174 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
Add this to the salt and soda mixture, then raise the temperature near tothe boiling = 
point, and stir thoroughly while adding honey or sirup sufficient to make the mix- 
ture quite sweet, but not enough to perceptably thicken, and leave standing for two 
or three hours, when it is ready for use. An earthen vessel is best. Ihavetried 
other acids and alkalies in other forms, but the remedy prepared as directed and ap- 
plied warm is that which I prefer. 
Treatment.—Upon removing the cover from the hive thoroughly dampen the tops 
of the frames and as many bees as are exposed by blowing a copious spray of the 
mixture from a large atomizer. Beginning with the outside, lift a frame from the _ 
hive and throw a copious spray over the adhering bees on both sides of the comb, 
shake off part of the bees into the hive, and spray those remaining; then shake and a 
brush these into the hive; then blow a copious spray of the warm mixture overand 
into the cells on both sides of the combs sufficient to perceptibly dampen both comb 
and frame. In like manner treat all the frames, seriatim, returning them to the hive ; 
inorder. From combs containing very much pollen the honey should be extracted 
and the combs melted into wax. This extracted honey may be fed with safety, 24 
ounces of the remedy being added and well stirred into each quart of honey. a | 
All the colonies in the apiary should be given a thorough spraying the first time 
the treatment is applied, but combs containing pollen need not be removed from 
healthy colonies. After the first thorough treatment the combs and bees should be 
thoroughly sprayed with the remedy at intervals of two or three days until cured, 
Three treatments after the first thorough application are commonly sufficient. First 
one frame being lifted from the hive and sprayed and the others simply set apart, so 
that the spray may be well directed over and copiously applied to both bees and 
combs. An essential feature in my method of treatment, which I failed to make, 
duly significant and prominent in my last annual report, is that medicated honey or 
sugar sirup should be continuously fed to all infected colonies while they are con- 
valescing, for not only must the contagion be driven from the organism of the adult 
bee and suitable food and tonic given to aid in repairing the ravages of disease, but 
a constant and eyen supply of the remedy serves as a preventive and cure for the 
larve. ; 
The honey or sirup should be fed warm, and two ounces of the remedy should be 
well mixed in each quart of food, which may be given in feeders or by pouring over 
and into empty combs and placing these in the hive. 
To prevent the bees from going abroad for supplies. make a thin paste of rye flour 
and bone flour, three parts of the former to one of the latter, adding the medicated 
honey or sirup. Spread this over a small area of old comb and honey in the hive, 
or feed in shallow pans or wooden butter dishes in the top of the hive or outside 
in the apiary, under shelter from rain. I prepare the bone flour by burning dry 
bones to a white ash. The softest and whitest pieces I grind to dust in a mortar and 
sift through a very fine sieve made of fine wire-strainer cloth. The coarser pieces of 
burned bone I put in open vessels with lumps of rock salt, which I keep half covered 
with sweetened water and sheltered from the rain, at all times accessible to the bees, 
The rapidity with which depleted colonies recuperate and become populous is sur- 
prising. I have tried supplying the saline, alkaline,and phosphate elements in bee 
food by using boracic acid, phosphoric acid, etc., but I find that the bees take kindly 
to the supplies prepared as [ have directed, and the amount consumed shows their 
appreciation and need, Such supplies of food and drink should be kept at all times 
in the apiary, easy of access. I have not found disinfecting of the hives necessary 
further than to simply dampen the inside with a copious spray of the remedy, and 
sometimes no care was taken to do even this. 
Starved Brood, 
A disorder which has been quite common in several States during the past 
season is resultant from conditions prevalent during severe and protracted droughts, 
and long periods of extremely high temperature, such as has existed over large 
areas. 
The disorder is significant and important, not so much on account of the actual 
numerical loss entailed upon colonies affected, which in my own case and in many 
cases reported to me have been severe, as in furnishing proof of failure on the part 
of those food elements indispensable during the breeding season to meet the large 
demand for larval food and essential in maintaining the health and vigor of the 
bees while the digestive and secretory organs are being taxed to the limit of their 
capacity. This failure of natural resources results in low vitality, susceptibility 
and predisposition to disease, and inability to successfully perform the function of 
hibernation. With some exceptions, due to local advantages, throughout the States 
stricken by the drought of the past summer the bees have entered upon the period of 
