1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



91 



will extend up from the bottom one- 

 fourth of an inch. This is for 3 1- 

 pound sections to rest upon, close to 

 the back of the hive. Have one sec- 

 tion full or honey; the other two 

 empty; or have the center one 

 empty anyway. 



Place these small hives where you 

 want them, 3 or 4 feet apart. Now 

 get your virgin queens, cages and all. 

 place them in a basket, or in your 

 pockets. Then get your cage of bees 

 that is in the cellar, carry it 

 out to the little queen-mating yard, 

 set your caged bees down, sprinkle 

 them with water, just enough so they 

 cannot fly; shake them up and down 

 in the cage till they all look pretty 

 wet (of course not too wet). Now 

 take the lid off the cage and scoop 

 out about one-half pint of bees and 

 drop into the little hive. Shake one 

 of your virgin queens in with them 

 and close the hive. The next day 

 take away the screen wire from the 

 entrance and your little swarms will 

 go to work. In about a week you 

 will find a nice laying queen. 



As soon as you find eggs in the 

 combs, remove the queen, and intro- 

 duce her to a stronger nucleus or full 

 colony ; for if you leave her with 

 such a small colony she seems to get 

 dissatisfied, and some way disappears. 

 I generally start new colonies with 

 these small ones by placing the 3 

 sections, bees, queen and all, in a 

 standard-size hive and give them a 

 frame of hatching brood from some 

 strong colony. Just set the sections 

 in a row, along beside the frame of 

 brood, and slip in a division-board. 

 You can soon build these nuclei up to 

 good strong colonies by adding 

 brood and honey occasionally. Of 

 course, you can make these nuclei 

 as large as you wish at the begin- 

 ning. I only suggested one-half pint 

 of bees for convenience. But don't 

 give them any brood or eggs, for they 

 will sometimes kill the virgin queen 

 if you do. 



I consider this method absolutely 

 safe for introducing virgin queens, or 

 laying queens, and I believe it is the 

 best and safest way to introduce 

 queens of great value. These small 

 nuclei can be made with wire screen 

 bottoms so, when the queen is re- 

 moved, you can unite them with an- 

 other colony, if you wish, by placing 

 them in an empty super over the 

 colony, having the wire cloth bot- 

 tom next the frames, and leaving 

 them thus for two days. Then smoke 

 them a little and release them. I 

 find this a pretty good way to intro- 

 duce the new laying queens. Of 

 course, I kill the old queen first, or 

 about 24 hours before releasing this 

 small nucleus. 



RAY MOORE, New Salem, 111. 



Fumigation for Bee Disease 



HAVING observed that modern 

 disinfecting for disease is gen- 

 erally carried out by means of 

 fumes and not by sprays, this set me 

 to thinking as to what gas to use for 

 Isle of Wight disease, the first symp- 

 tom of which seems to be "crawling," 

 and then'the bees disappear; in fact, 

 the symptoms seem to be similar to 



what I read lately in one of your pa- 

 pers about 'Disappearing Disease." 

 I decided to try the fumes of chlorine 

 as given off by commercial chloride 

 of lime, known also technically as 

 35% bleaching powder. In 1917, early 

 June, I saw mv bees crawling about 

 the walks, so on the principle of 

 "kill or cure" I laid half a teaspoon- 

 ful at the hive entrance and awaited 

 results. Greatly 1o my surprise and 

 del ghi the bees seemtd to quite ap- 

 prove of the perfume ?nd apparently 

 tasved the chloride, al the same time 

 faiiti'rg furiously. Cn seeing such a 

 result. I put a ridge of about half an 

 irch in front of the hive entrance, 

 so that every bei entering or leaving 

 had to pass through the fumes. 

 Crawling ceased in a day or two and 

 my stocks did well as long as the 

 good weather lasted and came 

 through the winter well. Here I may 

 say that our bees are wintered in the 

 open and fly any fine day; mine were 

 all flying on the 15th of December. 



Along last spring T cleaned the 

 alighting-board frequeiitly with a so- 

 lution of chloride till May. In June 

 I got a new stock, which had 

 swarmed on the 6th, and it did very 

 well, and all was right on the 18th, 

 when the weather broke down, and 

 from then until July 3 they did little 

 but keep themselves. The morning 

 of July 3 being fine, I went to in- 

 spect and found this lot crawling in 

 all directions. I at once put down 

 chloride, and things became normal 

 in a couple of days. The summer 

 continued the worst on record, how- 

 ever, and I did not get a good har- 

 vest, but, as already said, these 

 stocks are all well today. 



When I discovered this disease I 

 went round my neighbors, to find any 

 number of stocks similarly affected ; 

 most cases were sudden, but three 

 had been bad some time. In cases 

 where chloride of lime was applied, 

 crawling ceased, same as with mine, 

 and a small crop was gotten. In cases 

 where no chloride was laid, crawling 

 ceased in 6 to 8 days so long as the 

 queen was getting plenty, but the dis- 

 ease broke out again later on honey 

 flow failing, and in one apiary I 

 know of, these non-treated stocks are 

 now dead — about 6 stocks. 



The three cases of undoubted Isle 

 of Wight were in the hands of good, 

 keen men, and in addition to the out- 

 side treatment they put about one- 

 quarter ounce doses inside the hives 

 fresh every week and also fed lightly. 

 In all three cases crawling ceased, 

 and today bees are alive and appar- 

 ently doing well. 



The results obtained here make me 

 venture to suggest that some bee- 

 keepers, better up in the strengths 

 of disinfectants than I am, and able 

 to follow up with research, might 

 try the effect of these fumes in a 

 pure state upon old combs, without 

 bees, known to have had foulbrood. 



In any case, it is my intention to 

 fumigate all my combs with gas be- 

 fore I put them into my hives next 

 summer, for wherever a spore finds 

 its way the gas can penetrate, too; 

 but not by any means is this the case 

 with an atom of spray which is much 

 larger, and I also think it might be 



worth a trial to give small doses to 

 the stocks themselves. 



T. T., Broomend, Scotland. 



(We submit the foregoing, though 

 we have but little faith in drugs. 

 Yet, Chas. Muth, Hilbert, Bertrand, 

 Cowan and Cheshire have succeeded 

 with them, after long battles. We 

 have thought enough of their success 

 to mention their methods in the 

 "Langstroth Revised." But for popu- 

 lar, positive success, we know of no 

 method that will succeed except de- 

 struction of the combs, in American 

 foulbrood. Isle of Wight disease 

 does not exist in the United States; 

 the disease paralysis is not of long 

 duration, neither is it as damaging. 



Great Britain is trying all sorts of 

 drugs, if we judge by the advertise- 

 ments in the British Bee Journal: 

 "Izal," "Yadil," "Bacterol," etc., have 

 all been praised, but has success 

 crowned the efforts? We will be glad 

 to hear of further experiments. — Ed- 

 itor.) 



Bees in National Forests— Best Bee 

 State 



"I would like you to advise me 

 through your valuable magazine 

 which is the best State of the United 

 States for beekeeping. Is California 

 or Florida considered better than 

 the others? Can one use the vacant 

 Government lands of the National 

 forests for beekeeping?" 



Ontario. 



There is no one particular State 

 which enjoys special advantages for 

 beekeeping. Florida is probably one 

 of the poorest of the States for com- 

 mercial honey production. There are 

 a few favored localities where com- 

 mercial beekeeping can be success- 

 fully followed in Florida, but in gen- 

 eral it is not a favored locality. 



California is one of the best and 

 there are numerous localities in 

 California where beekeeping is very 

 successful. However, in most parts 

 of California it is necesary to prac- 

 tice migratory beekeeping to some 

 extent and move the bees at least to 

 one new field each year. Some bee- 

 keepers move two or three times. 

 Unlike many eastern places, it is not 

 generally the case that a man can 

 find a location where he can get two 

 or more good honeyflows in the same 

 location in the same year. 



There are limited parts of nearly 

 every State that are specially adapted 

 to honey production and other sec- 

 tions where it is not commercially 

 profitable. 



Texas, New York, Michigan, Colo- 

 rado, Idaho and Montana are among 

 the well-known honey-producing 

 States. Kansas and Nebraska also 

 offer some very good locations, with, 

 at the same time, large areas not 

 suited to beekeeping. 



The government encourages bee- 

 keeping in the National forests and 

 offers exclusive rights to the ranges 

 at a nominal price of 10 cents per 

 colony. There are some very favor- 

 able locations unoccupied in the Na- 

 tional forests and one need have no 

 fear of being crowded out of a good 

 location, for he is protected abso- 

 lutely by Uncle Sam. 



