Aogast 6, 1868. ] 



JOUKNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



105 



thus communicate the disease when it is well ascertained that 

 it ia frequently so commnnicated by workers. 



Seventhly, by hiving a swarm or transferring a colony into a 

 hive previously occupied by a foul-breeding stock. Scalding, 

 sooaving, and other modes of purification do not always effec- 

 tually disinfect such a hive, in which the disease may break 

 out again, even after the lapse of years. 



Eighthly, by locating a colony on the place or stand which 

 has previously been occupied by a diseased stock. Instances 

 are known where foul brood occurred under such circumstances, 

 although the stand had remained unoccupied for more than a 

 year. 



Finally, Dzierzon informed me verbally that the disease may 

 be communicated and disseminated even by the flowers and 

 blossoms frequented by bees from foul-breeding stocks, as those 

 from healthy colonies visiting the same flowers may carry the 

 infection home. Ho stated that he knew of instances where 

 foul brood was communicated to distant apiaries without a 

 transfer thither of either bees or colonies. Waltzer says he 

 has made similar observations ; so likewise Hoffman-Brand. 

 And it appears to be very probable, for at the Apiarian Con- 

 vention at Dresden, a member of a Bee-keepers' Club related 

 one evening that some thirty years ago foul brood became so 

 thoroughly and rapidly disseminated from place to place 

 throughout Saxony, that in a few years nine-tenths of the 

 colonies there were totally destroyed, and bee culture ruined 

 for a time. 



MEANS OF PREVENTION. 



1. Be cautious in purchasiug honey for feeding, and use none 

 for that purpose unless you are certain that it has been pro- 

 cared from healthy colonies. Never feed your bees with West 

 Indian or Cuban honey, as it is a well-ascertained fact that foul 

 brood has been caused by the use of such honey. 



2. Be equally cautions in purchasing bees. Introduce none 

 into your apiary that are not free from this disease. The ex- 

 istence of foul brood in a colony can easily be ascertained by 

 the fcctid odour diffused in the hive. 



This is about all that the bee-keeper can do in the way of 

 prevention. He cannot prevent his bees from carrying in im- 

 pure or infectious honey, for they will gather it from any 

 source to which they have access. Mr. Stoehr's bees resorted 

 to a neighbouring confectioner's for honey which was there ex- 

 posed in an open cask. Shortly afterwards foul brood made its 

 appearance in his apiary, and finally ruined all his colonies. 



TREATITENT OF FOCL-BREEDINC. STOCKS. 



I. As we do not yet know how foul brood origiimtfs — that is, 

 we are ignorant of the cause or causes which produce it, but 

 merely know the fact that it is fatal to the larva>, we can only 

 hope to arrest and cure it by removing the queen, &nA pifvcnt- 

 infi the prMluction of brood — thus literally starving-out the dis- 

 ease by withholding that on which it feeds. One who knows 

 something of the nature of the malady can only smile when be 

 finds various prescriptions and medicaments to be administered 

 to the bees, recommended as infallible cures. Healthy bees 

 introduced into an infected hive soon become diseased, and can 

 we expect that bees already suffering from foul.brood can be re- 

 stored to health while remaining in a hive imbued with the 

 virus, and immersed in au atmosphere surcharged with the 

 infectious miasma, by administering a few drugs? If such 

 remedies ever seem to be of service it must be in cases where 

 the disease would have spontaneously disappeared, thus caus- 

 ing to be ascribed to some quack concoction what was really 

 due to the vivific energies of nature. A colony suffering from 

 foul brood of the first or malignant grade is absolutely in- 

 curable. All that can be done is to remove and melt-up the 

 combs, and use the bees for starting an artificial colony, or to 

 strengthen a weak oue, after having kept them confined in a 

 well-ventilated hive on a low diet for forty-eight hours; for 

 though the queen be removed from such a colony, and the bees 

 cleanse the cells of all the offensive matter, the disease will 

 certainly reappear, and usually with aggravated virulence, when- 

 ever the queen is reintroduced and breeding resumed. The 

 honey, the pollen, the combs, nay, the hive itself, retain the 

 infections matter. Nothing short of entire renovation will 

 avail aught. 



I must, therefore, treat with disfavour all attempts to cure a 

 colony infected with foul brood of the first grade ; at least, by 

 no process whatever was it curable in Thuringia when it had 

 once broken out. Even the expelled bees, long kept on " star- 

 vation diet," and then placed in a new clean hive, soon berame 

 %s badJy diseased as before. Daring the summers of 18U5 and 



1866, being requested to aid bee-keeping trienda, I made four 

 attempts to save their beea, experimenting with due circum- 

 spection and care, yet without any successful results whatever ; 

 and my unhesitating advice now is, to subject every colony so 

 diseased to the brimstone process when all the bees have re- 

 turned at eve, and thus arrest the spread of the evil, which may 

 otherwise soon extend to every colony in the apiary. In 1864 , 

 I communicated to the " Bee Journal," an account of the utter 

 ruin of an apiary of seventy-seven splendid ooloniea, caused by 

 the introduction of foul brood. Dzierzon, too, seems to have 

 lost all regard for curative processes, for in his latest work he 

 says, " The better course is to make short work of it ; turn the 

 contents of the hives into money as best we may, and there- 

 with purchase healthy stocks." 



2. In like manner I would advise resorting to the brimstone - 

 pit whenever putrid cells are observed in a hive, for we cannot 

 say whether this is not the beginning of a rapidly spreading, 

 devastating, and incurable disease. But if when first dis- 

 covered a considerable number of hives are already infected, 

 though none extensively damaged, it will be better to watch 

 matters patiently awhile, for in such case we may regard it as 

 most likely to be curable foul brood, or of the second grade. 



3. Foul brood of the second grade can be more easily arrested 

 and removed, though not without considerable damage. If the 

 queen be removed, the workers will have cleansed the cells of all 

 infectious matter long before the young queen begins to lay. 

 The cure will be the more effectual if the combs be removed as 

 soon as the brood has emerged from the cells, and a new hive 

 finally given to the colony. As queen cells are among the first 

 to become putrid, all that may have been built in the queenlesa 

 hive should be destroyed ia about a week, and a sealed one in- 

 serted from a healthy stock. 



4. Examine all the hives thoroughly in the autumn, at the 

 latest in October, when all the brood has matured, and remove 

 any comb that contained or still contains foul brood in any of 

 the cells. 



5. Foul brood of the second grade not uufrequently dis- 

 appears spontaneously; but I would advise no one to rely on 

 that, rather proceed as suggested under the two preceding 

 heads. I have known two instances where the bee-keepers re- 

 mained unconcerned, doing nothing, and in the following sum- 

 mer nearly all their colonies were ruined by foul brood in its 

 most malignant form. 



6. The hives should be well scalded, and then fumigated with 

 brimstone. It is also advisable to burn up any propoUs they 

 may contain, by means of a blazing wisp of straw, before scald- 

 ing the hives. After scalding and before fumigating them, they 

 should be washed with a strong solution of chloride of lime. If 

 the disease was foul brood of the second grade only, hives thus 

 treated may be immediately used again ; but if the foul brood 

 was of the malignant type, it will be safest to set them aside for 

 two or three years. The stands on which foul -breeding hives 

 have stood should also be washed with the solution of chloride 

 of lime, and had better be left unoccupied at least one year. 



7. As I have no knowledge whatever of the third grade of 

 foul brood, I can only advise treating it like that of the second 

 grade where it is supposed to exist. 



8. It bus been suggested that colonies infected with foul 

 brood should not be forthwith condemned to the brimstone-pit, 

 but be removed to a distance from the apiary for further ob- 



! fiervation and treatment. I should not recommeud this, unless 

 some isolated spot were available, witbin a radius of three or 

 four miles of which no other bees were kept; for it would be 

 morally wrong, though, perhaps, not legal felony, thus to carry 

 death and destruction within the range of your neighbours' 

 bees. — A. Von BiBLErscii. 



(To be contiuaed.) 



THE BEE MOTH. 



Tins insect ia justly regarded as one of the worst onomies of 

 the honey bee, as its depredatious involve the destruction of 

 combs, brood, and stores. Happy the beekoeper who kuows 

 bow to exclude it from his hives or arrest and prevent its 

 devastations. 



Tbe scientific name of this pest is Tinea mellonella. There 

 nre said to bo three kinds of it, one of which has been called 

 Tinea cereana ; but it seems probable that two of these are 

 mere sexual varieties. That of medium size is regarded as the 

 most destructive. The smaller kind is often seen at dusk in 

 summer evenings, hovering about in front of the hives, seeking 



