200 



NINTH ANNUAIj REPORT OF THE 



-\ 



work of disinfecting, but when we are 

 talking about this we must remem- 

 ber we are talking to people all over 

 the United States. While they may 

 not be here today to hear us, and even 

 though they may not be members of 

 the Association, they may in some 

 way get hold of these reports, and we 

 should make ourselves understood so 

 that these people will carry out the 

 'Work thoroughly. 



Mr. France — Mr. President, the care 

 of honey from infected hives has been 

 one of the greatest hobbies of my 

 work in our State. About five or six 

 weeks ago I received notice that a 

 whole apiary w^as to be moved from 

 Wisconsin to Iowa, and that there was 

 infection in that yard. I wasn't aware 

 of it. I went there and found infec- 

 tion, and in order to hold the man I 

 put a printed quarantine card upon 

 the yard, and I said. You dare not 

 move one thing; it must be treated 

 right here; but he said I am away 

 from home at expense and I can't 

 afford to stay. I said, "Sir, if you 

 are sick with the smallpox you will 

 stay. This is not smallpox, but to 

 the bees it is equal to it." He had 

 four colonies of bees all ready for 

 shipment and they never left the 

 City. The honey was extracted from 

 those combs with the understanding 

 that it sholud all be used as a food 

 consumption in two families who knew 

 what they were using, and that the 

 dishes or cans in which it came were 

 at my piercy, and they were disposed 

 of. Infected honey I have not been 

 able to say positively is injurious to 

 human health. I can't for one moment 

 recommend it. I have used some of 

 that honey purposely from some badly 

 infected combs myself, and I fancy I 

 have received some ill-effects tempor- 

 arily. One man in one County extract- 

 ed honey where the brown ropy mat- 

 ter was in some combs and went into 

 the honey visible to the eye, and that 

 honey he himself used, and his family, 

 and he is still living and in good 

 health. To go back to the point of 

 what we are going to allow with re- 

 gard to this honey, in two cases 

 where they had considerable of this 

 infected honey I allowed them to 

 ship the honey to bakers, marking the 

 barrels and notifying them that it was 

 infected honey and that those bar- 

 rels must be burned. Otherwise I 

 have not allowed anyone, where I have 



known of infected honey in the State, - 

 to do anything with that honey than . 

 either totally destroy it or boil it, 

 and afterwards it is not of any value , 

 because if you boil it enough you - 

 have blackened your honey till there : 

 is no commercial value in it. 



Mr. Ramer — Would it do to feed ta 

 the bees again after boiling? 



Mr. France — Don't take the chance. 

 I believe it is possible that that honey i 

 can be boiled and used again from ' 

 the fact that I made a desperate effort 

 twelve years ago this year to save 

 everything in a yard of 200 and some 

 odd infected colonies. We took the 

 hives, cleansed them, and put the 

 bees back into the same hives, ex- 

 tracted the honey and boiled it, and, 

 having a foundation outfit on the farm, 

 we made some infected wax into comb 

 foundation, put the bees on to that 

 and fed them with boiled, infected 

 honey. That is twelve years ago, and 

 no disease has shown up since, but 

 I wouldn't want that to become a gen- 

 eral public statement, irom the fact 

 that anyone else mignt not be as 

 thorough. We boiled* that honey to a 

 finish. I have seen honey that has 

 been called boiled in which the germs 

 of the disease were plenty and alive. 

 There have been in my State and 

 adjoining States, not giving names, 

 nine instances where honey from an 

 unknown source has been used as a 

 means of feeding bees for winter stores, 

 and in those cases it has brought the 

 disease to their yard. E>o not for one 

 moment buy honey to feed to your 

 bees unless you positively know the 

 source it comes from. Sugar syrup 

 is better than to take those chances. 



Dr. Bohrer — il have some at home 

 canned up, but I won't sell it; I am 

 too good a Christian to sell it; I 

 would as soon go into my neighbor's 

 barn and steal his horses. As to ex- 

 tracting it when it reaches the stage 

 Mr. France has spoken of, that is 

 with a large number of diseases larvae, 

 and decomposed and ropy, I never ex- 

 tracted any honey from a frame of 

 that kind. I simply take the frames 

 that have no brood in them and sim- 

 ply extract the honey from them. If 

 I use that at all I use it on my own 

 table in the winter time. Where Mr. 

 Poppleton lives he had better not 

 use it at all, because he lives in a 

 warmer climate and bees get out 

 every day in the year and they may 





