April, '22] FRACKER: AMERICAN FOUL BROOD 139 



of resistant races, the original method of the artificial elimination of 

 infected material remains the only known means of saving the diseased 

 colony. 



Policies Adopted in Different States 



Beekeepers suffering from an ever increasing loss from this source 

 are trying four different methods of large scale control. First, attempts 

 are being made in several states to "educate" the average beekeeper 

 in the hope that enough of them will voluntarily apply prophylactic 

 measures to result beneficially to the general welfare. The second 

 means consists of inspection on request or suspicion and the requirement 

 of a clean-up when disease is discovered. Florida is trying a third policy, 

 that of putting inspectors into the field who are themselves destroying 

 every colony which shows disease, together with all infected equipment. 

 A fourth method, the one with which the writer is associated, consists 

 of the inauguration of clean-up campaigns county by county, in which 

 the work begins with educational measures and a survey of every bee- 

 yard in the county, and ends with the destruction of material remaining 

 infected after the campaign has progressed two or three years. 



A study has recently been made of the results in various Wisconsin 

 counties in an attempt to measure the factors affecting the success 

 of this method of control. The fact that the data are drawn from the 

 inspection records since 1918, of from 800 to 1,400 different apiaries 

 per year, enables us to eliminate many of the individual differences, 

 reduce the probable error and arrive at averages. 



Some of the problems considered included the average rapidity of 

 progress in disease control, the results of treatment as compared to 

 destruction of the infected colonies, the effect of urban and rural locations 

 on the incidence and control of disease, the relation of the size of the 

 apiary and the experience of the beekeeper to success in treatment, 

 the apparent sources of new infection, and the means by which disease 

 was inadvertently retained in the apiary year after year. 



Transportation of Second-hand Material 



It was clear from early studies that^the most important source of 

 new infection consisted in the sale and transportation of bees and in- 

 fected apiary equipment. This data has already been published, to- 

 gether with an outline of the regulations adopted to control it. The 

 requirement that no bees or used bee supplies shall be moved or sold 

 without a permit or inspection certificate has placed an effective obstacle 

 in the way of this means of distribution. 



