376 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



November 



would furnish an abundance of ma- 

 terial for a feature article. A trout 

 stream runs within about thirty feet 

 of the cabin door and but a few rods 

 further up it is dammed by a colony 

 of beavers, who make their home 

 there. It is not far to the home of 

 Enos A. Mills, the naturalist who.:e 

 writings have attracted much atten- 

 tion to the wild life of the region. 



At Bloomfield lives Harry Craw- 

 ford, who has made beekeeping an 

 exclusive business for 28 years. He 

 is, accordingly, one of the pioneers 

 at making an exclusive livelihood 

 from bees. He has about 600 colo- 

 nies of bees and produced 900 cases 

 of comb honey last year, besides sev- 

 eral thousand pounds of extracted 

 honey. He has a winter home at 

 Long Beach, Calif., where he has 

 gone for fourteen years to spend the 

 winter months. 



I was especially interested in 

 Crawford's packing house, which is 

 situated on one of the main roads to 

 the mountains. His attractive win- 

 dow stops many a tourist who, after 

 buying a small amount of honey to 

 use in camp, becomes a permanent 

 customer after he has returned 

 home. He sold last season as high 

 as $178 worth of honey in a single 

 day to tourists who happened alont? 

 and were stopped by the sign and 

 the honey display in the window. 

 As is shown in the picture, the house 

 is well painted and fixed up as nicely 

 as a dwelling. This is certainly an 

 effective example of the value of ad- 

 vertising to the passing trade. 



present in the sting of the bee and 

 similar stories have appeared in 

 print before. This particular news 

 item, which we copied from a new?- 

 paper clipping in our October num- 

 ber, has attracted more than the us- 

 ual attention. Thomas Forrest, of 

 Hammond, Louisiana, was the first 

 to bring it to our notice, with the re- 

 quest that the facts be given through 

 the American Bee Journal. 



A letter of enquiry to the Roches- 

 ter Germicide Company brings the 

 information that while formic acid 

 was formerly secured in a small way 

 from red ants, it is made now in 

 large quantities by a chemical pro- 

 cess from carbon, hydrogen, and oxy- 

 gen. The Rosebreugh Chemical Cor- 

 poration, of Syracuse, N. Y., was the 

 first to make it in the United States 

 from the raw material, it having 

 been formerly imported from Ger- 

 many. We can find no record that 

 the sting of the honeybee was ever 

 utilized in any commercial way. 



Money From Beestings 



A STORY has been going the 

 rounds of the" newspapers to 

 the effect that an eastern wo- 

 man is keeping bees for the money 

 to be made from the formic acid ex- 

 tracted from their stingers. It has 

 long been known that formic acid is 



The Prevention of Foulbrood 



By A. Z. Abushady 

 Late Assistant in the Bacteriological 

 Department, St. George's Hos- 

 pital; Webb Scholar in Bac- 

 teriology, University of 

 London. 



BOTH classes of foulbrood are in- 

 fectious, and both are caused 

 by sporing bacilli. The Ameri- 

 can disease is due to Bacillus larvae, 

 whilst the European infection is 

 caused by Bacillus Pluton. The mor- 

 phological characters and other fea- 

 tures of these organisms do not in- 

 terest the practical apiarist. It will 

 suffice for him to know that in the 

 early stages of both diseases, these 

 infecting organisms are present tn 

 their negative of non-sporing forms, 

 whilst in the later stages of both in- 

 fections, resisting spores replace the 

 ordinary bacilli. It is helpful, also. 



dam behind the apiary. 



to know, before drawing any plan of 

 preventive procedures, that the bee 

 food is the principal medium for the 

 dissemination of both diseases; that 

 although the tissues of the larvae are 

 the media par excellence for the 

 growth of both organisms, neverthe- 

 less, adult bees may be infected with 

 them, though not necessarily with 

 harmful results to the latter; hence, 

 such adult bees are capable of acting 

 as "carriers" of the infection in more 

 than one way; and finally, that the 

 beekeeper himself may unwittingly 

 be an active means of spreading the 

 infection amongst his own bees, if 

 he does not begin with himself in ap- 

 plying preventive measures. 



Let us consider now, as briefly as 

 possible, the various preventive 

 measures that should be adopted by 

 the apiarists of every country in 

 combatting these infections. 



1. State Supervision. By far this 

 is the most important preventive 

 measure, inasmuch as sources of in- 

 fections, under such organization, 

 are not allowed to multiply, but are 

 immediately isolated and destroyed. 

 The responsibility does not rest with 

 the Government alone, but surely 

 the success of such a supervision 

 greatly depends on the good will and 

 the progressive spirit of the apiarists 

 themselves. In spite of legislative 

 measures, they can make the scheme 

 a success or a failure. It is also in 

 their power (by their collective voice 

 and unity), to induce the Govern- 

 ment to exercise such a control. 

 American apiarists are already en- 

 joying such a protection; British 

 apiarists, on the other hand, are still 

 far from it, although they have suf- 

 fered, and still suffer, from the rav- 

 ages of both malignant dysentery 

 and foulbrood. 



2. Breeding Resistant Strains. This 

 is another helpful factor, second in 

 importance only to the former, if 

 not just as important. No one with 

 physiological knowledge will dis- 

 pute its significance. The basis of 

 success of preventive medicine, both 

 human and veterinary, consists prin- 

 cipally in maintaining and reasoning 

 the natural resistance to disease. 

 We may apply this with profit in 

 safeguarding the health of Apis Mel- 

 lifica. We may also judiciously ap- 

 ply the modern principles of eugen- 

 ics in raising healthy and strong 

 strains of bees. Splendid efforts in 

 this direction are already a feature 

 of American apiculture, but it is to 

 be regretted that the effort is not 

 complete. No trouble is being taken 

 to study the qualities of other than 

 two or three strains of the honey- 

 bee, whereas scientific research, >n 

 which the progress of the industry 

 much depends, calls for the careful 

 study of almost every sociable strain 

 in its pure condition, and the con- 

 duction of experiments aiming at the 

 raising, by judicious crossing, of 

 one or more varieties of desirable 

 bees. 



3. The Practice of Antisepsis. The 

 soundness of the advice regarding 

 keeping only strong colonies of 

 healthy bees as a protective measure 



