90 



FIFTEENTH ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE 



Frank Cloverdale has, in Iowa, hun- 

 dreds and hundreds of acres of sweet 

 clover: He has 300 colonies in one 

 apiary, and gets good big crops. 



We could not do that in my loca- 

 tion. 



You have to take into considera- 

 tion, also, other bees within a radius 

 of the bees' flight. 



If there are other apiaries there you 

 have to diminish your number. As an 

 average, fifty to one hundred colonies 

 is enough for a diameter of about five 

 or six miles, you being located in 

 about the center of it. 



Mr. Kildow — You could shrink that 

 diameter a good deal and then be 

 right. 



Question — How is European foul 

 brood spread? 



President Baxter— Some of our In- 

 spectors or Deputy Inspectors' might 

 answer that. 



Mr. Kildow — I think that devolves 

 on Doctor Phillips; he is at the head 

 of the government; he can answer 

 that better than any one else. 



President Baxter — Doctor Phillips, 

 can you tell us? 



Doctor Phillips — All we know is Ihat 

 European foul brood can be spread by 

 being fed to colonies in honey or 

 syrup. 



That has been proven, but whether 

 it is spread by any other means re- 

 mains to be fully proven, I think. 



Mr. Withrow — Where does American 

 foul brood originate? 



Doctor Phillips — They are both of 

 foreign origin and have been in ex- 

 istence probably about as long as bee- 

 keeping. 



Mr. Withrow — Suppose I have one 

 hundred colonies of bees and no foul 

 brood and in two or three years from 

 now they have foul brood, where do 

 they get it? 



Doctor Phillips — Always of course 

 from some other diseased colonies, 

 without question. 



Mr.- Withrow — It is not in the nec- 

 tar? 



Doctor Phillips — Not at all. It al- 

 ways comes from a pre-existing case 

 of disease. 



Mr. Pyles — The spread of this dis- 

 ease is much the same as typhoid 

 fever, is it not? And it is not in the 

 form of contagion like measles or 



mumps; it is always through the feed 

 in some way, is it not? 



Doctor Phillips — So far as I know it 

 is. 



Mr. Seastream — There has been 

 quite a discussion about this Euro- 

 pean foul brood. When I was a little 

 boy in the old country we had an 

 apiary in Sweden. The way we ran 

 it over there, of course the apiary 

 was not up to the standard of this 

 country today. 



We had movable frames. When we 

 had European foul brood we would 

 go to work and get rid of a whole lot 

 of brood in the steel skep. Father 

 used to make a hook on the end of a 

 long wire and run it up among the 

 combs, turn the steel skep upside 

 down and run the wire in among the 

 combs and cut it out; he was most 

 particular to get as much as possible 

 of the pollen out of it; he took pains 

 to get as much pollen as possible and 

 then of course there was no caging of 

 the queen or anything of. that kind; 

 and do you know that colonies like 

 that, they went to work when the fall 

 flow would come and built up and you 

 would not see a trace of it? 



Doctor Phillips — Which disease? 



Mr. Seastream — European foul brood 

 I am speaking of; we never had any 

 American over there; there was none 

 up to the time I came to this coun- 

 try, in 1897. 



When I happened to get it in my 

 own yard, I tried of course the same 

 process and succeeded. I found out 

 that my darkest queens were the ones 

 who got first affected by it. I went to 

 work and removed as much of the 

 brood as possible and all of the pollen, 

 and I just simply threw that on top 

 of the strong Italian hives, the best 

 blood I had, and changed the brood 

 for some that were ready to hatch, 

 took the pollen away and gave another 

 queen and effected a cure. 



But afterwards, later in the fall, I 

 did away with my black queens and 

 introduced better blood there, and I 

 never had a trace of it after that. 



How I got the black bees, I would 

 get a swarm here arid there all over 

 the country; people would notify me: 

 Here is a swarm of bees, do you want 

 it? That is how I got my black 

 queens. 



This is going on four years now and 



