THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



4? 



Mr France is riding to and from the apiary 

 —too late and too early to brush bees from 

 combs. The only fault I could ever tind with 

 gardening was that the mornings and even- 

 ings were too short. . 



It is impossible to go to the apiary, put on 

 the escapes, and extract the honey on the 

 same day, because the bees will not be out 

 until in the afternoon. Our present torms 

 of escapes (I use the Porter) d.-^ not seem to 

 work fast enough, but we may never get any 

 that will do better than the present forms. 



To put the escape-board under, the upper 

 story does not need to be lifted off. bimply 

 nrv up the rear end of it about six inches 

 with the left hand. A chisel may be neces- 

 sary to start it. As soon as it starts, be^in 

 to blow in, across the brood-frames, smoke 

 from the smoker held in the right hand, on 

 the right side of the hive as you stand in the 

 rear. Sharp blasts in the narrow crevice will 

 p iss clear across. Do not look to see if the 

 bees run ; if you have smoked bees a thou- 

 sand times or more you may know that every 

 bee will get out of the way as soon as possi 

 ble. When the edge of the hive is up six 

 inches, put your left knee against the edge, 

 to hold it there while the hand goes over to 

 catch the front hand-hole, and raise that end 

 of the story about a foot, and swing it around 

 to the left, using the knee for a pivot. By 

 this time the right hand has set the smoker 

 down and brought the escape-board up, and 

 laid it on ton of the brood-chamber. Escape- 

 boards are light. One hand can handle them 

 by the rim and lay one down carefully to 

 avoid killing bees. Then both hands are free 

 to ease the upper story down onto it. i his 

 is only the fraction of a minute, but it takes 

 as large a fraction to get to the next hive, 

 and another to straighten the back after the 

 bending position. Rheumatics straighten 

 up very slowly sometimes. No pans of water 

 are needed, nor honey-daubed brushes to 

 stick to every bee they strike— no handker- 

 chiefs to arrest the drops of perspiration 

 that chase each other off the end of the nose 

 into the hives, nor aching fingers from grasp- 

 ing slippery proiecting arms while plying the 



brush. > i u 



Brushing bees hurriedly from the combs, 

 with old Sol looking straight down at you in 

 the confined air of a veil, is like feedme a 

 thrashing-machine or firing an engine i he 

 feeder steps out from his machine, the fire- 

 man from his cab, and apiarists seek the 

 shade of a tree or building while they mop 

 away the sweat and secure a free breath of 

 cool air. 



The principal fault I have found m escapes 

 is, where only one upper story is used, it 

 keeps all the bees from work about six hours 

 while they are getting through the escape, or 

 else we need a six-hour supply of empty 

 combs and stories to begin work with ; but 

 where two extracting-stories are used, one 

 could always be left on. I used two stories, 

 but expect, another season, to use three. 



Brace-combs may trouble where narrower 

 frame material than 1 1-16 is used m either 

 top or bottom bars. Still again, there is 

 about one colony in twenty that persists in 

 their construction, and needs a change of 

 queens. 



When our harvest ended last June I did 

 not think there would be any honey m the 

 fall, and I left on about 75 upper stories full 

 of capped sage honey, there not be_ng a 

 pound of winter stores in the lower hives. 

 However, they gathered enough from tar- 

 weed and other bitter flowers to about till 

 the lower combs. The escapes are put on in 

 the afternoon, and the upper stories taken 

 into the tent the next morning, and extract- 

 ed during the day. The empty combs are 

 returned to the hives the following evening, 

 to be cleaned during the night ; and now af- 

 ter five days there is only occasionally a stray 

 robber smelling around. This could not be 

 done without escapes, and I am so well 

 pleased with the plan that I shall try to leave 

 half the crop (if we have any— prospects look 

 poor now) on another season, and extract it 

 after the hot weather is over, and there are 

 no ants to bother. 



The honey is thick enough to be eaten with 

 a fork, without any trouble, but the extractor 

 must be turned like a thrashing-machine 

 cylinder, which is easily done by putting a 

 small cog-wheel on the crank *^nd of the 

 crank- shaft of a two-frame Novice machine. 

 Then another larger cog-wheel, to which the 

 crank is attached, is arranged on the side ot 

 the can just below the smaller wheel, it 

 takes a little more turning, but the work is 

 a 3 easy as in hot weather. ^ ^ ^ 



C. W. Dayton. 



Pasadena, Cal., De?. 15, 1893." 



Is Bacillus Alvei the Germ of Foul Brood 1 



" Who shall decide when doctors disagree, ^. 

 And soundest causists doubt, like you and me.^ 



There is much discussion these days upon 

 the subject of foul brood, and through much 

 of it runs the assumption that bacillus alvei 

 is the cause of the disease. Mr. Frank 

 Cheshire found this bacillus in the bodies of 

 bees in colonies where there was foul brood, 

 also in the queen and her ovaries. This be- 

 ing true, it has always been a wonder to me 

 how a colony could be freed from the dis- 

 ease simply by removing the combs and giv- 

 ing the bees a new hive. Mr. J. A. Green, in 

 the American Bee Journal, raises the ques- 

 tion as to whether bacillus alvie is really the 

 cause of foul brood, and his views are cer- 

 tainly worthy of consideration. He says :— 

 " I believe that Mr. Cornell has misquoted 

 me on page 760 of the Bee Journal for De- 

 cember, 1893, and he is certainly in error in 

 saying that I have ' repeatedly ' made such a 

 statement. However, I will not stop now to 

 look the matter up, but will define my posi- 

 tion anew. . , ^ • . * 



I do not believe, as one might infer from 

 the quotation attributed to me, that bacteria 

 are always the result, and never the cause, 

 of disease. At the only time I remember 

 making any such statement, I expressly 



