Superstition and Ignorance
BY J. E. CRANE, Middlebury, Vt. 
JANUARY 15, 1913  

The ignorance of the great mass of beekeepers is past comprehension. So far as I can judge not more than one in six in some sections ever reads a bee journal of any kind. Most of them know little and seem to care less. One family on whom I called told me that the reason their bees bad done so poorly was because they had sold bees and had taken money for them. No argument on my part could convince them to the contrary. It was of no use t.o tell them that the season bad been unfavorable. No; they had sold bees and had taken money for them, and they must suffer. 

Many seem to think that, if they succeed in hiving a swarm, and then place it on a stand in the back yard among the bushes, or over by the hog-pen, or leave it sitting on the ground, their work is done. 

Somewhere I tipped up a hive from the bottom-board, and began scraping off what appeared to be a scab from the bottom of the combs so as to get into them to examine them, when the proprietor informed me that I was tearing off what remained of the old bottom-board that had stood or rested on the ground until it was rotten, after which the hive, rotten bottom-board and all, was set on a new board and given a stand. 

One man declared to me that the apple worms (tent caterpillars) got into his hives and spoiled combs. "Do you know they were tent caterpillars?" I asked. He said he did, for be could see the cocoon s they bad left! A friend of mine, an inspector in another State, tells about finding a hive standing on the ground, and weeds growing up through it; also of another where the combs had been cut out and old burlap stuffed in to fill the empty space. 

An experienced beekeeper was telling me how one of his neighbors came to bin1 in trouble. His bees had been getting something that made them drunk. He went over to see what was the matter, and found that the hives were standing about two feet above the ground while the day was cool, and all of the bees that missed the entrance fell to the ground, and, being chilled, were unable to rise again, so they crawled aimlessly around to be reported by an ignorant beekeeper as drunk. 

What a shame! I have said to myself many times, "If bees will live under such conditions, what would they do with intelligent care?" No domestic animal would live with such treatment as bees receive. It is a great pleasure, after visiting such beekeepers, to meet intelligent apiarists who are readers of bee journals. They know who the inspector is, what he has called for, and are ready to give him any assistance in their power. They don't need an inspector, for they have been doing their own inspection, and can tell to a dot just the condition of their bees, and whether they have any contagious disease or not. 

I called on one of this class; and after I had looked into a good many hives he said, ''The colonies in that row of hives have Doolittle queens; in that row, Moore queens; and in that row Hand queens," and I envied him the fun of watching the differences in these three strains of Italian bees, for he had enough to give him a pretty good idea of their relative value. The inspector would like to stop to visit a long time with such; but " beesness is beesness," and he must move on. 

QUESTIONS ASKED. 

The questions that are asked an inspector are often amusing. For instance, " How long does it take to learn beekeeping'" To this I reply, " I have been at work learning for more than forty years, and haven't it all learned yet." Or a more frequent question is, "Do bees ever sting you'" "Yes," I tell them, "I suppose I have been stung more than seven or eight times in the past forty years," and likely I may hear their exclamations of surprise that I should continue the business and take such risks. 

THE RIGHT WAY TO MANAGE. 

It is a great relief to me when I get such a letter as I received last summer from a ·woman in a neighboring town. She said she was afraid that they had foul brood among their bees, so she had sent a sample to Washington. Later she wrote me that it proved to be genuine European foul brood. I was not surprised, a little later, when I called, to find GLEANINGS on the table. Now how sensible! She had inspected her bees. and had observed something wrong, and had done just the right thing in sending a sample of the brood to the Department of Agriculture at Washington instead of waiting until her own yard was ruined and her neighbors' yards exposed. If all who keep bees were as prompt, the disease would. soon be stamped out. 

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html

Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm