196 



EIGHTH ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE 



could depend on heather honey only 

 once in eight years. 



Mr. Jeffrey — ^What kind of honey is 

 it? 



Mr. Mecewitz — A very thick honey. 

 It is not as g-ood as white honey, but 

 still we get the same price for it. It 

 is a little iDrownisih in color, but not 

 as dark as buckwheat. (Applause.) 



The President — ^We also have with 

 us Mr. W. D. Wrig-ht, who is not only 

 a member of this Association, but 

 comes as the special representative of 

 the State of New York. We would be 

 pleased to hear from him. 



Mr. Wright — I can only say that the 

 Department of Agriculture in New 

 York State is taking quite an interest 

 in the bee industry, as they have 

 shown by appointing four Bee Inspec- 

 tors, wtho receive their expenses and 

 an annual salary, which is quite liberal 

 ■as compared with some other States 

 I have learned of. We are, of course, 

 working along other lines as well as 

 foul brood. We are trying to post the 

 bee-keepers on the best methods we 

 know of in the production of phoney, 

 and to work the apiary outside of the 

 foul brood business. We try to pre- 

 pare them in advance for the recep- 

 tion of -foul brood in their apiaries, as 

 in some cases, where it is raging in 

 taie near vicinity, it is quite liable to 

 run into the adjacent territory, and by 

 getting the bees in shape and Italian- 

 ized, they stand a much better chance 

 of warding off the disease and in 

 treating it after it gets into the 

 apiary. 



Mr. Holekamp — Do you expect Ital- 

 ian bees to help or assist in prevent- 

 ing foul brood more than any other 

 race? 



Mr. Root — I certainly do. I have 

 recommended for years the Italian- 

 izing -of bees in advance of foul brood. 

 This European foul brood seems to 

 extend somewhat similar to a tidal 

 wave and much less in the Italian 

 race than other races. I know of one 

 apiary of bees in my territory that 

 was Italianized before the disease 

 reached the yard, and while other 

 yards all around that apiary were 

 nearly wiped out, this yard came 

 through with not more than a dozen 

 diseased colonies in any one year. It 

 was a yard of from 100 to 200 colonies 

 and was producing honey right along. 



It is the three banded leather color- 



ed Italians that I recommend; I don't 

 care so much for the goldens. 



Mr. Davis — ^Do you find the three 

 banded goldens as good producers as 

 those you call the leather backs? 



Mr. Wright — Not with me. I was 

 foolish enough to buy fifty queens of 

 a strain recommended by certain 

 pretty good honey producers, and I 

 didn't get anything from those queens. 

 After trying them for a year or two I 

 put them out as quickly as I could and 

 put others in. 



The President — The next thing on 

 the program is an address by W. J. 

 Manley of Sandusky, Mich., on "Turn- 

 ing Winter Losses Into Profit." 



Mr. Manley addressed the conven- 

 tion on the subject for some time in a 

 humorous strain before he got down 

 to the serious side of the subject, and 

 requested the reporter that he should 

 not make a note of what he said, but 

 some of his remarks which were 

 applicable to the subject follow. He 

 said: How do I make anything out 

 of the bee business? Take five years 

 ago — the winter we had so many 

 heavy losses up through our part of 

 the country — I found myself in the 

 spring out of bees. The winter before 

 I had put away 225 colonies packed 

 in chaff hives and well protected with 

 a high board fence, and I had expecta- 

 tions that I might winter them. 

 But that spring I had no bees left. 

 They were covered up all winter, and 

 I thought from what I had read in the 

 Journals that it was all right, that 

 they would come out all right. Along 

 in March we had a thaw, and I re- 

 marked to my wife, it is a wonder the 

 bees are not breaking out a little. I 

 went out there and I found the whole 

 yard dead. I felt a little bad about it, 

 but she said, we will go to work and 

 make up the wax in the yard. We 

 •got a steam press and melted up the 

 wax; we got it out in due time — three 

 or four weeks — and we shipped it and 

 it brought us in quite a nice little 

 lump of money. She said, I don't care 

 if we could keep up with that business 

 quite a while. I said, there is so-and- 

 so over there, maybe I can get his 

 combs and make them up. I went 

 over and asked him. He said, yes, I 

 will sell them. He said he would take- 

 $140 for the bunch. I agreed to give- 

 it and we took his combs and melted' 

 them up and I made a good thing out 



