1568 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15 



is seldom that either electricity or water un- 

 der pressure is obtainable in a bee-yard, and 

 hence a gasoline-engine is the cheapest and 

 only available powei*. 



Fig. 2 shows another view of the apiary in 

 Rattlesnake Canyon. Evidently the camera 

 stood on the opposite side of the canyon to 

 where I stood when my view was taken as 

 seen in Fig. 1. 



The question may he asked, "Why called 

 Rattlesnake Canyon? " I will explain: I was 

 strictly cautioned, while posing my camera 

 on the mountain-sides, to beware of rattle- 

 snakes, and you may be sure that I did, for 

 several rattlers had been killed in that vicin- 

 ity just prior to my visit. 



This apiary, as will be noted, has all the hives 

 arranged on terraces, for the yard had to be on 

 a sort of side hill. Without these terraces it 

 would be difficult to run a hive-cart to and 

 from the extracting-house or to level up the 

 hives. At the time of my visit the ground 

 was nicely leveled off in steps, and the ef- 

 fect was very pretty. 



It will be noticed that Mr. Mendleson works 

 his hives in pairs or groups. The same gen- 

 eral principle applies at the other yard here 

 shown (Fig. 4) — namely, the Canulos apiary, 

 located near the scenes of Ramona, of liter- 

 ary fame. In speaking of this yard INIr Men- 

 dleson says the hives are placed two or three 

 in a group, facing diagonally down hill so as 

 to keep the rains from running in at the en- 

 trance, for the end of the apiary toward the 

 observer is on very much higher ground, al- 

 though it would hardly be noticed from the 

 photo. 



In the very front foreground one sees the 

 blossoms of what I take to be the button or 

 black sage, from which most of the so-called 

 black-sage honey is obtained. While there 

 is a plant known as white sage, it furnishes 

 comparatively little of the honey bearing that 

 name. This Canulos or Ramona yard is like- 

 wise terraced; but it does not show up quite 

 so clearly as in the other apiary. 



It will be noted, also, that this yard is lo- 

 cated at the junction of a couple of moun- 

 tains so that the honey can be hauled through 

 the canyon down into the valley below, with- 

 out climbing the mountain sides. By look- 

 ing over the mountains one will see what I 

 take to be black and button sage bushes. 

 These are little clumps that dot the sides of 

 the mountains. 



PARALYSIS OR DYSENTERY? 



An Interestinff Case. 



BY A. L. YOUNGMAN. 



I have been in the bee business for over 40 

 years. Until recently I thought I knew some- 

 thing about bees, etc. Since last June I have 

 had experience that has taken the conceit all 

 out of me. About June first I had over 250 

 colonies, in as good condition as bees ever 

 get — hives full, many colonies working in 

 boxes, some having tilled full sets of 2-lb. sec- 

 tions. About this time we had about two 

 weeks of cold bad weather which kept the 



bees confined much of the time. When good 

 weather came around, the bees (every hive 

 more or less affected), were diseased with 

 something like a chronic diarrhea. They 

 were swollen, and looked as if they were 

 gorged with honey. They congregated in 

 large numbers about the entrances of hives, 

 and had a peculiar quivering of their wings. 

 Stir them up and but few if any would tiy. 

 Every now and then one or more would rush 

 out (they could not fly), bent on seeing how 

 far they could get before dying. In three 

 weeks fully a half of the working force of 

 nearly every colony lay dead in and about 

 the hives. On opening a hive, dead and dy- 

 ing bees were found wedged into every crev- 

 ice and corner, around the ends of frames 

 and between frames and cover. The brood 

 was more or less affected also, some of the 

 larvae being dead and of a dark or nearly 

 black color. In but few instances could I 

 find any thing like a ropy nature about the 

 dead larva3. One of my neighboi's, interest- 

 ed somewhat in bees, brought over several 

 old copies of the American Bee Journal. I 

 saw by the reports of many bee-keepers to 

 that journal that this disease is not a new 

 thing; in fact, I myself have had it in a mild 

 form several times before, always near the 

 last of June or first of July. I do not re- 

 member having lost any colonies outright 

 before. 



Out of over 250 colonies I now have nearly 

 100 left. Some of these are only three-frame 

 nuclei. Barring the limited number of bees 

 now present, I doubt if an expert could de- 

 tect any signs of the trouble that the bees 

 have passed through. Apparently the bees 

 that are left are now all right. The question 

 is, will the trouble return? 



Glen Ellen, Cal. 



[The case described here ia a very interest- 

 ing one, and we have to confess that we are 

 not able to diagnose it accurately. From the 

 description given, one would infer that it 

 might be bee-paralysis, for bees affected with 

 that disease will behave very much as here 

 described; but the fact that the malady dis- 

 appeared on the return of warm weather 

 would seem to lend color to the theory that 

 the trouble, whatever it was, was in the na- 

 ture of dysentery. We know this: In the 

 height of the honey-fiow if a colony be con- 

 fined for a couple of weeks the bees will be 

 affected with dysentery. In the case that 

 you cite, the bees were gathering stores very 

 rapidly, and consuming them, as they would 

 not do while confined in winter quarters in 

 our Northern States. The effect of such a 

 large consumption of stores, especially of 

 fresh stores not ripened, would seem to in- 

 dicate that the bees were suffering from a se- 

 vere case of dysentery, and that, as soon as 

 good weather came on, they recovered just 

 as they would ordinarily do when suffer- 

 ing from this malady in the spring on the re- 

 turn of good weather. 



We shall be glad to hear from many of our 

 subscribers who have noticed the same thing; 

 for among our nearly 35,000 patrons there 



