60 MEETING OF INSPECTORS OF APIARIES. 



that the work" of the inspector is far from easy. Many bee keepers 

 criticize the work' of the inspector as sood as their apiaries are exam- 

 ined, and fault i- found with inspection and the inspectors. It i- the 

 duty of the bee keeper to uphold the inspector a- long a- he i- doing 

 honesl work tor the bee-keeping industry. The salary paid an 

 inspector is in mosl cas< — mailer than the income he could make by 

 remaining at home and doing the required work in his own apiary, 

 so that inspection is usually done at a financial loss to the inspector. 



Mr. J. M. Rankin (California). It has been my privilege since 

 Max. L905, to be in touch with bee-disease work on the Pacific coast. 

 During this time I have visited many diseased apiaries throughout 

 the State of California. 



I-Y\\ eastern people have an adequate conception of the bee-keeping 

 industry in California. It is not an uncommon thing for one man to 

 own -1.000 colonies of bees. This, of course, puts the business on an 

 entirely different footing than in the East. In the same way. condi- 

 tions of disease are also different. The control of American foul 

 brood among so many colonies becomes a much more difficult proposi- 

 tion than it is where the bee keeper owns only fifty to seventy-five col- 

 onies. There -eenis to be no doubt, also, that the American foul brood 

 is much more virulent in California than in the East. Whether this 

 is due to some climatic condition or not, I do not know. I have seen 

 an apiary showing only slight infection in February become almost 

 a total wreck in August. In California, also, the bees fly nearly 300 

 out of the 365 days in the year, and the honey flow in most parts of 

 the State is of comparatively short duration. This makes condition- 

 favorable for more rapid infection than in colder climate- where the 

 bees are confined to their hives during about half of the year. 



Under such conditions you can readily see that treating the disease 

 is difficult. It must be done at exactly the right time and under fav- 

 orable conditions or the treatment is worse than useless. Some of 

 the best inspectors in California use the -baking treatment, and all of 

 them shake twice, a- well as disinfect the contaminated hives. There 

 are some few men who do not believe in treating by this method and 

 who burn all diseased colonies, only saving hives when these are in 

 good condition. In counties where bees can be bought for "><> cents 

 a -warm it may not be a bad plan to destroy all diseased colonic-, as 

 this i- certainly an effective treatment if the burning i- complete. 



A treatment very favorably thought of by some is that of thor- 

 ouehlv boiling all diseased material. A large tank is \^cA and the 

 diseased colonic-, after having been sulphured the night before, are 

 carried to the tank and all the comb- thrown in. After all the wax is 

 melted, the frames are removed from the tank and placed on the lire 

 under 'he tank as fuel. This is certainly an effective way of eradi- 



