my own yard where 

 time is not so great a factor, I would put an 

 empty hive under the diseased hive, and take 

 the escape out of the escape-board, and get 

 the bees accustomed to going out and in 

 through the lower hive, before trapping them 

 out; they would not then be so likely to be 

 excited and carry diseased honey out with 

 them. 



Any one who understands catching queens 

 should put the old queen in the lower hive 

 at once, keeping her caged for a day or two, 

 unless it is desirable to requeen the colony. 



If the colony to be treated is a very large 

 one, it would be well to place an empty su- 

 per on the diseased colony to give addition- 

 al air-space, and make the danger from suf- 

 focation less. 



The frame of brood in the lower hive is 

 not essential to the plan and may be left out, 

 but the bees start to work better with it in. 

 I think this plan has three advantages over 

 the McEvoy system. It enables the bee-keep- 

 er who is afraid to shake his bees to treat 

 the disease successfully; it saves the good 

 brood, and it can not spread the disease to 

 other colonies. The McEvoy system shakes 

 bees full of diseased honey, and in the ex- 

 citement some get into the wrong hives, car- 

 rying the diseased honey to well colonies. 

 And then, if requeening is desirable, there is 

 no hunting for queens: the merest novice in 

 the business can requeen successfully. 



Emporium, Pa. 



