ILLINOIS STATE- BEEr KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION. 139 



this decaying larvae, then you may get an odor, and you may get 

 different odors under different conditions. 



The odor commonly attributed to European foul brood is that of 

 a yeasty smell, that is, hke a slight fermentation. That is found only 

 when the common bacteria is bacillus alvei, the same organism that 

 causes the ropiness that I spoke of just a few minutes ago. So that 

 all of this variation is caused, not by the real cause of the disease, but 

 by invading organisms. 



The chief characteristic sympton which enables us to get at the 

 proper treatment of the disease is that the diseased larvae at no stage 

 of its decay adheres tightly to the cell. Now it is distinguished from 

 American foul brood very markedly in that one respect. The Ameri- 

 can is tenacious to the cell. You can usually not move it at all without 

 breaking the cell wall, and the European at no time adheres tightly 

 in that way. 



Now, there are several points on which treatment is based, points 

 in the behavior of the disease, which are important in devising a treat- 

 ment. First of all, European' foul brood is a disease of weak colonies 

 in the first part of the year. It ought not to be necessary to empha- 

 size that point: and yet in all the discussions in the bee literature that 

 point has not been adequately presented. 



Let me put it in a different way. European foul brood has caused 

 its greatest ravages in places where the honey flow is late in the summer. 

 You take the damp, wet region of New York, for example, where the 

 main honey flow comes in August, and you take your own Kankakee 

 region south of here, where Mr. Miller operates, where one of the heavy 

 flows, on the Spanish Needle, comes in the late summer, that is another 

 place where European foul brood has been rather common. In Cali- 

 fornia, where it has perhaps caused more trouble than any place else 

 in the United States, the main honey flow does not come until July. 

 Now, July in California is very late, because the season is open by the 

 latter part of February or the first of March, so that it is a long time 

 from the beginning of the season until the honey flow begins, the 

 main honey flow. And all of the places where European foul l^rood has 

 been a serious thing in the history of bee-keeping have been places 

 where the honey flow did not come early in the summer. 



It is perhaps better to explain more clearly why that is. In those 

 parts of the United States, for instance, like the orange section of 

 Southern California, where a heavy honey flow comes very early in 

 the season, the bees get started and the colonies begin to fill so rapidly 

 that they are able to get strong enough before the disease appears, so 

 that the disease cannot cause them any serious trouble. In other 

 words, wherever we find an early honej'' flow, we find European foul 

 brood to be realtively mild, and wherever it is found it attacks weak 

 colonies. 



Now, there may be some differen'ce of opinion among bee-keepers in 

 that regard. First of all, the definition of the strength of the colony is 

 faulty. When we say a full colony of bees, we don't all have the same 

 picture in our minds as to what constitutes a full colony, and then on 

 the other hand we find colonies of bees attacked with European foul 

 brood that have eight or ten frames of brood, but such colonies of 



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