264 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' HE VIEW. 



which appoare<l in its issue of AufjiiHt :il8t, 1WI3, 

 but it occurs to nie that, as tlie wintering season 

 will so<in he here, and we have never had a 

 thoroiif,'h discussion of tliis subject all in one is- 

 sue, if may be well to take it up for special dis- 

 cussion in thi' Octolx'r Review. It is true that 

 \ye have disrusf-ed food, temperature, ventila- 

 tion, moisture, etc., but we wish now to consider 

 them collectivel.v in tiieir relations ouo. to the 

 other and to tiie subject now singled out for 

 speeiaJ discussion.— Ed. ) 



" Of all the obstacles with which bee-keep- 

 ers of the Northern States have to conteud, 

 none equal the losses of bees in winter and 

 spring from dysentery. Many are the causes 

 to which it has been attributed. Cold, con- 

 finement, improper food, dampness, "pol- 

 len," lack of food, or ventilation, etc., etc., 

 have all been blamed for this trouble. 



The disease, if such it can be called, is 

 simply the result of an over-loading of the 

 intestines. Cold confines the bees to their 

 hives until they are unable to longer retain 

 their fivces, and the result is termed dysen- 

 tery. Simple enough on the face of it isn't 

 it ? Doesn't seem as though there could 

 have been so much discussion about it, does 

 there ? Well, it comes about something in 

 this way : ( )ne man says it is caused by the 

 cold. Another says " ho, it isn't. We have 

 long, cold winters here, yet my bees do not 

 suffer from dysentery. If it were the cold 

 they would have it." He does'nt consider 

 that his location may furnish a different 

 class of food. Another says confinement 

 does not cause the trouble as his bees were 

 confined in the cellar so many months and 

 suffered little or nothing. This man forgets 

 that in a warm cellar much less food is con- 

 sumed, and, consequently, the longer it 

 takes to over-load the intestines. Another 

 lays the difficulty to the consumption of pol- 

 len. Another says " No, my bees have plenty 

 of pollen in the hives and they never have 

 the dysentery. If pollen causes dysentery, 

 why don't they have it ?" This man forgets 

 that pollen in the hives does not cause dys- 

 entery, it is its consumption under such con- 

 ditions that the bees cannot unload the in- 

 testines. We may not know exactly what 

 are the conditions that cause an undue con- 

 sumption of pollen, but we do know that in 

 almost all cases of bee-dysentery, the fa'cal 

 mass is almost wholly pollen. We also know 

 that when bees have no pollen in their combs, 

 when their only food is pure cane sugar 

 (honey contains some grains of pollen) they 

 do not have the dysentery under the same 

 conditions when bees with natural stores 

 have perished by the wholesale. I feel quite 



certain that bees with only pure cane sugar 

 for stores, placed in a cellar where the tem- 

 perature is about 4r> , will bear a confine- 

 ment of four or five months with no traces of 

 disease. Some honey is nearly as good as 

 sugar for winter stores. At least, bees have 

 many times passed the winter with it for 

 food and came out in the spring with perfect 

 health. The difficulty is to always know 

 when honey is a healthful food for winter. 

 There are some sections of the country where 

 it never is. Mr. Byron Walker in the east- 

 ern part of this State, near large swamps, 

 could not successfully winter bees. He tried 

 almost all known methods for a dozen years 

 or more, and finally moved to another local- 

 ity where he is more successful. Before he 

 moved away he practiced brushing bees from 

 the combs in the fall, and killing the bees. 

 They were certain to die in the winter, and 

 he reasoned that he might as well save the 

 honey that they would consume, and keep 

 his combs in a clean condition. In the 

 spring he went South and bought bees by the 

 car load and stocked his apiary again. To 

 be able to decide in regard to the suitability 

 of honey as a winter food for bees would be 

 a great step. If a bee-keeper could send a 

 sample of his honey to some chemist and 

 learn if it were safe for his bees to winter 

 upon, it would be a grand thing. If it were 

 not, he could extract it and feed sugar. 

 What is it, aside from the floating pollen, 

 that makes some honey unsuitable for a 

 winter food for bees ? This is a hard nut 

 for our Experimental Apiary to crack. 



To remove all of the honey from an apiary 

 when we do not knoiv that it will prove an 

 unsafe food, and substitute sugar, for the 

 purchase of which we may not have the ready 

 money, with honey of slow sale, is a pro- 

 ceeding that would not be considered busi- 

 ness-like. Bee-keepers prefer to take the 

 risk, one year with another, of leaving their 

 l)ees their natural stores, when these stores 

 are apparently well ripened honey, and then 

 using all other precautions possible to ward 

 off the ill effects of confinement. 



If we could only tell in advance what the 

 coming winter would be we would know 

 whether to put the bees in the cellar or to 

 protect them on their summer stands. If 

 bees could have one or two good purifying 

 flights during the winter, I should prefer to 

 winter them in the open air. But of this I 

 cannot be assured, and, as they winter no 

 worse in the cellar in a warm winter than 



