Vol. LXVIII-No. 6

Hamilton, Illinois, June, 1928

Monthly, $1.00 a Year

THERE is a tendency to "hide un

der a bushel" any mention of bee diseases and of the work in their eradication. This is perhaps justifiable when considered from the angle of the possibility of giving wrong conceptions to the consuming public.

Yet, the dairymen have not suffered from strong publicity for tuberculosis eradication in cattle. On the contrary they have prospered because of it. Why should we, as beekeepers, with a product whose healthfulness has no direct relation to bee diseases fear from such publicity. All we need to do is to help get such publicity correctly stated.

Two years ago, in the September number for 1926 of the American Bee Journal, the writer gave a summary of the disease work. A comparison of conditions then and now will not be amiss, and should have an optimistic influence. The 1925 disease map and the one just drawn are interesting.

Idaho and Virginia are still the black spots on the map. Virginia still has no bee law, while Idaho has no money for enforcement of hers. In Virginia apparently conditions are not bad, but in Idaho they are. It is deplorable that a commercial honey state like Idaho should see her sister states go forward in the eradication program while she stands still or retrogrades. This is not the fault of the individual beekeeper in Idaho, but it does show a lack of sufficient cooperative spirit in getting behind this program. We believe firmly that where the beekeepers are united and make a real effort for help they will be recognized to the point where the state will give aid.

Nebraska is in little better shape than Idaho. A good law, but no funds, but with an effort on the part of state officials to make inspection. New Mexico and Oregon, both commercial honey states, still cling to

By M. G. Dadant

the old county system of inspection without state supervision or aid. In some counties it works well; in others all the good work of years may be undone by an unfavorable action of county boards.

Iowa has progressed but little, although her record appears blacker than it really is, because inspection is being done on the area cleanup plan and in the worst sections first. The same is true of Ohio. Mr. Krebs gave a detailed report of the Michigan work in our April issue. believe that 1928 will see a marked diminution in percentage of infection in that state.

We

So far, this article has appeared pessimistic, stressing the states where conditions are worst. There has, however, been material progress in others. Arkansas has changed her black spot to a white one by getting a bee law and by finding from first inspection that her conditions are not bad. Nevada, Wyoming, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey have reduced their infection to less than 2 per cent. Colorado has less than 3 per cent and should be in the white list next year. California has graduated from the county plan to one with state supervision. It should progress if her law is properly handled and there is proper cooperation between state and counties.

In Canada, Ontario is going after her disease situation "hammer and tongs" and should show better conditions in a year or two. Quebec has emerged as white area and the other provinces are holding their own, if not progressing.

We cannot refrain from remarking that some states are really in better condition than they appear, while others need improvement. Wisconsin, for instance, has been pursuing the area cleanup plan and will, in the course of a few years, emerge with a very low percentage of infection. Minnesota and South Dakota,

on the other hand, seem to have no definite plan and will probably drift along for a long time with little progress unless a revision of their system is. made.

All in all, however, the progress for the country as a whole seems good. Three things are working favorably for bee disease diminution. The first is that the cleaning up of so many sources of disease is bound to reduce the danger of infection from outside sources, especially from entering shipments of honey. More rigid enforcement of certificates for incoming shipments of bees also has helped.

The second point is that education is getting in its work. Not only are beekeepers better read, but extension men are stressing the importance of disease eradication. Inspectors are, more and more, becoming extension men themselves.

Thirdly, inspectors as a rule are not trusting to the beekeeper to do his own cleanup work when notified he has disease, but insisting on doing the work themselves, on the spot, and at once. Most of them are insisting that the best means is not shaking, but ruthless burning of all possible sources of infection.

We will all agree that the beekeeper who waits when he is told by the inspector that he has disease is hardly likely to be punctual in making a thorough cleanup. Personally, I believe that a thorough cleanup will never be possible until the smaller and less careful beekeeper is prevented from continuing as a menace to others, by ridding him of his disease infection by burning. Shaking may have its place with the larger commercial beekeeper in a hospital yard. Formalin and other drugs probably are all right for sterilization of doubtful extracting combs, but the only real, sure enough cleanser is fire on the spot; and not delayed,

haphazard treatment when the beekeeper finds the time.

All in all, conditions are better. We yet have room for a lot of improvement, however, and several states could improve their conditions materially by concerted efforts to get behind the inspectors and help them, and, in some instances, push them, to a little more thorough system in their work.

Governors and state legislatures will listen if properly approached. Look what the Michigan men did.

Beekeeper Approves Honey

Institute

The following letter, written by a beekeeper present at the organization of the Honey Institute, to the secretary, is of interest in connection with the announcement of the aims of the Institute:

Carmel, Ind., April 6.

Dear Mr. Parks:

It was the writer's privilege to hear the morning address of Dr. H. E. Barnard on March 31, at the Lincoln Hotel, Indianapolis. Not being able to attend the afternoon session, I wanted you to know that I heartily approve of his plan to acquaint the public with the merits of honey as a food.

The public is certainly ignorant concerning honey. I believe that fully 90 per cent of the people of this section are under the impression that honey is adulterated. If this impression alone could be corrected, it would be the means of increasing many times over the sale of honey.

I was certainly surprised at the large number of avenues of educating the public to the use of honey (without a national advertising campaign) as so clearly explained by Dr. Barnard. Beekeepers everywhere could well afford to contribute to such a campaign.

I shall be glad to have the plan of the American Honey Institute presented to our membership, and believe our organization will unanimously approve and support it.

Yours very truly,
Hamilton Co. Beekeepers' Ass'n,
Orin Jessup, Pres.

Cyprian Bees

By James C. Armstrong

Irish Bee Journal

In the spring of 1884 I was standing in our back garden watching my father as he made an examination of his stocks, which were housed in straw skeps and Stewarton boxes. Suddenly he made dive for the garden fence. It was three feet high and he was 58 years old, but it was taken in his stride and he was off across country in record time. When he returned a little later I asked

what was the matter. It was those Cyprian bees! The year before he had got a queen of that race and that was his first dealing with her bees. They were very handsome bees, good workers, second to none for robbing, and the most erratic in temper that we ever had anything to do with. At times they were quite docile and easy to handle; the next day, perhaps, a diver's dress would have been necessary for protection. Nor did they confine their attention to humans, but dogs, cats, hens, ducks, pigs, and horses came in for what was going when the Cyprians were in the mood. They were very good workers, but their combs were not exactly beautiful and they often gathered a lot of honeydew, which spoiled the supers; but if you wanted quantity, irrespective of quality, they were the bees.

Robbing was one of their worst traits. When they started on a hive they did it thoroughly; there were no half measures with them. When their queens were crossed with black drones, their bees were worse to handle than the pure race; both were very hardy and prolific, but there was no pleasure in working with bees of their uncertain temper. After a few years we got quit of them, and to anyone proposing to get them I would say, "Don't."

Beekeeping In Nova Scotia

We have before us the report of the Department of Natural Resources of the Province of Nova Scotia for the year ending September 30, 1927.

Therein is a report of the Apiculture Division.

This division has a truck equipped with a complete line of beehives and supplies of all kinds for the special purpose of making visits to beekeepers and showing them the most modern and improved devices.

According to the report, 22 per cent of the bees of the Province are still kept in old-fashioned hives.

The report mentions great difficulty with poisoning on account of dusting the orchards with arsenical spray for insect control. In some places the poisoning has been so serious as to completely wipe out apiaries.

The amount of bee disease is negligible, there being only five colonies found in the Province last year.

Bibliography

"The Story of the Hive, a Bee Lover's Book," is on our desk. Yes, it is a bee lover's book, very readable and interesting. It is a book of 200 pages, by Canning Williams, published by A. & C. Black, London. It has but one engraving, a frontispiece in photogravure. But it is a work worthy of a place on the beekeeper's shelves.

Florida Queen Breeder Suffers Flood

I have survived the flood, which reached its height April 30. It forced me to move a small yard a mile and place them in an old, high, log camp. My nuclei yard I had to move in with my large yard, and my largest apiary I had to raise from two to two and a half feet.

The flood came to a stop when it was about fifteen inches over the regular stands. It took Thursday night, Friday, Saturday night until Sunday morning about ten till I had the last out of danger. You can imagine the water was not waiting when on one occasion it was lapping into the entrances as they were raised.

It has me balled up on queens. I had cells coming off to make another hundred nuclei Saturday. These all emerged in the cell builders. The high winds and cold have made mating bad and from now the queens will have to mate over waterfilled swamps, although if weather is fair, I think they will average fair mating. J. L. Morgan.

on

Carr Says It Can Be Done

My Dear Editor:

I trust you will bear with me when I say that I believe the publication of the statement of Jay Smith, page 169, center column, that "American foulbrood is with us and is here to stay," is mighty bad psychology, also a poor prophecy.

As I said in an article published in the American Bee Journal some months ago, just as soon as we make up our mind to get rid of American foulbrood, just that soon will we make progress to that end, but not before. The report of the work done in Michigan last year, page 177, is a case in point.

The "can't be done" attitude will do as much to retard the work as anything imaginable. The "it can be done" and "we will do it" attitude will get results.

E. G. Carr, New Jersey.

Fruit Growers Lose Through Death of Bees

A fruit grower of Canon City, Colorado, recently reported at a local meeting at that place that he had suffered serious losses through the death of bees in his neighborhood. He stated that he bought an orchard that produced 11,000 boxes of fruit only a few years ago, but that in later years the yield had dropped to about half that amount through poor pollination. He brought out the fact that the honeybees of the neighborhood had been killed through the application of spray poison.

Entered as second-class matter at the Postoffice at Hamilton, Illinois. C. P. Dadant, Editor; Frank C. Pellett, Associate Editor. Maurice G. Dadant, Business Manager

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Swarming

The time is soon at hand when swarming is prevalent. Many people who wish to prevent the issuing of swarms imagine that all that needs to be done is to give the bees plenty of breeding and super room. That is, of course, a sine-qua-non necessity, but it is by no means the only requirement. It is not to be wondered at that many people fail entirely to prevent swarming. On the other hand, some people imagine that if the bees are crowded for room they will swarm, and as some bee owners think that the main success of beekeeping resides in securing many swarms, they are disappointed when their bees refuse to swarm.

Colonies should not only be given plenty of room, both for brood and for surplus, but they should also be made to feel comfortable in their hive, by means of plenty of ventilation and shade, so that they need not cluster outside. A colony whose bees are clustered on the outside when there is honey in the fields is simply losing time. I remember a lady beekeeper who was very much worried because her bees were building comb and storing honey under the bottom board. The bees had probably hesitated a little before beginning this extraordinary procedure. The lady was highly elated when I showed her that the hive was entirely full and that there was need of more room for the bees.

Ventilation. We do not wait till the bees begin to cluster on the outside before giving them additional space to ventilate the hive. We raise the hive from its bottom, in front, an inch or more, whenever we notice that they are increasing their ventilating force. We must remember that the workers must force air up and through the combs, to the uttermost corners of the supers, and down and back again to the entrance, if they wish to be able to breathe and live in the atmosphere of the hive. For it is not only necessary to keep the temperature down where the combs will sustain their load of brood and honey, but it is also necessary for the thousands that live within the walls of the hive to have pure air to breathe. Yet in many cases beekeepers leisurely notice the hanging out of pints and quarts of bees without doing anything to help them. Raise the colony up from the bottom board until all the bees are able to stay inside.

This is the time when the greater spacing of 12 inches of the combs from center to center is desirable. The ordinary spacing allowed by most manufacturers of hives is objectionable. Of course, an increase of oneeighth of an inch, from 1% to 1%, in the spacing of the brood combs is very insignificant in appearance, yet when we multiply this amount by the length and the height of the combs we find that it increases the space for breathing and ventilating by over 150 cubic inches, in the brood chamber.

Shade is important. If your hives are in the sun in June and July, you may ascertain how hot they become by the simple test of laying a piece of empty comb on the cover. It will very soon melt down. Yet beeswax does not melt under 145 degrees. Thus you can ascertain how necessary for your hives to be well shaded, by either a natural or an artificial shade.

Copyright 1928 by C. P. Dadant

But other things are needed. If the queen of the hive is at all failing in her egg-laying-in fact if the bees conclude that it is well to rear another-they will raise queen-cells and a swarm will be sure to follow. It is only when they have young, vigorous queens that the bees are fully satisfied and do not attempt to replace them. That is why we often find queen-cells in populous colonies at the time of harvest.

Drones in excess are also a cause of swarming. The old-time beekeepers, and there are even some among the progressive beekeepers, believe that drones are needed to keep the brood warm. It is true that they produce considerable heat. But drones are only raised for the honey season, when the natural heat is already great. Their warmth simply serves to increase the bees' desire for swarming. Those big, noisy fellows stay in the warmest part of the hive all night and only take a flight during the warmest part of the day, when their goings and comings are a hindrance to the steady flight of the laden field workers. So it is quite important not to rear any more drones than are absolutely needed for the mating of the young queens, and we nearly always get plenty of them. Drones should be reared purposely in two or three of our best colonies, but we should carefully avoid rearing them in the colonies from which we expect honey and not swarms. In a natural condition, bees build from one-tenth to one-seventh of their combs of drone size, and this means a production of some 3,000 drones. Of course, at the present time, with the use of comb foundation, a much less number of drones are produced, yet many would be astonished, in examining their hives on the inside, to see how many more drone combs are in the brood chamber than are wanted here.

What of the Future?

One need only compare the business of beekeeping today with conditions of forty years ago to realize that great changes have taken place. Then, commercial honey producers were rare and the man with one hundred hives was considered an extensive beekeeper. Now honey production is becoming a specialty requiring a considerable investment of capital as well as all of one's time. In line with the trend of the times, large scale operation prom. ises soon to be the rule.

Throughout the plains region of the West the expansion of the sweet clover areas is opening an immense expanse of bee pasture. In many locations it is not uncommon to find yards of from one to three hundred colonies, with the owner operating a string of such apiaries. The man with a thousand hives of bees is no longer an object of special notice, since there are many with that number or more.

The man with a good outfit in a good sweet clover location can produce honey at fair profit for a price below cost of production to the one in an ordinary location. Since sweet clover fits into the farming practice of the West better than any other legume, there is every reason to believe that this region will constantly increase its available bee pasture for many years. It is quite possible that the so-called sweet clover region will soon turn out more honey than the entire country did a few years ago. Just what effect this may have on the future markets no one can foretell. The fact that so many sell their crop by carloads will make possible organization and advertising which were out of the question for an army of small producers. It may well be that with increased production will come greater prosperity, as happened for the dairy industry. The side line dairyman and poultryman.