ILLIXOIS STATE BEE-KEEPEBS' ASSOCIATION, 17 



FOUL BROOD AND OTHER DISEASES OF BEES. 



Foul brood — bacillus alvei — is a fatal and contagious disease among bees, dreaded 

 most of all by bee-keepers. The germs of disease are either given to the young larval 

 bee in its food when it hatches from the egg of the queen-bee, or it may be contagion 

 from a diseased colony, or if the queen deposits eggs, or the worker-bees store honey or 

 pollen in such combs. If in any one of the above cases, the disease •wall soon appear, 

 and the germs increase ^ath great rapidity, going from one little cell to another, colony 

 to colony of bees, and then to all the neighboring apiaries, thus soon leaving whole apiaries 

 with only diseased combs to inoculate others. The Island of Syria in three years lost 

 all of its great apiaries from foul brood. Dzierzon, in 1868, lost his entire apiary of 500 

 colonies. Cowan, the editor of the British Bee Journal, recently wrote: "The only 

 visible hindrance to the rapid expansion of the bee industry is the prevalence of foul 

 brood, which is so rapidly spreading over the country as to make bee-keeping a hazardous 

 occupation." 



Canada's foul brood inspector, in 1890 to 1892, reported 2,395 cases, and in a later 

 report for 1893 to 1896, that 40 per cent of the colonies inspected were diseased. Cuba 

 is one of the greatest honey-producing countries, and was lately reported to me by a 

 Wisconsin bee-keeper who has been there, and will soon return to Wisconsin: "So 

 plentiful is foul brood in Cuba that I have known whole apiaries to dwindle out of ex- 

 istence from its ravages, and hundreds more are on the same road to sure and certain 

 death. I, myself, took, in 90 days in Cuba, 24,000 pounds of fine honey from 100 colonies, 

 but where is that apiary and my other 150-colony apiary? Dead from foul brood. " 

 Cuba, in 1901, exported 4,975,600 pounds of honey, and 1,022,897 pounds of beeswax. 



Cuba at present has laws to suppress foul brood, and her inspector is doing all possible 

 to stamp the same from the island. 



Even in Wisconsin I know of several quite large piles of empty hives, where also 

 many other apiaries where said disease had gotten a strong foothold. 



By the kindness of the Wisconsin bee-keepers, and, in most cases, by their willing 

 assistance, I have, during the last five years, gotten several counties free of the disease, 

 and at the present writing, March 12, 1902, have what there is in Wisconsin under control 

 and quarantined. This dreadful disease is often imported into our State from other 

 States and counties, so we may expect some new cases to develop until all the States 

 shall enact such laws as will prevent further spread of the same. Arizona, New York 

 (1899), California (1891), Nebraska (1895), Utah (1892), Colorado (1897), have county 

 inspectors, and Wisconsin (1897), and Michigan (1901) have State inspectors. The 

 present Wisconsin law, after five years of testing and rapid decrease of the disease, is 

 considered the best, and many other States are now making efforts to secure a like law. 



There are several experimental apiaries in Canada, under control of the Ontario 

 Agricultural College; also a few in the United States, especially in Colorado, that have 

 done great work for the bee-keeping industry, and their various pubhshed bulletins on 

 the same are very valuable. The Wisconsin State Bee-Keepers' Association has asked 

 that an experimental apiary might be had on the Wisconsin Experimental Farm, but at 

 present there are so many departments asking for aid that I fear it may be some time 

 before bee-culture will be taken up. 



CAUSES OF FOUL BROOD. 



1. Many writers claim fouPbrood originates from chilled or dead brood. Dr. Howard, 

 of Texas, one of the best practical modem scientific experimenters, a man of authority, 

 has proven beyond a doubt that chilled or common dead brood does not produce foul 

 brood. I have, in the last five years, also proven his statement to be true in Wisconsin, 

 but I do believe such conditions of dead brood are the most favorable places for lodg- 

 ment and rapid growth of disease. "Also, I do not believe foul brood germs are floating 



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