1878. 



glea:n'ings in bee culture. 



15 



way at fault, you can simply remove her and 

 substitute another, without even so much 

 as disturbing the regular daily routine. 



So long as this is the case, we have little 

 to fear from any disease that does not attack 

 or interfere with the brood or young hatch- 

 ing bees. Luckily we have but one such 

 disease. This is termed foul brood, and 

 the subject will be foimd fully discussed un- 

 der that head. The disease next in impor- 

 tance, is DYSENTERY, and many seriously 

 doubt whether this should be called a dis- 

 ease, at all, unless, forsooth, we should say 

 a boy had some disease when he ate green 

 apples, or went about with his feet wet on 

 a bitter cold day. The difficulty seems near- 

 ly allied to what has been, for the past few 

 years, termed, for want of some better name, 



SPRIXG DWnSTDLIKG. 



In olden times, and up to within the past 

 ten years, bees seldom died with honey in 

 their hives, and when it was announced 

 that good colonies of bees were gone, leaving 

 their combs filled with honey, many were 

 incredulous. Very soon however, some 

 of our best bee-keepers, began to lose in the 

 same way, and ere long, whole apiaries of 

 hundreds of colonies, were swept off in a 

 few weeks, during the months of Eeb., 

 March, and April. If I am not mistaken, as 

 soon as the bees began to get new honey 

 from fruit blossoms or other som-ces, they 

 began to build up, and tlien ever jibing 

 went along as usual. The blame was first 

 thrown on the extractor, because some bees 

 died in hives from which the honey had been 

 extracted, and others in the same apiary 

 that had their combs left undisturbed, came 

 through healthy as usual. This undoubted- 

 ly made a difference, for the honey gathered 

 in the fore part of the season is often more 

 wholesome than that gathered late in the 

 fall ; but it was by no means all the trouble, 

 for apiaries having only box hives were in 

 many instances devasted entirely. Expos- 

 ure to the weather was suggested as the 

 cause, and fine wintering houses and cellars 

 were constructed, and for a while everything 

 seemed prosperous, but very soon they died 

 in these repositories also ; the bees coming 

 out on the floors in the dead of winter, be- 

 smearing their hives, and deporting them- 

 selves in almost any but a satisfactory way. 

 Some succeeded so well ■^ith bee-houses and 

 cellars, that they have all along adhered to 

 them, but so have others with out door 

 wintering, and in many localities, bees have 

 wintered under almost all circumstances, 

 if only supplied witli plenty of food. 



In a great majority of cases, it has seemed 

 pre.tty conclusive, that the trouble was 

 caused by bad food ; the Italians may have 

 been somewhat to blame for tWs, for during 

 unfavorable seasons, they stored up large 

 amomits of honey from the aphides or honey 

 dew, or from other sources that bees are not 

 usually wont to frequent. The use of the 

 extractor has many times, without doubt, 

 aggravated the trouble, as we have mention- 

 ed, where all the combs in the hive have 

 been repeatedly emptied, for in such a case, 

 the bees are driven entirely to the late gath- 

 ered and often times unsealed stores, for 

 their winter supplies. To remedy this mat- 

 ter, it was suggested that their honey be all 

 extracted, and that they be wintered entire- 

 ly on stores of a good quality of sugar syrup. 

 This course proved successful, in the gi-eat 

 majority of cases, but by the time we got 

 well into it, the dwindling mania had parti- 

 ally gone by, and those that were left with 

 their own stores, wintered all right also, so 

 that very little was proven. Besides, it was 

 a great deal of trouble, to do this feeding at 

 a time when the bees wei-e much disposed 

 to rob, and so, it, like all the other remedies, 

 was gradualy dropped. This was especially 

 the case when extracted honey became so 

 cheap that it was no object to extract and sell 

 it. Again, this bad fall honey that killed 

 the bees one spring almost as sm-ely as fly 

 poison kills flies, if kept over until the next, 

 could be fed to them with perfect impunity. 

 This may not have been always the case, but 

 it was in some quite well authenticated in- 

 stances. "Of course then it was a disease," 

 said many, "and it is a disease that is catch- 

 ing too," said others, "for after it got among 

 my bees, they 'jest al! went'." 



Well, my friends, I really do not know 

 whether it was a disease or not, and 

 I do not knovv^ that it matters very much. 

 We learned pretty thoroughly, that what- 

 ever it was, it usually came in the spring 

 just about the time the bees began to rear 

 brood considerably, and that the old bees 

 were genera lly gone, just after a bad spell 

 of spring weather. . Also that the very "bad- 

 dest" honey, if I may be allowed the expres- 

 sion, did no harm at all, if fed in very warm 

 weather. One more fact, and I am done. 

 Colonies that were queenless, or that were 

 by any means entirely prevented from raising 



brood, seldom if ever caught the the 



"dwindling." I declare there is one more 

 fact after all, that I had almost forgotten. 

 It is that very strong colonies with tough 

 old brood combs almost invariably pull 

 through, especially if they have a good live- 



