586 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OP AGRICULTURE. 



colonies, and the disease was not communicated; but the frames from which the 

 honey had been extracted, such as contained pollen, uniformly carried with them 

 the contagion, unless the combs wore first tlioroughly sprayed with the antidote, 

 and colonics gathering no pollen, or but little pollen, recovered much sooner than 

 those gathering pollen in considerable quantities — that is to say, the more pollen, the 

 more treatment required. 



" In reply to your question asking by what means and in what manner the disease 

 was communicated to my apiary, I answer: I at first thought that it had originated 

 spontaneously, biit later and more careful inquiry leads me to beUeve that I intro- 

 imced it into ray apiary through my own carelessness. Both I and my neighbor (to 

 whom reference was made in a former report) spent a day in some apiaries some 

 distance from home in which the disease was raging. It would seem true that we 

 brought the contagion home in our clothing. Other apiarists in our county who 

 kept away from tlie contagion had no trouble. As to the progress of the disease in 

 individual colonies, I would say that three or four weeks from the time the first 

 cells of diseased brood are noticeable is sufficient to complete the ruin beyond re- 

 demption. I am surprised to hear that in some localities a colony may be affected 

 for three or four months before ruin is complete. I have succeeded in raising some 

 queens from one of these diseased colonies, treated with the remedy without remov- 

 ing the comb-frames, and I will give them every possible chance to reproduce and 

 propagate the disease. I have no fears of a return of the disease where the treat- 

 ment has been thorough." 



2. Number of colonies in the apiary, 14. Every colony nearly ruined by the dis- 

 ease in most malignant form. This apiary is located on the same ground where 145 

 colonies i^erished last year from the same cause. The whole yard had been swept 

 clean, everything had been bm'ned up, and entirely new stock procured. Twelve 

 colonies in "this apiary were treated by copious and thorough applications of the 

 I'emedy simply by setting the frames apart in the hive so that the sjoray could be di- 

 rected over both sides. The frames containing brood were not removed from the 

 liive, neither was the honey extracted. The treatment was apphed every three or 

 four days, and in three weeks the colonies were free from all appearance of disease. 

 The other 2 colonies were treated with what is known as "the coffee cure," finely 

 ground coffee being used as an antiseptic. The coffee failed to furnish any reUef. 

 Being dusted over and into the cells, it killed the little remaining unsealed l)rood. 

 The salt, alkali, and acid remedy being applied, these 2 colonies also raUied, and 

 "everything is all right now," was the last report. 



3. Number of colonies, 100. Number apparently diseased, 48. A number of colo- 

 nies had already been burned when the disease was reported. The remedy was 

 thoroughly apphed as directed, and in fifteen days the contagion had disappeai'ed. 



All tlie evidence so far obtained seems to prove that pollen is the medium through 

 wliich the contagion is commonly introduced into the hive and by which it is com- 

 municated to both bees and brood. 



The bacteria, "the disease germs," having been lately deposited on the pollen 

 (from what source is not i^ositively known, but probably from the decomposing 

 bodies of other insects) before the organisms are washed from the blossoms by the 

 rain or killed by the heat of the sun, as they lie exposed to his rays without any 

 element essential to their culture and gi-owth, are carried and stored with the pollen 

 in the cell, or pass into the digestive system along with the live pollen taken by the 

 bees for their own nourishment. By this means these agents of destruction are in- 

 troduced into the organism of the bees, and tlu'ough the same medium are they 

 introduced into the cells of the uncapped larvas. The bacteria, having found a 

 lodgment in the organism of the bee, may or may not cause speedy death. If the 

 bees are yomig and vigorous they may resist the ravages of the ini'ection. yielding 

 only after the organism is riddled with the bacteria, but if the bees are old and low 

 in vitality the infection, if left to itself, brings speedy ruin. In the spring of the 

 year I have dissected bees which had passed the winter in a colony in which this 

 disease was present when the bees were put away in winter quarters the fall before. 

 Their bodies had been completely honey-combed by the bacteria. 



The fact that if a diseased colony is removed from the infested combs and hive 

 and placed in an empty hive or in a hive with frames supplied with comb-founda- 

 tion, even if the new hive be at once placed on the old location and the old hive and 

 infested combs be burned and the bees at once liberated, the disease commonly dis- 

 appears, seems also to furnish additional proof that the contagion is usually carried 

 into the hive in the poUen, and, further, that the "disease germs" do not long retain 

 their virility if exposed to the rain and rays of the sun; otherwise. the bees would 

 continue to carry in the infection. The bees being compelled to con.sume the con- 

 tents of their honey-sacks in building new combs, none of the germs i-eniain to be 

 regurgitated in the new cells; but by this practice the bees are left to tlie tender 



