ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



4S 



Mr. Dadant — Is there something Mr. 

 Kildow would wish to bring out? If 

 so he might bring it up now. Mr. 

 President, we have a rport of the 

 Auditing Committee which can be done 

 away with very shortly. 



President Baxter — Read it. 



Mr. Dadant — "The Auditing Com- 

 mittee of the Illinois State Bee-Keep- 

 ers' Association have examined the 

 Secretary and Treasurer's books and 

 find same correst. 



Springfield, 111., Nobember 29, 1915. 

 (Signed) C. P. DADANT, 

 A. C. BAXTER." 



President Baxter — You have heard 

 the report of your Committee, what will 

 you do with it? 



A member — I inove that the report 

 of the Committee be adopted and the 

 Committee be discharged. 



Seconded and carried and so or- 

 dered. 



AFTERNOON SESSION. 



Meeting convened at 1:30 p. m., No- 

 vember 29th. 



President Baxter — We have a paper, 

 this afternoon, of Mr. C. F. Bender, of 

 Newman, 111. Will Mrs. Kildow read 

 this paper? 



The Subject: The Prevention of 

 Disease Among Bees. 



Mrs. Kildow read paper, as follows: 



THE PREVENTION OF DISEASE 

 AMONG BEES. 



(By Mr. C. F. Bender, Newman, 111.) 

 Strictly speaking, all our efforts in 

 treating diseased bees are directed to- 

 ward prevention — we do not doctor sick 

 larvae, but try to keep the trouble from 

 spreading to those that are well. In 

 any diseased colony there are many 

 larvae that are apparently healthy, and 

 that will mature into healthy bees. So, 

 in any diseased apiary, there are some 

 colonies that remain healthy even when 

 exposed to the worst conditions. This 

 power of resisting infection is called 

 immunity, and exists to some extent 

 in all living creatures. It is not easy 

 to say of what this immunity consists, 

 or how it is produced. It helps us 

 somewhat to know that it may be in- 

 herited. 



This natural immunity, in its various 

 degrees, is our sheet anchor in the 

 treatment of foul brood. As it is im- 



possible to destroy all the germs of 

 disease, there must be enough vigor 

 in the bees to render harmless those 

 that are left. 



. Our efforts toward prevention fall 

 naturally under two heads: (1) the 

 breeding of resistant stock, and (2) the 

 removal of infected material. The sec- 

 ond may be divided into (a) the re- 

 moval of diseased matter from the 

 hives, and (b) the removal of infected 

 colonies from the apiary. In the long^ 

 run I think that the breeding of hardy 

 stock will prove to be the most im- 

 portant. But the process will be a slow 

 one, and we are naturally more inter- 

 ested in producing honey for ourselves 

 than in handing down a germ proof 

 stock to our grand-children. 



So we come to the second factor in 

 prevention, the removal of diseased ma- 

 terial. Quarantine, the removal of sick 

 colonies to a location where there are 

 no healthy bees, is highly important if 

 one has many colonies to treat. They 

 must be removed at night or when no- 

 bees are flying, and to such a distance 

 that no bees will return to the old 

 stand. If one has several apiaries it is 

 easy to select the one that has fewest 

 healthy colonies, remove these to other 

 yards, and start a quarantine hospital. 

 It is more convenient in handling sick 

 colonies to have this hospital at the 

 home yard, as we expect to treat these 

 colonies by dequeening or shaking on 

 foundation, or both, but after they have 

 been removed from the neighborhood of 

 healthy bees. It has been customary to 

 consider robbing as the chief factor in 

 the spread of foul brood; but I 'think 

 that ninety per cent are started by bees 

 entering the wrong hives, probably 

 nurse bees when taking their first 

 flight. So it is important to have as 

 much space as possible between hives, 

 to have several different colors, and to 

 face them in different directions. 



In deciding whether to remove dis- 

 eased combs from the hives, it is nec- 

 essary to decide first what disease you 

 are treating. If you have American 

 foul brood, you must remove all combs 

 and burn them; if the case is a bad one,, 

 you should burn bees and hive as well. 

 But, with the form which we call Eu- 

 ropean, the dequeening plan is far bet- 

 ter, not only because it saves combs 

 and stores, but because the cure seems? 

 complete and permanet, which is not 

 always the case with the shaken swarm. 



It is human nature to take chances. 



