1918 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



383 



The Pennsylvania Beekeepers at the St. 



The Pennsylvania Field Meet 



The Pennsylvania Beekeepers' As- 

 sociation held a summer field meet- 

 ing at the apiary of Dr. E. E. Sterner 

 at Wrightsville, July 6. Dr. Sterner, 

 Dr. H. A. Surface and Prof. Rambo 

 were the speakers of the day. 



Michigan Convention Notes 



The annual meeting of the Michi- 

 gan Beekeepers' Association, which 

 will be held at Lansing November 19, 

 20 and 21, promises to be one of the 

 best of good times and one of the 

 most profitable meetings of Michigan 

 beekeepers in recent years. The pres- 

 ent indications are that all the previ- 

 ous records of attendance will be 

 broken. Practically all county asso- 

 ciations will send delegations of con- 

 siderable numbers. This will be one 

 of the rare opportunities for bee- 

 keepers to talk with some of the 

 most successful men in the business 

 and learn many of the secrets of 

 their success. The discussions, as 

 appearing on the program, will cen- 

 ter around the subjects of the proper 

 size of hives for best results, the use 

 of combless packages, modern meth- 

 ods of marketing with special refer- 

 ence to the possibilities of a pro- 

 ducers' co-operative organization and 

 the honey-producing possibilities of 

 the Upper Peninsula. The most of 

 the program will be in the hands of 

 Michigan men. Mr. C. P. Dadant, 

 of the American Bee Journal, and 

 Mr. E. R. Root, of Gleanings, have 

 consented to be present and give 

 Michigan beekeepers the benefit of 

 their very broad and valuable experi- 

 ence. A banquet will be held on the 

 evening of the 20th. Plan to side- 

 track everything and join with your 

 fellow producers in having a most 

 enjoyable and profitable time. If you 

 have not received a program by the 

 time you read this, send to the un- 

 dersigned for one. B. F. KINDIG, 



East Lansing, Mich. 



in the center for the new frame. 

 When this is drawn out and filled 

 with eggs remove to a warm room if 

 the weather is a bit chilly, and cut in 

 strips by running a sharp, slightly 

 heated knife through one line of 

 cells, then skip one line and cut 

 through the third line of cells. This 

 will give you one row of cells not 

 molested. Cut off the cells on the 

 opposite side one-sixteenth of an 

 inch from the foundation ; have pre- 

 viously arranged a frame with two or 

 three cross-bars ; secure the strips of 

 cells to the under side of these bars 

 in such a position that the cells will 

 joint down when your frame is 

 placed in the hive, when the bees will 

 do the rest, giving you a fine lot of 

 queen-cells which, when capped over, 

 may be used according to methods 

 described in various works on this 

 subject. If it is desired to use both 

 sides of the comb, take two sheets of 

 foundation, place these together with 

 two sheets of tissue paper between 

 them, cutting the paper a little 

 smaller than the foundation and 

 pressing the edges together. By trim- 

 ming the edges these two sheets will 

 readily part, giving you two sheets 

 drawn on one side, or twice as many 

 available cells. 



A. CHENOVVETH, 

 Stewart, Nebr. 



Simple Method of Rearing Queens 



Take a new, fresh sheet of medium 

 brood foundation, secure this in a 

 brood frame and place this in the 

 center of the brood chamber by re- 

 moving one of the outside frames 

 that usually contain no brood ; then 

 move the frames out, leaving a space 



Foulbrood — Swarm Control, Etc. 



I have had American foulbrood and 

 am now sure that my colonies are 

 free from it. American foulbrood is 

 much similar in its actions to hog 

 cholera, which I have had on my 

 farm twice during the last year. A 

 few may get well — most of them will 

 die. A few will be immune or will 

 not contract the disease. I have had 

 two colonies to become less and less 

 until no more dead brood would be 

 found. I have never found a badly 

 affected colony to be able to throw 

 off the disease unless treated by the 

 regular plan given in past numbers 

 of the American Bee Journal. 



I have taken queens from badly in- 

 fected colonies and introduced them 

 in other colonies and never had the 

 queens to carry the disease. 



Practically all the bees died in this 

 locality during the last ten years. 



The last two years the bees have 



become as plentiful as ever. I be- 

 lieve that the immune or resistent 

 strains have survived. 



The plan of hiving several swarms 

 together has not been a success with 

 me. They swarm again or loaf with 

 an abundance of room. And along 

 with the above to let old queens go 

 back to old stand after hiving bees 

 with other colonies has been a fail- 

 ure with me. The old queens disap- 

 pear. 



The method of continual destruc- 

 tion of cells was a fizzle, also. In 

 time I had bees with no brood, fre- 

 quently with old queens present, but 

 no brood of any age. , I had to give 

 these colonies cells in order to raise 

 queens. 



I was disappointed in giving a 

 strong colony but one cell. Fre- 

 quently that one young queen took 

 practically all the bees and left with- 

 out leaving their future address, with 

 a queenless hive and few bees left 

 behind. 



I have had several queens of this 

 year's raising to swarm and make 

 their get-away. I find that certain 

 strains of bees do not swarm as 

 readily as others. They gather more 

 honey. I have had one queen to be 

 laying in three days after she came 

 from the cell. I opened the hive im- 

 mediately after the second swarm 

 had issued in order to get some 

 young queens. I found the bees hold- 

 ing several queens in their cells. I 

 brushed the bees off a cell and out 

 came the queens, and I put them in 

 another hive that had cells. In three 

 days there were fresh eggs. The 

 weather had been very rainy before 

 this swarm issued. 



Most of the queens begin laying 

 before they are ten days old, but 

 frequently it will be two weeks, es- 

 pecially if there is no honey coming 

 in and conditions are unfavorable. 



The above conclusions have been 

 from the handling of powerful colo- 

 nies — from 10 to 18 frames of brood 

 before white clover harvest, 



JNO. M. BIXLER, 

 Corning, Iowa. 



More About the Loss of Brood in the 

 South 



Noticing the article on "Losses in 

 Southern Beekeeping," page 344, by 

 Joseph C. Scott, Mt. Pleasant, Ala., 

 in which he describes a brood disease 

 which I think is the same that I have 

 known for a long time, I thought it 

 well to give my experience with it. 

 While I lived at Leslie, Sumpter 

 County, I noticed it about the same 

 time of year and about every year, 

 with appearance much the same as 

 he describes. With me the first ap- 

 pearance of it was the purplish color 

 of all the unsealed larvae. Some of it 

 would die and then turn white and, if 

 not removed by the bees, would 

 finally turn black, and in bad cases 

 the comb would have all the appear- 

 ance of pictures of foulbrood we 

 have often seen in the bee papers. 

 When the cotton began to yield 

 honey the disease usually disap- 

 peared rapidly, so that I never ex- 

 perienced much loss from it while I 

 kept bees in that locality. Since re- 

 moving my bees to this place, less 



