1918 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



347 



Father's tending beets and chive-. 



Saving us some money: 

 Mother's out among the hives, 



Taking off the honey: 

 The kids are in the garden 



Pulling out the weeds. 

 Don't we get a lot of food 



From half a peck of seeds? 



Disease Diagnosis. — "The Diagno- 

 sis of Bees by Laboratory Methods" 

 is the title of Bulletin No. 671, by 

 Mrs. A. H. MeCray and G. F. White. 

 of the United States Bureau of En- 

 tomology. This short Bulletin is in- 

 tended to tell expert investigators, 

 in a few pages, how to detect the dif- 

 ferent diseases, American foulbrood, 

 European foulbrood, sacbrood and 

 the nosema disease. Four cuts ac- 

 company the descriptions. 



Atkins to Iowa. — Arrangements 

 have recently been completed where- 

 by E. W. Atkins, of the Extension 

 Service Bureau of Entomology is to 

 devote his entire time to work in 

 Iowa. Atkins was experimental as- 

 sistant to Professor Webster before 

 entering the government work, and 

 his friends in Iowa are glad to know 

 that he is to return to that State, al- 

 though in different work. With the 

 return of Mr. Atkins, Iowa has three 

 men devoting their entire time to the 

 beekeeping work. Prof. F. Eric .Mil- 

 ieu, the State Apiarist, has charge 

 of the teaching of beekeeping at the 

 college, in addition to his official 

 duties: Mr. Wallace Park is en- 

 gaged in experimental investigation 

 in apiculture, and now Mr. Atkins 

 will be employed in extension work. 

 When all the States are as fully or- 

 ganized, there will be rapid advance- 

 ment of beekeeping as a commercial 

 enterprise. 



The Field Day of the Federated 

 Massachusetts Beekeepers' Associa- 

 tion, held jointly with the Eastern 

 Massachusetts Beekeepers' Associa- 

 tion, at the Norfolk County Agricul- 

 tural School at Walpole, on August 

 17. drew a large and enthusiastic au- 

 dience to hear the excellent program. 

 After the address of welcome by the 

 director of the school, Mr. Kingman, 

 Mr. J. E. Crane of Middlebury, Vt., 

 told delightfully of the curious mar- 

 riage customs of the different flow- 

 ers, and by his charming tale brought 

 home the vast service rendered by 

 the honeybee, apart from her value 

 as a honey-gatherer. Following Mr. 

 Crane were practical talks by Mr. 

 Arthur C. Miller, of Providence, R. I.. 

 on "The Wintering Problem in New 

 England;" Mr. Allan Latham, of 

 Norwichtown, Conn., on "Pasturage," 

 and Dr. Burton N. Gates, of Am- 

 herst, on "The Beekeeping Situation 

 Today and the Future of the Indus- 

 try in Massachusetts." Air. Dallas 



Lore Sharpe also contributed a few 

 words. 



The announcement of the retire- 

 ment of Dr. Burton N. Gates from 

 the office of Inspector of Apiaries 

 and Associate Professor of Beekeep- 

 ing at the Massachusetts Agricul- 

 tural College caused expressions of 

 real regret from all sides. Dr. Gates 

 has built up an apicultural depart- 

 ment at the college second to none 

 in the country, and while the bee- 

 keepers of the State felt that his call 

 to a wider territory was to be ex- 

 pected, his loss to Massachusetts will 

 be widely felt. 



A rising vote of thanks was ten- 

 dered Dr. Gates for the inspiration 

 and aid which he has been to the 

 beekeepers of Massachusetts and 

 complimentary resolutions were 

 adopted by the society. 



DOROTHY QUINCY WRIC.HT, 



Secretary. 



Beekeeping Essentials. — This is the 

 title of a Bulletin, published by the 

 Massachusetts State Boara of Agri- 

 culture, No. 14, of which Professor 

 Burton N. Gates is the author. It 

 contains 32 pages and a number of 

 good illustrations. It compares comb 

 and extracted honey production, 

 gives advice as to locating an apiary, 

 the number of colonies which may 

 profitably be kept in one spot, 

 outapiaries, hive materials, sup- 

 ers, comb foundation, equipment, 

 buying bees, italianizing, queens, 

 management, wintering, diseases, etc. 

 Massachusetts beekeepers should send 

 to the State Board of Agriculture 

 for this Bulletin. 



The Annual Meeting of the Nor- 

 thern Illinois and Southern Wiscon- 

 sin Beekeepers' Association will be 

 held in Memorial Hall in Rockford, 

 111., on Tuesday, October 15, 1918. All 

 interested in bees are invited to at- 

 tend. 



B. KENNEDY, Sec. 

 2507 W. State St., Rockford, 111. 



Wintering in Cold Cellar. — I placed 

 some bees this winter in a cellar un- 

 der an outbuilding where I supposed 

 the temperature would be about 

 right, but instead I find it is too 

 cold. The thermometer stands at 

 freezing most of the time, and, ac- 

 cording to tradition and all known 

 authorities, this means sure death to 

 the bees before spring. Xow, why is 

 this so"' Why is there not some 

 chance for bees to pull through un- 

 der these conditions as well as when 

 left out of doors without protection 

 through all extremes of winter tem- 

 perature, ranging from freezing to 



20 or 25 below zero? If the bees in 

 a cold cellar stand a poorer show, 

 what is the reason for it? 



The cellar I refer to is dry. well 

 ventilated, temperature quite uni- 

 form at 32 degrees, and the bees are 

 fairly quiet. I will either have to 

 leave them where they are or set 

 them out in the open air. Which 

 would you advise? WISCONSIN. 



Answer. — It is an error to think 

 that the bees will not live because 

 the temperature gets below the 

 freezing point, but it has been prov- 

 en that they will fare better either 

 in a cellar where the temperature is 

 kept between 40 and 45 degrees, or 

 out-of-doors, if they can have a 

 flight often. If the outdoor tempera- 

 ture is such that they cannot have a 

 fly at all, during the same length of 

 time, then they are better in that 

 cellar. 



The reasoning is as follows : When 

 at a temperature between 40 and 45 

 degrees, the bees eat the least amount 

 and therefore do not load their in- 

 testines with feces. So they can re- 

 main several months, the maximum 

 of endurance being where the tem- 

 perature is the nearest to the men- 

 tioned point and not over 55 degrees. 



When wintered out-of-doors, the 

 bees eat considerably more, but if 

 they can have a flight on each warm 

 day they relieve their bowels of the 

 load. If the temperature out-of- 

 doors remains low, say below 32 de- 

 grees, for several months, then the 

 relief is not to be had and the cold 

 cellar is better. 



From your description, I would 

 judge the chances very fair for your 

 bees to winter well, especially if you 

 have such low temperature as we 

 have had to stand during the past 

 winter in the Mississippi Valley. But 

 if your bees have to remain for sev- 

 eral months in a temperature below 

 the freezing point, while the outside 

 bees get a flight every few days, you 

 will have less satisfactory results. — 

 Ed. 



Bees and Red Clover. — In a recent 

 issue I noticed a discussion of the 

 possibility of getting honey from red 

 clover. There are localities where 

 bees work on red clover oftener than 

 they do on the white. I remember 

 that one season in the Big Horn Val- 

 ley, Wyoming, we left a piece of red 

 clover go for seed, and the bees paid 

 more attention to the red clover 

 than they did to either sweet clover, 

 alfalfa or white clover. As long as it 

 bloomed they were continually on it. 

 There are places where it is quite a 

 honey-plant, and other places where 

 it is not. Alfalfa, in the corn belt, is 

 not a honey plant, but west of the 

 corn belt it is. 



The belief that red clover does not 



