538 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



don't go visiting into your other liouses. By looking through each hive 

 about every three weeks tlirough tlie rest of tlie season, I have no disease 

 to go into winter quarters, the next fruit blossom time going through each 

 hive as in the previous season. I may find a swarm now and then that has 

 contracted the disease from some outside source, say a few dozen cells on 

 each frame of brood. These I remove with all other combs, leaving the bees 

 in their old hive until all the honey they carry with them is consumed, 

 then set a clean hive on the old stand and fill from the strongest hives in 

 the yard. Leave brood, honey and empty combs, just about as they were 

 before treated, then shake the bees in front of the clean hive, scald diseased 

 hive with a teakettle of boiling water. Cut out the diseased brood and burn 

 or bury it. If much honey is left, extract it. If you wish to feed the honey, 

 boil thoroughly for fifteen minutes and see that every particle of the scum 

 is cooked (before boiling dilute the honey with water), feed scum and all. 



To clean the brood frames immerse in a No. 9 wash boiler in boiling 

 water until the wax rises, being careful to dry the frames well before us- 

 ing again. 



This plan is for spring and fall not during the regular honey flow as 

 then you can proceed as per the (except I do not double shake) McEvoy 

 treatment. In a day or so after giving the brood you may go through the 

 apiary and find every swarm looking and working as if nothing had hap- 

 pened. 



I look upon the American Foul Brood among bees to be as contagious 

 as the smallpox among the human family, or the hoof and mouth disease 

 among cattle. To place one diseased cell in the center of a strong colony I 

 figure that swarm will be a dead swarm of bees in one year if left to 

 themselves and the whole yard in a year or two more. 



We need as careful laws to govern this disease as for the other conta- 

 gious diseases. Tlif.li 



The Alexander plan may work on European Foul Brood but not on a 

 bad case of our American kind. 



If through ignorance or neglect the infection becomes epidemic, move 

 the few swarms that show no disease to another part of the yard, build, 

 double, and even up the diseased swarms until the summer or fall flow 

 starts, then shake on foundation starters all of the strongest colonies, 

 catch out the queens in the weak ones and tier the brood above them 

 four of five stories high ; carry the rest of the combs to the bee house. Any 

 of them you may experiment with, if they are clean. Melt the rest 

 for wax. After three weeks shake these swarms, running in a good queen 

 by the smoke plan at the same time. 



In conclusion, will say to the would-be-beekeeper, get in touch with our 

 energetic state inspector and make a date this summer some time to spend 

 one day in a diseased yard, and learn to tell the disease when the first 

 little, white grub begins to turn a cream color or yellow. Even if you have 

 to pay ten dollars car fare and lose a day in the rush of the season, it will 

 save you hundreds of dollars when the American Foul Brood reaches your 

 locality. 



