TREATMENT OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES. 



The treatment for both American foul brood and European foul brood 

 is practically the same. It is impossible to give minute directions to 

 cover every case, but care and common sense will enable any bee keeper 

 successfully to fight diseases of brood. 



Drugs. — Drugs, either to be given directly in food or to be used for 

 fumigating combs, can not be recommended for either of these diseases. 



Shaking treatment. — To cure a colony of either form of foul brood it 

 is necessary first to remove from the hive all of the infected material. 

 This is done by shaking the bees into a clean hive on clean frames with 

 small strips of comb foundation, care being taken that infected honey 

 does not drop from the infected combs. The healthy brood in the 

 infected combs may be saved, provided there is enough to make it profit- 

 able, by piling up combs from several infected hives on one of the 

 weakest of the diseased colonies. After a week or ten days all the brood 

 which is worth saving will have hatched out, at which time all these 

 combs should be removed and the colony treated. In the case of box 

 hives or skeps the bees may be drummed out into another box or pref- 

 erably into a hive with movable frames. Box hives are hard to inspect 

 for disease and are a menace to all other bees in the neighborhood in 

 a region where disease is present. 



The shaking of the bees from combs should be done at a time 

 when the other bees in the apiary will not rob and thus spread disease, 

 or under cover. This can be done safely in the evening after bees have 

 ceased to fly, preferably during a good honey flow. Great care should be 

 exercised to keep all infected material away from other bees until it 

 can be completeby destroyed or the combs rendered into wax. Wax from 

 diseased colonies should be rendered by some means in which high heat- 

 ing is used, and not with a solar wax extractor. The honey from a dis- 

 eased colony should be diluted to prevent burning and then thoroly 

 sterilized by hard boiling for at least half an hour, if it is to be fed back 

 to the bees. If the hive is again used, it should be very thoroly cleaned, 

 and special care should be taken that no infected honey or comb be 

 left in the hive. 



It is frequently necessary to repeat the treatment by shaking the bees 

 onto fresh foundation in new frames after four or five days. The bee 

 keeper or inspector must determine whether this is necessar3\ but when 

 there is any doubt it is safer to repeat the operation rather than run the 

 risk of reinfection. If repeated, the first new combs should be destroyed. 

 To prevent the bees from deserting the strips of foundation .the queen 

 may be caged in the hive or a queen-excluding zinc put at the 

 entrance. 



Treatment with bee escape. — The shaking treatment may be modified 

 so that instead of shaking the bees from the combs the hive is moved 



