16 



GLEAXIXGS IX BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 



ly queen. Such colonies will stand like the 

 sturdy oak, year after year, while the nf w 

 stocks that are so rapidly built up, vanish 

 like the smoke, from their new combs and 

 small clusters of brood. 



In view of the above facts, and after try- 

 ing almost everything else, I, at the sugges- 

 tion of friend To^^^lley of Tompkins. Mich., 

 began to experiment by making the bees fill 

 their brood chamber, and surroimding them 

 with chaff, brought up close to the bees. 



My first experiment was made on a pretty 

 strong colony. The chaff packing was about 

 4 inches thick, on all sides. These bees did 

 not connnence brood rearing as soon as the 

 others, but about the time natural pollen ap- 

 peared, they commenced to gather it brisk- 

 ly, and when fruit trees bloomed, they began 

 to send a stream of hot air out at the en- 

 trance that would melt the frost in front of 

 the hives for several inches, after a cold 

 night. Do you suppose sudden changes of 

 weather affected them V or that they caught 

 the •'dwindling''? Of course they did not, 

 and what is still more cheering, I have never 

 had a case of dwindling in a single hive thus 

 prepared, although I have pr; cticed the plan 

 for the past three winters. Cf course some- 

 thing may happen yet, to upset all the chaff 

 experiments, as has repeatedly been the case 

 with other things, but I feel pretty sure that 

 a good chaff packing close to the cluster of 

 bees, will do away with all the troubles we 

 have experienced with cold and backward 

 springs. With the chaff cushions and chfff 

 division boards, you can very easily make 

 the experiment on any colony that has be- 

 gun to dwindle down just about the time 

 they commence to rear brood. When I first 

 stocked our house a])iary, I was much taken 

 up with the idea of having the hives simply 

 covered with a single thickness of cloth, that 

 we might more easily open and work with 

 the hives. As the house was to be kept free 

 from frost, I thought there Avould be no 

 necessity of any other covering, even in 

 winter : I had the worst form of spring 

 dwindling I ever knew, and lost every col- 

 ony except a few that were in old tough 

 thick combs. The next winter I prepared 

 them just the same, but placed heavy cush- 

 ions of chaff, at the sides and above the bees. 

 They all wintered without a ])article of 

 dwindling, and by pushing ones hand under 

 the cushion, directly over the bees, it was 

 fomid to be as warm as if you were touching 

 a living animal. X(.w all this heat had, the 

 winter before, Iteen passing off into the air, 

 almost as fast as the bees generated it. Do 



you wonder their little bodies were exhaust- 

 ed in the attempt to rear brood and keep 

 warm, and that they "got sick V" 



OTHER DISEASES. 



I believe I do not know any other, luiless 

 it be one that I can give no name for. It af- 

 flicts the bees in warm as well as cold weath- 

 er, and the inmates of heavy hives, as well 

 as weak ones. The symptoms are a sort of 

 quivering and twitching motion, and final- 

 ly the bee becomes so much emaciated 

 that he looks like a shiny black skeleton of 

 what a bee should be. I have seen bees 

 thus affected, in perhaps a dozen or more 

 colonies, but it all disappeared after a time, 

 except in one colony. That one I broke up, 

 by destroying the queen, and giving the bees 

 to other colonies, after they had become 

 pretty well reduced. A neighbor has also 

 lost a colony from the same trouble. I have 

 noticed it moreor less, for the last four or 

 five years, but have seen it only in the two 

 apiaries mentioned. 



It may be well to mention that when a bee 

 is crippled or diseased from any cause, he 

 crawls away from the cluster, out of the 

 hive, and rids community ot iiis presence 

 as speedily as possible ; if bees could reason, 

 we would call this 'a lesson of heroic self- 

 sacrifice for the good of community. If 

 your bees should get sick from some other 

 cause than I have mentioned, I would advise 

 putting enough together to make a good lot, 

 surrounding them with chaff cushions, close 

 up to the cluster, and giving them plenty of 

 sealed honey, also close to the cluster. If 

 you have not the honey and the weather is 

 cool or cold, use candy. If the cluster is 

 small, give them a small piece at a time, 

 right over the cluster, under the cushions. 



Weak colonies sometimes get a mania for 

 destroying their queens, in the spring ; this 

 can hardly be termed a disease, and yet the 

 colony has become to a certain extent de- 

 moralized, and out of its normal condition, 

 much as when they swarm out, as given in 

 ABSCONDING SWARMS ; they will generally 

 come out all right if fed carefully and judi- 

 ciously, as we have described. Bees are al- 

 ways prospering, Avhen they are accumula- 

 ting stores, and they are very apt to get 

 astray in some way or other, when they are 

 very long without some way of making dai- 

 ly additions to their ''stock in trade,'" imless 

 it is during the winter, when they are as a 

 general thing mostly at rest. Almost all 

 sorts'of irregidar vagaries, may be stopped, 

 by regular daily feeding, and I would advise 

 the candy, for it furnishes both honey and 



