58 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



February 



may be irritated by the sudden cur- 

 rent of air or by the cold which ex- 

 poses her brood to danger. 



Here is a fact which proves that 

 bees are not directed by the tint so 

 much as by the glare of colored ob- 

 jectSJ lor the glare may be similar 

 when, to our eye, the colors are dis- 

 similar. 



I had an apiary in Tunis, where, 

 from May till November, under a 

 blazing sun, the sky remains relent- 

 lessly blue, and where the houses are 

 exceedingly white, being every year 

 bleached with lime. 



Several of my hives were separated 

 from the watering spot by a long 

 building, a shed whitewashed with 

 lime. Two vears successively I no- 

 ticed, especially at the time of active 

 brood-rearing, March and April, that 

 the workers, in their numerous trips 

 to the water, often failed to go 

 around or fly over the shed; at the 

 exit of their hives they would fly to- 

 wards the water, at ordinary height, 

 and would strike violently against 

 the white wall; many not being able 

 to rise again, but dying on the spot. 

 Others perished in a similar way 

 upon their return home from the 

 water. 



Evidently they were deceived by 

 the similar glare, and made no dis- 

 tinction between the white wall and 

 the blue sky, a distinction which is 

 easy to the human eye. 



The number of bees which died in 

 this way was so great that I finally 

 removed the apiary from this spot, 

 although in other respects the spot 

 was satisfactory. 



(This is very interesting. Many 

 people have noticed what this writer 

 mentions— as to the indifference of 

 the bees to the uncovering of their 

 brood-combs, if it is done without jar. 

 They will even fly to the field, from 

 this opening, as if it were the usual 

 way of exit. But let a quick motion 

 be made over this opening by the 

 apiarist, and perhaps dozens of bees 

 will fly at him to punish him for his 

 daring. — Editor.) 



Shipment of Pound Package Bees 

 to the Kootenays in 1918 



B W. J. Sheppard 



THE importation of bees in pound 

 packages from the United 

 States to the Kootenays, Brit- 

 ish Columbia, came to a sudden stop 

 early in the season of 1918, owing, it 

 is stated, to the transportation com- 

 panies declining to undertake to con- 

 vey them by the most direct route, 

 probably owing to the conditions 

 prevailing on account of the war. 



The first large shipment from Cali- 

 fornia, consisting of 58 two-pound 

 packages, arrived in Nelson on April 

 21. Instead of coming in via Port- 

 land and Spokane on the Great 

 Northern, the quickest route, only 

 taking from three to four days, the 

 way the consignor stated he routed 

 them, they came round by Vancou- 

 ver, thus causing a delay of 

 days. Owing to this they were in 

 very bad shape on arrival in Nelson, 

 17 of the packages being all dead. 24 

 about half dead, and the remaining 



tity of food they would stand a much 

 better chance of coming through in 

 good shape and a few days delay 

 would not then so much signify. 

 Nelson, B. C. 



17 only in fair condition. As they 

 had another 80 miles to travel after 

 reaching Nelson, and had unfortu- 

 nately missed the connection, they 

 had to remain over at the depot for a 

 further period of two days. The 41 

 lots that contained living bees were 

 fed two or three times with syrup 

 before being re-shipped, which kept 

 them alive until they reached their 

 final destination. After being put 

 into hives they were each given 2 

 five-pound cans of syrup and then 

 had to be left to take care of them- 

 selves. In spite of this and the bad 

 condition they were in on arrival 

 many of those 41 lots have built up 

 into fairly respectable colonies, al- 

 though they had only two frames of 

 comb to start with and had to draw 

 out foundation. The dandelions, 

 which were very numerous in the lo- 

 cality, helped them considerably, and 

 they are also situated in a good clo- 

 ver district. 



On being informed a< to the delay 

 and the state in which this shipment 

 arrived, the consignor sent word that 

 he would not ship any more bees to 

 British Columbia under the existing 

 conditions. 



Now that the new postal regula- 

 tions in the United States will permit 

 bees in combless packages to be car- 

 ried through the mails, there will 

 doubtless be less risk of delay than 

 if shipped by express. The Postmas- 

 ter Genera! for Canada having just 

 intimated that his department is 

 making arrangements to admit living 

 bees to the Canadian Inland Parcels 

 Post and will shortly issue instruc- 

 tions on the subject, the beekeepers 

 here are looking forward to being 

 able to obtain the package, bees by 

 this means in 1919. 



In 1916 and 1917 many of the two- 

 pound packages shipped into the 

 Kootenays from the United States 

 gave a surplus of 100 pounds and 

 over per colony the first season. 



Tlie writer having had many op- 

 portunities of examining these bees 

 on arriving at their destination, in 

 the past, believes that if they were 

 sent out supplied with a larger quan- 



A Safe Introducing Cage 



THE question of safe introduction 

 of valuable queens is always be- 

 fore us. Most of the methods 

 which are known to be dependable 

 under all conditions require more or 

 less of trouble and time to put them 

 into effect. Probably no one is so 

 constantly reminded of the necessity 

 of improvement in methods of intro- 

 duction as the queen breeder. The 

 success of his business largely de- 

 pends upon the success with which 

 his customers are able to introduce 

 the queens which he sells. The many 

 foreign odors acquired by a queen- 

 cage in its journey through the mails 

 adds to the normal difficulty of in- 

 troducing a strange queen into a new 

 colony. 



It is a well-known fact that where 

 the queen is introduced by means of 

 a "push-in" cage which covers a 

 small amount of brood-comb in 

 which she may begin laying, before 

 being released, she is seldom lost. 

 With this idea in mind, Jay Smith, a 

 well-known Indiana queen breeder, 

 has devised a cage which is used in 

 connection with the ordinary mailing 

 cage. One of the illustrating pictures 

 shows the details of his push-in cage, 

 while the other shows how it is used 

 by removing the cover to the open- 

 ing in one end of the mailing cage. 

 This permits the queen and the bees 

 which accompany her to enter the 

 other cage which is pushed into the 

 comb. She has thus a small amount 

 or brood-comb available ,but the hive 

 bees cannot reach her until she has 

 acquired the hive odor and has be- 

 gun laying. After a few days the 

 cage can be carefully removed and 

 the frame replaced in the hive with 

 very little danger to the queen. The 

 difficulty with most of the push-in 

 cages is in getting the queen into 

 them. Mr. Smith has solved this 

 problem very nicely, as will readily 

 be seen. 



My Experience With European 

 Foulbrood 



By Frank Coverdale 



NINETEEN-SEVENTEEN was a 

 very poor honey season, mak- 

 ing it a very hard task to 

 fight disease. Many colonies were 

 so weakened that by June 1, 1918, 

 nearly half of 300 colonies were fin- 

 ished. It looked to me that I was 

 just going out of business, and more 

 than once I thought to quit and be 

 done. Then T would think how the 

 Cogshalls had made good in spite of 

 what they called black brood, and the 

 great stress they put on salting their 

 bees. In the spring of 1918 all that 

 was left had no bad brood until the 

 last of May, and all built up well. In 

 June the disease brok; out here and 

 ill over the yard. The first 

 thing I did was to get a half barrel, 

 filled with water. I stirred enough 



