REPORT OF TEE ENTOMOLOGIST AND BOTANIST 209 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



syrup. This plan is rather a tedious one and great care must be taken not to daub the 

 hives or appliances, as robbing at this season of the year is very easily started and very 

 hard to stop. 



If the colonies that are short of stores are weak or feeble in number of bees, they 

 should then be fed with syrup. In order to provide for them, feed the strongest colonies 

 you have, for instance, by putting in their hives extra frames and feeding the syrup in 

 a Miller feeder. A good strong colony will take down 10 to 15 pounds in a warm night. 

 Continue the feeding until you have sufficient frames well sealed to make up the re- 

 quired weight. The full frames are then removed and given to the weaic colonies that 

 are short of stores; by this method there will be very much less danger of robbing, as 

 the rtrong colonies are well able to look after themselves. 



Sugar syrup may be made as follows : Use the best grade of granulated sugar, 

 two parts to one of water by weight. The water should first be brought to a boil, then 

 the pan or vessel set back on the stove so that the boiling will not continue but the 

 water be kept sufficiently hot to dissolve all the sugar. The sugar should be poured in 

 slowly and thoroughly stirred until all is dissolved. The syrup should then be fed in 

 a lukewarm condition.. 



Foul Brood. 



Much attention has been drawn of late to this most destructive disease of bees, 

 which affects particularly the larvte or brood, causing them to die, mostly at the age 

 of six to nine days. The disease is spread by bees feeding their larv^ with infected 

 food, and is carried to new colonies by bees robbing diseased colonies. It is thought 

 advisable to publish in this report the McEvoy method of detecting the disease and 

 stamping it out when found in an apiary. With reference to this method of treatment 

 of foi;l brood we have much pleasure in quoting the following from Wisconsin Bee- 

 keeping, Bulletin No. 2, 1902, by N. E. France, State Inspector of Apiaries. 



* In Wisconsin I have tried many methods of treatment and cin-ed some cases with 

 each method, but the one that never fails, if carefully followed, and that commends 

 itself, is the McEvoy treatment. It has cured foul brood by the wholesale, thousands of 

 cases.' Mr. McEvoy deeribes his method as follows : — 



The McEvoy Treatment. 



How to detect foul hrood. — When any dead brood is noticed in a hive, a sure way 

 to ascertain whether the cause of death is the disease known as foul brood, is to put the 

 head of a pin into a cell of a comb and draw it out; if the matter contained in the cell 

 adheres to the pin's head and can be stretched about three-fourths of an inch, it is 

 undoubtedly a case of foul brood. But every bee-keeper should be able to recognize 

 .the disease at a glance without having to use a pin, as above said; he should learn to 

 know the stain mark of foul brood when he sees it. The manner of proceeding to 

 examine an apiary in which foul brood is suspected, is as follows: 



Before opening any of the hives give every hive in the vicinity a little smoke at 

 the entrane?. Tins will check the bees for a time from coming- from other colonies 

 to disturb you when you have a hive open to examine the combs. After taking a conab 

 out to examine it, turn your back to the sun, and, holding the comb in a slanting posi- 

 tion, let the light fall on the lower side and bottom of the cells ; look there for the dark 

 scales left in the cells and formed from the dried up, decayed bodies of the dead larvie. 

 Another sign of the presence of foul brood is that several of the cappings have a small 

 hole in them, but this also appears in the case of cells containing brood killed by other 

 causes than this disease. 



[Mr. Charles O. Jones, of Missisquoi, Que., descrPbes the symptoms of foul brood 

 as follows in the Montreal ' Weekly Star' : — 



' Of the diseases affecting the brood, the most serious is foul brood, which has ap- 

 peared in some localities in Ontario in a virulent form, but is being successfully 

 16—14 



