692 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



2. Bees sold, having disease, and new locations thus inoculated. 



3. Combs, or implements from one apiary used by others in their 

 apiaries. 



4. Robber bees, getting honey from infected combs, — greatest 

 danger. 



5. Buying queen bees from infected apiaries. To be perfectly 

 safe in this deal, on arrival of queen, place her alone in a clean 

 queen cage with plenty of good honey. Introduce her in this last 

 cage, and burn the just received cage and attendant bees, and no 

 evil results, even from such queens out of infected hives. 



EXPERIMENTS. 



Experiments.— 1. A Wisconsin bee-keeper had foul brood among 

 has bees so bad that he lost 200 colonies with it before cured. Hav- 

 ing an extractor, wax press, etc., at home, he placed the bees in 

 boxes while he boiled the hives, extracted the honey from all the 

 combs and boiled the honey, also all combs making beeswax into 

 comb foundation. He then placed the bees in their same hives on 

 foundation made from infected combs, and fed the infected BOILEp 

 hone}-. Ten years has passed and no signs of disease there since. 



(2). Comb foundation made by supply dealers is perfectly free 

 from any danger of disease. To prove this I took a quantity of 

 badly infected combs, rendered the wax myself, and had two of the 

 extensive manufacturers of comb foundation make into foundation 

 this lot of wax. Then selected twenty of the best apiaries in Wis- 

 consin, where no disease ever was known, and in sixty-two colonies 

 placed this foundation. Five years have passed and no signs of 

 disease in any of those hives. 



(3). Honey or wax from a sun-heat extractor, is not safe to use 

 until same is boiled. • 



SYMPTOMS OF FOUL BROOD. 



(1). Brood in combs badly scattered, many empty cells, (See Plate 

 I) ; cappings dark and sunken, some with holes in cappings, part of the 

 brood hatching while others are dead. The dead larvae of a dark 

 brown color, or blackish according to age. The lightest colored will, 

 upon inserting a tooth pick, draw out much like rubber or glue, and 

 at that stage has most odor, much like stale glue when warm. 



(2). Dried Scales. — If the disease has reached advanced stages, all 

 of above conditions will be easily seen. According to its age of 

 development there will be either the shapeless mass of dark brown 

 matter on the lower side wall of the cell, or the dried scale. This 

 scale nearly black and dried hard to wall of comb as thin as side 

 wall of the cell. The head of the bee often dies in a small bunch 

 and turned up some. In size, about half size of pin head. 



HOW TO DETECT FOUL BROOD. 



Take out carefully the oldest hatching brood in the hive, and 

 first see if the cappings are smooth or sunken and scattered, with 

 some having small holes in the cappings. This is more noticeable 

 in old black combs. Now bring the brood comb right side up to the 

 level of your chin, tip the top of the comb towards you so your 

 view strikes the lower walls of brood cells about one-third distance 



