THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
58 
sap was placed in shallow dishes after adding 
about two pounds of sugar, so as to make a very 
thin sweet. With honey, the bees were started to 
work near this sap, and as long as the honey 
lasted they came in about the proportion named 
above — fifteen of the dark, and three of the 
yellow bees. As soon as the honey was gone, 
they took to the sap, but in a few minutes the 
black bees began to stop coming, so that in an 
hour none but Italian bees were carrying the thin 
sweet. These bees worked until they carried all 
the sap home, and had it evaporated down to the 
consistency of honey, while the black bees thought 
it not worthy of their notice. 
WHEN TO PUT ON SECTIONS. 
From the various letters which I get, asking 
when sections should be put on the hives, it 
would seem that there was a lack of knowledge 
on the part of some about this line. 
In the forepart of the season a little care is 
required, for if put on too early they will greatly I 
retard brood-rearing, owing to the cool nights 
which are liable to occur at the time, during 
which the bees are obliged to economize heat as 
much as possible. At this season of the year it is 
net best to put them on until the hive is filled 
with bees and brood, so that they can take 
possession of the sections at once, and if cold 
nights do come, the bees will crowd down into the I 
hive below, so as to protect the brood. 
Again, there is no use of putting on sections , 
until the bees are getting honey, for they not only | 
tend to discourage brood-rearing, but the bees, 
having nothing else to do, will often cut down the i 
foundation-starters, and plaster propolis and bee- i 
glue over them so as to make the labor of the | 
apiarist much more than it otherwise would be. 
The proper time to put on sections is when the 
hive is filled with bees and brood, and the bees 
are getting honey enough so that little bits of 
comb are being built about the tops of the frames. 
At such times the cells of comb will be lengthened 
along the tops of the frames, which is so pleasing 
to the eyes of the experienced beekeeper, thus 
showing that the bees are getting honey, and are 
ready for the surplus department. 
SYMPTOMS AND CURE OF FOUL BROOD. 
Another subscriber wishes to know the symp- 
toms and cure of foul brood. When a colony has 
this dreaded disease, a few of the larvae die soon 
after the bees seal the cells containing them. 
The cappings to the cells soon have a sunken 
appearance, with a pin-hole in the centre of each. 
Upon opening the cells the larvae is found stretched 
at full length in the cells, and have a brown 
appearance, while all healthy larvae or pupae are 
white. If touched, this dead brood is of a salvy, 
ropy nature, and gives off an offensive smell. 
From the first few cells the disease spreads 
rapidly until the combs become a putrifying mass, 
generally during the first season, and nearly always 
during the second, which stench at this stage, if 
allowed to get so far, can be smelled a rod or two 
from the hive. A few of the larvae mature into 
bees, the population of the hive decreases until it 
becomes an easy prey to robbers, when the honey 
is taken off by these robber bees, only to carry the 
seeds of the malady to the robbers’ hive, for the 
disease to spread through the honey, and all else 
coming in contact with it. 
The cure is to drive out all of the bees from the 
affected hive, and keep them shut up in an empty 
box until they are nearly starved, so that they 
will have digested all of the diseased honey. 
They should then be hived and fed in a new, 
clean hive, when they are clear from the disease. 
If in the honey season, a swarm issues from 
a foul-broody hive, it is not necessary to put them 
through the starving process ; simply hive them 
in an entirely empty hive, the same as you would 
a healthy swarm, and as far as my experience 
goes, they will always be healthy thereafter, 
unless they contract it again by getting diseased 
honey from some other hive. 
Great care should be taken that no bees get at 
the contents of the old hive before the combs are 
rendered into wax, and the honey and hive 
scalded. Other cures have been recommended, 
but most of them are ineffectual, except in the 
hands of an expert. 
Borodino, N.Y. 
BEE-WARRIORS. 
A Victorious Army Put to Flight by Bees. 
Written for Harper's Young People . 
The quiet little village of Holzmengen, in 
Transylvania, was in an uproar one bright 
summer afternoon long ago, for its Saxon inhabi- 
tants were fighting for their lives against terrible 
odds, as they had fought many a time before. 
The whole slope of the hill on the brow of which 
it stood was one great crowd of wild-looking men, 
with dark, fierce faces and white turbans, and 
strangely fashioned armor — those dreaded Turkish 
soldiers, the memory of whose fierceness is still 
preserved in our saying that any man of savage 
temper is “ a regular Turk.” 
And all this time, while the air was rent with 
the din of battle, and Death was gaping to 
devour the village and all within it, a little givl 
barely ten yeais old, with long fair hair, and eyes 
as blue and bright as the sky overhead, was at 
work in her little garden just behind the village 
church, as quietly as if no enemy were within a 
hundred miles of her. 
But this was not so strange as it looked. 
Little Lizzie was the daughter of the sexton who 
had charge of the church, which, as the largest 
and safest building in the place, was always used 
as a hospital in time of war ; and the work upon 
which the little woman was so busy, was the 
preparing of bandages for the wounded, who 
were now being brought in thick and fast. 
But in the midst of all this uproar and agony 
and death the sun shone as brightly as ever, and 
the trees of the tiny garden rustled in the evening 
breeze ; and around the twelve neat hives that 
stood ranged in a row, the bees were humming 
