EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK-PART X. 679 



FOUL BROOD AND OTHER DISEASES OF BEES. 



By Hon. N. E. France, Wisconsin State Inspector of Apiaries, Platteville, 



Wisconsin. 



Foul Brood — Bacillus alvei is a fatal and contagious disease among 

 bees, dreaded most of all by beekeepers. The germs of disease are 

 either given to the young larval bee in its food when it hatches from 

 the egg of the queen bee, or it may be by contagion from a diseased 

 colony, or if the queen deposits eggs, or the worker bees store 

 honey or pollen in such combs. If in any one of the above cases the 

 disease will soon appear, and as the germs increase with great rapidity, 

 going from one little cell to another, colony to colony of bees, and then 

 to all the neighboring apiaries, thus soon leaving whole apiaries with 

 only diseased combs to inoculate others. The island of Syria in three 

 years lost all of its great apiaries from foul brood. Dzierzou in 1868 

 lost his entire apiary of 500 colonies. Cowan, the editor of the British 

 Bee Journal, recently wrote: "The only visible hindrance to the rapid 

 expansion of the bee Industry is the prevalence of foul brood, which is 

 so rapidly spreading over the country as to make beekeeping a hazardous 

 occupation." Canada's foul brood inspector, in 1890 to 1892, reported 

 2,395 cases, and in a later report for 1893 to 1898, that 40 per cent of the 

 colonies inspected were diseased. 



In Wisconsin I know of several quite large piles of empty hives, where 

 all the bees have died from foul brood; also many other apiaries where 

 said disease had gotten strong foothold. By the kindness of the Wis- 

 consin beekeepers, in most cases, I have, during the last eight years, 

 gotten several counties free from disease, and at the present writing. 

 May 27, 1905, have the disease under control. Foul brood is often im- 

 ported into Wisconsin, so we must expect new cases until all states have 

 such laws as will prevent it. Arizona, New York, California, Nebraska, 

 Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Ohio and Texas have county inspectors. Wis- 

 consin, Illinois and Michigan have State inspectors. Copy of Wisconsin 

 laws are now pending in legislatures of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maine, 

 Minnesota, South Dakota, Idaho and Washington. 



CAUSES OF FOTjX BROOD. 



Causes of Foul Brood — 1. Not from chilled, pickled, starved or any 

 form of dead brood. But such conditions are most favorable for growth 

 of disease. Foul brood germs do not float in the air. If they did why 

 would not every brood cell in an infected hive become diseased? 



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



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

 apiaries. 



