1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



89 



25 swarmed, which I think is not un- 

 reasonable when you think of 200 

 hives ready to gather a crop. It is 

 very reasonable to suppose that that 

 many would get the swarming fever 

 over being crowded and having to 

 stay in the hives inactive for nearly 

 a week. At least I looked for more 

 to swarm. 



I can look ahead and judge very 

 closely when tupelo will begin to 

 yield. I can also get my bees in a 

 very fair shape to get this honey 

 when it comes; I will never hope to 

 have any bees in any better shape to 

 gather a honey crop than I had mine 

 last spring. 



They had the bees, they were not 



short of room. All were run for ex- 

 tracted honey and all had mostly 

 drawn combs. Those that did not 

 have full supers of drawn comb had 

 at least 80 per cent drawn comb and 

 the other 20 per cent full sheets of 

 foundation. 



I have come to the conclusion that 

 the psychological moment for the 

 bees and the honey flow did not come 

 together; that is, the bees were kept 

 from working for a week and when 

 they did work, the chance had gone. 

 Counting out those that swarmed I 

 still had a percentage of 87 that were 

 in fine shape to get the nectar, but 

 only 7 per cent did get the nectar. 



Mt. Pleasant Ala. 



Bee Paralysis 



BEEKEEPERS BY THE WAY 



Demuth explaining the mysteries of the hi 1 



A Great Beekeeping Teacher 



When a fellow settles on his life 

 work early, he gets a good start to- 

 ward his goal, while his schoolmates 

 are experimenting with various pos- 

 sibilities. George S. Demuth took up 

 beekeeping at 14 years of age and 

 paid for his first colony by making 

 fires and cleaning the school house 

 at 5 cents per day. It took 110 days' 

 work to raise the $5.50 necessary to 

 get that first hive of bees. It took 

 the savings of another long period to 

 get the dollar necessary to pay for a 

 year's subscription to the American 

 Bee Journal. To the impatient boy, 

 the period between the time when 

 the dollar was sent and the first copy 

 arrived was one of the longest in his 

 life. From a neighbor he borrowed 

 Gleanings so as not to miss anything 

 worth while in the way of beekeep- 

 ing lore. 



With a net increase of three 

 swarms and the sale of $6 worth of 

 honey from the one colony the first 

 year, the venture may be regarded as 

 successful. 



We next find him rigging up a 



home-made saw, with a mower wheel 

 to furnish the power, to cut out sec- 

 tions from basswood cordwood. 

 Later he made hives for all his neigh- 

 bors and soon was embarked in the 

 supply business on a great scale — for 

 a boy. The time soon came when the 

 supply business was a nuisance to 

 him, because it interfered with his 

 beekeeping, and he dropped it. 



Demuth is one of the most expert 

 honey producers in America and has 

 practiced migratory beekeeping in 

 Indiana for more than twenty years. 

 In the natural order of events he was 

 selected as State Bee Inspector of 

 his State and served in that capacity 

 for three years before he went to 

 Washington as Assistant Apiculturist 

 in 1911. 



Those who have seen him at con- 

 ventions and short courses are en- 

 thusiastic about his work as a 

 teacher of beekeeping. Seldom do 

 we find the practical and theoretical 

 so fully combined in the same indi- 

 vidual. Demuth is a great beekeeper 

 and a great teacher. 



By H. Brenner 



ABOUT eight or ten years ago I 

 read for the first time of the 

 damages wrought by paralysis 

 in Australia and saw descriptions of 

 whole townships totally swept clean 

 of bee life as a result of it. About 

 four years ago, in early spring, in 

 our home apiary, about one-half of 

 my own colonies became affected 

 with it, but without serious resulting 

 harm, as the disease soon disappeared 

 of its own accord without any treat- 

 ment of any kind by me. This caused 

 me to study the disease to ascertain 

 the reason why in Australia the colo- 

 nies should be killed out and why in 

 my home yard only a few were af- 

 fected, and even they soon shook off 

 the symptoms of the disorder. 



My records showed that those af- 

 fected by the disease had been fed at 

 the end of January and early Febru- 

 ary with a thin honey and watery 

 syrup. We had reduced one part 

 honey with three parts of water and 

 had made a very thin nectar-like solu- 

 tion. It happens that we extracted 

 these colonies late in the previous 

 fall, honey being in great demand 

 and very high in price in our local 

 market. We noted that every colony 

 which we fed in the early spring for 

 brood rearing developed symptoms 

 of paralysis. At that time we fed 

 with Alexander feeders, and I no- 

 ticed after a few days of feeding that 

 there was a smell as of vinegar or 

 fermentation in the apiary, but at 

 the time I paid no very great atten- 

 tion to it, as the bees seemed to be 

 doing very well and brood rearing 

 went right along with apparently 

 good results. When, later, the par- 

 alysis became apparent in the yard it 

 gave me the first idea that soured 

 honey might be the cause of it. 



During a visit to California three 

 years ago, one of 1113' hosts called my 

 attention to a bad case of paralysis 

 in one of his apiaries. I remembered 

 my own experience and advised him 

 to fill some combs with fresh sugar 

 syrup and put it in the brood nest. 

 He did so and the disease immedi- 

 ately disappeared. 



Last year I came across an article 

 by our Mr. E. G. Le Stourgeon, in 

 one of the southern agricultural pa- 

 pers, disclosing May sickness, or bee 

 paralysis. Le Stourgeon knows the 

 theories and writings of every writer 

 on bee culture, so that he can quote 

 verbatim from Crane, Dr. Miller, 

 Doolittle and other authorities, and 

 he swears by them. In consequence, 

 he referred to and described the bac- 

 teria theory, the apparent epidemic 

 nature of the disease and such cures 

 as the sprinkling with sulphur, etc., 

 but he inclined to the belief that ex- 

 cessive dampness in the hives, caus- 

 ing moldy combs and damp air, was 

 the cause of the disease. I told him 

 that this was not the case with our 

 Texas and southern California par- 

 alysis, and I believed it was nothing 

 but bad stores or fermented nectar, 

 which are only used by the bees 

 when there are no good stores to be 

 had, that cause the disorder. We 

 argued quite a while over the matter 



